Author: ajeanneinthekitchen

Estes Park is a little mountain town about 1-1 1/2 hours northwest of us. It has become quite the tourist attraction for many reasons. It is home to the Stanley Hotel, built in 1903 by the founder of the Stanley Steamer cars, F.O., Stanley. The hotel has become famous for being one of the most haunted hotels in America, as well as for being a beautiful and luxurious hotel from the bygone past.

Larry is posing with F.O. Stanley in front of the hotel.

Estes Park is also full of unique specialty shops that attract many tourists from the world over. But I think some of the main tourist attractions of the area are the magnificent mountain views, and of course, the many many elk that take over the town, especially during rooting season, which is now.

We were channeling the elks to come pay us a visit.

We took our guests up to Estes Park in hopes of seeing all of the above, and that we did, in abundance. Most of the elk we saw were hanging out at the golf course today, although some were a bit more shy, and preferred to be communing more with nature under the shade of the hilled trees just above. As beautiful and spectacular as the Stanley Hotel is, we were all far more excited about seeing the elk.

They were not phased in the slightest by the throngs of spectators watching them.

All of these beautiful does and calves were under the watchful protection of one HUGE big 12-point bull.

For the most part, he was watching from a safe distance, allowing them them to have their space. However, he got closer and closer, especially as soon as sensed a bit of danger, as well as a competitor in another bull. The other bull was much smaller, but he was younger. The big guy started getting a little testy and was actually getting a bit aggressive with some of the spectators. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but it was definitely a warning for us to stay back and to keep our distance, especially since the two bulls were staring each other down and we all sensed a fight was brewing.

Had it come to blows, I think the large bull would have easily won, but the smaller bull was still testing the waters a bit.

We definitely had a great elk show. Everyone was awed and amazed. We even heard the big bull bugling a few times. He was letting everyone know he was in charge and he was the boss. Who am I to argue? He certainly had a commanding presence.

Stay safe, especially when communing with nature and wild animals, and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

Since my besties from junior high school and high school were in town for a Colorado Girls’ weekend, Old Friends Are The Best Friends I am going to share a few Colorado flowers with you. After our Middle Eastern Feast, we spent the next day up in Estes Park. Here are some fun and colorful flowers from Estes Park.

Live life to the fullest and always do your best to enjoy your days.

Vacation is over and all our company left this morning. Now it is time to get back to normal life again, whatever that means. 🙂

I have so much good stuff to share with you, but as you all know, I like to pace it out a bit, and keep your interest peaked rather than bombard you with a blasting of posts. I will come back to my Cozumel trip later, but I would rather share our adventures from the weekend now.

I had three of my besties from junior high school and high school over for a little, mini reunion. Priscilla, you all know. She only lives 10 minutes away from me, here in Colorado. But Leslie and Andrea are new to you. We have all remained very close throughout the years, and we just picked up right where we left off. Andrea and Leslie both came in from Southern California. We also included mine and Priscilla’s friend Laura for the adventures. She was an honorary “Marshallite” for this weekend.

Yes, we have all been around the sun a few times, but I think we have all aged well, like a good bottle of wine. 🙂 We were celebrating both Leslie’s and Priscilla’s birthdays.

The Marshallites: Andrea, Jeanne, Priscilla, Leslie

Andrea flew in on Thursday, and as soon as we picked her up from the airport, Larry and I took her to our favorite local winery, InVINtions. A Toast to InVINtions! After doing some tastings, we came home for beef stroganoff, that was requested by Andrea for dinner.

For the big birthday bash, I prepared a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean feast, with Moroccan spiced lamb and chicken as the main focus. Before the lamb and chicken though, we started off with some dolmas, a mixture of olives, and pita bread and hummus. Then I added in some homemade falafels Falafels and Tahini Sauce, a roasted vegetable salad with a rosemary vinaigrette Roasted Pepper and Mushroom Salad with Rosemary Vinaigrette, couscous, and baklava and date and coconut squares for dessert. I do need to correct this however. I should say I INTENDED to make couscous for dinner, but I got a little distracted, and it never made it to the dinner table this night. And Laura must have thought we were all going to starve, so she brought a Capresi salad over as well.

