Happy 4th of July!

This is the first 4th of July I can ever remember wishing for it to rain. They've canceled the fireworks in most cities in CO due to fire danger, so no fireworks for us this year. No rain, either. Just more hot, dry weather. It's strange for the 4th to be so quiet.. No bottle rockets, big explosions, or even kids squealing about their sparklers. Oddly flags did appear at the end of everyone's driveways last night. We think it was this weird realtor who is always putting ads on the porch? Not sure, but it is pretty festive!

We did have a lovely day - yard work, preparing for tomorrow's overnight guest (Yay!), painting dining room chairs, and BBQ. I also made my first blueberry pie, and it turned out better than I could have hoped. I tweaked my Mom's pie crust recipe to make it gluten free, and it actually worked! Here is the recipe, because I know that GF pie crust is a bit of a holy grail:

GF Pie Crust

1 c sorghum

½ c glutenous rice flour

½ c almond flour

1 tsp salt

2/3 c oil mixed with 4 T cold milk (coconut milk works too!)

Mix dry ingredients directly in pie plate. Mix milk and oil until combined, and then add to dry ingredients, reserving 1 tbsp. Once dry and wet ingredients are combined, press into pie plate, reserving some for top crust. Mixture should be a bit sandy, but when you press into the side of the plate it should be sticky enough not to crumble. If necessary add the extra milk/oil to achieve the right texture. Bake at 425 for about 10 minutes until the crust is a little toasted. Add filling. For top crust: either just crumble the reserved crust on top of the pie, or first mix in 1 tsp sugar, 1 tbsp oats/quinoa flakes and a bit of butter, and then crumble on top of filling. Bake per pie directions.

Hope everyone had a good holiday!

Not on fire!

There has been a lot of focus on the wildfires in CO, and the Flagstaff fire is actually only 7 or 8 miles from here. I have pictures of that too, but wanted to share some photos from our hike yesterday that show just how lush some of the state still is.

Colorado Columbine

These are from up near Nederland, on the Woodland Lake trail. I cannot begin to describe how beautiful the entire hike was (I've never seen such wildflowers!), but hopefully the pictures will give you some idea.

So many wildflowers by the stream!

Skyscraper Reservoir

Neat little flower!

Field of wildflowers, extra lush by the stream.

The flowers even grew on a log!

Dead Sea

A coworker who looks much younger than his years told me today, "I'm so old I've been around since the Dead Sea was only sick."

:) Happy Friday!

Buzzz....

What is it about having a giant fly buzzing around the house that activates our hunting instincts?

Also, swearing.

Bunny!

Our neighborhood has an infestation.

...of cute!

There are bunnies EVERYwhere. Except our backyard because the previous owners were obsessed with keeping them out. (I mean seriously.. They buried the chicken wire a foot and a half under the ground so the bunnies couldn't dig under it! My future garden thanks them.)

This afternoon we were looking at some birds' nests in the tree in the front yard when I noticed a very small, very scared little bunny.

AWWWWW

Chris decided to see how close he could get, and the answer was.. Closer than you might think!

Double Awww!

And that is your dose of cute for the day :)

So many characters!

Man oh man.. What to say? I've been slacking! Well, sortof. Only on the Naturally Sweet front, not on the every-other-aspect-of-life front. May was crazy busy, and a lot of that was in preparation for the crazy busy of June. Some of it wasn't, though!

One thing.. Remember how I said I seem to have started writing a book? Yeah, well.. I didn't touch it at all in the month of May. Sorry, characters! I've been busy working with other characters. Namely, my student staff for the summer. The last two weeks have brought me an Intern (ohh the post I will write about loving having an Intern!) and eight amazing student staff members, who have all needed to be trained, while still attempting to get everything else done. Translation: several 11 hour days and working on weekends. Yikes.

Thankfully that all started right after the last weekend of choir concerts and finishing the first write-through of a (super-amazing omg I can't wait till it's in a state to be shared!!) project with a friend. I said I was writing a book and accidentally got side-tracked into writing a different book than the one I mentioned before. Awesome. :)

Add onto that a fair bit of exercise and continuing our Colorado wanderings in hopes of managing to climb a 14'er by the end of the year, and you have a very busy but very happy me.

The first couple weeks of June promise to be even busier with work stuff so I can't say I'll be posting much, though if we make it hiking I will try to toss out some pictures. Until then, here's a picture of the pretty flowers in our front yard!