what's going on here...

i have been working on a project that is taking me a looooot longer than i thought it would. 

here are a few hints.

the only clue I'll give you is that the detergent bottle drum is just a happy by-product of the actual project i've been working on.  :)  you'll have to just wait for the post--which i am praying will be up sometime next week! (because that means i'll finally be done with it)

Aside from the above hinted at thingy....henry and i both started school this week! 

i began my new job at stevens and henry joined daycare.  it was a fairly emotional (to say the least) time...very difficult to part with my dear henry now, but i think we will both survive :)  thanks to everyone for their sensitivity and kind words, handing over your baby to someone else is not easy, but i am beginning to feel more at peace about it.

here we are posing for our "first day of school photo" together :)

 i asked henry if he would please stop growing so fast and he just tilted his head, looked at me, and said "no."   at least he's an honest little boy.

 what? you want a picture of me?

 oh. okay. i'll lean in for ya.

 cheese!

the smudge

look what i found on the front window.....i wonder what sort of cute little face could leave such a mark?

:)

backpacking.

we went hiking in the beautiful black hills this past weekend.  

i will just go ahead and cut to the chase.

we got lost.

several times.

after backpacking for approximately eleven miles from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm, after discovering that we were way off the trail...again, kenny in his brand-new (he bought it that day) dodge pick-up truck with air-conditioned seats and modern country music blaring from its speakers rescued us on a dead-end road miles from our destination.

:)

never go on the flume trail (beginning at "coon hollow") without some very serious knowledge of where it is you are going, because the trail is poorly marked. as in, it isn't really marked at all.  

as you can see from the above photo we were all mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted by our excursion.  well, at least george tried to keep it light with the teddy bear and balloons.  now george, you know i couldn't allow that.  (quick ps--henry just saw the photo and gleefully shouted "ballooooons!")

here is a guesstimation of what happened.  we started at the arrow and ended at the frowny. the red dotted line is the trail and the green line is what we ended up hiking.  actually, that green loopty loop should be more of a big green blob...but we thought that might be hard to read...

so after seven hours of taking in the beauty of the outdoors in all its glory, kenny dropped us off at our car, and we went to keystone for some salt-water taffy :)  AND some hot dogs and ice.  then we drove to the sheridan lake campground and set up our tents.  we had made it at last!

and we certainly smelled like adventure (as maria puts it).

here we are, so naive, setting off on the flume trail

with plenty of jolly ranchers

 look at that smile!

sweet pine tree puzzle bark!

pretty purple flowers abundant!

ahhhhhhh nature?

it all went downhill after that hubcap.

 where are we? which way should we go?

despite the fact that we really didn't spend that much time on the actual flume trail, and spent quite a bit of time circling around on some random mountain bike trails and even ended up traipsing along some shooting ranges (that's when we were pretty sure we weren't on the right path anymore).....the hike was still enjoyable :)

the views were fantastic

 the scenery varied so often

george almost swallowed this spider that was right in the middle of the trail.  luckily for austin and maria (who don't care much for such beautiful creatures), he was leading the way at the moment.

i fell in love with every birch tree in sight.

my first love.

alas, this is the last time we saw a trail marker.

then it was time for hot dogs and margaritas. (and the salt-water taffy not pictured)

it took us a whole phone book to get this fire going. seriously.  except for one page with kenny's address. we are going to send him some flowers.

FRISBEE!!!!

and card game of ninety-nine.

siblings.

sheridan lake

more flora and fauna for your feasting eyes.

 i believe this duck qualifies as the fauna?

and george really wanted me to take this photo of these rocks.

they are on the bottom of the lake, so that you can clearly see how clear the lake water clearly was :)

and a quick drive-by wild turkey shooting for all you turkey fans out there (literally photographed from the car window).

so that pretty much sums the experience up.

after a short morning hike the next day we headed back into keystone and enjoyed some omelettes and buffalo burgers at peggy's cafe (super duper delicious home-style cookin').  

then we showered and hung out for a while and henry was able to play with george for a little bit before they left.

ps--no, henry's lymphangioma is not returning, although it may look like it in the photo....he got a bug bite that made his neck swell up all super crazy.  parenthood. yikes.

let's do all of this again :)

except for the lost part maybe

and the bug bite of course.

AND i didn't have to kill anything!

what is super trendy right now?  you guessed it!  (or you actually, probably, really didn't).

faux deer head trophies.

no jokes.

ceramic, cardboard, glass, felt, vinyl, knit, paper, whatever.

weird, yet totally awesome right?

right :)

soooo, i thought that henry was naturally in need.

i looked at some really cute, stuffed felt ones online.  BUT they were super spendy.  so i just sat around and sighed about it for awhile.  then i showed one to austin.  

then he said: why don't you just make one.  

then i said: do you really think i could?  

and he said: yes. 

and i said: alright.

so i made one for a fraction of the price! and i think i might even like my version better.   

without further ado, meet mr. blue buck.

 check out those points!  (points are very important--right dad?)

it was quite an interesting puzzle to figure out, but i really enjoyed myself :)  he is also slightly askew, but that makes him even more personable ya think? 

soon he will grace a wall in henry's room.  (major hipster status upgrade according to uncle george, who i bet is extremely jealous).

AND i didn't have to kill anything!!!!

triple woot.

i should probably start a business as a felt taxidermist.