Pattie's Place

My Berry Gardens

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Our berry bushes are doing pretty good this year….I’ve added a few new fun things to the garden too. 

I love these copper end caps we put on our oldly moldy deck. They are solar so they come on at night all by themselves. It is really pretty to go stand out on the deck now. They let off this neato glow, automatically!

My concord grape vines are doing well.  I’m going to learn how to make grape juice this year if it kills me! My son-in-law grew up on the stuff. So maybe his mom can teach me how to do it.  It should be a fun kitchen event….me learning how to make grape juice from smashed grapes.  What next? 
We added some green gRaPeS last year too!  I hope they taste sweet and that these birdies don’t get at them first! 
Blackberries are lookin REAL GOOD!  

But the raspberries are dyin on the vine!  It’s that Utah July heat, 106 the other day! 
My hummingbird feeder is hanging here empty!  THAT’s why the birds are flying around my glass door looking in at me….they are wondering when we are going to refill their juice!  So sweet!  
I thought this was cute so I got it for a particularly hot part of my deck and I’m adding it to a flower pot. 
Cute deck chairs I got from Walmart for only $10 each! Such a DEAL! 

I got these chairs and pillows at Walmart last weekend. They will match my patio umbrella.  The deck is looking a LOT better since the deck paint and the additional furniture!  Check out the deck paint to see my Restore Deck Paint.

Here are 2 more I went and bought.  Now I have a cute seating arrangement.  I want to go look for a cute table now to add to the little trio of chairs.  
Well my raspberries are not doing anything in this terrible Utah heat, so I went and bought some at the store. I made some yummy cupcakes instead of doing the garden weeds……snicker…..
And wouldn’t you like a bite of this? Doesn’t it look yummy?  Check them out at The Weekday Chef.
This is what I do when I’ve got stacks of stuff to do.  I play with food.  😀


Laundry Room Decorating

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My daughter Tiff has done such a cute job decorating her laundry room. She has a cricut and has added vinyl lettering to many areas of her home. Isn’t it sooo cute?

Laundry Rooom Decor – she did the vinyl words using her cricut machine.
Another Cute decor item to add to a boring old laundry room…the laundry detergent jars…


These white shelves are also nice because you can hang hangers on them.  
Laundry room need #laundry
I found this laundry room stain remover jar on Pinterest….I’m going to copy one o f these jars…so cute! 
Alphabet Wall using many different wood and scrapbooking paper designs.
Awesome! I love her laundry room! 

Vegetable Gardening

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I am trying to ignore the weeding in my garden I need to do today. I’m still in my jammies reading a dieting book while watching “The Doctors” on T.V. talk about how we need to stop eating sweets and diet soda. Gosh, I thought diet soda was better than drinking sugary regular soda. But THE DOCTORS said it makes you crave sugary sweets. THAT must be my PROBLEM!! Stupid diet soda!!  

Cute gardening stuff…the hubs is working on a potting table for me.

So…..I guess I’ll go pick something HEALTHY out of my little vegetable garden.  I have squash, zuchini, tomatoes, peppers, herbs and a pumpkin. That’s all I did this year.  Other years I have done green beans and corn, but this year it’s just the two of us, so I’m going easy on myself! 
Picking stuff from the garden the hubs snapped this very bad pic of me. 😀

Tomatoes growing in the cages…looks like a good crop this year. 

I cut a bunch up and made a 7 Layer Dip! 

It’s so rewarding to use stuff from your own veggie garden to make something for your own family, isn’t it? Yeah! IT IS! 

tOmAtOeS

   I always start the tomatoes out in a tomato cage.   We’ve already gotten a few delicious tomatoes. Gotta have a BLT very soon!                          

yEllOw sQuAsH…very HEALTHY! 
GREEN zucchini – who doesn’t LOVE Zuchini Bread? 

