Greyfriars Bobby and I. This little dog sat by his master's grave for fourteen years and was buried by him at the end of his life. Quite the dog lover's story. 

Dunrobin Castle 

Eilean Donan Castle 

 

Caerlaverock Castle 

Glen Coe, Scottish Highlands 

Wallace Monument 

Scottish Heather 

Steps of Scotland 

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, Linlithgow Palace, Finlarig Castle and Duffus Castle (clockwise from top left) 

Terran at the Stacks of Duncansby 

Castle Campbell 

Though I knew that Scotland is an island, I never thought we would spend so much time by the beach 

A few Scottish wildlife 

Before Scotland

I thought that since so much time has elapsed since our return from the highlands of Scotland, I should do a little update on life right now. Time is flying by with a lot happening, though at the moment so I’m at a loss to remember it all.

Week before last, the father of the kids I watch was hit by a car while biking and had to have surgery on his leg. A steel rod was drilled through one of his bones, so that his break would heal. I can’t imagine the pain that would cause, as well as all the bruises one would have from being hit. A lady speeding and passing in a no passing lane hit him when he was turning around. It is a miracle that he is alive. Needless to say I worked a bunch of extra hours taking care of the kids while their mom went to work and spent extra time with Bob at the hospital. The sad thing was that they were supposed to have left for Hawaii last week and had to cancel.

I still got the scheduled time off for my family’s canceled trip and had my mom come for a few days last week. It was a wonderful time. We really enjoyed ourselves, going out for lunch, running around town, and spending a lot of time chatting. On Friday we went to lunch at the True Grit Restaurant in Ridgeway, Co. For you John Wayne fans, it’s the area where they filmed the movie True Grit. The Restaurant has all kinds of John Wayne memorabilia; it’s a fun place and great food.

I had a little adventure yesterday on my jog with the dogs. We were on our way home and I decided to take a different road that would make our jog a little longer. I was running down the street, when I heard a noise behind me. I turned to look, and saw a Rottweiler flying out from under a fence at my dogs and I. He lunged at our bigger dog Kojo, attacking ferociously. I started yelling at him to go home, while trying to pull my two dogs away. Really it was only one of my dogs, because Kaia, the little one, was trying to get away, while Kojo defended himself. I am so relieved that neither dog was hurt. I came home and called the police here in Fruita, and left a message with animal control to file a complaint.
I can’t believe someone would have a dog that aggressive and not make sure it couldn’t get out. I know that they know there’s a problem, because there were two bricks leaning on the outside of fence where the dog came from. I am so glad that my two friends and their babies weren’t with me today. To top it all off I am scared to death of Rottweilers. They are the only dogs I don’t like at all. I cleaned the house from top to bottom to work off my nerves after I was home.


Still trembling,
Naomi

Home again, home again

Our two weeks went so quickly. It was the most wonderful trip. Terran and I enjoyed every moment and I can't wait to share all the details. But for now I need to go to bed, so that I will have energy to play with a two year old and chase a 8 month old, speed crawler tomorrow.

Naomi

We're Off

Well, it's 2:16 am and I'm waiting for my husband to get out of the shower, then we are off. Hard to believe that in a matter of hours a plane will fly us to the great land of Scotland, home of my forefathers. I am very excited though at the moment my cold has my full attention and I'm praying the meds the Dr. gave me work, and that my sweetest, dearest husband does not get this sickness from me.

Talk to you in two weeks (yipee),

Naomi

A Novel

OSMOSIS Chapter one:

I wish that the computer could do osmosis from my brain to my blog. You would have so much more to read if it did. I am constantly thinking of things to write, but it's while I'm out walking the dogs, vacuuming, or cooking; then the moment has passed and I'm out of time or thoughts.
So you, my readers, will have to settle for the few crumbs that come your way. Today I'm going to try and give you a whole slice of "bread of reading" with butter on top.

BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS Chapter two:

My birthday was August 12 and it was a truly wonderful day. For me the celebrating actually started on Friday the 11th with Micah (the little girl I care for) having a birthday party for me. She was so excited about the chocolate cupcakes we had to eat and sang the happy birthday to me in her cute little 2 year old voice with her mom. I will always hold that memory dear.
Terran surprised me with tickets to the Vail International Dance Festival. A night of watching ballroom dancing awaited us and it was incredible. I loved every minute of it!
We also ate the most amazing dinner. The whole thing was incredible, but for me my appetizer stole the show. I ordered cantelope and crab over lettuce with lemon dressing. My initial thought was, 'would it really be good?' My second thought was, 'I don't think I can eat all of it!' The plate was heaping and I knew that I still had my main dish coming. Let's just say that was not a problem. I polished the entire plate in record time and was very disappointed to see the bottom of my plate. I get hungry all over again just thinking about it.

VACATION chapter three:

Terran and I have been crazily running around getting ready for vacation that we will leave for in two weeks. On Friday the 29th we will be heading off to the great land of Scotland for two weeks. We are very excited about this trip, as you can imagine, and can't quite believe that it will really happen. My husband has been amazing in getting everything planned. He has a VERY detailed itinerary for us with each site we are going to see listed out, he has hotels we are staying in all booked and ready to take us on the appointed day. I have gotten to see a very different side of my husband. Around home I'm known as the planner, the person who takes care of things, making sure the bills are paid, that we have meals, that the dogs go to the vet, and all the other things that need to be done. It has been great to see him take the reins on this and run. He is a very talented planner. I look forward to sharing our adventures when we get home.

"YOU'RE COOL" chapter four:

Yesterday while fixing a bike tire for nine year old Trinity, Terran was told he's cool. Trinity is our new Junior Partner and we're his Senior Partners. Terran and I after talking and praying a lot have become youth mentors in a one-on-one program here in Colorado called Partners. It's the same idea as Big Brother, Big Sister programs. The kids in Partners have a higher risk of being in trouble or have been in trouble, because of circumstances in their life. Our job as a SP is to spend time with them each week, (a minimum of 3 hours a week for a year), allowing them to be kids and hopefully show them a different way of life than what they are living. We went through a long interview process and picked Trinity out of the kids that we were matched with. He is a great kid, all boy. When we are out playing he scares me a little bit, because he leaps and then looks. Trinity loves outdoor stuff and sports, but because he has no man in his life there is not much of a chance to do these things. He has really latched on to Terran. We are very excited to see what the next year holds for us with him.

MEEKER chapter five:

Last weekend was the Meeker Classic dog trials, which is a world wide acclaimed sheep herding challenge for Border Collies. We have gone the last four years, claiming it our favorite weekend of the year. Each year we have enjoyed it, though the second one we both got sunburned and didn't enjoy that as much. Terran, when he went back to work, was told people now knew what Canadian bacon looked like. It was quite painful. This year was perfect!!! We enjoyed all the runs the dogs made and after the dinner Saturday night we went to a mini-rodeo. What I love most about it is the community, the dogs handlers all know each other and we've sat next to the same person on Saturday for three years now. For us it's a great, great combination of outdoors, dogs, and people. I'll post some pictures later.

EPILOGUE:

I would love to promise that I will for sure write once more before we leave for Scotland, but when I make these promises to myself or others I fail. So I'm not going to say anything along those lines. :) I'm off to rouse my husband and to see if he's ready to make me his special breakfast of pancakes and maybe take a hike with me in the late morning chill. We had our first frost last night. It's getting cold fast.

Adios,

Naomi

we thought this big, beautiful watermelon was ready when picked it, but it turned out a little pink instead of red inside. Still, we were impressed with the size and will wait longer on the other five in the garden. (Do you like how dirty my legs are from the day spent fishing?)  

Another view 

In all it's glory. We've been pleased with how the Topsey Turvey has worked. The secret is lots and lots of water. If you don't have a lot of space this really is the way to go.  

Our growing watermelon; in the last two days it has tripled in size. It's amaing how these things take off once they start growing. 

Someone's shy 

A brewing summer storm 

Here are our bikes after our REALLY muddy mt. biking ride. The bikes have been rained on the whole way home, so they are some what cleaner than they were to start with.  

Terran took this while hiking one weekend. This picture really appeals to me in some way I can't define.  

