buttes, and some others

these are some pics from renovation work and a trip we took hiking into some of the buttes with sean's friends lindsay and derek.

so with no options for real insullation the previous owners apparently used clothes to stuff in cracks. this is an old pair of wool slacks, stylin.

this was our kitchen..................................................................................


til sean gave me a sawzall. it really saws all!
we found a mouse graveyard. gross cause we've lived here kinda a while.

i can do this because i get to knock this wall to the ground with a sledge hammer, another of my new favorite toys. bye bye painting hello destruction.


these are for my pops. we found old knob and tube style wiring, and even ceramic electrical boxes.



okay so i know it looks like max the dog is puking his treat up. actually he is enjoying his last from the box that my sister sandy got him for the trip. sandy max says thank you with a full belly.

this is the old train depot/museum in grover.


this is across the street from the depot, i think its an old slaughter house.


this is our new huge mailbox. so if you want to send boxes of gifts they will fit. oh that's derek helping sean put it up.



we made lindsay a best-friend plaque because she has been the only one brave enough to spend the night so far.

we had a good time, we love guests.


this is the rattle snake that i think we kinda rolled over with the car the night before. or one of the gigantic prairie falcons tried to swoop up but there was a mid air battle that they both lost. whichever it is the thing was very dead.

the best thing to do with a dead rattle snake...................................................


..................put it in a box and take it home, cut off it's rattle and make a necklace. which is exactly what i did.


**********ah the buttes*********











well thats about it, gonna make some art and tear apart the bathroom tonight. both can be very scary. we love you all.

c&s

aaaaaaaaaalma alma alma

way back when, before we went to mexico, before we were deer killing sonsaguns (SANSABELT, for those of you who frequently shopped at village discount and found this levi's model oddly named, literally means "without a belt"-they have no belt loops!- was this obvious to everyone but me?) (to say nothing of "action slacks") well in those old timey days we went up into the mountains to visit with great grandpa shorty and to check out the mother of all llama races. hooo-ha.





the mountains, the drive up. grandma and grandpa in their bitchin hyundai.
stretch christina! your limbs are weary from 2+ hours of driving and socio-psycho-politico talky talk.
and it's so freakin purty!
ok once again blogger has randomly rearranged everything. somewhere in there we went to Burro Days in the town of Fairplay (so named, to beat out Rich and the other mystery CO historian [Adam I'm looking in your direction...], cause miners could bring their gold in to the accurate scales in town to get a **fair play** on their strikes). anyhow they had little water tables set up with pans and supposedly you could get some gold out of the sand in the bottom. christine didn't get any gold but dang if she weren't the purtiest miner for miles and miles.


more trees and mountains and skies. general purtiness. if the area around alma and fairplay (collectively known, incidentally, as SOUTH PARK yes as in the damned cartoon) was a latin american dictator it would be named Generalisimo Purty.


Great-Grandpa Shorty goes into town every day to break the fast at this lovely little spot known as the Brown Burro. you'd be doing yourself a tremendous disservice if you didn't stop there on your next trip through south park/fairplay/alma.

at last! the llamas! there was no spitting, thank zeus, but these llamas did run one hell of a race. apparently the llama race is the precursor to the annual burro race (great grandpa shorty came in 2nd place in 1952!) which we couldn't stick around for. but who doesn't prefer llamas to burros?

hehe.
run llama run!

by the by, anyone know what's up with llamas vs alpacas? are one a subset of the other? or entirely distinct animals?
this is me and shorty in his cabin he's lived in in alma since the 30s.
and another llama! sneaking up no less!
and christina eating some delicious ritz!
and me and grandma and shorty! if mom were here we'd be four generations all lined up. maybe next month...


we told shorty about christina panning for gold in the park and he graced us (well really her) with a little vial with some gold flakes he got out of his mine which we keep in our bedroom now. the essential point here is we had a lot of fun, and on the way home we stopped at this freaking awesome little coffee place and had some of the best damned frozen/iced/sweet/delicious coffee type drinks anyone has ever drunk. ever.

that's all!

i'll try this again.....

okay so i figured out (well sean did) that i can only load one photo at a time. suck. this has taken forever. but here are pics from mexico that should look normal on the blog.

this is all of us except Angel, he is taking the photo. twelve of us came from the states.

this is sean and the bride, his cousin Lorena.

this pic is as blurry as we were, it is me, lindsey, danielle, tio pepe(father of bride), and colin.

this is my favorite photo, maybe of the whole trip. danielle, i think you are great. they gave us masks, balloons, antler headbands, and a clown on stilts. it was awsome.

this is the lovely bride, and the bib she had to wear to protect her beautiful dress.

danielle, colin, lindsey, angel, sean, and me. "the kids"


everyone drinks lots of tequila in mexico. and tio pepe made sure we did too.

this us at our favorite bar, utopia. it has every beer ever.

lovely utopia


all of us at dinner the first night. thats the groom on the left in front. gerardo.

another of our great hotel.

so i don't know why that last one was so messed up. we didn't even think it posted. sorry about that. this is all you get to see of the beautiful puebla mexico. hopefully tom. i will post some of the llama race, shorty(seans great gramps), and hiking in the buttes. love all.

c+s