Easter Program

Life Goes On 9/10/14

 A night of sewing with the ladies...

...while the dudes enjoyed manly drinks.

 While thankfully we didn't get carried away in our planting, we've still gotten lots of good veggies.  I'm the most excited about the cilantro.  Soooooo handy to have on hand all summer.

Swimming with Sophia.  She thought my goggles were awesome and we had to agree.  Hilarious.

Tess and Kerry were both due with their 2nd children in August.  We celebrated with them by feeding them good food, giving them massages, mani's, pedi's, and gifts.  It was lots of fun to dote on the lovely mommies!

I turned 29 in August and Chel sent me 4 different herbs and chocolate.  We're still trying to figure out what 3 of the herbs are!

 Someone else really enjoys our garden.  Haefs said this is how they get Harper to eat veggies now, they just tell him they are from our garden!

 Not a great shot, but meeting baby Adam.  Soph wasn't to sure about all the attention being on baby brother though.

Ker also turned 29 in August.  The beverages were so we could have proof when we called social services on her pregnant self.  Just kidding, she was a very sober pregnant lady.

Pickling cucubmers.  Harps was a great help, except every time we had to remove a few pickles from the jars he stocked. 

 Our SALT group has 'feasts' every month to build community.  These pictures are from a baseball night.  As you can see, the ladies were more interested in chatting than playing. 

 

 Jake's crews pulled off these bricks and stone from a jobsite, which means more projects in our back yard.  I will look forward to the day when renovations are finished.

Kerry finally went in to labor, at 2am on this lovely morning.  We kept this little rascal and were reminded why we love our "no kids" stage.  He was up and rearing to go wayyyyyyyyyyyy to early.  Thankfully, this was a good book and gave us some extra wake up time before the running and playing began.

This was from a Sunday afternoon walk up by Idaho Springs.  A group of us went jeeping and then spent the evening around a bonfire.

We had some new neighbors move in to the house catty-corner from us.  I decided to make them some cinnamon rolls so I had an excuse to meet them.  This is my moms caramel roll recipe and last time I made it, the rolls hardly raised at all.  This time, I did my homework and found an article that tells you how to adjust flat-lander recipes for high altitude baking.  They went a little nuts.  And my pride wouldn't let me take them over to the neighbors : )

We purchased Rockies tickets from Seb for his baseball team fundraiser.  We left after the 7th inning as man, they get long.  And they started losing and the guy behind us thought from the 3rd level the Rockies were listening to him coaching...  Other than that it was beautiful evening and view of the sunset!

A common sight when these two are at our house together.  Soph definitely looks at Harper with awe right now and wants to be everywhere he is.  

Playing the game Ice Breaker with Harper, in which he thinks he wins when he knocks down the polar bear so if you accidentally knock it down, life ends.  And snuggling little Marley.

Looking back through these photos it's easy to see what a lot of our life consists of right now, friends and food. : ) We are blessed!

Coloradopalooza

Jake's Gma Marlene and all 7 of her siblings stayed really close through the years. They started a tradition way back when with their parents of getting together every year, no exceptions.  Not that this is unusual, many families have reunions like this.  What is striking about this group though, is that the cousins have continued this tradition even when most of the original siblings have passed on.  Every 5 years it's hosted in Colorado and so this year it was held at Harmel's close to Gunnison.  If you ever want to have a Colorado family reunion, this is the place to be.  Each family had their own cabin, with a free breakfast and lots to do during the days.  Because of work, we didn't get up there til the reunion was pretty much over but still really enjoyed our few days with family.  I had only met a couple of these cousins prior so I wasn't sure what to expect.  Every family system is unique.  

Wednesday evening when we arrived, Jake and his uncle played the guitars while the rest of us tried to sing...without books...trying to use phones without service as flashlights and getting lyrics.  It didn't work that well.  Then the volleyball tournament was the next morning, and my team won!  Which, I got leveled by Herb, Marlene's 80 some year old brother, and he got leveled by Dan.  So, it wasn't a very graceful win!

