art gypsies fall fun

Sometimes we do art, sometimes we scrap, sometimes we CRAFT. These pumpkins were so fun to do. Becky got some mason jar tops (you can buy them separate at Walmart) and we used her colorful washi tape (all sorts to choose from at Michaels) and wrapped them around, leaving some without. Then simply tie them together from the middle forming a pumpkin shape. We then took some Aspen tree trunks from outside for the stems. Put ribbons, string or leaves on them...and ta da!  Cutie pumpkin craft.

Kim brought her fabulous stash of paper, embellishments, stickers...

You name it, she had it to share.

We painted the clothes hangers and went with a Halloween or Fall theme.

Ribbons, leaves...all sorts of goodies to go with. 

I love how all of them turned out. 

As usual, every one was different and creative!

Becky and Nancy used old vintage Halloween cards to embellish with.

A-dorable.

Rachel covered the whole back of her hanger. Great idea too.

Up to the cabin

Last year some of the "Art Gypsies" went up to one of our artsy gals family cabin. It is in the Aspen area about 4 hours or so from here and we went up again this year. There is this fabulous artsy town called Basalt on the way up. So cute. We had to stop and shop a tad and eat on the river.

We got to the adorable and rustic "Swiss chalet" feeling cabin. It's just precious. Filled with loads of love and family/friends memories. It's been in Becky's husbands family for more than 30 years or so.

We we got there we had to check out the colors...off on a little walk we went.

Had to take pictures.

The aspens were just at the beginning of turning. Omygoodness, if you have never seen the glorious and majestic aspen trees in the Fall in Colorado, you are in for a real treat. This was my first time seeing them turn and they weren't even at their peak yet.

We all so needed to get away and snuggle up with some friendship love.

Fantastic and intriguing Kerstin (of whom is from Germany and brought THE best food to share) shared her skills of photography with me. I am pretty clueless with my big fancy camera, to say the least.

This is the lake near the cabin we walked around for the weekend. Can I say....awe-some?....Yes.

This is a peak that is grand and ....I forgot it's name. But whatever, it's glorious.

So the artsy fartsy craftsy time started.

We tend to make a monkey mess.

But who cares...it's all in fun.

We all have our own style and twist on whatever we do.

I will put what we worked on in a different post.

Then the food and cocktails began.

We played games, had German "hot mulled wine" and tons (I mean TONS!) of fun and belly laughing. Like, our bellies hurt from laughing so hard.

Off to casual hiking again the next day...

Snuggles and friendship smiles all around...

Then we had to say goodbye. To the snow that had fallen. To the laughs, the creative juices, the Fireball, the good stories, the warm fire, the blessings of times with incredible friendships, the yummiest food....you get the idea.

Sniff sniff.

See you next year, beautiful Aspen.

Here and there happenings

Super sweet to come home to this 

handmade decoration from the girls (and Nana!)

They are tissue paper flowers. Huge and colorful fun.

We decided we had enough fancy dinners on our trip, so we pulled out the fancy Lennox and had a FANCY dinner with family for our anniversary date. 

We ate big fat yummy steaks and had big fat full hearts.

And smiles. We dug out old wedding pictures, my Mom brought over old wedding plans...and we shared it all with eachother. Sweetness.

Okay, I don't even know what to say about Colorado this summer. Just complete devastation and sadness only 40 minutes or so from us. The fires south of us and the floods just north of us.

Hannah decided that her and a sweet friend wanted to be "football managers" for the 8th grade tackle football team this year.

They did scoring, stats, water, uniforms, relay times...etc.

Of course some boy watching too.

Especially the cute ones I assume!

They had fun (not all the time I don't think!) working with the team- at ALL practices and games. I think Hannah had a life lesson from us as we said a couple times...."if you agree/commit to something, you follow through and DO NOT quit..."

Lesson learned.

Somebody loves fancy tea time.

And not so fancy tea time.

And tea time with special furry friends.

(I used to line all my stuffed friends up just like this!!)

A Denver field trip to the Capital.

8th graders jumping for joy not being in class?

Hiking with Daddy.

More hiking with Daddy.

Birthday gals.

My sweetie homemaker that loves to help around the house....WITHOUT me having to ask, mind you. Totally cool. Oh, she is gonna make one fabulous Mama some day! 

And she makes this Mama very happy being so helpful.

Some snow appearing slowly around us!

Hello San Juan, Puerto Rico

The next few blog posts are our cruise we took in September. I'm a little behind with the blog world! Josh and I started dating on September 23rd 25 YEARS ago this month. We got married on September 23rd...so we pretty much celebrate all the years of our love, just not the married years. This year was a big one, so we HAD to do something special.

How blessed and rare we know we are. Our love keeps growing, changing, becoming more comfortable, more dreamy....more than I could ever have imagined. We planned this trip because it had been almost 13 years since we went on a "real" vacation (like, going far away for a whole 7 nights kind of vacation). WAY overdue. Here is our adventure....

We arrived at our LaConcha resort in San Juan and we were welcomed by a posh, modern suite. 

It was perfect right on the beach. Aaaah, beach.

We ate, swam...we soaked....we chilled.

The pools were divine. The atmosphere was welcoming after a loooong night/day. Josh didn't sleep AT ALL and I got one hour. We left our place at 2am to get to our plane in Denver.

There were all these swanky chairs everywhere in the resort. 

I will spare you ALL the pictures of me in fun chairs we took!

We decided to hit the casino and struck it rich! 

Ok, only $40...but figuring it was on the penny slots...hey, that's pretty great! 

By now we were waaaay past tired and a bit giddy. 

I will spare you the crazy pictures again!

We went to historical downtown and ate some authentic Puerto Rican food for both dinner and lunch.(smashed green banana plantains are huge here)

The architecture was fabulous downtown San Juan.

Went to the famous National Park "The Fort" and toured it.

We said goodbye San Juan, Puerto Rico and hello cruise ship!