Happy Campers

We've been talking with some friends of ours about doing a camping trip together since April when the weather was just beginning to get warmer. As the summer has zoomed by we simply hadn't ever sat down and made plans. Then suddenly August is upon us and the nights are getting cooler, especially in the mountains. We decided this was the last of the camping weather and we'd better make the best of it. So we went on a last-minute camping trip this weekend. We packed the car Thursday night, I picked up Landon from work on Friday afternoon and we were off to the mountains. His first camping trip, and Griffin loved spending all day outdoors.

Two boys setting up the tent. Griffin really thought he was being a big helper

Griffin and I playing in the little creek near our campsite

Nothing says outdoors like cooking food on sticks. This is my favorite picture from the trip, just look at how happy those two are!

I was pleasantly surprised that Griffin slept way better than Landon or I did on the hard ground in a tent. We loved the friends, the s'mores, the campfire, the creek...and best of all, the telescope! Our friends, the Fredericksons, had brought their enormous telescope (about 4 feet long and 10in diameter) to look at the stars. And I cannot tell you how very very cool it was to look at the moon through that thing. The Sea of Tranquility never looked more tranquil. Incredible! Landon and Nate had a lot of fun trying to find star clusters and galaxies. Julie and I preferred to keep warm by the fire and then come over and look when they'd found something interesting. This was probably one of my favorite camping experiences ever!

Hiding, Seeking, Demolishing

This is what comes, dear friends, of playing hide-and-go-seek with a toddler. Allow me to explain.

Recently Griffin has loved playing this game that closely resembles hide-and-go-seek. He chases us and we run behind a corner, into another room, or behind the couch and then jump out at him when he turns the corner. He squeals in surprise and then runs around so we can do it all over again.

The other day we were playing this game down in our basement when Griffin ran into the basement bedroom and shut the door behind him. He'd done this already several times in the course of the game, but we started getting suspicious when he didn't rattle the door handle to get back out immediately. After about a thirty seconds of playful calling to him, we realized that he'd locked himself in the bedroom.

As has been discussed on this blog before, our home is full of re-po surprises. We had one such surprise when we examined the door handle (which he had never before paid much attention to) and realized that it had a locking mechanism that required a key. A key that we did not own. We spent about 10 minutes trying hangers, credit cards, windows, and careful instructions to Griffin before we finally realized there was only one way to get our son out of there: cut through the drywall.

Meanwhile, Griffin thought all of this was hilarious. "Haha! I've found the best hiding place. Haha! Mom and Dad are so funny wiggling their fingers under the door like they are going to get me. Haha! isn't it exciting to knock on the door with Mom and Dad?" It wasn't until we started pounding a hole in the wall that Griffin went from curious to nervous to scared to hysterical in a matter of 20 seconds.

Once we finally got through the wall and opened the door, Griffin was glad to be out of there. Poor guy! Luckily, it hasn't deterred his enthusiasm for hide-and-go-seek

The cabin

For the 4th of July, we took Griffin on his very first road trip. He did great on the 8 hour drive to Alpine, Wyoming, where Landon's grandpa has a cabin. We met up with Landon's family there and had a much-needed extended weekend. We played games in the woods and rode around on an ATV during the day, and played board games and roasted s'mores at night. Griffin loved seeing his aunts and uncles and playing with his cousin Addie. It was such a fun weekend and I can't wait for the next Huber family cabin trip.

This was a huge mining crane we saw on our drive to the cabin. You can't tell from this picture, but this is the most giant crane I've ever seen in my life...and I've been around my fair share of construction sites. To give you a feel for the size, that spec to the left of the crane is its bucket, the much smaller spec to the right...that's a semi-truck. If a semi looks like a spec, you know that thing's huge.

Here's a picture of everyone who made it to the cabin. Don't be surprised if you see this on a Christmas card sometime in the future.

Griffin learns about dirt

Two cute cousins sharing a snack

I thought these were rather clever self-portraits I took while Landon and I took a sunrise ride around on the ATV. It was freezing cold, especially once we got going fast.

Another self-portrait. We look like characters off of Mario-Cart

Addie and Griffin enjoying an afternoon swing. They were both grinning right before I took this picture. I think they were confused when I made them stop swinging to take the photo.

Griffin and Uncle Bubba

this was the coolest tire swing I've ever seen. It swing back and forth and side to side. Griffin would have spent all day every day in this swing if I would have let him.

Griffin's Grandma Huber was much more patient than I and would push Griffin in the swing to his heart's content.

Take the cake

Last year we were in Greece for Landon's birthday. It was amazing, but I missed out on making him a proper birthday cake. So I felt that this year I had to compensate for last year's cop-out of a pre-made sponge cake and nutella. I think I succeeded, you be the judge:

Relent, Recoil, Reupholster!

I am so proud of myself! No really. I'm hang-it-on-the-refrigerator, I-deserve-a-medal, blinking-applause-sign, spell-it-out-pommie-style P-R-O-U-D! Proud!