Afterwards Jake and I took a bike ride to Spring Creek Reservoir.  We didn't make it to the reservoir because at 10.3 miles and 1444 ft of uphill climb, we weren't sure how much further it was.  When we got back and looked it up it was 1.3 more miles.  Jake wished we woulda pushed through but I'm glad we stopped, I was worn down.  A road bike is no match for uphill gravel roads. Or downhill for that matter, on the trip home, I thought my arms were going to shake off!

On Saturday we drove north of Crested Butte up Schofield Pass road.  It was lush with wildflowers and wide open valleys.  We drove as far as we could in our car, and walked the last little bit to Emerald Lake.  After getting rained out at the lake and chilled to the bone, we walked along a mountain bike trail and the East River so Jake could fish more.  He didn't catch anything but did fall in once.  All I heard was a "wooo wooo" and looked up and he was crawling out of the river!  The river cut through Slate rock and so everything was really slippery. Apparently the current carried him down about 20 ft.  I really wish I would have seen it! 

The last day of our adventure mostly consisted of driving home. We stopped South of Fairplay along the South Fork Platte River, Jake fishing and me reading.  He caught tons of fish which we cooked up for our supper.  We both got majorly sunburned but it was a relaxing end to a fun couple of days in the mountains!

 

 

#stcvaca

The last time my whole family was together was in May of 2012 for Chel's wedding.  And even then, mis cinco sobrinos were not in tow.  While that still hasn't happened to date and not sure when it will occur in the forseeable future, us sisters did get to have a mini reunion in San Diego.  Steph turned 30 in December and Chel and I decided a sister weekend would be the perfect gift.  We were right.  This trip, even with having your typical sibling spats every once in a while, was indeed perfect!

We all flew in around the same time to San Diego airport and then made our way to our first nights accommodations.  When I say made, I mean I made my sisters walk 3 miles with all our luggage to a hotel I booked that was actually a one bed, no bath hostel.  Yes, it was a surprise to me as well!

Steph had booked us a much better hotel downtown for the next couple nights with hot tubs, a pool and TWO QUEEN BEDS.  Much better than sharing a twin bed for 3 nights! The Wagenbachs let us borrow their van, which we were ever so grateful for.  We were able to drive around the city and explore places like La Jolla, Balboa park, Point Loma, Ocean Beach and more.

We ate a lot of great breakfasts... 

 ...great meals in general!

 

Relaxed a lot..

...and walked all over.

  

We had a lot of laughing moments but one of my favorites was on our last day, before the stress of getting to the airport and then learning all our flights were delayed.  We decided to eat good seafood at the Ocean Beach Pier Cafe.  When we got to the Ocean Beach area, we ran in to a street fair.  I think we drove around for 20 minutes, about gave up, and then magically found a parking spot amongst the masses, about a 30 minute walk to the pier.  After faithfully directing, our GPS ended at the pier leaving us clueless about where to go next.  We looked up and down the streets and couldn't find the cafe anywhere.  So Steph asks a parking natzi "Do you know where the Ocean Beach Pier Cafe is?"  Her sardonic response, "probably on the pier..." left us in shambles.  DUH!  Wala, there it was, on the pier, as we should have assumed!

 Sadly that last day ended rather rushed and stressful because I had misread Steph's leave time and then after rushing and moodiness, it got delayed anyway. Bleh.  My flight was delayed as well and so I spent 4 hours in San Diego by myself.  I had never paid for a massage before and felt this was a great time for it!  Well worth the money spent!  But disappointing as well because I found out Steph could have joined me because her flight had been delayed even longer as well : (

I love my sisters and looking back, am so thankful for the time we had together!  I think it meant a lot to each of us and fue muy divertido to live a little of life together again!

 Oh and for the record, I blended in with a couch. yay.