Colorado!!

We did it.  We embarked on our first official family of four vacation.  I managed to forget only one thing this time.  But considering that one thing held all the diapers and wipes meant for the plane ride, I suppose it was still a big deal.  Luckily Aaron's sister let us know that we left it in the car and were able to buy some at the airport (of course the tiniest pack of diapers and wipes for $20!!), for which we were very grateful since he indeed pooped on the plane.

Here we all are getting ready for takeoff, Barett so excited for his first flight, I'm sure.  Adelyn had  been looking forward to flying on a plane all week, but when we started the climb she said she didn't like the plane after all because it was too fast.  As we got going a little further she asked if our friends that we were visiting lived in the sky.  Love how their little minds work!!

Aaron had some meetings in Colorado, so since our really good friends moved out there in July, we decided to head out with him and rented a little condo together from some good mountain fun.  Adelyn and their two boys were peas in a pod the whole weekend, swimming at the pool, playing in the snow, giggling in their room at night, getting married to each other, sharing pack of gum after pack of gum, you name it.

One day we took the kids sledding and they had a blast while the parents had a workout pulling them back up the hill each time, which at 9300 ft is no joke!! Um, yeah, I only did it once...thanks Aaron! 

The 9300 feet combined with the dry air also was a serious shock for our noses--I couldn't make it through the night without having to blow it several times and both Adelyn and Aaron had a couple bloddy noses while we were there.  TMI?  If so sorry, just a tip to take some nasal spray if you're planning a trip to the Rockies anytime soon!

It was a small price to pay for those beautiful blue skies you see that we enjoyed EVERY single day we were there.  That is a rareity for we Washingtonians in the winter.  Even the day that it snowed all morning managed to have sunny blue skies by the afternoon.

The next day we headed to one of the main parts of the resort...America's largest Zamboni maintained frozen lake.

We took the kids out ice skating on it, something I would not recommend to any parents of a three year old!  Their five year old son started getting the hang of it with one of these "trainers", but their 3 year old wasn't having any of it and our three year old got pretty tired of falling pretty fast.  Bless her heart, she really did the best she could, but let's be serious, even I fall on ice skates and I'm 31!!

Luckily though, a nice neighborly dad saw our plight and let us use the toboggan they had rented when his daughters tired of it.  That was a much bigger hit...once again having the daddies do all the hard work!

At church we met a guy who makes ice castles, so we stopped to check them out on our way out of town.   

They loved this little sleigh ice scuplture, though couldn't quite figure out how to sit down on it without sliding off after two seconds.

It was a great trip and so fun to just hang out and visit with old friends.  When we got back to Denver we also got to see (and eat at Cafe Rio with!) Aaron's cousin who is married to our friend's brother.  A big thanks to the Ponders and the Crisenberrys for being such great hosts and making us so welcome on our stay.  If only you could have had a little more snow on the slopes it would have been perfect!

The most ironic part about the whole trip was the most snow we saw was when we flew home into a blizzard...13 inches of snow in one day...one of the five snowiest days on record for us!!!  Sadly Aaron still had the camera in Colorado, but here is a lame cell phone shot of our backyard with about 2/3 of the snow that we got.

Who would have thought?

THREE!

Adelyn's birthday is on New Year's Eve, which makes the holiday season even crazier for us.  And thankfully gives us a deadline to get the tree down and get the birthday stuff up.  We decided at the very last minute to brave a friend party for her and decided even more last minute to go with a pink cowgirl theme (mostly because I wanted to make chili).

I was really glad that I did...Adelyn woke up to birthday decorations and was so excited.  Everytime I have made a birthday cake for someone in the past six months she's been hoping it was for her, so she was ecstatic to have it finally happen. I know our hats may look a little Crocodile Dundee, but hey, it was the best we could do on the fly.  Don't be jealous, just go get one for yourself at Wal-Mart for $2.50.

I asked my little brother to take pictures during the party, but I should have been more specific in wanting more posed of all the cute kiddos and less candids of all the chaos.  Several dressed in western duds and looked darling.  Oh well.  We did manage some cute ones of the "cousins" afterward. 

We also forgot to sing and blow out the candles, so here she is doing it during our family dinner party.  What a special girl Adelyn is, who loves pink and princesses, letters and reading, music and dancing.  She entertains me daily and suprises me constantly with her intelligence (ridiculously she often beats me at the Memory game someone gave her). 

A big thanks to all of you who helped make her birthday celebration such an enjoyment for her.

New Blog

Well I came on here to post about Adelyn's three parties for turning three (not my intention, just how it turned out), but something is going on with the picture uploader!!  So you will just have to stay in suspense for how it all went down and I'll tell you instead about a new blog I am starting: Live to Last.

I know several of you who follow my blog that share my goals for the new year of losing weight or getting fit or eating healthier or something along those lines.  That blog will be a place to share healthy recipes, fitness tips, and overall good ideas for a happier, longer life so that we can all reach our goals together. 

So check it out, let me know what you think, and keep coming back because there is only more to come!

Christmas Happenings

I think it goes without saying that December is a very busy time of year, so I hope all will excuse for my lack of any recent updates.

We started off the month picking out our tree, which was beautiful and just maybe a little too big for the size of our living room, but I loved it still.

Aaron's mom came down for FHE and helped us decorate.  Note to self and any interested: when inviting others to help decorate your tree: string the lights first.  That part takes just a little more time than the fun it offers in return, especially if you are 3.

 Adelyn's preschool put on a little Christmas program and she was VERY excited for it.  She only wanted to listen to her CD while in the car and kept talking about singing, so I thought I'd show you the difference between her "practice" time:



And then the actual performance.  I'm so glad that we had my family all come to watch!!  But for her first time up "on stage" we weren't too concerned, just entertained.

We also had a fun ward Christmas party, complete with Santa.

And a really fun Elder's Quorum party, complete with Ugly Sweaters.  That Pink Special you see on the right just so happens to have won the contest that night--a gift certificate to Goodwill!

Aaron's brother came into town and before we managed to get him and almost all of Aaron's and my entire families sick with the worst stomach flu we have seen in a long time (a memorable Christmas for sure), they managed to have a great time at the Seahawks Christmas Eve game (despite the ridiculousness of the loss).

Then of course we had Christmas itself, which apparently we took more videos of than pictures, but I won't bore you with more videos.  I loved that we got to go to church Christmas morning and stop right in the middle of opening presents to focus on the birth and life of the Savior.

These pictures got out of order and since I already have wasted too much time trying to arrange and rearrange all the above photos and videos, I will leave them be--anyone else having trouble with the new and "improved" blogspot?!?!

But in addition to all of the special happenings of the Christmas season, December also brought Barett his first taste of real food:

And his first time rolling over.  As he is a bit larger than your average kid (20 lbs at his 4 month check-up), it took him a bit longer than the average four months, but he is rolling like a champ now and it's quite entertaining to watch the little chunk move around.

Man I love my kids and my family and am grateful that we had a great holiday season this year and were able to spend so much time together.  Now on to the new year and it's resolutions!!!