Ponies are for loving.

 We all got new toys for Christmas. My new toy was a camera. Good news for me an blog followers. Bad news for Eric and Tess and anyone else within "shooting" distance. But somedays an after lunch walk up Middle Bear is worth putting up with mom following behind and clicking.

My favorite season is approaching

Fall is here! Fall is here! Time to start getting up at dark thirty to put Tess on the school bus...but getting rewarded by mother earths beautiful sunrises! Time for a road trip before the roads become unpredictable!

There's gold in 'em 'there hills!

Fire season too, but sometimes fires can be fun. The smallest Glendo Rural fireman.

First day of first grade.

Summer in a nutshell

Tess is counting the days until school...18 as of today. She can't wait to be in the first grade and is excited to have a new teacher Mrs. Miller (her mom and dad are pretty excited about Mrs. Miller too.) But, we have tried to keep Tess busy this summer and I was finally able to get blogger to cooperate.Been spending some time at the lake. Here is Tess jumping waves at the boat ramp.
Tess rode with Dennis on this float in the Glendo Days parade.

After living in Glendo for the majority of my years, I finally own a boat. From the look on this guys face he is a dangerous boat driver. We have discovered that boating is a trial by fire expereince, but we have enjoyed getting out on the lake and playing with friends on the water.

Tess enjoys parking at Sandy Beach and then swimming.

We spent a weekend in Colorado Springs.

and of course the carnival at Frontier Days, followed by a perfect BBQ at Delancey's.

AND, Tess has a big horse.

Eric has still been working on the corrals this summer.

Tess has been taking swimming lessons from our friend Zane when we can make it. They seem to have a great time and Tess is gaining more confidence.

She went to Camp Invention earlier this summer in Wheatland. It was a week long science camp. Now she likes to invent and build and you never know what you might wake up to find in her room.

Tess inherited the camping gene from her Curtis relatives. We weren't able to make it to the family reunion this year, but we had to promise Tess we'd go camping. Here is camp just a few miles up Middle Bear. The camp cook still needs a few lessons, but this is one of her favorite things.

Eighteen days left.

Cousin Joseph's visit

Back in May, when Wyoming weather still required hoods (and we aren't holding our breath about today's weather either) Cousin Jo and his crew came to visit. Of course the first order of business for the Palen boys was a horse ride. Aunt Wendy didn't think a trip would be complete without giving Crackers a scratch or two.
Tess, Jo and Brian checkin out the BIG fish at the hatchery.

Ocho's getting bigger too.

Tess and Jo after her ballet recital.

The great honey hunt

My first hive of bees from summer 2010 did not make it through the strange Wyoming winter. However, the were kind enough to expire before they at all their honey stores.

So on one of the nice days this spring Tess and I harvested a few frames of honey, leaving a few for this years batch of bees. Nice frame of capped honey.

My uber-technical extraction system consists of my metal spatula

and a couple of five gallon buckets.

We scraped comb and all into a five gallon bucket with holes in the bottom placed upon another bucket. Most of the honey dripped down into the bottom bucket leaving the wax behind.

All in all we bottled about 8 cups of honey.

Not bad for my first season and having left some behind. This years bees are doing well considering the weather has been so crummy for them. There were some beautiful plum blossoms, but they were pummled by a hail storm, it has been cold and rainy but I think we are on an upslope, lilacs and chockcherries are blooming now so hopefully it won't take long to start seeing honey in the hive.

New critters

Here is our new foal, Ocho, just a few hours oldMeeting new friends at about 2 days old.

One month old...yes, it has been a long time since I've posted!

My new critters.

More backstage at the zoo

Did I fail to mention that the "backstage pass" came with our own paparazzi?

I really think the Cheeta is giving me the evil eye here...or maybe its Eric. Whomever it was, there wasn't much getting by this cheeta.

Petting the handsome rhinos.

Flamingo feeding

More flamingo feeding.

Red Kangaroo - I couldn't believe how soft these critters were - incredible!

More fun with the Rhinos

yikes. Hand sanitizer was also provided!

Long eared kitty, also a magnicifent creature.

While the zoo does a fantastic job with their animal ambassadors and with conservation of critters, nothing was more breathtaking on our trip than to have the dolphins jumping near our kayaks in their own wild habitat, where I was an intruder on their waves. I wish I had taken my paparazzi so I could share that as well.

Spring Break

Tess has been wanting to see the ocean. So over spring break we loaded up on a big jet plane and headed south and west to see the ocean in San Diego. We went to the San Diego Zoo. We went on a "backstage pass" tour where we got to pet, feed and see animals up close. Brushing the rhinos. They love this...almost as much as alfalfa cubes.

Cheetah with his golden retriever friend. Some of the ambassador animals are raised with dogs so that they won't be so nervous in crowds. It must work since we didn't get eaten.

We had to go behind this zebra's exhibit to get to another and he couldn't resist coming to see what we were up to.

We were feeding flamingos! Did you know flamingos eat dog food soaked in water.

Here is Tess feeding one.

We got to howl with this Artic wolf. Their sound is haunting, even in a zoo, I can't imagine hearing one in the wild. He was also incredibly big.

Not only did Tess get to see the ocean, she got to go sea kayaking in La Jolla. Eric had I had such a good time doing this in Sept we went back with Tess. Eric and Tess rode in a two man kayak and mom took a single. The waves weren't too bad and the tide was low enough that we could go into some of the sea caves. But the highlight was there were three dolphins swimming nearby, and they came about 25 yards from us. Spectacular! Tess wasn't so sure at first, but she ended up having a great time. She was outfitted in two wetsuits, and got her own paddle.

Of course we saw Shamu!

At Seaworld we also had a penguin back stage pass. Here we got to see the penguin exhibit up close. It seemed like there were a bazillion penguins in all shapes and sizes.

We also got to pet a penguin. Tess knew that this was a macaroni penguin, she must've learned that in school because her folks are penguin illiterate.

Our hotel was downtown right on the ocean so Tess got to walk along the piers and see the USS Midway and other boats and ships.

If you ask Tess what her favorite part was she says "All of it, silly!"

That must be the sign of a good trip.