Thinking about family tonight; looking forward to those I will see in a couple of weeks and missing those I won't.....
Showing posts with label Colorado. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Colorado. Show all posts
Friday, November 9, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Finale.
Gotta hurry up and finish my CO post since life is about to get really busy and there's something big and fun to post about tomorrow....the first day of school! Still can't get over my Z becoming a kindergartner and Samuel a 2nd grader. Wow. More on that tomorrow!
Everyone was very busy Saturday night running around collecting strewn items, packing, doing loads of laundry or in my adorable, precocious nephew's case....dancing. I wish I could describe it but you really had to be there. Just picture a 2 year old boogying down, break dancing and well, dancing better than most adults!!
A few of my favorite mountain shots. A camera never truly captures what you see with your own eye. It's truly incredible and awe inspiring to see the mountains.
Especially if you're from the Midwest:)
Sunday morning we got everyone packed up, cleaned up and loaded up by 9am! Then most of us followed each other down the mountain and back towards Denver to go to my sister and her husband's church.
Eliana was being a total ham before she crashed and took a nap on the way:)
After church, some more family took off for their homes (sniff!) and some of us went to eat lunch and then we made our way back to my sister's house, where we were spending the night. The boys discovered their love for the trampoline in about 2.4 seconds and literally stayed on it for hours the next 2 days!
I couldn't get any non-blurry shots because they were so busy jumping..
Laughing.....
And falling over:)
My adorable niece, Sofia.
Mr. Personality himself:)
My mom finally got to feeling much better from her virus and even got in on the jumping on Monday:)
I'm sure she'll thank me for this picture later.....hahaha!
Eliana discovered that trampolining was super fun, too! She threw a major tantrum when I tried to get her off. I know, hard to believe she could throw a tantrum, right?
Right.
Later on Monday around dinnertime, we headed over to see some dear, wonderful long-lost Chicago friends! We lived one floor apart back in Hyde Park and kept each other sane during the long, lonely winter months while our husbands were working hard at school.
I thought for sure our kids would need a little time to get to know each other again since it's been TWO years since we've seen each other but I was amazed to watch them act like they hadn't even spent a day apart! It was awesome.
Plus they got to have a big slumber party and stayed awake giggling til 10:30pm. Double awesome:)
Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day, which is apparently normal for Colorado. Imagine sun!! We went to a park to get some of the kid's energy out. Samuel was a bit grumpy that day due to lack of sleep:)
My lovely friend, Ms J, and her youngest, 2 year old twins. They were so gracious to host us for 2 days and have 7 kids, 7 and under running underfoot!!
My friend is extremely creative and great at finding ideas to occupy children. She pulled out some water beads in the afternoon and all the kids gravitated towards them like bees to honey. She may never get them out of her grass but it was worth it, I'm pretty sure:)
So busy!
We were really sad to say goodbye to our family, our friends and our vacation but we knew we had to get back and resettled before school and work began again. We loaded ourselves into our van and left just after 5am on Wednesday. As you can see from the picture above, we were exhausted!!!
The boys alternated listening to books on tape and sleeping the whole way home. Eliana took at least 2 naps and I did, too! All the kiddos were konked out about an hour from home. Eliana and Zakkai were carried right up to bed and we didn't hear a peep from them til late the next morning. Samuel was really hungry so he got a little snack and then went to bed.
He was probably hungry because Ben was (in my brother in law's words) a "Road Warrior" on Wednesday and every time we stopped he was like, "Hurry! Quickly! Gotta get back on the road!" We didn't drink much or eat much, just wanted to sleep in our own beds:)
Other than needing a few days to adjust and feel good, we had a really good vacation. We loved spending time with our loved ones, seeing new places and having fun. As all vacations go, it went too fast but we will treasure the memories always!
Now....back to reality:)
Everyone was very busy Saturday night running around collecting strewn items, packing, doing loads of laundry or in my adorable, precocious nephew's case....dancing. I wish I could describe it but you really had to be there. Just picture a 2 year old boogying down, break dancing and well, dancing better than most adults!!
A few of my favorite mountain shots. A camera never truly captures what you see with your own eye. It's truly incredible and awe inspiring to see the mountains.
Especially if you're from the Midwest:)
Sunday morning we got everyone packed up, cleaned up and loaded up by 9am! Then most of us followed each other down the mountain and back towards Denver to go to my sister and her husband's church.
Eliana was being a total ham before she crashed and took a nap on the way:)
After church, some more family took off for their homes (sniff!) and some of us went to eat lunch and then we made our way back to my sister's house, where we were spending the night. The boys discovered their love for the trampoline in about 2.4 seconds and literally stayed on it for hours the next 2 days!
