On the road again (test run)

We're getting restless again, so we're headed up to Wyoming this week to visit family in Sheridan and hopefully do some extra sightseeing up to Bozeman, Yellowstone, and Mount Rushmore.  There's a bit of snow in the forecast, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that it won't slow us down too much.  We'll head out Monday and come back to Boulder Friday night to meet up with Jesse on his visit to Denver.

This week will be our trial run for hitting the road again for real.  We're planning to leave here in early March to continue our travels and maybe find some warm weather down in Utah and Nevada before we head all the way up to the Pacific Northwest.

It's been pretty restful here since I last wrote.  I finished painting/renovating Lynne and Brandon's house so I've been able to work on some drawings this week and my little stitching project.  Curtis and I went snowshoeing up to Brainerd Lake last weekend and watched longingly as all the other people out there skied past us.  I've never missed my skis so much!

On Sunday, we had a nice trip up to Longmont to have dinner with extended family on Curtis's side.  His cousin Russ lives here in Boulder with his wife Leslie and their two daughters, and we all drove up to Longmont together Sunday night to have dinner with Russ's parents.  It was great to get to spend time with everyone and learn more about that branch of the family.  Of course I forgot to take a group picture, per usual. 

I did some serious baking for Valentine's Day on Tuesday, complete with some of my typical blunders.  It's not easy to whip together gourmet treats when more than half of my baking supplies are in a storage unit.  So I mixed up the ingredients for a pumpkin roll and spread it all out in the pan, with waxed paper all lined up and ready.  When I went to put the pan in the oven, it was too big for the tiny stove!  So I had to dump it all out into a much smaller pan, but it still came out super tasty--if not a bit huskier than usual.

I wanted to make a pumpkin pie too since I never got to make one this fall (thanks Dad for supplying the canned pumpkin).  I didn't realize until just before making the crust that I didn't have a pie plate.  And I was making the crust when it finally hit me that I don't have a rolling pin with us.  So after experimenting with a sea salt container (almost made a salty crust), nalgene bottle (lid loop got in the way), I settled on a can of beans to roll out the crust.  I won't pretend it was my best.  And I ended up using one of my little 8" round cake pans that we use for our mini pizzas on the road that worked just fine.

Here they are together in all of their makeshift glory

That's all for now.  I'm sure I'll have plenty more photos to share after our trip this week.  And I'll do my best to get some family snapshots too :)