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Sunday, April 24, 2022

A Normal and Unnormal April!



I wish I was on this plane flying off to somewhere exotic or even just somewhere fairly local, but instead, I snapped this photo of a plane flying overhead when we picked up our daughter at Denver International Airport when she was returning home from a business trip a few weeks ago.



Denver International Airport was the third busiest airport in the United States in 2020, and the third-busiest airport in the world in 2021. Denver was one of only four airports worldwide to serve more than 50 million passengers in 2021.  It is located in the eastern Colorado plains and I always enjoy the "big sky" views I see from its locale.



We have been joyfully busy the past few weeks. Happily, most of our grandchildren's school and extracurricular activities have returned after an almost two-year absence during the peak of the pandemic. We attended a "Kids Stage" play, Lacrosse games, Little League baseball games, a middle school orchestra production, and a Daisy Girl Scout Earth Day Celebration where our youngest granddaughter's troop had a display about Ireland and shared Irish food and danced to an Irish folk song.  
We've missed being able to enjoy these fun times with our grandchildren and hope life can continue to stay on a good health trend. 



We all had a beautiful Easter Sunday last week. We celebrated this year by attending a brunch at a restaurant, but I also made a small Easter dinner of baked honey ham, roasted sweet potatoes, cornbread pudding, and a broccoli cheese pie. I will have to share that broccoli pie recipe one day as it was really tasty! For dessert, I made a lemon ricotta cheesecake and Easter bunny cookies for all the grandchildren.



We have had the most unusual weather this past week.  If you look at the collage above both photos were taken looking at the Jefferson County Government Center with Lookout Mountian in the background at different times of the year. The top photo was taken on a regular weather day, the bottom photo was taken last Friday when we had a wind storm with wind gusts up to 70mph! There was so much dust blown up into the atmosphere from the constant wind that the foothills were obscured! It was very eery.  In the nine-plus years we've lived here we've never seen anything like it.  
We've also had serious Red Flag Warnings--extreme wildfire danger--almost every day.  We are all praying for a good rainfall or snow to occur soon as most of April we have had no precipitation and below-normal precipitation in March.  In fact, Colorado's snowpack has not been enough to counteract a two-year drought and the Colorado River is now considered endangered. 40 million people in many Western states depend on the river's water so it is very worrisome.


Columbine Flower


Even without April showers, I am hoping May will still bring us some beautiful wildflowers!  

I hope your month of April has brought you good times and good health...

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29 comments:

  1. Hello Pat,

    Cool photos of the planes and airport. I am sure the children are enjoying all their activities. Your Dinner look yummy, I love ham and sweet potatoes. Our weather has been crazy, but we did not have any dust storms. The Columbine Flower is gorgeous. Take care, have a great new week!

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  2. I am so glad you are able to attend your grands events again! That shot of the United airplane is great! Your Easter dinner looks yummy! Hoping you get some rain soon!

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  3. Thanks for sharing your unusual April shots with us at https://image-in-ing.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-concert.html

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  4. When you mention the severe drought, I can now understand. We had that last year, but so far this year looks a lot more hopeful. We have had record amounts of snow and the last few days also rain. I hope you get some of that much needed moisture soon.

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  5. The plane capture is brilliant

    Looked like a fun trip and that food looed delicious I hope you saved me some heheh!

    Have a cheesecaketastic week 👍

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  6. Glad you can enjoy those school events and sports once again. It is sad about the lack of rain...

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  7. How sweet are those cookies?! Yes, drought, fire or floods are all we seem to face at the moment here. It's depressing. #BlueMonday

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  8. Lovely photos. I am at #1 on the linky

    Much💛love

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  9. Oh i just realized my link did appear on the linky

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  10. beautiful blue skies at the airport and your Easter food looks delish!

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  11. At least you've been on road trips. I haven't done one of those in ages and I'm getting very itchy to do so! I'm hoping Rick and I can take off somewhere soon but if we can't, then I might just do something on my own!

    My friend in Boulder told me about the red flag warnings. Do take care, my friend. (Oh, those cookies!)

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  12. Pat, Plants need moisture and recently we got it snow and not rain. We need rain to clean things up. Some in the forcast. Thanks for sharing and have a great week. Sylvia D.

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  13. That photo of the plane against the clouds is amazing. I think that sometimes it is OK to be just an observer (though I do wish I was on the plane as well :-)
    Amalia
    xo

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  14. Hello Pat, it does feel good to be getting back to being able to join in with activities again - like picking up family members from an overseas business trip and watching family play sports!
    Your Easter meal looks fabulous, we are nearly at the stage of being able to get our family back together again, which is exciting.
    Have a lovely week, may your flowers be blooming lovely!
    Wren x

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  15. I miss flying but don't plan on taking a plane for a while. We are planning road trips however.

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  16. Your dry weather must be very worrying. I read about it over here. We're jetting off to Greece next week. Sorry.

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  17. It's great to be able to see kids activities in real life again. I tutor kids in reading and am looking forward hopefully to do it in real life again in the Fall. This zoom thing is hard on everybody but especially kids.

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  18. Ah, the friendly skies! Very pretty clouds. I always liked DIA and those white tent structures. Very unique!

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  19. I wish I was flying too. But not until June.

    BTW, you've been everywhere, I just want to ask if you've been to Banff and Jasper in Alberta, Canada? If so, do you have any tips?

    https://calrat.blogspot.com

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  20. A perfect columbine. We've flown into Denver a few times and simply stayed for a couple nights near union square. The train shuttle makes it so easy.

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  21. Love those airplanes flying across the blue skies, great capture that I remember it's like from a travel magazine. You took marvelous shots! Cheers!
    http://donyarific.blogspot.com/

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  22. Isn't it lovely to be able to attend your grands events again, I know we enjoy it too :)

    Hoping you will get some rain soon.
    Take care.

    All the best Jan

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  23. Greetings and Salutations! Broccoli cheese pie sounds yummy!

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  24. That is a beautiful flower. Glad to see most things are back to normale except the weather. We have the opposite to you. Normally we have a dry Autumn but this year we have had more rain than usual. Its usually us with the dry weather and high fire danger but not this year. I don't mind I'd rather wet than too dry.

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  25. I am so happy to see activities return to som semblance of normal again. Children in particular must've missed out on so much.

    As for the drought, it sounds very worrisome indeed. I had no idea it was that bad. We have had quite dry weather here in the Netherlands too but nowhere as bad as yours.

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  26. I am glad you have enjoyed some normalcy… Michelle

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  27. Joining you in praying for rain for the plains and snow for the mountains (can that happen in May?). Anyway for more much needed precipitation.... Fun times with the grands who sound active and full of life and joy! Your Easter dinner sounds wonderful. And I think Colorado has the prettiest State flower of all! A lovely photo of the Columbine.

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