I couldn't get any non-blurry shots because they were so busy jumping..
Laughing.....
And falling over:)
My adorable niece, Sofia.
Mr. Personality himself:)
My mom finally got to feeling much better from her virus and even got in on the jumping on Monday:)
I'm sure she'll thank me for this picture later.....hahaha!
Eliana discovered that trampolining was super fun, too! She threw a major tantrum when I tried to get her off. I know, hard to believe she could throw a tantrum, right?
Right.
Later on Monday around dinnertime, we headed over to see some dear, wonderful long-lost Chicago friends! We lived one floor apart back in Hyde Park and kept each other sane during the long, lonely winter months while our husbands were working hard at school.
I thought for sure our kids would need a little time to get to know each other again since it's been TWO years since we've seen each other but I was amazed to watch them act like they hadn't even spent a day apart! It was awesome.
Plus they got to have a big slumber party and stayed awake giggling til 10:30pm. Double awesome:)
Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day, which is apparently normal for Colorado. Imagine sun!! We went to a park to get some of the kid's energy out. Samuel was a bit grumpy that day due to lack of sleep:)
My lovely friend, Ms J, and her youngest, 2 year old twins. They were so gracious to host us for 2 days and have 7 kids, 7 and under running underfoot!!
My friend is extremely creative and great at finding ideas to occupy children. She pulled out some water beads in the afternoon and all the kids gravitated towards them like bees to honey. She may never get them out of her grass but it was worth it, I'm pretty sure:)
So busy!
We were really sad to say goodbye to our family, our friends and our vacation but we knew we had to get back and resettled before school and work began again. We loaded ourselves into our van and left just after 5am on Wednesday. As you can see from the picture above, we were exhausted!!!
The boys alternated listening to books on tape and sleeping the whole way home. Eliana took at least 2 naps and I did, too! All the kiddos were konked out about an hour from home. Eliana and Zakkai were carried right up to bed and we didn't hear a peep from them til late the next morning. Samuel was really hungry so he got a little snack and then went to bed.
He was probably hungry because Ben was (in my brother in law's words) a "Road Warrior" on Wednesday and every time we stopped he was like, "Hurry! Quickly! Gotta get back on the road!" We didn't drink much or eat much, just wanted to sleep in our own beds:)
Other than needing a few days to adjust and feel good, we had a really good vacation. We loved spending time with our loved ones, seeing new places and having fun. As all vacations go, it went too fast but we will treasure the memories always!
Now....back to reality:)
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Days 2 and 3!
Sorry these vacation posts are taking so long! It would be WAY too long of a post if I did it all in one. And I'm trying to write down the details for my own memories:) So you have to put up with me for a couple more days:) And trust me, it's much more exciting than me telling you about how exhausted we've been since we got back. We are just starting to feel ourselves again.
So last Thursday after we got to the house, I had a headache and thought I was guzzling a lot of water (an absolute must in the mountains!) but I think the combination of traveling for 2 days and loss of sleep plus going straight up into the mountains after arriving in Denver was just too much for my body. And we really weren't "taking it easy" that first afternoon/night.
Everyone was rushing around hugging, talking, settling in, checking out the ginormous house, etc. Fast forward to the night where our dear little Eliana slept like a newborn and was up AT LEAST 7 times.....My head was starting to hurt so bad and I felt worse everytime I jumped up to quiet her, hoping to minimize her disturbing everyone else.
Our family was sleeping in a bunk room~twin bunks for the boys, a full/twin bunk for B and I and the pack n' play for E. My headache probably didn't get helped by the fact that I whacked it FOUR times on the top bunk as I leapt out to quiet Missy:)
Anyways, I started getting so sick by morning that I was throwing up, etc and sleeping on the floor so I could rush to the bathroom. My sis, being the wonderful sister she is, went to find my mom, who came to our room to find me laying on the bathroom floor looking like death. (My sister and her hub and baby had the bunk room on the other side of a joint bathroom.)
She helped get all the kiddos out and upstairs to be dressed/fed and brought me some stuff to drink and some medicine for my head. Under the threat of going for an I.V., I forced myself to drink every few minutes in between dozing. The worst part was that there isn't enough oxygen up there (we were just over 9,000ft up) and so I would wake up after short naps, gasping for air. Terrible feeling!
Ben felt pretty cruddy and not himself, too, through the day so my sisters were nice enough to take our boys out and about to have fun. They were having a total blast! It was a really stinky day for B and I and we were SO disappointed to have a whole day wasted where we couldn't do anything:(
I improved slowly throughout the day and pulled myself together enough to join the big Anniversary Dinner at a local restaurant. I would've crawled there for my Gma and Gpa!
