Flickr Badge

www.flickr.com
Rachel.Drummond's items tagged with badge More of Rachel Drummond's Photography at Flickr
Reload this web page for another set of photographs.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Gator Kids



Too cold to hike anymore and too windy even to fly our kites, so we went with Christine and family to the Colorado Gator Farm on highway 17. This picture was taken by the staff. Rowan's expression makes me laugh; Jasmine just wanted down to run around; Kai was so pround to have held the gator.
Posted by Picasa

Zapata Falls

Tuesday, second full day. On a tip from a camping neighbor with similarly aged kids, I brought the kids on a tiny hike to Zapata falls. We walked on a semi-frozen creek, into a narrow rock crevice to see the frozen falls.
Posted by Picasa

Jasmine liked the sand. She wasn't afraid of falling despite the fact she couldn't see. It took her a while to squish it in her hands and I never managed to get her to walk on it barefoot.
Posted by Picasa

Campfire

Camping fascinates the younger set especially because you get to burn stuff. The best are things that explode, smoke and shrivel, or turn the flames strange colors. Cardboard boxes with colorful dyes have many of these qualities. At home we have a gas fireplace and that definitely doesn't capture the whole smoke in your eyes, your nose, your mouth and lingering in your clothes that a campfire provides. The kids have actually even started eating marshmallows, but I suspect the main motivation is to claim we need to keep the fire going.

This is when it started to get cold and the kids also found an unexpected benefit to burning things -- it keeps you warm. Our tent and sleeping bags were intended for much warmer weather -- I expect they were intended for camping where the low was the freezing point for water, not the high. I had four cheap sleeping bags and zipped two pairs together to make two queen-sized bags. Then I put one inside the other with four blankets between. We wore two layers of pajamas with a hoodie on top to keep our heads warm. Then we all got in the multi-layered bag together. This worked very well. I knew it was cold because the complaints of being smushed were minimal. Actually, the totality of complaints on the trip were near nonexistent, I was very impressed.

This was also the day when I realized that my idea of cooking for my children was a well-meaning but entirely unrealistic goal. I had a fire extinguisher all ready, but I still had some fundamental challenges to overcome:

  • I'm not fond of cooking (I think I've made a total of five complete meals in the last ten years).
  • Monitoring a three year-old near two seperate open flames is nerve wracking.
  • Preparing food generally means I don't have a burner available for making my coffee.
  • Picky eaters.
  • I'm an easily distracted person, which the cooking stove takes shameful advantage of.
  • No washing sinks available this time in the season.
  • I'm not fond of cooking.


So, our eating quickly changed to anything that could be made with one pot of hot water, the fresh and dried fruit we brought, animal crackers, marshmallows, bagels, cheerios and soy milk, pre-cooked bacon and hot dogs (the kids could cook these themselves with a stick), and soy butter and/or jelly sandwiches. Hm. Actually, this is exactly how I ate before I met my husband.
Posted by Picasa

Friday, March 30, 2007

Rowan

Rowan walked off to find his own dune.
Posted by Picasa

Kai and Christine

The intrepid explorers.
Posted by Picasa

Sliding

See the tiny figure in pink? That's Kai and Rowan's new friend Christine (7), she's the easiest to spot. Above her is Rowan and below her is Kai. The two kids above them are Ben (6) and Johnny (4), Christine's two little brothers. The adult figure above them is Christine's grandmother. I thought I was brave to bring my kids camping, but she and her husband brought six children (the three other kids are 14, 12 and 12) down from Centennial for Spring Break.

This was the kiddie dune the first and the smallest. It was still tough to get up, nearly impossible for me with my camera bag and Mei in backpack.
Posted by Picasa

Pondering the Monday Shadows

I don't know who the folks are, but they were photogenic. This was our first full day and our warmest day.
Posted by Picasa

Dunes From Highway 17

Our first view of the Dunes. The day before they'd had six inches of snow and these lines of white were all that was left after a day of sunshine. We were all amazed and excited, it was my first trip to the dunes.

I had seen the sign for the Dunes on our trip down to Dad's birthday party and I made a mental note to bring the kids on the first opportunity. This was that opportunity.
Posted by Picasa

Omen Mountain

I'm not sure the name of this peak. It's just south of Walsenburg and this picture was taken standing on Highway 160, just after I retreived my hubcap. There are a number of things that I saw on the way that I want to take pictures of -- sometime I don't have three easily bored children with me.
Posted by Picasa

It's All Timing

I checked the weather before we left -- raining Saturday, the day I packed the camping gear, and then supposedly sunny days for our Spring Break week at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. The kids and I were going to have a happy warm trip and come back five days later on Friday.

This is view out the window Thursday morning. Note, I wrote "window", not "tent flap". The weather changed.
Posted by Picasa

Monday, March 19, 2007

Li Mei at the Zoo

Li Mei's hair is getting long; she's had four haircuts since August. Those are new shoes too, size six. She was in a size three in China. She's also going so fast now that the mobility specialist that works with her has constant panic attacks that a face plant into the concrete is imminent.

Jasmine's just started working with a cane, her's is 62 cm long and has a large, tennis ball-sized roller ball at the end. She needs it for outside where the glare (even with clip-on sunglasses over the tinted ones pictured here) blinds her to most details like curbs, uneven footing, and steps. It doesn't stop her from running headlong if she thinks the ground is level and open (and she see's me kneeling to get a picture of her).

This was taken on the 18th, the day after St Patrick's day. It was really warm during the early parts of the afternoon, but finally cooled off as the clouds rolled in and zoo was closing. The overcast skies and lateness of the day meant Mei could take off her hat feel the wind in her hair. She's still squinting, I should have replaced the clip-ons after the Tropical Discovery exhibit.
Posted by Picasa

Zonk Kids

Kai sleeps so soundly that he doesn't realize he's being used as a pillow and Jasmine is so rubbery she can sleep comfortably like that. Jasmine really likes to crash on Kai.

They remind me of puppies when they sleep in a pile.

Theo reminds me that they should go sleep in their own darn beds, no matter how cute they are.
Posted by Picasa