Elizabeth Pictures

The infamous shoe shot.







Self Portrait








You tell me ... a ducky thing.

Utopia Shoot Pic

Just found this over at the Utopia Shoot page. I had forgot they took a picture that day back in June.

Love You My Family

Well it has been wonderful to be here again and get to do things with my family.

Gale keep getting stronger and get up lots. I love you and will see you soon. Bob start playing some horseshoes. Elizabeth is ready to go anytime. And I think Emily is ready too. :) Thanks for everything guys.

Elizabeth, Emily, and Gwen...I love you guys soo much...how much....this muchhhhhhhh! Remember to think of Grandma and Grandpa first no matter how tired you get. Lord willing and the creek don't rise I will see you all soon. Give Bri a hug for me when you see her please?

For all my family wherever you are....I love you.

Elizabeth Having Fun

Elizabeth has been wanting to practice her HorseShoeing since Bob and I cleaned out the two sandpits for the horseshoeing. I placed a mark on the ground for her to stand behind when pitching the shoe. She made a ringer on her second throw. She does pretty good.
















Emily and ALB like swinging on the swings and ropes in the back. Here is a little video of ALB swinging from the rope.

Heaven and Hell

No this is not about John Jakes novel from the North and South series. This is about two interesting books I have read lately and they are of the most serious nature.

90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper tells of his after death and return to life experience. Don (a minister) was killed in a terrible car accident (1989) and was dead for 90 minutes. He tells that those 90 minutes were in heaven and that he returned to life trapped in the crushed car with another minister singing and praying over him. His life was very difficult for the next two years as he recovered from the accident.

23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Wiese tells of his personal experience of being dropped into hell. Bill's story is not about a near death experience or dream but of how Jesus greeted him after his brief but horrific trip to hell and asks Bill (not a minister) to warn others (non-believers and believers) that there is a hell and it is not a place anyone wants to go. Bill never wants to have even one second in hell again it was that terrible and horrible. A video of Bill telling his message.

ALittleBit's Hole In One at Putt-Putt

If you can listen closely then Elizabeth will declare her hole in one. :)

Estes Park Updates

The girls with their Colorado Grandma at the hospital. Gale is now at home.











Elizabeth and I took a walk downtown this morning. She is petting the Bit Cat statue downtown in Estes Park.










ALB wading downtown with the Beaver sculpture in the background.












M.E. in her karate outfit











Elizabeth trying out the outdoor theater in Estes Park. The hills are alive with the sound of music.

Appaloosa and Resolution

Recently I picked up a copy of Cowboys & Indians because it had this cover of Tom Selleck on it. I do not usually pickup Western magazines unless it had Selleck, Elliot, or Duvall on them. If you have not seen it then the article is worth the read. Some interesting stories about Tom Selleck and how he got into western movies.

But totally unrelated to Tom Selleck is another article about the novel Appaloosa by Robert Parker which is going to be released as a made for TV movie this fall. It will have Ed Harris and Vigo Mortenson(?) as the leads. While reading the article I discovered that Parker is a mystery writer who created the Spencer character in Spencer for Hire and the Stone character that is on TV played by Tom Selleck...ok so this is related to Tom in some nth degree of separation.

I found the fact Ed Harris and Vigo M were going to play in this western interesting so I checked out Appaloosa and the sequel Resolution out at the library.

Appaloosa is basically about two gunfighters who do their fighting as official lawmen. The main character is Virgil Cole who has been doing a gunfighter/lawman for hire for many years. His partner a West Point graduate ex-military Indian fighter named Everett Hitch. Cole is cool as a cucumber gunfighter and Hitch is a tough and almost as cool sidekick who uses a ten-gauge shotgun as his main weapon of choice. They are usually hired as lawmen to clean up a town under the town's laws which are usually written by Cole and signed by the town counsel.

As I read the book and saw the development of the characters I could see Ed Harris as Cole and Vigo as Hitch perfectly. If they can adapt the characters then the movie should be interesting. Parker develops two characters whose re pore is incredible. I found their dialogue to be cool and at times intelligent.

But as a western it is just fun. It is nothing like L'Amour and totally not like Kelton. The characters may be more like Grey. The books are a fun read.

I only have a few cautions, there is a lot is profane and nasty language and a lot of talk about sex and prostitution. Most of it unnecessary to make these novels work and believable to a point. There is also a lot of violence that is a bit more over the top than L'Amour or Grey. Honestly I was not sure I could finish off Appaloosa due to the language and some of the graphic nature...it just detracted from the story in my opinion. I do not recommend the books based on these cautions.

If the movie adaptation can remove most of the language, voilence, and sexual references then it should be a good movie. But after watching Costner's last movie with Duvall then I am not so sure Hollywood will remove these things. I look forward to seeing if Ed and Vigo can pull off these two characters.

Rocky Mountain National Park

A few weeks ago the family drove up into the Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove up to the lookout near the top of the pass on Fall River Road and back down on Trail Ridge Road.

Elizabeth was on a Marmot hunt but we found a lot of wildlife and flowers to look at along the way. Here we found this beautiful bull in velvet.




And here we found Elizabeth one of the yellow-bellied marmots she so wanted to see. We also saw many pikas too.







We once took a picture of Gwen, Emily, and myself at this waterfall, I think was Chasms, so we decided to do it again now that we have Elizabeth. Not too bad.