This year I also planted some cucumbers. They really look alot like a zuchini plant. I usually can’t really tell one squash from the other plant till I get some of the veggies growing on them. Even the flowers looks similar to me!

cHiVeS – I love going to pick a few of these when I need them.  They would be GREAT for an indoor garden….Hey!  Great Idea!  
First Fruits (and veggies) of the harvest…
My cucumbers are pretty good this year! I put one in a salad last night and it was delicious! Aren’t they so chubby and cute? 

 We planted tomatoes, squash, zucchini, bell peppers in green and yellow, onions, and beans.  Oh and the radishes my class did, I brought one home and replanted it.  John got out all his tomato cages from the garage. And of course we had to fix like a GAZILLION sprinklers! What is up with those constantly breaking sprinkler heads? Don’t love those things.

We planted about 4 varieties and I think I still like “BETTER BOY” the very best. 

They always come in fast, they don’t split open like some varieties, and they are delicious too. 

 We are lazy weeders.  I just want it to look good and I want to have fresh veggies…… and beautiful things everywhere….but I don’t want to worry about it! I don’t ask for much do I?

The garden looks a WHOLE lot better here in the after picture… we’ve got tomatoes finally ripening too!
It’s fun to see pay dirt on all our hard work….now it’s fun to go outside again!
I think we figured out the secret….just to do a little bit every few days…it was discouraging at first….but seeing it get better over time…(and still a ways to go) has been very rewarding.  And maybe…just maybe I’m not such a black thumb after all!

Bulletin Board Repainting

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I repainted a bulletin board that used to be bright red. I LOVE how it turned out. It will be pretty in the classroom too! Don’t you think? 
This is what it used to look….cork board under the blue plastic I taped over it….red painted edges.  
It actually used to be gray in my hub’s office. But I took it home and painted it red. But I didn’t end up using it in the grandkiddie room. I made a giant chalk board instead. They love it so much! 
And I covered it with fabric and ribbons and glittery butterfly pins….

A quick and easy video on how to spray paint old furniture….
Taping up the bulletin board with paper, trash bags,  to cover  up the cork portion. 
It use to be a fire engine red for a kiddie room….now I want it for my craft room since all my kiddos are grown and gone. 

Here is my painted bulletin board after I sprayed 2 coats of the  Rustoleum spraypaint on  it….You can see how I taped the edges with a trash bag and masking tape….
KILZ primer and Valspar are the best…they go on smooth . 
Valspar and Rustoleum are good spray paints too….I liked this light blue color. It will match my little book boxes in my classroom library.  I bought blue, light green, and pink last year and redid the library. CUTE! 
I covered the bulletin board with a kitchen trash bag and masking tape….not too bad for prep! 
Here were my 2 fabrics and my ribbon I wanted to use.

I sewed the glittery, striped fabric onto 2 sides of the butterfly fabric….and cut it to fit the bulletin board….
Then I just glue gunned it all around the edges of the cork after letting the paint dry overnight. Lookin good!  It’s too bad the back would not come off, it would have been easier to just wrap the fabric around, but, it was glued down in every corner and edge. 
Then when it was finished I added some embellishments….a couple of glittery butterflies and push pins.
Check out my 6 tips for using spray paint at Patties Place.
I bought some glittery, giant push pins at Hobby Lobby for my painted bulletin board redo.  I put one in the center of each cute little flower. 
Finished bulletin board redo….it turned out just like I wanted.  

Well, don’t look too close at my bad sewing job though. It’s kind of hard to believe I’ve had 5 years of sewing in high school and college level, right? Yeah, I’ve gone downhill there. 😀

I think it will look great in my classroom this year! A LOT better looking  than the plain red one. I love spray paint! 

Spray Painting Furniture Tutorial and Tips

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Finished repainted chest of drawers…

Pretty painted chest will look great in my craft room makeover! 
I’m trying to finish my craft room this summer. But I’m such a perfectionist that it is taking WAY too long. I think I need to just simplify and lower my expectations. I want the cute little die cut vinyl on all my little buckets and totes. It may never happen! But I did want to repaint an old, brown dresser in a pretty bright beachy blue. So I finally got around to it this week. Yay me! 

