Events in May! {catching up}

May was a month filled with celebrations and so many things!  I've posted about the amazing birds that visited and the stitching I was able to accomplish, but I haven't posted about some of the family events that took place!  On May 1st, my son Jonathan married Becca in a small ceremony!  Just them and all of the parents in a small ceremony with their pastor.   We'll be celebrating again in August with a much larger friends and family ceremony!  

It was a lovely personal ceremony.

























I loved the way that both Becca and Jonathan wore their cowboy boots. 
Just a simple bouquet of flowers and a lacy dress for the bride.

The happy couple! 

Me with the bride and groom!

A church member found out about the small wedding ceremony and surprised the couple with a lovely and very tasty wedding cake!  

Another celebration was for my foster son Gary who graduated with his Associates Degree, Magna Cum Laude.  Quite an accomplishment for a young man who due to circumstances in his family never completed a full semester of school beyond the 5th grade!  Gary's lovely wife Marcy provided an unending supply of encouragement and motivation!  In the fall, Gary continues on in school at Colorado Christian University as he pursues his education towards becoming a Pastor!  So very proud of Gary and his accomplishments! 

At home, it rained.  And rained.  And rained some more.  I did this little watercolor sketch from my kitchen window during a brief hour when the sun came out and made the grass glow with light! While I have missed the sunshine, Colorado is a green and lush as I've ever seen it!  

Then, at the end of the month, I made a trip to Arizona, stopping along the way at the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company in Colorado Springs!  These tiny homes range from 80 to 160 square feet in size.  About the size of a large walk in closet or bathroom in many new houses today.  I've been intrigued by tiny houses for a very long time... long before Tumbleweed made Tiny Houses a popular thing... and have notebooks full of sketches and designs for several.  I would LOVE to be able to build one of these someday! 

It was terrific to stand inside of one and feel the space.  For just a moment it felt really small.  But then the more time I was in it, the more spacious it felt.  In my wildest dreams, I sell everything I own and move into one of these and travel the country, stopping for a few months in various locations to really get to know an area.  Maybe someday that dream will come true!

The trip to Arizona was to celebrate my sister Holly's retirement from the Forest Service!  Being a Forest Fire Fighter, she got to retire after 20 years of service!

Appropriately, the celebration was held in the forest she helped to protect all these years.  She moved up from being just another member of a fire crew, to being an engine boss, on the heli-attack crew, and than on up into fire management.  She was suitably feted with awards and remembrances for all that she did for the Kaibab National Forest and there were over 60 people in attendance to help her celebrate!  

I loved that many of the gifts she received had to do with large fires that she had helped to fight! 

Another treat was getting to see her garden for the first time!  It was just past it's prime time of bloom, but still glorious even in the early summer heat!  She has really created a lovely small waterwise paradise despite living in the desert!

So that was the month of May ~ filled with celebrations and a bit of travel and the possibility of dreams to come!

Next post, I hope to catch up with the last installment about the Crazy Adventure portion of my east coast trip!