Saturday's Excursion- Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Went exploring again on Saturday. We wanted to check out Seven falls but with snow falling the day before they've closed the stairs to go up the falls that we decided it was not worth seeing that day.


on our way up the mountain we saw a deer. I know it's a bad photo, I was rushing to get my camera out of the bag and this is all I got. That's the first wildlife that I saw roaming around the roads since we moved here. It was pretty cool.

So anyways, while driving around to go to the falls, we saw signs to go to the zoo. We didn't want to waste our day and decided to try the zoo. Here are some of the photos of our trip...


We were so amazed at how close we can get to the giraffes. People can purchase crackers to feed them. It was so cool!




Here's a boar.


a meerkat


zebra


lion


small monkey


this guy looks so sad.


black bear.


elephant


birds


more birds


leopard


some type of cat. forgot it now.


our own cats. LOL.


tiger


the view from the observation deck of the zoo.


the family.


grizzly bear.


otter


mountain lion


chimp


hippo


hippo's humongous mouth


penguin


python

and after our zoo trip we had a late lunch at Rudy's.

I discovered this place when I came to town in November to look for houses. I was an instant fan after that and ever since we've moved here, I've been begging Mitch to come eat here again. I'm so happy that he was impressed with the food like I was. The brisket was super soft and moist and full of flavor. Plus their buttermilk pie is to die for. I was in serious BBQ heaven while we were there.


so that's our latest day trip. Thanks for stopping by.

till next time,
Grace

My scrapbook room finally shared....

It just dawned on me today that I never posted photos of my scrapbook space. Why is that? Blame it on the weather, I say!

Anyways here it is.....come inside my creative space......


this is a wide angle shot of what you'll see when you step by the door of my new scraproom. Since we've moved in the middle of winter, I'm waiting till it gets a little bit warmer to paint the walls to my preference.


This photo shows one side of the room where I placed 90% of my supplies. The shelves was already built in so I used that to place items that I use but not as often as the ones that are at eye level.


A close up look of the shelves. I believed that my space shouldn't be too expensive to attain. I want it to be functional first. As you can see I have a hodge podge of furnitures which most of them are hand me downs or something I grabbed from another part of my house. There's containers like recycled food containers, a stationary pocket envelope that I used to hold my handmade cards, baskets and jars of every kind and size.


This is one of my favorite parts of my space. I scored this old timecard holder from my husband's work. When they closed their shop, they were getting rid of a lot of their stuff and this one was one of the things I had my eye on. I use it to hold some of my recently made cards. Since my cards vary in sizes, I just tilt the cards that don't fit exactly through the slots.


This shelving unit is another one that represents my love for recycling things. The white shelves were actually from a retail store. I used to work in retail and had a closing shift most of the time. That meant I got to throw the day's trash in the big trash bin that the mall has. Yippee! LOL. Anyways, I saw these containers one time on the side of the trash container. I believe it was from Victoria's secret. I took three (I grabbed how many I can hold in my arms) and kept it all this time. I'm happy that I can finally find a place in my space for them. They hold all my finished and unfinished altered item projects.


In this shot, you can see my Cricut and Sewing machine on the right and on the left is a recycled shoe shelf that I used to hold baskets filled with embellishments and clear containers which hold my punches and ribbon rolls.


Here I have my working table. I also placed a file folder on the left edge where I file my scraps. The scrap container on the right hand side is where I place all my most used tools and adhesive so they're within my reach all the time. I also added some magnetic panels/squares on the wall where I can put photos, souvenirs, inspirational items and finished projects that I want to display.


On this photo shows a table I designate as an extension to my longer working table. We all know that sometimes when we work hard on a project, we need all the table space we can get. It also works as a table for my kids to use when they want to be crafty with me. I also put a chalkboard (another score from my husband's work) where either me or the kids can doodle.


A close up look of my kids' table. Underneath it is a container for toys and another one for scrapbook items that I've passed onto them.


Beside the door to my room is a small closet. I use it to store my other craft items like fabric, silk flowers, yarns and other craft supplies. On the bottom, I have some boxes and bags that I use to ship items to publishers or manufacturers that I work for.

So there you have it. My space, my place to create, my own little sanctuary! I love it and I hope you enjoyed this little tour.

Till next time,
Grace

It's a Card day today

Hi all. Can't believe it's already Wednesday and I feel like I haven't even crossed out half of items in my to-do list. Has anyone invented a way to create an extra day in the week? I want one! LOL.

Anyways today I figured I'll share some cards because....well just because! :)

Best Wishes card

I embossed the flower stamp onto the kraft cardstock using some clear embossing powder. I also embossed the frame used to hold my card sentiment. The pink flower and pearl bring some pop of color to this otherwise neutral card.