For Brush Painting, I found this excellent youtube to help anybody who has never painted furniture before. This gal has all the right moves. 

But if you’d rather be lazy and go the CAN of spray paint route, this youtube also gives excellent advice.  

Laying out the drawers for sanding and removing the hardware before I start the furniture primer coat……
My supplies to start the sanding and primer coat…
Oops, first I covered the hardware with masking tape…..I’m lazy remember?  Then the hubs came home and took them off for me with his cordless drill….those men and their power tools….gotta love ’em….
Old dusty chest of drawers in ugly bugly brown to go with the pastels in the craft room….need to do a little change up!  So I’m spray painting the wood. 
Bulletin board I wanted to change from PLAYROOM bright red, to CRAFTROOM sky blue….


6 GREAT TIPS FOR REPAINTING FURNITURE

 I spray painted my dining room table (ball and claw) and all the oak chairs last summer from light oak, wood color to black (when I’m off of school I paint my brains out!) HERE’s a link. so I learned dos and don’ts from doing all those painting projects.  Here are my tips: 

 
1.SAND A LITTLE, NOT A LOT!  I usually sand my stuff a little bit before even priming it. Not so much that the former paint is gone, but enough that it feels smooth to my fingers.  I like a smooth finish and I get it by sanding first. Start with 60 grit if you have a real awful piece. Then move to 120 grit, or just use 120 grit if your piece is pretty decent. You can end with 150. You need to rub off some of the gloss finish on a previously painted item, to help your new paint adhere better. 

You could start with 120 if you really need to remove stuff…I used 150 grit sandpaper and called it done after a light sanding….
Hand sanding…just a bit to roughen up the surface….I would sand more if it needed it….you be the judge! 

2.USE A GOOD PRIMER COAT!  I always prime stuff I want to turn out beautiful.  Use KILZ brand primer if you are doing something light colored. KILZ only comes in white finish. But if you are painting something red,  black or brown, I would instead use a good KRYLON primer near that color. Both are around $4.00. 


Spray painting wood furniture…you need this KILZ primer. It’s great! The Valspar doesn’t cover as fast . 
3. I USE SATIN FOR SPRAYPAINT and REGULAR PAINT. Some people like gloss, but I think the furniture ends up looking more expensive when it is kind of a satiny finish instead of high gloss. If you have young kids you may want to go the GLOSS route for easier cleaning up afterwards, (you know those messes they like to make! :D) OR do a topcoat afterwards in polyurethane (for dark paint) or Polyacrylic (for light paints) to protect your item. 

This is really good good spray paint for wood furniture, Krylon is good too. 

4. BUY KRYLON SPRAYPAINT at Walmart for around $3.00. It’s the best. Just ask anybody.Rustoleum is good too but some colors aren’t my favs. I did like this blue color and I got it on a good sale!!  And for regular paint I love GLIDDEN from HOME DEPOT the best. It isn’t the most expensive, but it covers really well. The BEHR is just too thick for my taste. 


5. IF YOU NEED TO PUT A SEALER ON, USE POLYACRYLIC   NOT POLYURETHANE (it will yellow after time!) I have rarely ever finished anything, but I rarely paint things white either. If you want it to last and it gets used a lot, use polyacrylic to add a topcoating to protect your stuff. The only thing I’d use Polyurethane on is stained woods. 


6. DON’T PAINT WHEN IT IS TOO COLD OR TOO HOT. I like to wait for a day that is between 65 and 80 degrees outside. I painted last summer on my deck in 90 degree heat and it seemed to melt some of the paint before it dried, and some bubbled a little. Also don’t paint on a rainy day unless you can do it in your garage. A moderate day is best. And out of direct sunlight is even better. I usually paint on the grass in the shade, or under my deck shade with an old sheet under the item I’m painting. That way I’m not breathing in any fumes!
Finished outside of the chest of drawers….looks pretty good!  
I went over each drawer twice after priming…It all took only 2 cans of Rustoleum spray paint and almost 2 cans of primer!  