I did not make either the baklava or the coconut and date squares this time around. Can I make baklava? Yes, but why should I when the baklava from Mumtaz is already perfectly made and is so excellent! 🙂 Mediterranean Mumtaz

After very full tummies, we all sat around and reminisced and visited for the rest of the evening, as well as for the rest of the weekend. It was so good catching up with some of my oldest and dearest friends. Sadly, we all lead very busy lives, and we just don’t get a chance to all gather together very often. They are so special to me in so many ways. We all share a lot of happy and fun memories together. This is what the good life is all about. Love you Girls! 🙂

Another day with more beautiful flowers or floras to share.

We landed in Cozumel on Saturday, and Sunday, we were in the water. I could have easily been diving all day, but I was out voted 3:1, so it was only a two-tank dive today. As expected, the waters were crystal clear, with great visibility and lots of great things to see.

We always take a surface interval in between dives to off-load the nitrogen build up. This surface interval was a bit different than most though. Most of the people who dive with our divemasters Julio and Ishi have been diving with them for years and years. We have been diving with them for 12 years. This time when we took our surface interval, we stopped in at private, beautiful villa owned by some other long time divers of Julio and Ishi’s . They invited us to their home and gave us the tour. What a BEAUTIUFL home it was too. They rent it out and it can sleep up to 13 people. We were honored to be invited in to take the tour, especially since we were all dripping wet and in our dive gear. the owners, Steve and Nancy are dives themselves, so they understand. the house was built with divers in mind.

But the most impressive part of this surface interval stop was that we too have dived with these divers, Steve and Nancy. I did not put 2 and 2 together until Nancy had commented and said “she remembers diving with me on my birthday”. That was a long time ago. The last time I actually dived (yes, it is dived not dove) on my actual birthday was 7 years ago. What a great memory she has. After she said that, it all started coming back to me, and I do remember diving with them as well. She said she remembered my energy, and that is what stood out to her the most. It just goes to show that the world of diving is a small world after all. If you dive enough, in enough places, you are bound to run into people you know and have dived with in the past at some point. That is one of the many things that makes diving so great. It is about forming those bonds and relationships.

I looked everywhere for the contact information they gave me for their place, but I can’t seem to find it. I will have to get it to you at another time. The villa is in a gated community with a private dock, a community pool, a huge gourmet kitchen, and it can sleep up to 13 people. Our first dive site for the day was Palancar Gardens, so the villa is somewhere close to the Palancar area, down in the southern part of the island. I believe the name of the villa is “Casa Dakota”, since both Steve and Nancy actually are from and live in South Dakota and are in radio up there, but again, I am not positive.

To all the divers out there, just keep diving. And to everyone, stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time. Once again, I will be signing off for a few days. I will have a houseful of company for the weekend, starting today. I will talk to you all again soon. 🙂

More beautiful flowers from beautiful Isla de Cozumel. These little gems brighten up any day.

We know Cozumel very well and go often. For us, no trip is complete without at least enjoying one delicious meal at Jeanie’s, in the downtown area. We have enjoyed many meals and even Thanksgiving dinners there over the years. Our first meal for the trip was at Jeanie’s, where we enjoyed yet another huge seafood platter for 2. We introduced our friends Nancy and Rich to both Jeanie’s and their seafood platter as well. Neither of them were expecting it to be so big. It is loaded with all kinds of treasures from the sea, including mussels, clams, grouper, shrimp, calamari, octopus and oh so much more.

Enjoying some tropical drinks while waiting for the feast to arrive.

And what a feast it is too.

This hang loose or chakka bro sign is the international sign for divers and surfers everywhere. We all know it and we all use it.

Hang loose, enjoy the ride and just go where life takes you. Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

When I last wrote, I thought I had ended my flower for the day challenge. Little did I realize how many beautiful flowers there are in Cozumel that just needed to be shared with you all as well. Today, I will start my Las Floras de Cozumel series and I will continue for as long as I still have beautiful flowers still to share. Enjoy! !Desfruitas!

I’m BACK!!!!!!!! Did you miss me? I wasn’t kidding when I said I was going to be off the grid and underwater, although, in all honesty, I really did think we would have internet access. But as it turns out, we did not.

We went down to Cozumel. Cozumel is our favorite dive destination, at least so far. We still have a lot of oceans and water yet to dive before I can officially say that though. 🙂 The name Cozumel was derived from the Mayan “Cuzamil” or “Ah Cuzamil Peten” in full, which means “the island of swallows”.

