Tuesday, a very quick recap from a very tired mother.....

So, here I am again.   We had a very busy, exciting, exhausting, emotional, and generally wonderful week.

We moved into a great rental house in Boulder, near Chautauqua.   We met family at the airport, picked up friends at the airport, hosted a Welcome dinner for 70 at Chautauqua, Boulder, visited with dear long time friends at the house, helped set up for The Wedding at Riverbend in Lyons, CO, attended the wedding, walked Jesse's dog, Ruby, down the aisle, tried not to blubber as we listened to Jesse and Erin's heartfelt and eloquent vows, talked and laughed afterward.    The day after the wedding (Saturday), Dave went back up to Lyons to break down, then later in the day we fed and enjoyed the company of probably 60 friends and family at the house.    After a good night's sleep we took our houseguests/wonderful friends  back to the airport for their flights home.

Sunday afternoon Lewis wondered where everyone went?   He loved having a hand to pet him whenever he wanted....who wouldn't?

Our week in a very small nutshell.    I'll blog more later this week but for now I'm still reeling.

  Tomorrow we leave Golden after being here since the end of April.     Its been a wonderful time, we've seen a lot and spent good, quality time with our only child and his beautiful bride.  

Rifle Gap State Park is our Wednesday destination.  No internet there.   On to Vernal on Thursday and I don't know what the "connection" situation is there so wait for me?

Here are a few pictures from our busy week.....

Lewis uses the high ground to keep track
of "his guests"

Dave and Judi enjoy 1st cup

brotherly love

Family/friends at the Welcome party

Wedding morning kouign Aman...mmmmm

father and son

Dave and Barb S

Our happy couple

beautiful venue

Jesse's Ruby waiting for her wedding collar of greenery

Erin's Kikan outside the "girl's" tent

family visitor outside our Boulder house

Lewis doesn't know I'm watching him
select things from the kid's toy box....

Saturday's farewell party recycling bin....
Yep, we all had a good time!

  

black dogs

Tomorrow we close up Beluga and move in to our rented house in Boulder.   We'll be there until next Monday but until then we've plenty to do.   Dinner with friends, picking up others at DIA, welcoming at the Welcome Dinner on Thursday, helping with another wedding project, a bit of "showing around" to new comers, the BIG DAY,  another small get together for those left in town on Saturday evening, then returning friends to the airport on Sunday.

 This week will fly by, we must remember to take time and savor these celebrations and memories.....our only child's wedding....

I haven't had time for many photos, but here are a few of our furry friends taken last week.

second cup inside Beluga..
they were fertilizing the grass outside this morning

Sasha has been insisting on going outside lately, by herself,
to watch the world go by...

Doin' Dad?

is Dave sitting with Lewis or
is Lewis sitting with Dave?

This and That

Our designated wedding project is now complete, check that off the list.

Here are some assorted pictures from the last few weeks.

my new favorite low tech gadget -
a banana prosthetic!

Hope springs eternal
at the Golden Farmer's Market....

Jesse's darling old Ruby

The ice cream man has been driving slowly through our park every evening and his tinkly, repeated song plays over and over in my head for hours after he's gone...

"Playmate, come out and play with me,
and bring your dollies three,
climb up my apple tree,
slide down my rain barrel,
into my cellar door,
and we'll be jolly friends for ever more"

changing sun angles produce beautiful shadows on the fence behind Beluga

Last few weeks

We've been in the Denver area since May and I think we've seen most of what we wanted to within a day's driving distance from our rv park.  We'll probably be back in the spring so if we missed something, we'll have another chance.

These final two weeks have been taken up with dinners and visits with Jesse and Erin along with various wedding related details and some necessary domestic duties around Beluga.

Mr. David's A-1 Refrigeration Regulation
Agency takes care of our freezer's
pesky ice build up

Lewis hopes this handyman will notice the carefully placed
Christmas mousey and perhaps offer to play awhile...

Dave tries to use a less than optimal
"workbench" to start a project

Jesse's house has much more space to work

The last few Friday nights we've taken the light rail train from Golden into Denver's Union Station to meet Jess and Erin for dinner.  The station is just around the corner from us and Jesse works very close to Union Station downtown so it makes wonderful sense to take an easy and cheap ride into the city.   Its also sort of fun to watch the world race by from the comfort of the train.

part of the Union Station transit center

the undulating wood strips on this interesting wall aft
represent the different mountain peaks and
their elevation

building is booming in Denver

Sometimes we meet in the city for dinner at one of its many wonderful restaurants and sometimes Jesse and Erin make a relaxing and yummy dinner at their house.   They have quite a garden in their back yard and we are the lucky recipients of its summer bounty.

noshing while keeping the cook company

The weather has been lovely lately so we've enjoyed dining al fresco and sitting by the fire.

  I bought a new camera and am trying to get comfortable with it before the Big Day.   It is new, but its only the new model of my old camera.   That being said, it does have a couple new features I'm not familiar with.    I tried reading the instructions that came with it, but I'm not good at reading instructions.    I learn better by trying.  This technique is wearing on the people around me, however.

One of the "new" icons on this camera is a silly smiley face.   Evidently the camera senses when the subject person smiles and then quickly takes the picture....Sheesh!    So, I've been sneaking up on my family and asking them to "smile" to see if it works.      The flash on this camera pops up most unexpectedly, often blinding and annoying the intended subjects.

As it turns out, the tiny smiley face icon really does capture smiles!

Denver Botanic Gardens

We had a busy day today.   We are working on a small wedding project for Erin and subsequently spent most of the day at their house while they slaved away at work.....awww.

  

First things first.....here are the rest of the pictures I took at the Denver Botanic Gardens last week.

There was so much to see at the Botanic Gardens.   Beautiful sculptures inside, beautiful sculptures outside.  

Some of the containers that held the plants became the stars of the show...

I loved these "Cthulhu" pots!

Sometimes nature's patterns caught our eye.

Lace Tree's bark

Beautiful and interesting flowers and foliage inside and beautiful, interesting flowers and foliage outside.

teeny tiny orchids

bzzzzz

Plants and flowers growing in the water and reflected by the water.

unusual and very tiny water lily

water lettuce

The plants and flowers were beautiful to look at and sometimes beautiful to smell, but some of them were even more fascinating when you got down and looked really close......

edge of large lily pad

Sometimes the beauty was just under our feet, sometimes over our heads.

Our day wasn't all beauty, however.....sometimes it was funny too.   We had a good time inside the Science Pyramid playing with the different exhibits.   Erin had a hand in the design while she was at the University of Oregon getting her Master's Degrees in Architecture.

Some of the plants were just plain interesting.   Not beautiful, but interesting nonetheless.   One by virtue of its need to escape at all cost...

And one by it's life cycle, and it's terrible, awful smell.    Oh, and it is pretty ugly in life and in death.

Corpse Flower in death

and in life....

But the best part of our day was being able to share it with these two.