Saturday, July 30, 2011

from the home of the buffalos to where the buffalo roam!!!

a couple weekends ago, my little brother kyle, and friends nathan and rebecca took a roadtrip out to visit us in boulder.  we had a lot of fun with them, went to the garden of the gods and did the short tour at the coors brewery, visited liquor mart, hiked at chataqua, saw boulder falls, and walked pearl street. 

kyle stayed the rest of the week with us, and then we took a roadtrip to yellowstone park to hang out with our family. my grandparents live in a trailer in the park during the summer and work at the general store.  we had 5 bear sightings, some of them really close.  we saw old faithful, lots of other guysers, paint pots, mud pots, the grand canyon of the yellowstone and waterfalls, saw where my dad went cliff jumping, saw a wolf, elk, buffalo, and deer.  we stayed in a little cabin near the camp.  it was a wonderful trip.  we also drove through grand teton national park on the way there, those mountains are so rugged and beautiful. 


hope you enjoy these photos. 

also, i now have a job cleaning a lady's house once a week, and have been frustrated with my thesis this week because i had to change the type of buildings i am working with and I am having trouble finding a computer model for them.  i hope next week is better for that.  nate spends all his time not at work writing med school applications, so be praying for him to not be too stressed and to get in somewhere. 

Monday, July 25, 2011

Wild! or Green?

This article is about a woman in Philadelphia who decided to let her yard do what it wanted.  She just stopped mowing the lawn and let it grow!  This is great!  When you have a yard like this you are reducing the water runoff that goes into storm sewers rather than seeping back into the ground water tables, you also increase the air quality, in addition to adding wildlife habitat.  And it didn't cost her anything. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/garden/in-philadelphia-a-garden-grows-wild.html?_r=1&hpw

My apartment doesn't quite match up to this.  Although I have kept my mini rose bush alive and my basil plant is flourishing.  I'm hoping to add a rosemary plant very soon as well :p  Maybe eventually I'll convince Nate we should have a tree or fern.