Art Is Everywhere

 

A couple weeks ago, Chloe and I decided to find as many transformer boxes as we could and take pictures by them. We had no idea what we were walking into. We've seen these beautifully painted electrical boxes around town for years, but just took them for granted. Then I decided to look up the reason for them. A couple of years ago, the city of Fort Collins decided to beautify these ugly gray boxes found all over the city. They decided to commission local artists to paint these boxes. I'm so glad they did. These ugly, now beautiful, boxes are just so happy. It's the little things that bring joy and art and beauty into people's lives. Art is everywhere...you just have to look. Here's a sampling of just a few that Chloe and I found. We spent about an hour one evening and two hours the next day on what felt like an easter egg hunt all around Old Town (the old downtown area of the city). We photographed over 52 transformer boxes and I have a feeling we haven't even made a dent in the amount left to still find. We had such a fun time together! I'm so glad we live in a city that values art.

This is titled, High Plains Gold by Gale Whitman

Also by Gale Whitman, Juicy

This is the Bayou Moonlight Delite by Terry McNerney

My personal favorite, Sunset Serenade by Kristen Vohs

 

This is The Tattoo Dragon by Blake Neubert

This is titled, This Land Is Your Land, by Diane Findley

No title or artist name given

No title or artist name given

 

 

No title or artist name given

This is called Colorado Sky Shows by Cynthia Danielle

This is the other side of the one from above.

This is Burrowing Owls by Larry Tucci

Two Dozen

How lucky are we?! 24 years of love. It's a gift I will never take for granted. We're not only still in love, we're still in like too. I think it's important to really like your spouse. We're best friends, play mates, and goof balls. I wouldn't have it any other way. 

We normally like to plan something special for each anniversary. But...the pandemic. If living in a pandemic has taught us anything, it's been to stay flexible, things can change in an instant. We were supposed spend a long weekend in Crested Butte, Colorado. We'd never been there and heard it was beautiful. But we just didn't feel right about it. So we cancelled our plans. That freed up the money we would have spent for our midnight drive to North Dakota to check on our boy. See, it all works out.

 

 

Then we thought maybe we'd go hiking on the day of our anniversary...that is until the Cameron Peak fire, 50 miles from us spewed fire and smoke 40,000 feet into the atmosphere. This picture was taken at 3pm. It gets weirder every day. So, hiking was out of the question. The last thing we want to do is drive toward the fire. It's hard enough to breathe down here. It's literally raining ashes.

 

 

But leave it to Chuck to save the day. He found an incredible Asian Restaurant in Denver. And the smoke hadn't quite invaded Denver as badly as it has Fort Collins. so we headed to Denver for a fun-filled day outside.

This restaurant is famous for their dumplings. They did not disappoint. I'm counting down the days till we can return again. This food just made us so happy!

 

 

It especially made our date-buddy happy. Chloe got to share in the festivities of being married for 24 years. Lucky her. She was cool with it because she scored free Asian food and undivided attention from the both of us (which she gets in spades nowadays since she's the only one of the kids left at home).

 

 

From there we went to the Denver Botanical Garden

 

 

In our 3 years here, we've never been there before.

 

 

It was lovely to be outside, in a sparsely populated area, taking in beauty. However, as the weather heated up and the day progressed, so did the smoke. We had to cut our time at the Gardens short because it was getting hard to breathe. But it was just enough time outside to fill us up.

Our twenty fourth year together has ushered us into a new phase of life. We're super close to an empty nest (oftentimes it feels already empty since Chloe is rarely around). But we're embracing all the joy and sorrow together that this new transition brings. Our sorrows are lighter and our joys are sweeter when shared together.

Living His Best Life

Every day until the day he left, this son of mine would greet me with a hug each morning and close out the day the same way. That's what you get with a kid who's love language is physical touch. I have to say, it's a noticeable absence. I will never again take for granted the hugs of my sweet boy. But it's kinda hard to feel sorry for myself when I see how at home he is in his new surroundings.

It's been just about three weeks since we dropped Bennett off at school. We finally got to see him again yesterday. It is apparent that he moved to Heaven. He is living his best life and we couldn't be more thrilled for him. Within days he found the most incredible friend group...the kind of friends that want to be with you as much as you want to be with them...the kind of friends that support you and show up and cheer for you. He's never had a friend group like that in his life. He's had 1 friend throughout his life that that has remained close, but he was a long distance friend. He's never had that group that is tight and embraces you no matter what. He especially loves that they have deep talks and can match his activity level game for game. They are spike ball maniacs.

Here's a recent example of how the squad supports each other. The girls are all on the cross country team. So the boys went and bought t-shirts and spray paint, decked themselves out in team spirit, and showed up to the cross country meet ready to cheer on their friends. It meant the world to the girls. This makes my heart so happy.

We raise our kids to soar when they leave the nest...what a gift it is to be able to watch it happen.