Happy Day card

I found some fun craft supplies that I've been hoarding for a while now and the flowers in this card are one of them. Can you believe that I used the same flowers for my party favors for my own wedding which was almost 9 years ago? Yes, I can be a hoarder sometime and I'm not proud of it. I guess that's why I made this card, to use up some of these forgotten products.

Get Well Soon card

I love the pop of teal in this card. The black and white background also gives this card an elegant look. Don't you think?

So that's it. Thank you for stopping by and hope you are enjoying the week. With the sun predicted to stay all week long here in Colorado, I'm extra happy!

Till next time,
Grace

Our Saturday's excursion *photo heavy*

So yesterday we went out on another exploring trip. These past weekends have been either snowing or the kids are super sick that we haven't really gone anywhere. It's funny cause I even got an email from my sister in law asking if we've gone on any local excursions lately. This comment made me smile, knowing that all that time consuming work of uploading photos and typing something for the blog, sharing our trips is all worth while. Knowing our family reads them is really a great reward for me. :)

So going to back to yesterday, this past week has been really nice around here with temperatures in the 40's-50's. Mitch wanted us to explore the Rampart Reservoir so after breakfast, we jumped in the car and was on the road to start our day trip

It was so beautiful out there. As you can see in the photo above, it was all blue skies and bright sun.


We can be procrastinators around here. One of the things we keep on telling ourselves to do is take a trip to the local AAA office to get local maps but alas, we still haven't gotten around to it. So for the time being, we use Mitch's work laptop and his installed map to navigate our way around. BTW we also have a GPS but for some reason that doesn't work well for us, especially when we go up the mountain ranges.

Anyways we took a road to the reservoir that started at the entrance of Garden of the Gods. We decided to stop a bit and take photos....

I took this shot so people can see how big these boulders are. See how tiny Maddie is here compared to the rock behind her?


The sun was up high at this time so it was luck for me to find a small crevice in between the rock formations that had some shade for this shot.


With this one, as you can see that the sun's rays had some effects on this photo. I still love it though.


The left boulder is between the streets where cars pass. The entrance is on the other side and so the road that is closest to my family is the one that exits the park. As you can also see, there's another boulder on the right side. It's a tight squeeze to go through these boulders but it's a fun experience.


This was our view driving up the mountains. I love how clear the skies are and you can see an overlooking view of the valley down there.

When we finally reached the reservoir, it was closed! I blame Mitch for that for not checking online before we headed out the door. After our disappointment, we had lunch at a nearby McD.

Knowing my disappointment, Mitch suggested we check this out....

In 2006, we went to Mesa Verde to check out the Cliff Dwellings there. I was so amazed by it that when he mentioned Cliff dwellings I was all for it. When we got there, we were surprised to know how expensive it cost to get in. Luckily the guy at the entrance gate cut us a great deal. He let us in paying for just one adult ticket which was $9.50. It would've costs as close to $30 if he didn't. It was a good thing he gave us a deal, otherwise we would've turned around and left.


According to the guy, these cliff dwellings were moved from Mesa Verde in the early 1900's. Thank goodness for the good deal he cut us because we would not pay regular price to see dwellings that are not even original to the area.


The kids, to the dismay of most of the tourists, was going in and out of the crevices and little rooms in the dwellings. We sure were getting a ton of "bad looks". Here's Maddie inside of those dwellings.


this is the scope of the tour. Yes, it's pretty sad compared to the Mesa Verde ones. They did have a small museum and of course a gift shop off to the right side of this area.


Me and the kids outside of the museum.


And the tipi house by the parking lot. See the kids, yes they thought everything here was a playground.

and then afterwards, we went back to Garden of the Gods. We were there last summer and we didn't get to see all of it because it rained on us...

We actually got stuck for about 45 minutes hiding under the rocks bec. we were in the middle of touring some boulders when in poured on us.

then yesterday seemed to be more promising as far as weather was concerned to we tried our luck again....

to see these big rocks up close you need to hike to them and that's what we did.




Mitch decided that he needed photos of me climbing up the rocks. If you know me, you know I'm afraid of heights so he figured this would be a sense of accomplishment for me, looking at these photos. I'm not sure if I'm sold with that idea but I was happy to see such a nice background behind me.










We were enjoying our hike when the weirdest thing happened....the clouds started to turn gray and we were feeling sprinkles. Oh crap, our curse continues. After much pleading with Mitch, we finally turned around and got to our car in the nick of time because as soon as we got in our car, the rain poured in.


Here's the view on the ride home. A totally 180 degree turn from what it looked like in the morning. After this, I'm now thinking that our trips to Garden of the Gods are totally cursed. This is the second time it rained on us! How weird is that?!

Over all it was still a great day. Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace