Wednesday Morning Baking

Made these adorable goldfish crackers from Smitten Kitchen this morning. They were easy and fun, as well as delicious. The only change I made to the recipe was white whole wheat flour instead of regular whole wheat. Mine do seem a bit puffier than the crackers in the SK photos. I'm wondering if this is due to our high altitude. Yeast breads rise crazy fast here and bake fast too. But I don't think there was anything in the crackers to make them rise. Hmmm...a little culinary mystery. At any rate, they were a hit with everyone. Next time I definitely need to make a double batch!

Hammond's Candy Factory & Dinosaur Ridge

On Saturday we spent the day in Denver at the Hammond's Candy Factory, and then at Dinosaur Ridge. Both were kind of a bust. We didn't see much candy making at Hammond's because apparently on a Saturday in the middle of winter they don't have a lot of workers. The tour guide told us we should come back either on a weekday or in the summer.

And Dinosaur Ridge?

Well, the dino footprints were all covered in snow. But we were the only people at the visitor's center, and the guide that was manning it was really nice and interactive with the kids. At any rate, it was nice to get out of the house for a bit.

Below are a few pics I took at Hammond's.

Happy Valentine's Day!

One thing I love about being back in the states is all the holiday candy. On the other hand, I do miss a lot of the holiday treats we had in Switzerland. Such a dilemma!

iPhoneography at FuoriBorgo

The lovely Francesca over at one of my favorite blogs, FuoriBorgo, asked me to do a guest post for her on iPhoneography way back in December. Being the terrible procrastinator that I am, I've finally gotten it done for her, nearly two months later. Thanks for being so patient, Francesca!!

Niamh during quiet time a few weeks ago. Comfy!

Instagram Experimentation

I've been playing around this past week with a new photo app called Instagram. I love the filters, but I'm not sure about many other aspects of it. It does not save photos at full resolution, which is a huge downside since I like to print out iPhone photos. The photos do look great on the screen though, so I'll print one or two out just to see how less than full resolution photos look. It's supposed to be a great way to share pictures easily and interact with other photographers by posting your photo simultaneously to many different places besides Instagram. It was fine for Flickr. But when the thumbnail posted to your Facebook wall is clicked on you are rerouted to an Instagram site, instead of the photograph simply being enlarged. And between Flickr, Facebook, and this blog do I really need another place to keep up with?

In looking at other people's photos I notice that there are indeed a bizarre number of cat shots. Also quite a few photos that I'm skeptical were taken with an iPhone. Such as fairly close and detailed moon shots, as well as pictures with a lot of bokeh. Of course there's no iPhone-only rule, but in a photo app like that one kind of expects to be looking only at iPhone photography.

In spite of all that I'm going to give it another couple of weeks. I'm @emilyfrances for anyone who wants to experiment with me.

Mean Old Bear

summer sunrise in Colorado

Rowan (screaming at me):

"You are mean, mean, MEAN, like a mean old bear!"

Hmmm...maybe old photos from the summer where everything looks peaceful with help give me some zen today. I hope the worst thing he ever calls me is a mean old bear. No? Well, as long as I'm looking at summer sunrises, I might as well indulge other wishful thoughts.

Dinner Questions

Rowan, last night at dinner:

"Do they speak English in Hawaii?"

I had barely finished answering this question, when it was followed by:
"How does the Easter Bunny move...or walk?"

Then, a little later (after worrying a bit, for the one thousandth time, if the Easter Bunny comes to the United States):
"Do bats hibernate or do they come out every night?"

And:
"Where is heaven?"
When I said that nobody knows he said
"Maybe the computer can tell us where heaven is."

Home Sweet Home

It was an unusually clear day on Sunday when we flew out of Portland, OR on our way back to Colorado. There were four peaks visible which we think (but are not certain) are: Hood, St. Helens, Rainier, and Adams.

Well, I'm not so sure about the sweet part of the title, as we were all pretty sad to leave the Pacific Northwest, but it is nice to be back in our own space after two weeks of travelling. We spent Christmas day and the week before with my whole family at my older sister's house near Portland. The day after Christmas we headed up to Washington where we rented a house in West Seattle for the week and got to visit with Pat's family in Tacoma and our friends in Seattle. There were of course a few bumps (we may or may not have brought some sort of 24 hour stomach bug with us to Portland), but overall it was a really great trip.

It's been kind of crazy since we got back with trying to get the house organized again (Christmas stuff is still up and it's driving me crazy!), a bunch of appointments on Monday, and then me having minor dental surgery yesterday. I now have a shiny new front tooth to replace the one I ran into a parking meter with when I was eight years old. I never thought I'd say this, but, please--no. more. ice cream.

Anyway, so for now here are a few very random iPhone photos. Will hopefully be getting to the others this week!

Niamh & her new cousin Ila

Disgruntled Ila B.

Christmas tree at the Pittock Mansion

Another Christmas scene at the Pittock Mansion

To Seattle!!!

Muriel at the Museum of Flight

While in Seattle Muriel attached herself to our friend Jay



Waiting to get into the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Pacific Science Center

Back Home!

