Non-boys post?

How about a post not about the boys, for a change of pace? Here are some random photos. Here is the canyon where we live. Our house is about 8 miles from the intersection you see, and the library is about 9 miles from the intersection, so we are really enjoying mountain living while remaining close to civilization.

We have a horrible "infestation" of wild rose, which has quadruple the number of thorns as regular rose and spreads like wildfire and drives me nuts. Since Ben likes to be barefoot so much, I have tried to destroy them so he can walk in our glorious yard without getting stuck by thorns, but it is a LOSING battle. If I pull up one plant and try to get most of its roots, 20 plants grow back within a week. Here is a photo of the actual roses, which bloom on only a few of them, and I don't consider them worth the thorns.


Albert and I tried to pull up all the wild rose along the house here when they visited in May, and now you can see there are hundreds more sprouts already, all lined up along the house. Arrrgh!!

On the other hand, Columbines are just gorgeous, and here are several in bloom.
We thought these were Hens and Chicks, but alien heads sprouted out of them. Pretty creepy. You can tell I do not have a green thumb at all.

We have managed to paint two rooms so far this summer - our bedroom and my bathroom. I meant to buy a taupe color for the bedroom, and occasionally it looks taupe, but mostly it turned out to be a wimpy lavender. I replaced the dark purple on the wall behind the bed with a brown (again, completely different from the paint chip in the store!)Here you can see the lavender.
And here's my bathroom: a rich turquoise to go along with the brown fixtures. I'm enjoying it.
And finally, a photo of my new car - a 2005 dark blue Subaru Forester. The poor C-RV was limping along and it feels much better to have the kids in something reliable.