I'll try not to bother you all with too many dog pictures, but this one of Kojo on Mt. Sneffels is cool. 

The most incredible view, on top of Mt.Sneffels, 4th of July. 

Who Set This Pace?

Do you ever feel that life is like a horse cart you're driving and suddenly it's speeding along with no horses to give it direction? And as you're racing along you realize that you have no brakes to set a slower pace with; all you can do is hang on and enjoy the ride? That is how I feel our life has been the last month and a half.

Now, my dear faithful readers (you are indeed faithful if you are still checking my blog after this long silence) I have to decide; do I give you a long drawn out account of our life, or do I just write a short, but sweet ditty about some little thing and call it good?

Gardening: Our garden has finally taken off the last few weeks and I'm loving it. We have found that our garden need LOTS of water to grow and thrive. For a while everything had hit a growing block, much to our disappointment. Then I had a laps of judgement, that in the end saved it all.
I was in a hurry to meet a friend for a walk and knew I wouldn't have time to water that evening when I got home, so I decided to set up the soaker hoses, saving myself some time. I got everything set up, turned on and left feeling quite good that I had figured out a way to do two things at once left. When I returned some hours later, I could only stare at our garden that along with a large part of the lawn looked like a fish pond. The next day the water had dried up and two days later you could actually see a difference in the plants. I think that we will have some watermelon at the end of the summer, lots of red peppers, and cucumbers. Now we water the garden every other day for fifteen minutes and all is well.
The Topsy Turvy's are working. We have one tomato so far and are hoping for more. Our biggest problem has been, we didn't realize that they need water everyday and so our plants got slightly dehydrated.

Dogs: The dogs have been taking up a huge amount of time. Actually Kaia, our 1 year old puppy has been taking up a huge amount of time. She decided that she was scared of the backyard (she'd sit by the back door and tremble all over when we put her out) and therefore had to dig out every time she was left. The digging was a pain to fix and incredible at the same time. She dug through one of our fence boards and half of a 4 by 4 post. I didn't know dogs could dig and chew their way through wood like that. She never ran away from home, she'd wait by the front door till we got home to let her back in the house.
Kaia also forgot what potty trained meant, because of her fear and we had to start all over on training. Finally after several weeks of re-training and a good carpet cleaning we're back to normal. I have wondered if her fear had anything to do with the x-large men's underwear we found shredded in the back yard. I guess we'll never know.

Outdoor Adventures: Summer is wonderful, because of all the great things you can do outside. We just love it!
4th of July we went and climbed Mt. Sneffles (elevation of 14'150 ft.) with the dogs. It was awesome, the hike was short and intense, with the most incredible views. The dogs went the whole way with us. They needed help climbing in several areas and LOTS of encouragement to climb up and down some ledges. They weren't the only ones that needed help or encouragement. :) While hiking we met up with a lady who is from Calgary and lives in Colorado with her American husband and family. We had the most awesome time talking to her about the Lord (Kristin is a Christian), other good hikes, and she shared part of her testimony about how God brought the daughter she gave up for adoption years ago, and her back together. I cried the whole time she shared it. I am so awed and humbled by how much the Lord loves us and how He truly directs our steps. Her story made Him so real to me. We've been calling Kristin our divine appoinment, because of how it all worked out.
Yesterday we lived on the wild side. We met up with a couple guys from Terran's work and went mountain biking in the rain and mud. It was pretty intense. We biked seven miles and at the end of it were complelty covered in mud. I don't remember being that dirty when I made mud pies as a child. The mud was so thick in someplaces that our bike tires wouldn't even turn. After I got over my some of my fear I had a blast. The dogs loved every moment of it and were just as dirty as we were.

Well... there is a long drawn out account of just some of the things we've been doing. I think now I'm going to go catch up on reading everyone elses blogs, and see what my husband wants to do this rainy Sunday morning. This is the first rainy weekend we've had all summer and it's been relaxing.

Trying to keep up with the cart,

Naomi

How Our Garden Grows

This years' experiment. My parents sent us this Topsy Turvy, that is suppose to allow tomatoes grow up side down. They hang from the house or a fence filled with the dirt. Terran and I are excited to see how they work.