Monday, Monday......

Today I went looking for bargains. We have a huge Salvation Army Store nearby so I wanted to checkout the kitchenware section for entertaining goodies and to see if I could fine something to use as night stands in our guest room.

I didn’t find and furniture, but I found these:

We don’t have room for end/coffee tables so I thought these trays would work good to put food and drinks on.  See how great it is working for my afternoon snack and read!  I like the idea of up/recycling these items. 

Next I went to a place called Mc Kay’s Used Books.  My son has been telling me about this place for months.  I thought it was a little used book store, with a bunch of old outdated books.  I was SO WRONG!  This place is HUGE.  The cookbook aisle caught my eye and I spent a half hour looking at books.  I grabbed these books for between 3-7 dollars.  Two of them are brand new.  I am in trouble.   I will be going back to that place again for sure!

I love a good bargain!

Have a blessed day.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I made us some yummy Oatmeal Raisin cookies last night.  The recipe is inside the Quaker Oats containers.  Since it is just the two of us, I froze half of them.  That way we can enjoy them again in few weeks.

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 6 tablespoons butter, softened

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)

3 cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked

1 cup raisins

Preparation

Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat butter and sugars on medium speed of electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats and raisins; mix well.


Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.


Prep Time: 20 min
Cook Time Time: 08 - 10 min


Variations

Bar Cookies: Press dough onto bottom of ungreased 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. Store tightly covered. 24 BARS. VARIATIONS: Stir in 1 cup chopped nuts. Substitute 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or candy-coated chocolate pieces for raisins; omit cinnamon. Substitute 1 cup diced dried mixed fruit. HIGH ALTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Increase flour to 1-3/4 cups and bake as directed.

Autumn Glory

I think fall is my new favorite season. We don’t get enough snow here in Virginia to really enjoy winter. At our new house we are surrounded by trees. They have turned bright yellows, reds and oranges. So pretty!

Since we live only an hour from the Shenandoah Mountains, we took a day trip to drive Skyline Drive.

Of course we had to take the top down and enjoy the crisp fall weather!  The roads curved from one side of the mountain to the other.

Along the road there are pull off places to take in the views. 

We hike the Stoney Man trail.  The trail was kind of boring.  Until you get to the end and see THIS:

We climbed out to the edge of the rocks and took in the view.  You could see for a few miles in each direction.  The colors looked fabulous from up here.

Another trail we took was Dark Hollow Falls trail.  This is a pretty strenuous trail (for me).  It took you along a small creek all the way to the bottom of the falls.  You get down there and then realize you have to climb ALL the way back up.  UGH!  I exercise at least four times a week and this trail kicked my behind.

Thank goodness I have an understanding hubby who lets me stop and rest.  Thanks BABE! 

We drove 50 miles of the 109 miles in the park.  Maybe next year we can cover the next 50???   On the way out of the park we saw this black bear.  It was far away, but I got a pretty good shot with my zoom! 

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In Our Neighborhood

Stonewall Jackson received his nickname at this battle.

Right down the road from our house is the Mannasas Battlefields.  Michael and I bought a yearly pass so we can hike all the different trails. 

Henry House

 The Stone Bridge trail is my favorite so far.  We took Blue with us on this one.  It climbs a small hill

and then travels along the river.

A friend we saw along the trail.

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Colorado: Warning Tons of beautiful pictures!

While in Colorado we went to

Rocky Mountain National Park. 

 We were going to drive the

Trail Ridge Road, but it was closed because of snow.  

 So we stayed on the west side of the park. 

We hiked to Adams falls.  It was really pretty.  We continued on the trail to the meadows.  There we saw fabulous views of the mountains.

Then we hit Coyote Valley trail.  We hiked along the Colorado River.  While hiking we had the river to our right and the big meadows to our left. 

We saw all kinds of wild life. 

While walking back to the car a MOOSE walked right across the road!  Michael and I have traveled all over Maine, New Hampshere, Vermont….. hoping to see a moose.  Matthew was with us and he said he was praying right before we saw the moose, asking God to show us a moose not because we want to see one, but to show us His glory.  Then BAM a moose walked right across the road.  He said he had shivers.  Pretty neat!

Next we stopped to look at a cabin.

We think this is a Osprey

Then our last trail was Lulu City.  We only hiked to the river and back.  We saw stream trout and birds in this area.

Elk from very far away.

This was a very beautiful place and we will be coming back to explore the rest of the park.

Colorado

Matthew and I picked up Michael from the airport.  We saw this sunset on our way home.

On our first morning in Colorado, we woke up to snow in the foothills.  Michael and I headed out in a light rain to check out Red Rocks in Morrison, Colorado. 

We decided to walk a 1.6 mile trail around these fascinating rock formations. 

During the hike it began to snow.  I pulled out my little point and shoot to grab a few shots.  We were a little wet after the hike, but it was well worth it. 

On our drive out we saw these little bluebirds sitting on top of some type of desert grasses.

Mountain Bluebird??  That's my guess.

Then we drove up to Evergreen, CO.  We stopped to look at this waterfall.  This town is a bit higher up into the mountains so the snow was really falling now! 

Next, Rocky Mountain National Park

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On the Road to Colorado: Day Four

Kansas is a long state with nothing but amber fields of grain!  So we decided to see if there were any roadside attractions to visit along the way.   This is what we found:

 Mushroom Rock State Park

It is the smallest state park in Kansas. It is in the middle of farmland (of course). They are made from Dakota Sandstone.

Matthew had to get to the top of at least

 one of these puppies!

The Next stop is Prairie Dog Town.  This stop reminded me of the possum stop in the Goofy Movie.

 This place is basically a man’s backyard (farm). He rescues animals and keeps them in very clean pens. O’ he has an 8000lb. Prairie dog you can take a picture with. He has trained prairie dog to hang out in the yard buy leaving corn around the holes.

We saw an albino peacock, Russian pigs, goats, donkeys, cows, buffalo, geese……

Yes we paid to go look at his animals. He is just trying to make a living and keep his animals fed and clean.

Our last stop was the Giant Easel in Goodland, KS. Here we found a 24’ x 36’ (FEET) Van Gough painting on a 85’ tall easel. Pretty impressive!

We drove a few more hours and finally saw……………



The rock mountains.

 

Next time...... Colorado!

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