Scots Fest

This is one of those blog posts a long time in the making. Actually, The past month just got away from me. Anyway, about a month ago we traveled up to Estes Park for one of the largest Scottish Festivals in the nation (supposedly). On our drive there, we realized that we didn't pay attention to the football schedule and were stuck in traffic in Boulder, as the freeway takes you right through the center of town as the main road. Next, we underestimated the quantity of people traveling into Estes Park that day. It took us at least 30 minutes to drive the last 5 miles into town. When stuff like that happens, you end up with a few of the following pictures. 

Notice the house 3rd up from the bottom. Almost the entire thing is lifted on beams.
You have got to be desperate to build a house like that.



I was curious about the Cider Cherry (other stores sold Cherry Cider) but I wasn't sure about the Elk Nuts.

We finally made it into Estes Park, found a parking spot, and entered the festival. They had all sorts of booths, vendors, and activities. Jake loves watching the Scottish sports; barrel toss, beam throw, etc. We started by wandering around the Clan tents.
 

For Uncle Jon and family (sorry about the behind in the pic)

After looking at the Clan tents, I suggested to Jake that his family set up or find their clan info. Although Watterson's aren't Scottish, they are from the British Isles (the Isle of Mann) which shares similar histories.

We walked through some vendor tents and not a single place carried on hand the Manx tartan (or whatever the family line name is). We could have paid or even ordered a kilt but it would have been close to $1K and right now, we don't have that kind of cash flow.

The food area smelled delicious. Some places had your typical fair food (deep-fried anything) while others strived for a Scottish/Medieval feel. After Ellie played on the giant playground, so Jake could watch Scottish games, and after grabbing food we headed over to the rodeo/jousting arena. Yes, they had live jousting and it was awesome.  

Real-ish Jousting

To finish off the day, we stopped by the bag-pipe contest area. Although they were loud, Ellie really enjoyed the music. 

The Utes played later that day, hence the red outfits.

And you should know Ellie enough by now, that if there is music, she is dancing. Notice the people on the stands start to watch her. Most people around us laughed. We loved it.

The drive home wasn't as bad as the drive there. We did take a different route home. Of course, Ellie was exhausted and slept almost the whole way. Must have been a fun day.

Shopping and Taste of Colorado

Over Labor Day weekend, we spent most of the time at home. Since Jake has holidays off, Monday we decided to go shopping at Castle Rock Outlets. Kids stores have great sales over labor day and Ellie needs clothes for winter. I think we did pretty good. After spending some time there, we drove home for a break and then headed downtown for Taste of Colorado.
Last year, Ellie and I went by ourselves. This year Jake was able to come with us. I think he was a little shocked to see how big this event is.  We ran into some friends there. We could only walk with them a short time as the crowds were too big to try and walk with 2 strollers.

We did sample so foods too. Jake tried a taste of buffalo brat. We all ate chicken fingers and fries. I think the best was dessert. We sampled some key lime pie and beignets (like what Tiana makes on The Princess and the Frog). They were both great. The beignets are a scone like dessert served with powdered sugar and frosting.

One thing Jake and I noticed while walking around the venues was that we are becoming more a "peculiar people". Almost everyone there was drinking alcohol, had many tattoos, were dressed immodestly, had multiple piercings, or some other thing about them that screamed "LOOK AT ME!!! I AM UNIQUE!!!" It made me wonder what things will be like in the future. How different will things be and will we stand out even more as time goes on?

Botanic Gardens Free Day

I love when free days come up. A while back we went to the gardens again on a free day but this time were joined by some friends. Dagny, Kate, and James came with us. Ellie and Kate are only about 2 months apart and love playing together so they had a blast running around.

Ellie and Kate during a snack break.

 We didn't spend a lot of time there but just enough to be out of the house and enjoy the outdoors. We are glad to have good friends.

Entrance to the children's garden.

Especially for the Watterson men.

If you have ever been anywhere inside a building with the Watterson men, you know one of the first things they do is check out the fire safety sprinklers. While eating lunch with Ellie the other day at the DMNS, I happened to look up and notice the sprinklers (yes I have been married to a Watterson man for some time now).
I took this picture for them. Especially because it made me think of them.

Free days... I love them

Now that summer is over and kids are back in school, Denver's SCFD (something like Scientific and Cultural Facilities District) free days are coming around again. Most venues stop offering the free days during the summer as it is already too busy.

Ellie and I went to the DMNS to just walk around and be out of the house. We have seen everything here but it is always fun to go back. Ellie requested I take pictures while we ate lunch.

What a cheeser!