The best part is…..my hubs mows the lawn the next day and all that paint disappears! (I love when that happens…somebody coming along to clean up my mess!) He also picks up my weeds when I weed the garden. Isn’t that cool? (i know…I should clean up my own weeds….. my bad.) 


Setting out in the front yard, spray painted furniture drying in the shade……almost done!   
Finished Craft Room spray painted dresser! I used almost 2 cans of paint. And it was super EASY!   I think I’ll put some vinyl lettering on each drawer….once I figure out what junk to put inside!  
Now I just have to finish all the shelves. My daughter did these cute vinyl letters on my little pastel buckets.  Thanks Tiffany! She’s the best daughter in the world. And she gives me good decorating advice too.  


That was the easiest furniture makeover I’ve ever done! 3 CHEERS for spray paint!

Pioneer Day Parade in Salt Lake City

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The hubs and I went to see the Pioneer Day floats for the Days of 47 Parade. 
Irish band drummers warming up for their performance at the Expo Center in Sandy, Utah.

I love quilts so I picked out this cute float to flash a pic with! 

Cute glittery floats at the Days of 47 Parade.

Loved the steam coming out of this Pioneer Day float. 

This giant pioneer lady was funny looking….had to get the hubs to pose with her……heheh…..

What a geek I am! I LOVE these things! 

Had to pose with the giant pioneer dude too! 

These cherries on the banana split were giant red bouncy balls……so shiny and pretty! 

BYU had their blue float……and across the way was the U of U red float too! 

My church did this float…..so cute with the sparkly wheels that turned….

These are the Disney Princesses!!  No, just kidding, they are the Pioneer Day Princesses or Days of 47 Princesses…..something like that!  

Clown making balloon animals for the kids….
Panning for gold, lots of fun for the kiddos….

Lookie here!  A balloon animal poodle pup! 

This was a strange float….people were getting their picture taken next to the giant Jesus…..kinda strange! 

Mormon temple float….

Irish bagpipe band….pretty neat to hear them march around playing tunes….
My favorite was the pirate float….very cool looking! 

Gotta love a LEGO float! 

Parts of the floats lifted up and moved around

Old pioneer outfits on stands…..pioneer letters and memorabilia were everywhere….I loved that part. 

I am in awe of the Pioneers and the struggles they endured.  I don’t think I have what it takes to have done it.  I’m glad we, in Utah, honor them once a year.  Happy Pioneer Day! 

Fruit Trees in the Garden

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I love fruit trees. We have lived here 12 years and we planted our first fruit tree that first year. We added a new one every year for the first 5 years. The last year we did berry bushes and grapes.  Now they are a lot of fun to watch them grow and bear fruit.

We don’t have a lot of apples this year….but the ones we have are always tasty. 

Here is when my aPpLeS  were just starting to grow from the flower buds….

Here’s the APPLE TREE, (and my little Boston Terrier, Bruce) 


We had put in lots of years of care on the fruit trees years ago,  and they are finally FINALLY, starting to produce….not lots of stuff mind you…maybe a FEW BOWLS of fruits per tree….but it’s yummy and very fascinating to watch those trees just do their “thang”.

Concord gRaPeS….I’ll do a post on how to make grape jelly SOON!  Or how about Grape Juice?  Yum! 
Grape gardens are getting bigger and they look pretty yummy too! 

I have green grapes and concord grapes and they grow organically every year without me doing too much with them! 

Nectarine tree….looking almost ripe! 
The lone nectarine…I hope birds don’t get it before I do! 

Well, it’s my own fault I waited too long for these nectarines and some birdies got the top one! Darn! 

My peaches did the best of all the fruit trees this year.  I have about 6 bags frozen so far and have made peach crisp twice already! 

