Happy Halloween

Wow it has been awhile.  It has been busy.  We haven't really had fun travel.  We did go back to Jekyll Island again for a conference for Jody. We went to Kevin's parents house to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary...and that is it.  But Kevin has been traveling a lot and Jody is working (both jobs) so that keeps us hoping.

Jody did take time to make these Mickey Mummy Cupcakes. They are cute and tasty.  

What did you do for Halloween?

Cats

When we first got Chip and Dale they were afraid to go outside.  We rescued them from a shelter where they had spent their entire life inside.  Outside was very scary.  Now, if they don't get to go outside, they drive us nuts running around the house, chasing each other, jumping up to look out windows etc.  

They are great hunters and they often bring me "gifts"  Gifts I could do without, but yet I find them on the deck occasionally.

And what do you do after a great day of hunting?  You come up and relax on the deck of course:

Hunting is hard work after all......

Easter Sunday

This post is a little late......On Easter Sunday afternoon, Doug and Cindy, Greg, Desirae and her family all came out to do an egg hunt and spend the afternoon.

The kids enjoyed the hunt....but one egg was missing...I found it the next day:

So I guess that means I was the winner!  LOL

The kids ran and played and thus so did Mobi, she loves the kids and wants to spend hours with them outside.  So they had a nice chance to play and then after time to relax in the sun.  Here is Mobi and Caelum (age 9).  I love this, it shows her gentle spirit, how big she is compared to him, and the love they have for each other.

Rain Rain go away, come again another day....

So we have had tons of rain.  May 11 was the first "dry" day in May, meaning it was the first day we didn't have some precipitation.  In the spring it is common for us to get rain showers in the afternoon. What is not common is the continuous rain we have been having.

You may have seen that on May 1, Kevin posted this on FB.

Now these were not snow...that was Hail....and it wasn't near our home, it was Brighton and we were fortunate to miss the hail, just had a downpour of rain.  

But it didn't stop there, almost every day we had rain.  May 8 - 9 I am not sure it ever stopped raining, and of course our ground was saturated with water.  So Saturday morning we woke up to some water in the basement and worked throughout the day to ensure that we didn't get more.  Overall we had about 7-9 inches of rain.  

Here you can see our dog run.....mud...

On Mother's Day, May 10 we woke up to snow.  Yes snow!  We were predicted to get a LOT of snow:

We were lucky, and didn't get that much.  We only got about 2-3 inches.  But it was enough to have a little fun:  

Though they didn't last long as finally that afternoon we got a little sun....

Our water levels are high now in this area, and Monday May 11, I think all the schools in the entire county were closed as many country roads were washed out.  We aren't quite to the levels of 2013 yet but the river is higher than we typically would see:

You can see the bridge isn't at the level to flood yet.  

 But the river is flowing higher than usual

 Even the park is completely flooded.

We are getting some "rest" from the rain early this week and we expect the river to reach its highest point on Thursday as the water that was in Denver last week makes it way here.   That said, we don't anticipate any flooding dangers for us.  

I was glad to see the sun come back out.  I need the sun.  Kevin even said, I am happier with the sunshine...good thing we have over 300 days of sun a year!  Don't get me wrong, I am not looking forward to the 100+ temps this summer, but for now I will settle with some 70's and sun.  

Happy Spring!  

Harry Potter Weekend

Harry Potter Weekend

So something pretty amazing happened….We went to Orlando. This is the first time I went to Orlando and didn’t get to have any specific “Disney” experience…Not even downtown Disney.  Mickey was quite sad.

We went to Universal Studios for their Harry Potter Weekend Event.  We had a special package to stay on site, park tickets, a special evening event, chance to sit in on a couple Q&As with actors.  It was all tremendous Fun! 

Here are a few favorite pictures. 

We start off in Diagon Alley (in London) to get our items for school.  

Stop into Gringott's Bank...the dragon outside was impressive

Especially when he blew fire...

It was even more cool at night.  

Inside the bank you have to get directions from the Goblin. 

When you are done in Diagon Alley and ready to go to school, you want to take the train over to London to go to Hogshead....but of course you have to get to Platform 9 3/4

The castle....

Seeing the sorting hat...

Listening to some of the actors was really fun.

We met:  Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch)

Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon)just after this weekend he announced he was retiring from acting, so likely this may have been one of his last appearances for Harry Potter.

Fred and George (James and Oliver Phelps)

 And of course we drank a lot of Butter Beer

We also got to do a lot of other things at Universal.  One of my favorite areas was Seuss Landing.  This area was so fun...

 

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Sam I am (Green Eggs and Ham)

Kevin met Spiderman

 

And Wolverine

He also got electrocuted in the electric chair

We met the Simpsons

And Shaggy and Scooby Doo

 It was a really fun weekend trip.  If you get the chance to go I think you would really have a great time!

Making Cheese

Jody and I were at the Cheese Importers in Longmont and ran across a kit to make your own mozzarella. So we said to ourselves, "We've seen them make it on TV, how hard can it be". So we decided to get the kit and then off to the store to get the ingredients. Luckily it really doesn't take much: a gallon of whole milk, some rennet, salt, and citric acid.

Gather all the ingredients and instructions

Start heating the whole milk

Once the proper temp is reached and the citric acid has been added, give it a few minutes to start working

Starting to see some curds now, so we start removing them from the whey. Kinda looks like cottage cheese in this form.

Once we have removed the curds from the whey, heat up the curds some more so that it is the proper temperature to stretch the cheese

Drain some more whey out, amazing how much was in there

Make sure it is hot enough to manipulate, it is not hot enough here, so we have to nuke it some more. 

Start forming it into balls. Still not sure it is hot enough here so the texture is not quite right

Some of the finished product

So it was quite fun to make our own cheese, it tasted pretty good especially for the first time trying it. It seemed like we didn't get a ton of cheese out of the gallon of milk we put in, but I guess that is how it works. Anyway, we have at least three more batches to do, because the kit came with enough stuff to do four. So maybe on our next try we will do better.