We had great weather and lots of activities while visiting Dad and my brother Kenny and his family in Ft. Collins. Highlights included:

• Two Farmers Markets
• Two Family Dinners; one home-cooked by Susie
• Ice cream at Josh and John’s with our nieces
• Breakfast at Snooze A.M. Eatery with the Bindweed Brigade*
• Shopping at Firehouse Books for the latest Stephen King novel
• Hiking at Bobcat Ridge
• Daily walks/runs in the Cathy Fromme Natural Area
• Eating from the garden Dad grows with his neighbor Hope
• Many games of Cribbage with winners all around, though Dad and I both remember a skunking by Tony very well
• Organizing Dad’s basement with trips to a paper shredder, ARC Thrift Store, electronic drop-off recycling, and the ReStore
• One day looking for a lost cat**
• Zero family photos taken; we are terrible at remembering to do this 🙁

* This is a group of volunteers at Nix farms where bindweed “extraction”, as my dad calls it, seemed to be their most common activity. They love to gather for breakfast and conversation. We talked about travel (shout out to our new subscribers, Bruce and Sherri) and books as the women are all avid readers like me.

** Funny story after-fact; a bit nerve-wracking during the process: Catnip disappeared to hide as her usual response to company in the house when Kenny and Susie joined us for dinner one night. We weren’t overly concerned when she hadn’t come out at bedtime, but by the next morning when her favorite toys hadn’t moved and she hadn’t joined us in bed, we began to hunt for her in earnest. We knew she might be in the basement as the door had been briefly open to get an extra chair, and we knew she might have snuck outside with the open door as well. Outside was terrifying to think about but really unlikely for an indoor cat, but we walked the neighborhood looking for hiding places. Tony and I went to Harbor Freight to purchase a thermal imaging camera to help search the basement more thoroughly after Tony read that as a helpful hint online. Tony and Dad were using the camera to check the basement ceiling when Dad heard a quiet meow from one corner. Turns out Catnip had some fun digging in a pot of soil and playing with a Christmas tree ornament before getting herself stuck inside of a pallet. She was able to wiggle herself out after we removed items on top of the pallet and was none the worse for wear after eating a late afternoon breakfast and getting lots of pets and grooming. And now we have a fun, new tool that the Harbor Freight guy said would be great to use in ghost hunting.

As always, it is so fun to be with family in Ft. Collins. Dad is happy to share his house with us and even makes the kitties feel welcome. They come to him for pets, and mostly obey rules about not digging/eating houseplants. We enjoy visiting with Kenny and Susie and any of their four children who happen to be at home. This visit we got to catch up with what Natasha and Arabella are doing with summer activities and school at CSU where they will be juniors in the fall. Thomas just moved to AZ after graduating with a masters in aerospace engineering and Alistair is about to move from WY to Corpus Christi to pursue a master’s in arts degree.