We  have an apple , a peach and nectarine, and an apricot tree.  None of them ever have done really fantastic,  except the apple.  I think our soil is kinda sandy. The yard needs constant care with veggie gardens and 2 ponds, flower beds and all.  And I’m getting so lazy. But today I picked peaches! 

Peaches on the peach tree….really nice this year!

I made some yummy peach crisp at Weekday Chef. my other blog. Check it out! 

No black thumb here.  I love this tree. It is my favorite fruit tree in the whole garden. The Peach tree a great shade tree too.

Ya gotta have some wind chimes…..

 We are lazy weeders.  I just want it to look good and I want to have fresh fruits…… and beautiful things everywhere….but I don’t want to worry about it! I don’t ask for much do I?

It’s been fun to pick the apricots too…we eat these right up. I never have to make jam out of them… (I let my mom-in-law do that….sneaky me).

Wow, do you think the hubs got my good side in this awful picture? I think I’m gonna fire as my photog. 

aPrIcOtS and cute little granddaughters in the hammock! 

Marissa and Megan make the cutest addition to the garden, don’t they? Love those girls! They are the “apples” of my eye!


 Let’s go eat some apricots grandma!  I just LOVE these.  Maybe we could do fruit leather?

I’ll have to look into getting a fruit dehydrator.

And my lillies all came up. They turned out beautiful too! 

My berry bushes….just starting to ripen! 

 We fixed up a place down by the jacuzzi for seating too.  It’s suddenly become a fun place to hang out again!

Under the deck by the jacuzzi…brightly colored, motion-detection
lighting at night made it more inviting!
My friend Paula, in California, is growing a Mango tree. How fun is THAT! I used to have oranges and lemons in my yard in California. Man I so didn’t appreciate my weather and growing season back then.

I would LOVE it! But in the meantime, I’ll take my apricots, peaches, nectarines, apples and grapes. And I planted blackberry bushes this year. They are already sprouting too. Let’s see what tomorrow brings! Ain’t nature grand? In spite of my failings as a gardener, I have plants that give back to me. And that makes me so happy.

Dollar Store Finds

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I’m SOOOO excited to find these cute little ice cream cups. I have wanted a set of these forever. They are plastic in bright, rainbow colors and come with a little, matching spoon. They were $1.00 for a set of 2 so I bought 4 sets. SO CUTE!  

Cute little ice cream cups with spoons to match! So cute! Got them for a buck a pair! 
My grandkiddos will love eating ice cream out of these!

I also got these neat-o Betty Crocker measuring cups and measuring spoons. They came in such a cute red shade that matches my kitchen, and who couldn’t use another set of measuring cups I ask? They also had a neat silicone spatula FOR A BUCK!  You can’t find the silicone ones anywhere that cheap! 

Great gadgets from the Dollar Store!! 


I have like 4 sets of measuring cups, but THESE are definitely going to be a favorite! Gotta love Betty! 

And I have been needing a few more of these BBQ lighters and candle lighter sticks. I found a few pretty spoons to go in my utensil stash too.  And a pie crust for a buck! I’ll have to make a cheesecake, oh DARN! What a great find today at The Dollar Store. My kitchen is flush with new, fun stuff.  

Fun Mixing Bowls 
My Rainbow Mixing bowls from my daughter. I just LOVE them!



I still haven’t used my set of rainbow mixing bowls yet either!  I got them for Mothers Day in May. I will have to think of something fun to make this weekend with all my new stuff! Woo Hoo! 

4th of July Cupcakes

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My finished chocolate 4th of July cupcakes! Yummo!

 Grandpa opens his pool on the 4th of July. We love to all go up for a BBQ and we celebrate 4th of July with fireworks too! Here are some fun 4th of July cupcakes to share with all my relatives! I just used fresh fruit and made some cute pics with flags.
                                        

Happy 4th of July! Snap, Crackle, Pop! I bet we’ll be  hearing that all night?  
Grandpa always does a BBQ for us at the 4th of July Party…Here is John and his dad, Don Moss. He is a veteran from the Air Force. Boo Yah! 

