I Like #184

 Welcome to another week of things to like!  Thankfully for all of you, I went out of town this weekend to visit my parents and grandma (after having a negative covid test) which meant lots of fun pictures of things other than my dahlias.  Don't worry, the dahlias are fine, I'm sure there will be more pictures of them next week.

My sister and I both went to my folks' place in New Mexico this weekend in large part because my grandmother just moved into assisted living and we needed to help move things out of her house.  In addition to moving stuff, we got to see and talk to my grandma (through the window of her new apartment) which was fantastic.  We also had a picnic dinner trip to White Sands now-a-National-Park, which is one of my favorite places and did a couple of nice hikes so it was altogether a VERY busy two days.

Early Saturday morning we got up and went for a short hike on the "regular" trail in the national forest across the street from my folks house.  I love it up there, so very home-like.

Instead of my dahlias, you get pictures of my parents' gorgeous flowers.  I think these are four o'clocks, they have several beds of these.  

And their cosmos are gorgeous and huge.  Glorious!

This is the original Grandma plant.  Everyone in our family has been growing cuttings from this plant for many years, but this one is the original.  My grandma has been growing it for at least fifty years, and she asked me to give it a good home when she moved.  I gave it a giant haircut, but it made the trip well and hopefully will flourish at my house too!  It's a fairly hardy (and even aggressive) plant, the cutting I have tried to break through to the outside by growing into and enlarging cracks between my walls and windows.

Bentley and Blue didn't make this trip, Mike stayed at home to watch them.  I'll take them at Thanksgiving, but I knew I'd have a full car coming back so I left them in OKC.  But I got in lots of snuggles with my parents' pups, including Shooter, who is a very good snuggler and used to be mine before my dad kidnapped her.  It's ok, she loves life at their place.

After visiting my grandma, it was off to White Sands for a picnic and sledding and beautiful sunset.  

It was hazy down there (winds blowing smoke from AZ and CA), but the sunset was lovely.

We've been going to White Sands for as long as I can remember.  When I got home I was looking through some of my grandma's photo albums I'd gotten and found this evidence:  my sister and I at white sands c. 1984 (my sister is the buried one) playing in the sand.

On Sunday we started the day with a hike and some stand-up paddleboarding at a lake in our mountains.  We all got a kick out of this sign (especially my mom who goes by Muddy to the grandkids) showing a "Muddy Meter" at the trailhead.  I think it's to help you decide whether it's safe to ride your mountain bikes,

I got back late Monday night, and even though the weekend was exhausting, it was spiritually so rejuvenating to spend time with my parents and sister and so wonderful to see my grandma, that it was worth the effort.  

I hope you are all staying healthy and having clean air, and finding good things this week!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more stuff to like!