Perhaps, this feels slightly over the top. And no doubt it is. But please, allow me to explain.

Just before we first moved to Denver, Landon's Grandma graciously gave us two chairs that she no longer needed. As we had almost no furniture at the time, we were very very grateful for anything that meant we didn't have to sit on the floor. This is what the chairs looked like.

I don't know if you can tell or not, but these are very comfy chairs. However, as you can tell they had seen some wear and tear. And so I decided that I would reupholster them eventually. A couple of weeks ago, when my fantastic friend Becky was visiting, we decided that "eventually" had arrived and it was time to attempt the task. Tear off the old fabric, slap on some new, a few staples and we're in business. Seems pretty straight-forward, right? Not so.

Truth be told, I had no idea how to reupholster before I started tearing the old faux leather off. (Thanks, Becky, for your help on this part). Only then did I begin to realize what I'd gotten myself into. Here's a picture of one of the chairs completely disassembled.

After I took this picture I realized that it's actually missing several pieces including the arms of the chair and the hardware that holds the buttons in place, along with two missing fabric pieces, but I'm guessing you get the idea.

This is Griffin laughing at me, he liked poking at the disassembled chair with a screwdriver and fought with me for whatever tool I was using at the time. Yeah, he thinks he's a big help.

I'm sorely tempted to go into the nitty gritty detail about sewing technique, staple guns, and unexpected hand-stitching, but instead I'll just say that this was a lot of detail-oriented work with a mean learning curve. Anyway, after a few weeks of work (the most productive work getting done during Griffin's naps) I'm happy to unveil the finished product:

DRUMROLL........

Ta-da!

Seriously, I couldn't be happier with how these turned out. Don't they make a nice little sitting area for our bedroom? Here's a close-up of the fabric:

And another angle, just for fun...and to stroke my ego a little. Tell me what you think.

Little MOUSE on the Prairie

One week ago I got ambitious and started a garden. We're planning to have a little vegetable patch outside our backdoor. I had visions of a bountiful harvest and delicious salads. I'm guessing most of the world agrees with me that there is nothing better than a garden-fresh tomato.

Since Colorado is still toying with freezing temperatures, we started with an indoor garden tray to cultivate our fragile little tomato and bell pepper seeds into plants before moving them outside. I was thrilled when a few days after planting we saw minuscule sprouts shrugging out of the dirt. "Hoorah!," I thought, "I'm a horticultural genius!"

However yesterday disaster struck sometime in the night. We woke to discover that something...some creature had dug up our seedlings. This disturbed me for several reasons which I choose to present in no particular order in the list below:

• I am not a filthy person and I was frustrated to have a filthy rodent in my home, which challenged my self-image of cleanliness
• My garden was ruined
• I really didn't like to think of Griffin 'discovering' a mouse in the house
• I disliked all of my options for disposing of the little beast
• I've heard that mice never come alone...they bring their friends

Ew! It gives me the Heebie Jeebies just thinking about it. Lucky for me I have a very chivalrous husband who bought traps and other mouse-exterminating paraphernalia. After Griffin went to bed we baited our traps and patiently waited...for about 15 minutes.

One quick snap and it was all over for our furry little house guest. Again, my knight in shining armor stepped up and disposed of the carnage and I didn't even have to look at it. I feel a little wimpy and ashamed of being so prissy but those mousey guillotine things really gross me right out.

Hopefully, there was just one. But we are not taking any chances, we've got another trap ready and waiting for any other potential house invaders.

What a helper

I've been meaning to post for several weeks now, but it just seems to fall to the bottom of my priority list. In a head-to-head competition sleep, dishes, laundry, diapers, and (let's be honest) a batch of cookies have won out over blogging for several weeks in a row.

However, here's a brief update on the goings-on here in the Huber house:

At the end of March we had a huge snow storm blow through and dump almost a foot of snow. Bummer, because that meant that it was freezing cold. My dad called me and told me that AZ was sitting at a glorious 78 degrees that week, I think he's trying to convince us to move back to the Grand Canyon State. On the bright side, Landon wasn't able to drive into work because of all of the snow. So he worked from home. We had a fun lunch break playing in the snow.

I'm sure you remember Landon's snow sculpture of George Washington last year. Well this year what started out as a snow slide for Griffin turned into a snow sculpture of a dog. Griffin is always saying "woof, woof" to our neighbor's dogs and so we thought it only appropriate to give him one of his very own. Sorry Griffin, that's about as close as you're getting to a pet for now. Feast your eyes on this:

As per usual for Colorado, three days after the snowstorm we were sitting at 70 degrees. And with the warmer weather, spring seems to be shrugging out of its oppressive winter coat. The grass has turned a promising shade of green and our neighborhood is sprinkled with budding leaves. As I predicted, this year the dandelions are back. Some of you may remember that last year I spent several hours and lots of energy weeding my backyard. Lucky for me, now I have a helper:

Yeah Griffin, that's how I feel about them too.