My 4th of July Decorations on my entry table…

So on Diana’s Desserts website I found a simple 4th of July cupcake decorated with marshmallow whip and real cream that sounded great, and it uses the 2 fruits.  It looked very cute too so I decided to copy. Thanks Diana! Her website link is HERE.

They turned out really yummy.  I used cream cheese and marshmallow whip and cool whip because I thought the real whip cream would melt in the heat.  They were marvelicious!  Mmmmm…..I’m thinkin’ of one of those babies right now! 

4th of July cupcakes from Hoosier Homemade… 

Another cute decorating idea was from Cupcake Heaven’s ideas at Hoosier Homemade. Her link is HERE.
I liked the red licorice striped cupcakes with the little candy blue balls.  I have some peel apart red licorice so I will try that one too.  And maybe I can come up with some little picks in a patriotic theme. 

My Dining Room decorations for 4th of July….
My 4th of July cupcakes!
I love to decorate with Uncle Sam and my patriotic quilt..

My finished chocolate cupcakes! Yummo!

So my cake is chocolate… I always add about a 1/2 cup of sour cream and a small chocolate pudding mix.  It makes it a lot richer……and my icing I made with Marshmallow Creme (fluff stuff) about a cup or so, and cream cheese (about a half of a large block) and about a cup of Cool Whip. I just mess with it till it looks and tastes the consistency I want. And I gave it a little 4 drops of lime juice for a kick.  It is sooooo delicious!  You can also use it as a fruit dip. It’s to die for. 

I found some little flags and stuck them on toothpicks
These 3 ingredients make THE BEST ICING EVER!  (or fruit dip)

Marisa and Megan my granddaughters rocking in the hammock….so cute! 

Happy 4th everybody!  We’re off to grandpa’s pool party!

Yellowstone Road Trip 2012

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Yellowstone National Park

 John and I have wanted to see Yellowstone for a few years now. We have a cabin up at Bear Lake, Utah that is only 2 1/2 hours from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a stone’s throw from Yellowstone’s South end.

So we got a hotel and booked a river rafting trip for the week I got out of school and then we FLEW THE COOP! Can you say R-O-A-D—-T-R-I-P? wOO hOO! This was an important road trip for us.

I loved this old barn selling fireworks in Afton, Wyoming as we drove through….
You’ve gotta love an antler bridge, dontcha? Small towns are so quaint! 
First stop…Jackson Hole, Wyoming….a very artsy, museum filled TOURIST TOWN!!!

But just look at all these fun stores!  Life sized animals amongst the kitchy doo dads.

This gift shop looks like Animal Kingdom!  

Would you buy this zebra for one of your home’s walls? Na…me neither….it’s kinda cool tho!

This was not a real buck, it was just a stuffed one they put in the store entryway…so fun!

My favorite store in Jackson Hole had lots of geodes like these, shiny rock balls and a really beautiful table made out of a giant piece of petrified wood!  I wanted it bad till I saw the price tag….$250,000.   Yes that is thousands. mmhmmm….moving on….
Beauty everywhere…I love these kinds of shops….Knick Knacks from Nature! Cool! 

Well you just gotta get a ride on the Jackson Stage Coach, now don’t ya?  Yeah this horse was gettin’ frisky with me! 

Now you might think I stopped in the Historical Society Museum of Jackson Hole because I’m just interested in history? But I was more interested in finding a bathroom before going river raftin!!

Here we are all decked out to go River Rafting on the Snake River near Yellowstone ! 
You can tell John is NOT super excited about these “roaring river rapids”….hmmm…….too calm for this adventure seeker? 
I thought the splashy ride was JUST RIGHT! But I don’t seek adventure….just peace like a river….hey, is that a song? 
I saw a few eagles……cool!
And here is the eagle’s nest up high,  and it had 2 little eaglets in it… according to our guide..

(what, did you climb the tree and look inside, dude?)

