Sour Dough

Yep.

I made that. 

It's sour dough bread.  

I made the starter.

I made the bread.

I baked the bread.

I misted the oven every 5 minutes to get a nice crusty outside.

I tasted it - it's good!

I think the longer the starter sits the more sour the bread.

We'll make more next week.

Winter Wonderland Easter!?!

Yep you read that right.  Winter Wonderland.  We woke up to snow yesterday morning which melted by bedtime and once again this morning we woke up to snow.  It snowed all through church.  It is still snowing now.  It's beautiful and makes Easter special in a different way than I had planned.

Anyway...David in his Easter suit.  He was hammin' it up this morning when I was trying to get pictures before church.  These were the best I could get.  Thank you Grandma & Grandpa for the suit.  David is soooo handsome.  We'll make sure to put it on him for graduation in a few weeks, so you can see it in person.

Fort Garland

Wednesday Dustin was in Denver all day so David and I took a little fieldtrip. We drove out to Fort Garland to visit the Museum. It was really fun to check out an old military fort and learn more about it. When I paid for my admission I was given a sheet with information about the fort. Enjoy the pictures and the information is at the bottom, if you want to read it. After visiting the fort we ran over the to Veterans Memorial because there was a cool plane there.

Fort Garland

1858-1883

As a result of the U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848) and the resulting Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, Mexico ceded much of the Southwest to the United States. Having considerably increased its size, the U.S. build forts throughout the West to protect existing settlements and to encourage future expansion. Fort Garland was but one of these new forts.

Several bands of Utes inhabited western Colorado, northern New Mexico, and much of Utah. Having been here for thousands of years prior to the arrival of the U.S., they resisted Spanish and Anglo settlement. Other American Indian nations also vied for this land, both with the Utes and incoming settlers.

The first fort in the area was Fort Massachusetts, built in 1852 six miles northeast of Fort Garland. It was located away from American Indian trails and situated between two mountains, making it potentially vulnerable to enemies. For this reason, Fort Massachusetts was closed and its men and equipment moved to Fort Garland on June 24, 1858.

Fort Garland was built on land leased from the Sangre de Cristo Mexican Land Grant. Like Fort Union, headquarters of the New Mexico Department on the Santa Fe Trail, it was built with adobe. The primary mission of the fort was to protect settlers from potential Ute and Plains Indian attachs. It was named for Brevet Bridadier General John Garland, then in command of the Department of New Mexico. Once it was completed, the fort had twenty-two buildings. Today the two barracks which housed infantry and cavalry companies still stand in their restored form. Three other restored buildings comprise the Officers' Quarters and one building - the Company Quarters - is a reconstructed building erected in 1960.

During the Civil War, Texas Confederate General Henry Sibley had designs on Colorado gold fields which could provide needed resources for the South. To read Colorado, he needed to overtakes forts in New Mexico. Hearing word of this, the newly designated Colorado Territory (1861) prepared to defend its land and gold from the Confederates. In 1861, Colorado Volunteers marches through hazardous winter weather to join forces with New Mexico Volunteers, fending off Texas Confederates in the Battle of Glorieta Pass. Union soldiers destroyed Confederate supplies and rebuffed troop movements, thus thwarting Sibley's effort to bring the Civil War to the West.

Christopher "Kit" Carson commanded New Mexico Volunteers here from 1866 to 1867. Through his knowledge of native languages and culture, he was able to negotiate treaties with Chief Ouray and the Utes. As a result of the treaties, the Utes moved to reservations in southwestern Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Following the Civil War, Buffalo Soldiers (freed African American slaves), stationed in forts throughout the West, served here between 1876 and 1879. Having served the expanding West for twenty-five years, and having outlived its purpose, the fort was abandoned in 1883 by the U.S. military.

Forays in Fibbery

David is learning the art of fibbing.  We don't really want him to learn this but somehow he is.  Here are two recent examples of his attempts.

Scenario #1:

Sunday night dinner.  David wanted to eat dessert but not his dinner.  Dustin & I had finished long before and were doing other things and trying to entice David to eat his dinner.  Dustin made a deal with David that for every bite he took of dinner he could have a bite of pie.  David thought about this for a minute and said, "I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it."  Dustin took the opportunity to double check that David had tried it, to which David responded, "I tried it, I don't like it."  Dustin checked once again and the answer was, "I didn't try it."  After taking some bites David said, "I like it, it's yummy.  I get a bite of pie."  He proceeded to count each bite of pie he got with every bite of dinner he took.

Scenario #2:

Dustin was in the shower, I was reading in our room and David was learning letters on the computer.  David comes into my room saying that his hands are dirty.  I ask him to show me his hands so that I know what I need to clean up.  He shows me the balled up fists and says, "Nothing."  I ask David again what is on his hands, he tells me "nothing, just dirty".  I finally get him to show me his hands and they  are black.  My first thought was that he had gotten into the Sharpies and had drawn places he shouldn't have.  I came out to the desk to find my black stamp pad opened.  I had my new stamp pads on the desk so that I could start Dustin's graduation announcements.