Golden Gate Bridge

Goat Rock Beach, CA

Half Moon Bay, CA

We returned Sunday afternoon from our Thanksgiving weekend visiting Pat's family in California. There were a few bumps, such as the kids not going getting to bed until midnight (CO time) on Tuesday night due to airplane issues and me getting another round of strep throat. I'm also pretty sure Niamh was feverish for a few days. In spite of all that it was a pretty good trip. Most of the photos I took are all still on my camera; these are from my iPhone. We are slowly, slowly getting back to normal here, so hopefully I can get some more pictures up this week.

North Fork Trail to Deserted Village

On Sunday we went hiking up near Rocky Mountain National Park on the North Fork Trail to Deserted Village. It's six miles round trip, and we weren't sure that we'd actually make it all the way to Deserted Village. Rowan cried for about the first half hour because he was scared. Of the rocks on the trail. I tried to get something more comprehensible out of him, but wasn't able to. He was of course totally fine after that, and even had a good time. Anyway, we did manage to make it to Deserted Village, in spite of the rough start.

According to Best Hikes With Children: Colorado Deserted Village, which is simply a ruined log cabin, is all that remains of the Earl of Dunraven's hunting lodge. The Earl of Dunraven was an Englishman who, over one hundred years ago, tried dishonestly to gain control of Estes Park and the Big Thompson River drainage.

It was a great hike, though definitely pushing Rowan and Niamh's limits. Luckily there was a creek, two different sets of horses to pet, and M&Ms to help power them through. I'm thinking kids only a year or two older than them would have no problem at all. We spent most of the return journey planning out our farm. Prompted by the horses the kids got to pet, our farm started out as just five horses with a barn to keep them in, but quickly evolved into a real farm with horses, cows, chickens, sheep, ducks, pigs, and a vegetable garden. I'm sure I'm forgetting something--it was quite involved. Rowan knew how many of each animal he wanted, and then we had to name them all.

At the very end, as Rowan and I were just about to reach to parking lot, Rowan told me "Mama, my favorite part of the hike was when the horse sniffed me, but my very favorite part was talking about our farm." So sweet!

Colorado Train Museum

Is anyone surprised that we went to the Colorado Railroad Museum last Sunday, on our second weekend here? Or that we bought a year membership? It was a big hit with the children, so I think we'll be putting that membership to good use.

Rowan's favorite engine, though it was frustrating to have to share it with other children who wanted to play on it. Especially because he was too shy to play in there unless he was alone or with one of us. There was a rope you could pull which rang a bell on the outside of the engine.

this was through the window of an train car that held stacks and stacks of old bound copies of the Rocky Mountain News.

Rowan Makes it to the Rocky Mountains

Okay, so actually we all made it to the Rocky Mountains last weekend, but Rowan was the most excited about it. This is how the hour long car ride into the park went:

Rowan: Are these the Rocky Mountains?
Pat/Emily: No, these are just the foothills.

five minutes later
Rowan: Are these the Rocky Mountains?
Pat/Emily: No, these are still the foothills. It's going to take about sixty minutes to get there.

three minutes later
Rowan: Are these the Rocky Mountains? There are a lot of rocks!"
Pat/Emily: No, still the foothills, Rowan. We will tell you when we get to the Rocky Mountains okay?

two minutes later
Rowan: Are these the Rocky Mountains?

Needless to say, he was thrilled once we finally got there. Even though we were out of the house by 9am, it was very crowded by the time we got into the park, and finding a parking spot at a trail head was difficult.


We ended up doing a very short "hike" (walk) on the Alluvial Fan Trail. It was crowded, but the river was beautiful, regardless.




We even spotted some wildlife, though it wasn't the Bighorn Sheep Rowan is dying to see.

After our hike and a snack we decided to head back into Estes Park for some fishing at Trout Haven Ranch. We were completely unsuccessful despite the vast numbers of fish that could be seen swimming around the pond. The children, especially Rowan, were quite disappointed. Luckily we live close enough that we can go back often, perhaps on a day when the fish haven't already seen a gazillion worms.

We've made it!

This trip from Morges to Loveland was one of the most painless flights we've had with the children. I'm not sure I can say exactly why, but for some reason it all went pretty smoothly.

Rowan mostly watched movies the entire way from Geneva to D.C.

Niamh colored, played with stickers, or some new toys she got for the plane. And Muriel did a little of what Niamh did, and also...

took a nap for about an hour. We hit the only snag in the journey when we got to D.C. and found out our flight had been canceled, and Rowan then completely melted down. We were able to get on a new flight a couple of hours later, but Rowan's meltdown lasted until about forty minutes before the flight, when he finally crashed on the floor of the airport. He basically slept until we got into Denver.


Niamh and Muriel played for a bit, but then they also fell asleep. And they too slept until Denver. We got to our hotel around 10pm, found out it was too late to even have fast food for dinner, so we just ate whatever snacks we had leftover from the flight. We took the kids down to the pool for a little bit before it closed, and they got to bed at about 12:30.

The next day we got into our new house bright and early, and the rental furniture arrived a few hours later.


This photo of Muriel asleep during dinner pretty much sums up how tired everyone was by the end of that first day in Colorado.