Life on the Mountain

Catching up...

Wow!  It's already FALL....

Have I been lazy or what?  I obviously haven't posted anything since we got back from Alaska in June. Sorry about that...this summer has FLOWN by.  Let me see if I can give you a quick synopsis: 

GARLAND CAMP:   We flew Kate, Sara Paige and Jenna out here for a week of fun in the mountains, and we certainly had that!  The girls did really well (Never once said "I want my mommy!") and we stayed really busy fishing, swinging, playing, riding ATV's, sliding, making s'mores, seeing alpacas and more.  Jenna was a huge help in keeping up with them and we had a blast!

MIMI IN McKINNEY:  I flew back with them to Dallas and spent a week at THEIR house in McKinney! I managed to squeeze in visiting with family and friends and catching up on shopping! Fun trip! 

SHOOT AGAIN:  Henry and I spent some time shooting sporting clays, prairie dogs and targets in my effort to become a marks-woman (?) in several different firearms.  We've made a couple of trips out to the NRA Whittington Center near Raton, NM and enjoyed the heck out of it! 

 

GARDENING:  We have been inundated with tomatoes ripening faster than we can eat them (from the greenhouse).  Went through all the onions (Texas 1015's) pretty fast, have lots of herbs, and a few peppers.  Gardening at this altitude (9400 ft) and this climate (dry, wet, cold, hot) has been challenging...but we've had pretty flowers on the decks, and lots of veggies in the greenhouse. 

Here's my little flower cart (done HDR style, which I am learning) that sits in front of the greenhouse:

We've also stayed busy doing things with friends, playing CSI:Taos Pines (turning in poachers and suspicious vehicles), hauling slash and cleaning up the lot, doing Chipper Days, and trying to be outside as much as possible to enjoy the great summer weather! 

Here's a picture at Eagle Nest Lake:

And the most recent news and the saddest, is we lost our awesome boxer Allie yesterday.  She had been sick for a while and the vet was amazed that she lasted as long as she did, but she went to doggie heaven yesterday.  She was a great friend and companion, and really---a family member.  It won't be the same around here without her.  We love and will miss you, Allie!  We'll go snowshoeing on clouds one day! 

Alaska...HERE WE COME!!!

So excited to be making another trip to Alaska.  This time we will be going NORTH.....TO ALASKA....(LOL)  and seeing parts of the state we have never experienced before.  We'll be in Wasilla with family a couple of days, and then head to Denali National Park, staying in a lodge inside the park.  Then off to Fairbanks for a couple of days, and it's also where we will meet up with some NM friends.  Traveling down to Valdez and then back to Anchorage.  Then back to ABQ and Angel Fire by end of month.  

I'll be uploading pictures and blog posts from the road, so follow me!  Should be fun!  And you'll get to see a lot of Henry doing thumbs-up poses!  

See ya!

Roz

So, just because I can....

I love these two munchkins more than I can say, and it's the ONLY regret I have about moving away from the Dallas area.  I do miss our kids and friends, and other family members too....but I REALLY miss getting hugs and sugars from these two!  Aren't they the cutest?!?!?

I want to SEEEEEEE you!

I learned a long time ago that most of the digital photos I take do NOT get printed out, and the best way to share them (especially now in the days of phones that can access web pages) is to upload them to an online photo sharing application.  Their servers are secure, and backed up regularly --- MUCH better than losing everything when your hard drive in your computer decided to crash (and they DO!) 

I have literally desk drawers FULL of floppy disks and CD's full of photos.  And most are not labeled well enough that in 5 years I will know what they are.  And WHO has a computer with a floppy drive any more.....I don't!

The best solution for me has been to start uploading everything I want to save from my camera to an online application (my personal favorite is found at FLICKR --- thank you, Brad!) That way I can always access my photos from my computer or phone.  Just this morning we met friends for breakfast, and they wanted to see pictures of our new grandbaby, Sara Paige.   I had not had time to transfer actual photos to my iPhone yet, but I opened up my Safari browser on my phone, and went to Brad and Jenny's Flickr page, and showed them photos from there!  There are a number of other photo sharing sites out there...kodak, snapfish, yahoo, LOTS of them....I just prefer Flickr so far. 

But here's my point... I wish everyone in our family would upload all of their photos online somewhere and send me the link so I can SEE THEM!  With us living in New Mexico, and rarely going back to Texas any more, I don't get to see friends and family as often as I would like.  It helps me SO MUCH to just be able to log on and see their smiling faces!  Facebook has helped in that regard SOMEWHAT, but it is not just a dedicated photo site.  And only my nieces and nephew are even ON Facebook!  

Another one of my NEW favorite things to do is to create DVD's of videos and photo slideshows and watch them on the TV!  It's a little harder to do (and thank goodness I have a MAC to do it on!) but it's fun!

So.....Papa, Renate & Scott, Jan & Jimbo, Jenna, Jimmie Alton, Kelli & Glenn, and a whole bunch more of you.... sign up and start uploading!  Stop just saving those photos on your computer, memory card, or phone ---- SHARE THEM WITH ME!!!   Yes, it's time consuming, and yes, you have to be a LITTLE computer literate to figure out how to do it, but if you get stuck.....let me know and I will try to help!!!

Hope to be looking at you soon!