Birthday party!

Today we are having a 7th birthday party for Zoe!  She is very very very very excited.  We haven't had a real birthday party for her since her 1st birthday, and that probably doesn't count...

It's not as though we haven't celebrated her birthday!  We just haven't had her friends over in a typical kid-party fashion.  So, today is the day!  It will be 116 degrees and we're having a pool party.  At Zoe's request she is having berry pie and ice cream and lemonade.  It'll be awesome.

When faced with the unknown

Every year in the West we have wildfires.

Sunday evening view from our backyard, before we evacuated.

Right now there's a large fire pretty close to where I grew up - in the Black Forest.  East and south of Monument and Woodmoor, where I grew up.  Check out the live updates here.  There are lots of houses there and many have already burned.

In June 2011 we evacuated from White Rock to Santa Fe because of the Las Conchas fire.  White Rock was under voluntary evacuation, but glowing embers the size of quarters and a few even larger were landing there the evening that we left.  

I realized something personally when we left that Sunday night.  I packed the 4-Runner with most of our camping gear because we were camping out in our friends garden.  Other than that we had our laptops and external hard drives, and picture albums.  And that is pretty much it.  I realized while taking pictures of all of our things around the house and packing a bit that I really don't need things.  Sure, many things I have are sentimental in some way.  But when faced with the uncertainty of evacuation I knew that the most important things are Danny and Zoe.  If they are safe we can handle adversity together.  And they were safe, they were with me the whole time.

If my things had been lost I would have been upset.  But I had my family and that is all I really need.

Morning ashes in Santa Fe.

Another old picture

pic 30, a photo by kmj.karen on Flickr.

This one I especially like, it is my aunt, mom, and grandfather. I never met him, he died before I was born. They are on their way driving up Pikes Peak, 1962.

Old family pictures

pic 60, a photo by kmj.karen on Flickr.

I have scanned in a bunch of pictures that my aunt loaned me from my grandma! This one is my grandma, my aunt and my mom. I'm not sure what year, sometime in the mid 1960s.

Container garden

We have an atrium at our house that is a little 9 foot by 11 foot enclosed outdoor space just off the dining room.  There was nothing in it when we moved in, and we've slowly been adding plants in containers.  Today we bought an old sink at Goodwill and built a little wood wall around it and filled it with dirt!  Carrots are definitely going in there (Zoe's crop of choice).  We have tomatoes, peppers, basil, cilantro, mint, oregano, rosemary, and some flowers.  I'm really excited to finally have a garden again and keep it going!  Pictures will come!

In order to make an apple pie from scratch...

... first you have to invent the universe.

We were talking about apple pie which Zoe wants for her birthday (instead of cake) and I'm always reminded of the particular episode of Cosmos where Carl Sagan gets apple pie at Cambridge.  So we had to watch it today.  Zoe was super interested this time, and informed me that the only kind of star you can touch is a dead one.

The hottest day of the summer so far - 113 degrees!

We just spent the hottest day so far at Big Surf!  It was a great day to be out on the water slides.  We stayed for a long time and had so much fun!

Zoe coming out of a slide!

The wave pool.  This one's for you mom!

Zoe the fairy

Zoe at her nanny's house in April 2009!  What a teeny fairy!

Updated photostream

kmj.karen's photostream on Flickr.

I've finally uploaded our photos from the last 6 months onto Flickr! Check it out if you feel like looking at hundreds of pictures!

Otherwise I'll highlight some here in the next few weeks. :)

Zoe's birthday

Zoe will be 7 this year, in less than a month.  Seems like a long time and it seems like no time.

Here's a picture of her on her birthday.

Zoe's last day of 1st grade

Zoe will be 7 this summer and going on to 2nd grade already.  Here's a picture of her on the last day of school in first grade.  Her elementary school color is red, and everyone was supposed to wear red that day.  I didn't get her a school shirt this year, but I had one from MY elementary school!  So she wore that one.  Yeah Lewis-Palmer elementary!

Our house

 We bought a house at the end of April, and now we're pretty much settled.  A few things are still hanging around packed, but for the most part things are set up.  Here are a few pictures for those of you that don't live in AZ.