Snowing, Sewing, & Some More Pictures

One of the drawbacks to living on top of a mountain is springtime snow. Although we have seen glimpses of spring weather and flowers just beginning to reach their necks out of the thawing soil, today we were hit with about 10in. of snow. Of course Jason is out of town, which left me to operate the snow blower / shovel solo this morning...I'm sure I'll be feeling that for days. Luckily I have a therapeutic yoga class on the books for tomorrow morning.

Trapped inside for most of the day, I've got time to post some more pictures to the blog. The first 2 pictures are of projects I completed with my new sewing machine. My first project was an easy one; new kitchen towels out of a tablecloth I found on clearance at World Market:


Second I made a pillow for my bedroom. I already had the pillow form, but wanted a new cover. I'm pretty happy with the result:



My next project is a new shower curtain and pillows for the living room.

Last weekend (in direct comparison to this weekend) was beautiful; high 50's and sunny. We enjoyed the warmer weather with a hike on Sandy Canyon trail about 8 miles from our house. Here are some pictures I snapped:

San Francisco Peaks.




Jason running up...


King of the Mountain!


Aspen Trees. We want to come back in the fall when these are a bright yellow color.


Butterfly!


I didn't finish this post yesterday, so it's actually Sunday here. I'm off to yoga and errands before Jason comes home from NYC at 3:00 this afternoon. I'm making a homemade pesto shrimp pizza for dinner and rhubarb crumble...yummm!

Fay Canyon

As I mentioned in the last post, Jason got me an awesome new camera for my birthday. I've read (most of) the manual, but I am much more of a hands on learner. I can read about it all day long, but until I actually play with it, it won't stick. So, along with the great weather we have been having, the camera is motivating me to get out hiking. We went to Sedona last weekend, ate at Simon's Hot Dogs in the Oak Creek Brewery (yummm) and hiked the Fay Canyon Trail. Here are some of the photos I snapped:



Still obsessed with these desert tree branches...


Inside the canyon:


Boulders at the bottom of the canyon:


Doesn't this look like the Thundercats logo?


I thought this looked like a gothic version of Mid-Summer Night's Dream:


Resting a while:


Jason's turn with the camera:


Working on my close up shot. I discovered the manual focus...I was giddy!








Just breathtaking:


I like how you can see the clouds coming over the mountain in the top left:


I also have a few pictures from a hike we took in Flagstaff this weekend, but I haven't even downloaded those pictures yet -- hopefully I'll have time next weekend.
We are looking forward to our trip to Hawaii (2.5 weeks of work and we are on our way!!)

xoxo - Helen & Jason