And just a jog away on a cliff is Tiger Woods place right here….it’s a mansion on a cliff….
Tiger Woods place on a cliff overlooking the Snake River near Yellowstone….

Then we saw Harrison Ford’s place…Here is his picnic table…our guide had lots of stories on how he rescued some lost Boy Scouts in his bright Yellow Helicopter…pretty cool to be rescued by Indiana Jones, right? He’s got 300 acres right here on the Snake River!  How would it be? He bought them for $3 million and now it’s worth like $300 mil! Way to go Harry! 
Okay this is more like it…..even when they looked rapidy…..THEY WEREN’T! 

In the square at Jackson Hole, they have a fake shoot out to entice you to go see the melodrama in town….really cute! 

Then it was on to Yellowstone….some  of these buildings were really old and had such neat architecture! 

Had to go see Old Faithful…and this other geyser, I think it is the Beehive Geyser…it was very cool too! 

Here it is exploding at the Old Faithful area….it’s just a few hundred yards from Old Faithful….

People were everywhere taking pictures of the geyser…. 

Well then we had to go buy a trinket…I got this funny hat!  Isn’t it cute?  I’ll wear it when it gets snowy this winter….

Johnny looked all over but decided on a red hoodie….He liked this one that says Jackson Hole….
I secretly also got him a Yellowstone T-shirt with Moose all over it….snicker….John Moose…..

Here he is in his cool hoodie….They had all these other (more manly-man)  colors (brown, navy) but he liked the red one!?!  He does look cute with his little hood up doesn’t he?  We are looking at all the cool hot pots. Signs everywhere say, DO NOT JUMP IN!  Yeah, that would not be too fun, jumping into scalding hot water….

As we roamed around the loop at Yellowstone looking at all the places to see, hot pots, geysers, waterfalls, we  kept running into these buffalo…Here is a mama and a brand new baby right at the side of the road!! The scary looking dad was not far off at all! 

He didn’t care that we were so close in our car…..I snapped this pic just out the window…and we drove quickly on…..

There must have been a family reunion around the corner…because we saw hundreds of them on this trip….just about 25 in every single big field…it was AMAZING!  

They are really beautiful in their natural habitat….look at all the fallen trees!  Must have been an avalanche in the winter….

Beautiful Buffalo at Yellowstone National Park 

We went on a few hikes and saw some waterfalls….

Such awesome beauty there is in this world!  

This is called the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone…..very impressive!  

I started crying as I took this picture. My hubs was already a little weepy and I caught on immediately. He has a photo he keeps on his desk of my son Danny and he, taken at this exact spot about 9 years ago when Dan was a 14 or 15 year old teenager on a Scout trip to Yellowstone. His dad came with him on that scout outing (so glad he took that time) and they snapped this photo together.

Danny and Dad in 2003

We were both thinking of that photo as he told me he thought this was where it was taken. That boy died a few years later in a car crash.  We were both thinking of him while I snapped this photo. That’s why we both look semi happy in the last pic of this post. We were both kind of melancholy even though we are surrounded by beauty. Isn’t that how life is sometimes? We have to remember all the beauty, not take it for granted!

Caught sight of a rainbow in the river’s spray… true beauty! 

I’m blowing this picture of Johnny up…I love all the background beauty I caught in this one…Yellowstone at it’s VERY BEST! 
I did not realize how big Yellowstone was, nor how much water is inside it…Rivers and lakes and hot pots everywhere! This reminded me of many songs that have been penned about the long and windy road or the  river wide or some troubled waters….life can be this way, can’t it?  Sometimes lonely, sometimes unfortunate, sometimes dreary, sometimes unpredictable, oft times beautiful, and we miss that part cuz we get busy and worried…..

Yellowstone is a great mini vacation…! There is a lot of power in beautiful nature that we forget about. It is like Chicken Soup for the Soul to see nature at its awesome best. It renews us for the journey ahead. Weekend Road Trips are the good for the soul. Go on one soon.