Colorado Springs, Colorado

Dean and I are going to hit the road toward Colorado to visit Ryan and Sadie. I figured as long as I'm laid up its a good time to take an extended car trip and then sip wine (or beer) on Ryan's front porch and look up at the Rockies. I'll post photos when I get back so stay tuned.

What Ryan Lee Did On His Summer Vacation

This summer Ryan Lee, known as RJ by most, spent about 2 months of his summer with his dad and stepmom Sadie in Colorado Springs. Here is a snapshot of just a few of his fun activities

The Fun of Croquet (thanks to King Charles II of England)

Wikipedia refers to a book dated back to 1801 called "The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England," by Joseph Strutt in describing the game of Croquet as "A curious ancient pastime." Well, I don't know about ancient, but I do know I use to play Croquet as a young child with my family while visiting the country home of my grandparents. The whole family would play and it truly was a lot of fun. Before traveling to Oregon this August I started thinking that my sister Vicki's yard would lend itself well to a round or two of Croquet, so I bought a set (and those damn wooden balls and mallets aren't cheap) and hauled it up to Cottage Grove. I didn't realize they already had a Croquet set and had been playing frequently. Nevertheless we broke out the new set after our walk that morning and began setting up. Now my brother-in-law Tim is not a patient man nor is he known for his tact. As sister Lizzy and I commenced to set up the wickets Tim is saying something like, "O.K. you guys, I'm going to play but I don't even know why you are bothering because I'm going to kick your butts in this game. Its just a matter of fact." We ignore him because that is what we quite often do when he starts in like this. I guess Lizzy and I are taking too long to get the course set up because he continues, "....are we gonna play or not? lets get going!!" The players will be "The King of Croquet" Tim, sisters Lizzy and Vicki, neice Beth, grandneice Madison and me (Dean decides to set this one out opting for a nap instead. Smart guy). So our game consists of players young and old and if I remember correctly Beth guesses the correct number to be first. As luck or skill (take your pick) would have it Tim quickly takes the lead, chiming along the way, ".....you guys are pathetic. I'm leaving you in the dust." Well, for the most part that was true. While he was making it through one wicket after another Beth and Madison were giving him a run for his money. For the two youngest players these girls were holding their own. Vicki and I truly were pathetic players as Tim had noted. We were still trying to get up the course when the rest of them were already making their way back toward the final two wickets. In fact we were so far behind the others didn't notice when we took extra shots or repositioned our balls more conveniently in line with the next wicket. Hey when playing with Tim one has to learn to be crafty. So finally Tim is within the last stroke of the mallet and he over shoots the final double wicket slot for the win. Beth seizes the moment and wins the game while Tim is trying to make his way back around. "Well at least Tim didn't win," I tell Dean who had woken up from his nap just in time to see the final moments. "Diana, he threw the game" Dean tells me. "No way!" I exclaim, "he totally shot crooked." Dean just smiled and said, "He threw the game on purpose."
I wasn't convinced and I was talking to Matthew (Tim's son-in-law) about it later. Matthew's response to me was, "I've played Croquet with Tim a number of times and I have never won. If Tim lost the game, he did it on purpose." I was devastated. I have determined to practice with my newly purchased set here in California and next summer when we go to Oregon I'll show Tim who is pathetic. Hey Tim, who loves ya man? I do.

Oregon in August

Pre foot surgery Dean and I took a 3 day trip to Oregon to visit my family and help celebrate my mother's birthday. The first day we all converged at my sister Vicki's house in the countryside of Cottage Grove. Normally August would be quite warm even by Oregon standards but morning on this day started out nice and cool with a forecast for mild. We decided to take a hike in the hills. This part of Oregon is always beautiful and interesting. In fact, when Dean and I took the short cut to Vicki's house over the top of Shoestring Mountain, we saw a black bear cub run straight across the dirt road right in front of us! No time to grab the camera damn it all but it was pretty exciting.

However, back to the hike. Our group consisted of my sister Vicki, her husband Tim, her daughter Beth and her granddaughter (my grandniece) Madison, plus my sister Lizzy and of course Dean and I. Tim lead us up into a mountainous area via our cars and then we unloaded at a spot someplace along a logging road. There was no shortage of beautiful wildflowers to take photos of. A brilliant purple Foxglove was my favorite. The Queen Anne's Lace was in full bloom and scattered all along the trail and beautiful wild daisies sprouted up everywhere. In fact one came complete with matching spider.
I have a habit of lagging behind to take pictures so I decided to get a big jump on the group and forge way ahead. I was moving along at a pretty fast clip and almost stepped right on a red-spotted garter snake. I'm lucky is wasn't a rattle snake because I literally stepped right over it before it registered in my brain what it was.
We hiked about 2 miles taking our leisure and just enjoying being in the great outdoors. The smell of pine was in the air and everywhere you looked was something interesting to take in. Spiders had spun their webs between branches with moss hanging from them or from tree sprig to tree sprig. We saw a perfect green leaf that seemed to be suspended in mid air except upon closer look, the magnified camera lens gave away the secret.
We saw a bush with a few sparse red berries which I think Lizzy said was a Huckleberry Bush. We didn't argue with her as she declared, "I know my Oregon berries."
The walk made for such a wonderful start to our day. We returned to the cool shade of Vicki's serene yard to play a match of croquet, but that is another story.

Mr. Wonderful

Last Tuesday I had foot surgery. I won't go into all the ugly details of the first few days but I would like to share what my loving caregiver and husband, Dean, did for me on Saturday. I have been reading the book "Eat, Pray, Love" and it so happens the movie was released just this week-end. Four short days after surgery I asked Dean, "couldn't you just load me up in the car and take me to see that movie? I could prop my foot up on the seat in front of me. How different could that be from laying in bed watching T.V.? He simply looked at me and frowned. This is day 4 of a six week recovery process. It is going to be a long month and a half. Anyway, shortly after that he announced he was going to the store and did I want anything? Being the pouty baby that I am I just said "No, I don't want anything." About a half an hour later Dean walks into the bedroom with a big plastic sack and pulls out a large, straight from the movie theater, bag of popcorn.
He said, "If I can't take you to the movie theater, at least I can bring a little of the movie theater to you." So the rest of the afternoon was spent watching a marathon of "America's Next Top Model" and eating popcorn. Thank you honey, you are The Best!!