And for my Utah friends and family, I happened to find that Utah has a similar, although not as nice program, as Denver's. Ever heard of the ZAP tax? Every one in Utah pays it but here's how you can use it. ZAP (Zoo, Arts & Parks) also provides very, very limited free days because of the tax. Check them out and use them. Might as well, you're already paying for it.

Stef's Visit, round 2 (part 2)

Friday, we started of the morning with a trip to Belleview Park. I had just heard of this park from some people in my ward so after lazily getting ready for the day, we headed out. We came here because we were told there was a small train ride and petting zoo, for cheap.
It was just a cute electric train with a cute old man as the conductor. We bought our tickets and went for a ride.

Ellie's first train ride.

Here's one of the few pictures of me. Usually because I am the camera woman.

Ellie and mommy on the train.

She had such a great time pointing out everything as we went by, waving at everyone we passed, and saying "choo choo" each time she thought about it. It was a short ride, I'm sure not even 5 minutes but that was good enough.

Right next to the train was a small barn. As you enter, there were some pets in their cages you could look at before entering the petting zoo. Of course they give you the warnings about the goats and making sure the kids aren't too loud or chasing the animals. And be sure to wash your hands after.

Ellie made all the animal noises as we walked up to each one. She wasn't afraid to pet a single animal, which sometimes can be scary with ducks and chickens around. 

She loved this sheep.

They had one of the softest sheep I had ever felt. Actually, the helper told us they use to call it a "geep". The helper told us this because when it walked over to us, I said "Ellie, come look at this goat" cause I only saw the head and face. Stef said, "That's not a goat." That's when I looked at the rest of it and realized it was a sheep. The face and head looked like a goat's but the body was definitely sheep and the wool was super soft.

Nice cow (well, calf).

Look carefully at the picture below of the ducks. The white ducklings have tufts of down feathers on their hands. The helpers at the zoo said they will keep these or rather as real feather grow in these will be replaced by regular feathers as well. I knew there were chickens with crazy "hair" but apparently there are ducks as well. 

Swimming ducks.

This little goat was hungry. Can you tell?

We headed home for lunch and naps before heading out on our next adventure. The last time Stef was here, we drove up to Buffalo Bill's grave too late and we barely got to see anything and she wanted to go back. We walked around the grave and the gift shop and looked out across the plains from the hillside.  

How... do you do?

Our plans had them been to meet Jake in Golden with some friends to have dinner and go to Music and Movies in the Park again (they were showing Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader) but after driving down the hill and into town, it started to rain. There was a good chance it stopped before the show even got under way but with a small child, we thought better to be safe than sorry. So we headed back to Denver to meet Jake and our friends for dinner at the Cherry Cricker. Ellie and I shared the appetizer platter; chicken strips, fried mac and cheese, cheese sticks, etc. Then back to our house for games, talking, and a little "Better Off Ted."

Earlier in the week, the Colorado Wattersons had invited us to a family lunch at one of kid's house in Colorado Springs. Stef was ok with that so we went. They are always good company and Ellie loves playing with the kids. Nya was so nice to play with Ellie and gift her some dress up clothes and a Tinkerbell purse.
Kara told us about a hike nearby so we headed off there before driving to Manitou Springs.

Starting our hike up Helen Hunt Falls.

In case you didn't know, Ellie is a big girl now and wanted to do half of the hike herself. The other half, she only wanted mommy to carry her. Yeah for mommy.

When we first arrived, people (of other ethicities) were down playing in the water. Apparently they ignored or couldn't read the sign that said "Keep out of water." This water feeds the Colorado Springs water supply. Ellie was a little upset that after we told her she could play in the water (before we saw the signs), we couldn't after all.

What a cute family pic.

Girls picture

 Then we headed into Manitou Springs to walk around and look at the shops. This time the entire arcade area was open and in full swing. Some nice people let Ellie snag a ride on the extra horse.

After a diaper blow out and some more window shopping, we started back for home.  We stopped in Castle Rock for some dinner and to buy diapers (apparently 3 isn't enough for half a day's trip). I had seen Black Eyed Pea Restaurant and so we tried it.  It was pretty good food, or we were really hungry. It was probably a good mixture of both considering most of us ate less than half of the main dish.

Stef flew home right after church the next day. It was a short visit, but we had lots of fun for such a low key trip. We love having visitors here (have I mentioned that before?).

Finally...I finished them.

A while back I was wandering around a craft store and found these cute, plain wooden step stools for about $4, on clearance. I figured I would try my creative genius on them. This is what turned out.

Ellie is excited. She loved standing on the plain stools and hasn't been able to touch them for almost 2 months as I have been working on them. Sadly, they should have been done more than a month ago but at that point I felt they needed something more so I added the stripes on the sides and finally after another 3 weeks I added the brown line yesterday. They are now sprayed and sealed.