Official Announcement

Back in April Dustin set up his own professional website. It has the drawings he did for his thesis project and will be updated regularly. This is his site for people to see his art and purchase it. I'm really proud of him for getting it set up and I think it looks really nice. You should check it out too!

Hinton Studios

I also have included a permanent link down the right hand column with our other links.

Enjoy!

Birds

While we were at the visitor's center at the Sand Dunes we picked up a pocket naturalist guide: Colorado Birds - an introduction to familiar species. We have enjoyed identifying birds around our home and the places we walk or work in Dustin's case.

When Dustin is at work he regularly sees Red-winged Blackbirds, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, and Red-tailed Hawks.

At home we see House Sparrows and House Finches, both of which regularly feed from our bird feeder, American Robins and when there's lots of water around on the sidewalk Killdeer. I sometimes get to see a Brewer's Blackbird or two. As we walk toward the river in the side of Plachy Hall are Cliff Sparrows. Walking along the river we get to see American Coot, Mallards, Black-billed Magpies and we're pretty sure that one time we saw a Western Scrub Jay. When we walk across campus we see Rock Pigeons. This morning I looked out the window to find....

a Mourning Dove. The pictures were taken through the window so I enhanced them for you to see better. I was pretty excited!

To learn more about these birds go to http://www.allaboutbirds.org, it's a really great site that we have enjoyed the past couple of days.

Today Dustin said that he also saw a Ferruginous Hawk while at work.

**I fixed the link for the website for you all to enjoy!

National Parks Passport

Dustin remembered having a National Parks Passport growing. We're not real sure where it ended up. While we were at the Sand Dunes we decided to stop at the visitors center to see if they had any for sale any more.

We were in luck they did. We bought one for Dustin and me to share and one for the kids, which right now is just David.

We were so excited to get them. We were even able to get our first two cancellations. We were able to get one for the Sand Dunes and one for the Old Spanish Trail which we drove Thanksgiving two years ago and didn't even know it, more to follow at the end. Our goal now is to get as many stamps in an area as we can.

So far we have three trips planned that will get us three cancellations. At the very end of this month we will be going to the Petroglyphs in Albuquerque. Father's Day weekend, along with Day out with Thomas we will also go to Mesa Verde and Yucca House. We are pretty excited. Then probably in July we will drive out to Hovenweep which is in both Utah and Colorado. We will have to drive to Utah and hike into the parts in Colorado. That will be an all day trip for us but we are excited none the less.

We are also looking forward to getting more cancellations when we move back to Fort Collins. Anyone up for a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park or Dinosaur National Monument?

Back to the Old Spanish Trail....

According to the paper we picked up on it the Old Spanish National Historic Trail is America's 15th national historic trail. It spans 6 states (New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California) which is about 3 different main routes used. If you want more information about it here are two sites I would recommend.

www.nps.gov/olsp

www.oldspanishtrail.org

These sites give history, routes, access points, etc. Check them out.

Sand Dunes a.k.a. The Beach Sand Dunes

Wednesday, David and I went to the Sand Dunes for a friend's birthday get together. David had so much fun running around and playing in the creek. I had forgotten to grab the camera from the car and got no pictures to prove the fun that was had. David and Michael declared certain parts of the "beach" for "just boys, NO girls!" It was too funny to hear the declaration, I wish I would have had the camera to get a little clip of it. Anyway, David was really sad when it was time to go, so I consoled him by saying we would go back on Saturday with Dustin.

Saturday the three of us went back to the beach sand dunes. (That is what David calls it). We were there from about 10am until 2pm. We had so much fun and we were situated in the perfect place. Our own little beach was surrounded by trees and a hill that blocked most of the morning wind so that it wasn't too windy or cold where we sat. The water was freezing but of course as the day went on the water warmed up. Dustin took the time to build a castle. David being the little gentleman that he is asked where the lady for the castle was. Dustin made a lady for the castle. There is one picture of a random boy trying to fish in the creek. David saw that little boy and was asking to fish too.

It Finally Happened!

I am so proud to announce that Dustin graduated on Saturday, May 9th. I am so proud of all the hard work he did to make it to this point. I am just so excited that he's done, now we are both college graduates. Here are some pictures of us after the ceremony. David didn't really want to cooperate with more pictures from Grandmas and Aunt Danielle (I think he had reached his limit).

To entertain David I had packed his backpack. After the ceremony David had no interest in carrying his backpack or wearing his tie, so......

Grandpa David is wearing the tie and carrying the backpack. That silly Grandpa!

WHAT!?!?!

Who raises this kid?!?

Who teaches him these things?!?

It's not me and it's not Dustin, so this behavior has got to come from somewhere. If you know where David gets this please contact us and let us know so that we might avoid that person in the future! :)

Too Many Cooking Shows?

This evening I was getting dinner served up. When I grabbed my drink there was play doh on it. David told us it was a flower and that it needed to be on my cup. Have we been watching too many cooking shows that David feels the need to garnish things? Come to think of it I don't know of any shows we have seen cooking or other wise that have had flowers on the cups for garnish. Too funny to pass up on the blogging though.

What We've Been Up To

Catch.

We bought a set of those sticky paddles with ball, to try to start teaching David how to play catch. We're still working on it. The game is fun to play anyway even though David will not throw the ball at us but past us or to the side of us. We're working on it. There's a video at the bottom of this post.

Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles.

We bought David a large bottle of bubbles and have enjoyed playing with them outside. When it's a little windy we will still go outside to play bubbles because then I don't have to blow them the wind does is for me. No matter how long we play it's never enough for David.

Video of David playing Catch.