Dust Devil

When we went to the Sand Dunes in Colorado we saw tons of Dust Devils.

The boys kept saying they look like tornadoes. I kept thinking of Tasmanian Devil. I think I thought of that character because he spun around so much that dust when flying.

Source

Do you have dust devils where you live?

WW: The Great Sand Dunes National Park {Linky}

We went to the The Great Sand Dunes National Park in Saguache County, Colorado.

There's a water area right before you climb the dunes. I joked with the boys saying, "WOW this is just so much better than the beach!"

The trouble is, is that the dunes themselves get hot. Daddy and Mica climbed up them. Isaak walked back towards me. I was stuck in the water part with Isaak.

 

Here are Mica and Daddy on the dunes:

Isaak and I hung out on the faux beach. The sand is fine like beach sand.

Then a boy on the faux beach came up to Isaak and said, "Hey do you want to play The Lego Movie? The sand is crackle. If I get some on you, you can't move." So they threw crackle at each other. It was pretty funny.

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Shave Time, Shave Money

The Dollar Shave Club asked me to post how I shave time, and how I shave money.

I've been trying to think of ways that I do both. While sometimes the two work hand in hand, other times they don't.

1. I buy clothes when the season is just about to end for the following year. Instead of looking for that winter coat before winter time, I look for it after. I've getting nice winter coats that are usually $75, for $10. I do the same when it comes to back to school shopping. The boy's backpacks were originally $45, and I got them for $10.
   
   More money is spent on clothes for Mica because he's the older one. Isaak can wear hand me downs, which are usually in great shape. Most of the boy's clothing goes through 2 kids.

I always set the boy's clothes out the night before. This is a big time saver for us in the mornings. 


When I don't set clothes out, this happens:



2. Another thing we do to save time and money is carpool. We do this when the kids are out for a break. It gives us time to spend with one another, and there is less cost on gas.
   
   I also try and run errands all at the same time, and I plan out where everything is at, so I'm not running all over the place wasting gas.


3. We do not have one certain thing that others do have: Cable, and/or Direct TV. The time others spend watching TV I spend blogging. Sometimes you have to ask yourself if you really need or want bad enough extras like that. I like having internet, but I eliminated much of the TV watching in our house.


4. We reuse to save money. Those Styrofoam containers that come with meat get washed and used in our house. Daddy melts them down to use for his sculptures, and Isaak uses them for a paint palette. I uses any yogurt, or cottage cheese containers for paint water at my work (since I'm an art teacher).


5. We grow some of our own food. While gardening does take time, so does going to the store. Going to the store also costs money. We grew a ton of greens, beets, spices, peas, corn, zucchini, and tomatoes this year.

We keep a year round compost pile to A) Help our garbage to not stink. We don't have to take our trash out often. This family of 4 only goes through 1 or 2 trash bags a week. B) Help our garden to grow.

Our potatoes from last year:

Find out ways that Dollar Shave Club Can Shave Time, Shave Money from your life. 

They are a members only club that delivers good quality razors and grooming supplies for a reasonable fee! They send the razors, blades, and supplies right to your door. No more forgetting to buy blades.

What Are Ways You Shave Time, Shave Money?

Disclaimer: The opinions on the post are my personal take on the product. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review. I received nothing to write this post. This post is part of the Shave Time, Shave Money campaign put on by Dollar Shave Club.

Royal Gorge

One of our pit stops was the Royal Gorge. I didn't understand until now that in June 11, 2013 the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park experienced a devastating fire which destroyed 90 percent of the buildings and attractions within the park, but leaving the Royal Gorge Bridge relatively unscathed. It makes since. We just couldn't get very far in that park. They are to open back up August 2014.

Activities that you can find at Royal Gorge:

• Arts and Theater
• Museums
• Rafting
• Recreation such as horse back riding, zip lining and more
• Attractions such as their famous bridge, and their railroad
• Shops

We really only got to a look out at a spot. I imagine if we were visiting in August we would have seen a lot more.

There were a lot of cacti, which I love. I wish we could grow other forms of cacti besides Prickly Pear. 

The only problem with all that cacti was the fruit flies. There were tons of them! The boys didn't pose well. they had bugs flying all around them. These were the best photos I could get.

The view however was amazing!

Have you been to Royal Gorge?

Colorado Springs

One thing we struggle with as a family is where to eat when we travel. There's only so much a family can store in little hotel refrigerators.

I have to say that this is the best trip we've had for eating out. It wasn't until the end of our trip I started to risk eating less healthy. I sure did pay for it.

In Colorado Springs I saw that they had a place in their main shopping strip called Heart of Jerusalem Cafe. I'm all for trying different types of food, so we went there.

I got a salad and coffee. OMG they both were good.

I wish they had a website I could link up to, but they don't have one.

After that we decided to go to a castle: Miramont Castle Museum.

I do have to say that Daddy and I were envisioning the castle to be different than it was. We thought it was going to be just an old castle to walk through. It was more just a castle shell, with a museum inside it.

It was one of Mica's favorite spots. He enjoyed it so much because they had a scavenger hunt for him to fill out. Let me tell you he wouldn't let us move on unless the prior question was answered. In fact one question got overlooked, and he had to got back down a floor to find the answer. Then it took us awhile to find something that was behind an open door. He was really into it.

So if you have a shop, gallery, or museum a scavenger hunt for kids to fill out may solve some problems for active children.

Here are some of the things they had in the museum:

In the end of the scavenger hunt a gentleman looked over Mica's answers to see if he had them all right or not. Then Mica and Isaak got to pick out 2 pieces of vintage candy. They were so excited.