Sixty Trees

Every year the Colorado Forest Service offers tree seedlings to landowners to create windbreaks and reduce erosion. To qualify, you must own at least 2 acres (we own five!). You have to purchase a minimum of 30 seedlings ($48) of each type of tree you want. This year, we bought sixty trees, 30 Colorado Blue Spruce and 30 Narrow Leaf Cottonwood. They've been sitting in our garage for almost a month because the temperatures at night are still getting below freezing. We decided to plant today and hope that the worst of the spring weather is over.

We were NOT looking forward to digging sixty holes. We were relieved to learn that a friend owns a gas powered post hole digger, making the job so much easier.

THANKS Weinmeisters!

Colorado Blue Spruce

Narrow Leaf Cottonwood

So, we're doing our part to green up the environment and hopefully create a decent windbreak for our property. We're keeping our fingers crossed that these seedlings will take root and actually grow into trees. Our main job this summer will be to make sure that they get lots of water and TLC (and hope that we don't run them over with the mower).

Doin' the Dunes

We, and two other families, are involved in a Saturday kid swap. We each take a Saturday to watch all of the kids and, in turn, have two Saturdays off to do grown up stuff. Today was our day to watch "the boys". Jamie had two soccer games in the morning and then we (Bill, Julie, Jamie, Justin & Ryan) headed to the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve. Parker had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon so he didn't get to go with us this time.



We met the Get R!eal (Colorado's youth movement against the tobacco industry) group from the middle school at the Sand Dunes for lunch.

After lunch, the middle school group left and we were ready to PLAY! The boys changed into their swimsuits, we unloaded the toys and headed for the dunes.

We crossed Medano Creek and found an empty spot on a small "island"...perfect for digging in the sand and playing in the water!












Medano Creek flows in waves caused by surge flow.

Water accumulates, especially when sand ridges called antidunes form below the surface. When they break, the increased water volume surges and creates waves of up to a foot high.

The weather was nice, a little cool with a slight breeze. The water was not as cold as we thought it would be but once you got wet, the breeze felt very cold.






The boys kept busy building rivers, dams, waterfalls, volcanoes and just digging holes to sit in. Ryan took his job as the water carrier very seriously!

Bill took a nap!







Julie took photographs but because of the sand and water, didn't dare let anyone else use the camera. So, no photos of Julie...

Justin was the first one to get too cold to continue playing in the water. He and Julie went for a small hike up the dunes but didn't go very far because the wind was blowing the sand around pretty good.























Except for the minor (ha!) excitement caused by lost car keys, we had a great day at the "beach". Luckily, the keys were found and we were only an hour late in getting Justin and Ryan home. We were invited to eat pizza at the Astalos' when we dropped off the boys, a very welcome treat.

O, Give Me A Home...

...where the buffalo roam.
So, these are cows, not buffalo, but it was still interesting to have them in our backyard this evening. We should look into this as an option to keep the grass cut.

Modern day, mini cattle drive...thanks to our neighbor, on a four-wheeler, who drove the cows back where they belong.
(They aren't even John's cows, so he went way over and above his neighborly duties today!)

Silly Sock Day

Crazy Hair Day

The school year is winding down. Jamie has one week remaining and it has been deemed "Spirit Week".
Today was "Crazy Hair Day" so Jamie wore this wig. He thought it was so funny!

Spring Program

Jamie's kindergarten class had their Spring Program on Monday. His partner was Emily. They sang eight songs plus a medley of Nursery Rhyme songs.


They will be taking their show on tour this Friday when they perform for Boyd Elementary School (2nd-3rd grade) and Evans Elementary School (4th-5th grade).

Happy Mother's Day - Geocaching 101

Some friends went geocaching last week and had so much fun that I decided that I would like to try it on Mother's Day. Geocaching is an adventure game for GPS users. Individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once a cache is found, you sign the log book and can take items in the cache and leave items for future treasure hunters. Click here to get more information about geocaching.





Jamie was excited about going treasure hunting. Our first cache was an easy one near a potato field southwest of Center. The coordinates were right on and Jamie took a tennis ball from the cache. We left a hacky sack and signed the log book.

We had to do a bit more exploring to find the second one, a multi-cache, but we had fun climbing on the rocks. We saw three deer and a lizard. Jamie took a toy jet plane and we left an alien eraser and an American Idol toy.






The third cache took us to La Garita Arch where we happened to run into our friends, the Hollands.










We climbed up to the arch and "threaded the needle" before looking for the treasure.




Bill & Jamie climbing to the arch------------------------->
































<------------------Julie & Jamie sitting in the arch














Cactus in bloom
















the hidden cache















opening the treasure...
Jamie took a United Airlines barf bag that contained a dollar bill. We left a candle and a pink mini clip.









Our day of adventure ended with dinner at Chili's. It was the best Mother's Day ever!

Amish Community

A little known fact about Alamosa and the San Luis Valley is that, not only do we have an Alligator Farm and a UFO Watchtower, we also have a fairly large Amish population. We were driving to Monte Vista last Sunday and passed by this small house where the Amish community was holding their Sunday worship. It was quite a sight to see all of the buggies and horses parked outside of the house and quite amazing to think that all of those people were stuffed into the small house.

Boys & Cars

The Alltell race car came to Alamosa last weekend. It was worth backtracking so that Jamie & Parker could investigate. Parker says that he is going to drive it one day and Jamie says that he will drive the truck and trailer. Sounds like they have it figured out.

What is it they say about the difference between men and boys? I guess some guys (and gals) never stop playing with cars!

It's a girl!

This afternoon we took a drive to our pastor's house in San Luis to see the new baby. Rachel was born on Wednesday and mama and baby are doing well.

Soccer Video

I finally got some video of Jamie playing soccer.



Jamie was a little upset that the defender took the ball away from him!

Tae Kwon Do

Jamie is still doing Taekwondo and this week they learned grappling. I was glad that I remembered to bring my camera because it truly was entertaining!

This video shows Jamie & Parker grappling...be sure to have your sound turned up, the sound effects are priceless.

All is "well"

The salmonella contamination didn't affect our water supply but we were victim to our own private water crisis. We actually discovered the problem when a friend from Alamosa came out to take a shower during the water restrictions and we had no water pressure in the guest bathroom.








We did notice a stream of water out by the well but thought that it was from the snow melt. The snow is now gone and we still had running water. So, a call to the plumber informed us that the problem was much deeper.









The well service people came out with a backhoe and dug to the root of the problem, repaired it and, all is "well".


Turns out that the deep freeze we had last winter (the one that caused the hot tub to freeze and drain out) took its toll on the water pipe that goes from the well to the house. We HOPE that this is the end of the deep freeze casualties.

Happy Birthday Jamie!

Jamie invited eight friends to his birthday party. He chose the motorcycle cake but the theme of the party was sports.





Back row: Matthew, Jamie, Zachary, Justin, Parker Front row: Emily, Taylor, Ashley, Ryan