Oh sweet relief!

It's been a long, hot summer in COS. Hard to believe but I'm so happy to have a 20 degree temp drop today. Feels nice and we're getting a little rain this evening, which is nice after a few tough hail storms last month.

For Labor Day weekend, we made our annual trip to the Balloon Classic at Memorial Park. Always a great time. I love that our town has this amazing event every year.

2013 Colorado Balloon Classic

This past weekend, we went up to Mueller state park and did a quick hike. It's becoming one of my favorite parks.

2013 Black Forest Fire

Less than a year later and we are dealing with another fire :( #blackforestfire #coloradostrong
In fact, lots of fires are burning, including a pretty bad one down at the Royal Gorge.

The Black Forest fire is particularly troubling for me as I live closer to that area. I am not needing to  evacuate, thankfully, but the smoke is bad. The black forest has tons of beautiful pine trees that are fueling the fire. The smoke plumes can be seen for miles, as far away as Denver airport. The kids don't get much chance to play outside. Despite the high temperatures of 80s & 90s, the outdoor pools are closed due to the poor air quality. It's a real tragedy.

Play time

Spring may have officially started this week, but it's snowing again today :) I have seen some trees starting to bud already. I hope they make it to April/May. 

I have little kids, so I'm always excited about new things for kids.

The Chapel Hills Mall just changed out their play area (lower level near Sears). Everything is brand new. We haven't been yet, but some friends have said that it's very nice, and cute with lots of CO-themed soft playscapes to climb on. There is also The Monkey Train at the mall.

Our weather is pretty unpredictable at times and can vary greatly in a day, so it's nice to have indoor options. We're so happy to have lots of new indoor play places that opened in the last year or so: Little Monkey Bizness, Colorado Springs House of Bounce, and Jump-N-Jacks.

The best part is getting outdoors though. We went to the zoo recently and got to see some of the new changes there. The new Encounter Africa exhibit is really taking shape. Also, the zoo is expanding the parking lot.

There is a new miniature golf course open on the Northeast side of town, too. I'm trying to find more details. I believe it's called Legends Miniature Golf. Can't find a website or any other info. 

Another "blizzard" - March madness

We had another blizzard warning yesterday...It didn't turn out to be much of a blizzard. It didn't start snowing until after 7am (forecasted to start at 2am, then 4am). Also, the wind didn't kick in until well after noon, maybe 2pm. We didn't see a lot of snow and most of it melted. Things did start to freeze up around 4pm. Roads became bad in this part of the city.

The 3 days leading up to the blizzard were beautiful in the 60s and 50s. Then, we dropped into the 30s, but should be back in the 60s and possibly 70 by the end of this week. Incredible temperature shifts - a good sign that Spring is on it's way :) The warm temperatures have brought my renegade tulips up earlier than ever. I wonder if the ice plant that is planted over them keeps the bulbs warmer ???

CSU is holding an open house and shower head exchange on 23 March. Hopefully, it will go over better than the holiday light exchange (they ran out of lights within the 1st hour, I heard).

Snow - finally!

February has finally brought us some snow, measurable and lasting snow. We have even had 1 "snow day" from school and 2 delayed start days. One of the storms was classified as a blizzard because of the strong winds and low visibility. Let's see what March brings now. It's supposed to snow again tomorrow. I haven't paid attention to the forecast though. Hard to fathom when we had 2 beautiful and warm days over this weekend. I took the kids to the zoo yesterday. It was beautiful. Felt like Spring.

It was nice to see some of the  progress at the zoo, too. They are expanding the parking lot and have made lots of progress on the new elephant, rhino and lion exhibits. We fed the giraffes - one of our favorite stops at the zoo - and got to see the new baby giraffe. I heard that a howler monkey escaped after we left the zoo.  

2013 - a warm start

We've had some cold days and a dash of snow here and there, but we keep rebounding to these above average temperatures. Winter watering has been more necessary this year, too. I hope we'll get a big snow some time this month.