Normally, Cozumel is a diver’s paradise because there is so much abundant wildlife and beautiful topography underneath the beautiful crystal clear turquoise waters. Because Cozumel is known for its drift dives, I might not recommend it for beginners though. This time, all that was still very true, except the currents were RIPPING!!!!!! We were literally flying across the ocean through uncontrollable currents that were taking us were they would. There was no stopping or changing directions. All we could do was just surrender to the currents and let them take us where they were going to take us and go with the flow. These ripping currents were fun in the daytime. However, on one of our night dives, I have to say, it was a very different story. The adrenaline rush was a bit to extreme at night, even for me, the adrenaline junkie. We were being thrown around like were were spinning in a washing machine, being tossed in all different directions. When we surfaced, we came up to pouring down rain, lightening and thunder. I was NEVER so glad to end a dive as I was to end that dive. Normally, I am just the opposite; I never want to come up for air.

Even when we dive under normal conditions, we work up an appetite, but we especially worked up an appetite after our wild rides in the currents, or la ligne de curiente. It has been said that even on easy dives, we are still burning about 600 calories per dive. Who knows how many calories we were burning this time around. It’s a good thing I decided to make some muffins to take with us and to share with our fellow divers and dive masters. They were a big hit too. I made enough to share for 3 days. When they were gone, everyone was asking and wishing I had made more.

This time, I made some huckleberry muffins from the huckleberries that were in our backyard.

The recipe was the same basic as the recipe I used for my mini banana muffins Mini Banana Muffins. Obviously, I used huckleberries instead of bananas, and I also added some lemon extract. Huckleberries are similar to blueberries, only not as sweet and are a bit smaller. They are also delicate like blueberries, so I coated them in flour before adding them to the mix.

I was definitely underwater quite a bit, and got in 17 dives for the trip. I did forfeit a few dives, however, to let us explore and be tourists too though. Larry does not dive as much as I do, and he is diving less and less all the time. He just celebrated his 300th dive. I am diving more and more, and just celebrated my 350th dive, with many, many more ahead, in the hopefully not so distant future. 🙂

I came home to a TON of email and spam, and am slowly getting through them all. I will have a lot of pictures from our trip to share, but I will also be taking another few days off again, since we have company coming in from California on Thursday. After next week though, I should be back on schedule. So stay tuned, and don’t change that channel.

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

I have been making the wet food for our dogs for quite a few years now. It is much healthier for them, they love it, and with having BIG dogs, it is cheaper too. Besides, the “kids” love it when mommy cooks for them. For our dogs, PROTEIN and low fat are key. If this is something you would like to do, but don’t know where to start, there are doggie cookbooks, there are websites you can go to, and you can ask your vet too.

Mommy is making dinner. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Can we help too? Please mommy, please?

Not yet, but, yes, mommy is making your dinner. Right now, I am going to have your “cousins” Fritzie and Hilda help me.

I keep it very simple for the dogs, focusing on a lot of protein. This time, dinner is ground beef (from our nephew’s farm and cows), carrots, hard boiled eggs, brown rice, parsley, a dash of milk and a little flour for the gravy.

Cook the rice and boil the eggs. Cook the carrots and ground beef in vegetable oil until done. Some would say my “kids” are spoiled, though I disagree. I say they are just well loved. They like a little gravy with their food, so I added some milk and a little flour to make a little gravy for the meat. This also helps extend it a little further too.

When everything is cooked completely, toss it all together, along with the parsley.

Make sure it cools completely before serving it to your fur babies, otherwise you will have tummy problems you will have to clean up later. We learned that the hard way. I usually make it and put it in the refrigerator for at least 2-3 hours before serving it to them.

What do you mean it’s NOT ready yet? We’re so hungry!!!!!

Dinner time at last. Juneau and Vinnie thought this time would never come.

I usually make enough food to last for about 1 week. They eat all kinds of things. I usually use about 2-3 lbs of meat, and a variety of vegetables, fruits, rice, barley, potatoes and sweet potatoes. They eat very well. No doubt about that. 🙂 Nothing highly acidic, no tomatoes, no grapes, no spices, and just keep it simple. Again, there are plenty of resources available to help you get started if you want to make your dogs’ food. I know exactly what they are eating all the time. On those rare days when I don’t have time to make their food, they get a good, high quality wet food, made with the same or similar ingredients to what I use.

Stay well and stay safe Everyone. Keep the fur babies safe and well too. ‘Til next time.

I will be out of town for a while, scuba diving in Cozumel, so I will be off the grid and underwater. I will “talk” to you all again once I return home.