We got a whole upstairs section of the restaurant to ourselves!
We sat at tables, booths, on barstools, anywhere:) Just catching up and having a good time!
B and I sat with my sis and her hubby. I really wish I would've felt better and could've enjoyed it more. I nibbled on some mashed potatoes while everyone dined on all sorts of good stuff.
My sweet niece conked out shortly after and slept most of the time! She's such a doll baby:)
All of the older cousins got to sit allllll by themselves:) They were seriously stuck to each other like glue the whole trip. They called themselves "The Club" and ran around playing with these walkie talkies the house provided, going on outings to lakes and fishing, playing wii, and so much more. It was SO much fun to see them soak up their time together. Samuel keeps saying he wishes we were still there....
Some mountain views on our way back to the house for a special evening...
We tucked little ones into bed and had a big celebration. We all wore our pins throughout the weekend with my grandparent's wedding pic on them and my mom and aunt put together a really special sideshow of pictures with their favorite music on it.
Afterwards, we spent time laughing and crying while sharing special memories and thanks to the wonderful, amazing people who started our family and have set an example of love for 60 years! (66 if you count the 6 years they "went together" in high school:)
So many people, so many tears, SO much laughter and love! I hope the reunion was everything my grandparents hoped it would be.
The next day I forgot my camera (dang it) but B and I were on breakfast duty with my Aunt J and Uncle G and we wowed our family with homemade Cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, bacon and cantelope. Oh, and coffee. There are many coffee drinkers in the family apparently:)
Almost makes me wish I liked the stuff. Almost.
Then a big group took off for fishing! Ben went with one group and two of my bro-in-laws took all 6 of the older cousins on their own fishing expedition. Unfortunately, the fish were not biting for either group that day but I think they all had fun!
Meanwhile, another big group of us (excepting my poor mom, who got sick with a nasty virus) went to Breckinridge, a nearby town to sightsee. We walked around and got to take a gondola ride up the mountain! Eliana just sat in my lap and looked around. It was so pretty (and a little scary.) I'll have to bum some pics off of someone!
We ate a little lunch at a pizza place and then headed back for naps. The 2 little ones (Eliana and her cuz Evelyn) fell asleep on the way back. We ended up back at the house at the same time as the adult fishing crew and almost immediately headed back out again for some outlet shopping!
Gotta pack in as much as you can:) It was, overall, a much, much better day than Friday and it felt good to be out doing things. We had tacos for dinner and there was lots of game playing and Olympic watching going on.
I wish I could be back there now.......:) More tomorrow!
So last Thursday after we got to the house, I had a headache and thought I was guzzling a lot of water (an absolute must in the mountains!) but I think the combination of traveling for 2 days and loss of sleep plus going straight up into the mountains after arriving in Denver was just too much for my body. And we really weren't "taking it easy" that first afternoon/night.
Everyone was rushing around hugging, talking, settling in, checking out the ginormous house, etc. Fast forward to the night where our dear little Eliana slept like a newborn and was up AT LEAST 7 times.....My head was starting to hurt so bad and I felt worse everytime I jumped up to quiet her, hoping to minimize her disturbing everyone else.
Our family was sleeping in a bunk room~twin bunks for the boys, a full/twin bunk for B and I and the pack n' play for E. My headache probably didn't get helped by the fact that I whacked it FOUR times on the top bunk as I leapt out to quiet Missy:)
Anyways, I started getting so sick by morning that I was throwing up, etc and sleeping on the floor so I could rush to the bathroom. My sis, being the wonderful sister she is, went to find my mom, who came to our room to find me laying on the bathroom floor looking like death. (My sister and her hub and baby had the bunk room on the other side of a joint bathroom.)
She helped get all the kiddos out and upstairs to be dressed/fed and brought me some stuff to drink and some medicine for my head. Under the threat of going for an I.V., I forced myself to drink every few minutes in between dozing. The worst part was that there isn't enough oxygen up there (we were just over 9,000ft up) and so I would wake up after short naps, gasping for air. Terrible feeling!
Ben felt pretty cruddy and not himself, too, through the day so my sisters were nice enough to take our boys out and about to have fun. They were having a total blast! It was a really stinky day for B and I and we were SO disappointed to have a whole day wasted where we couldn't do anything:(
I improved slowly throughout the day and pulled myself together enough to join the big Anniversary Dinner at a local restaurant. I would've crawled there for my Gma and Gpa!
We got a whole upstairs section of the restaurant to ourselves!
We sat at tables, booths, on barstools, anywhere:) Just catching up and having a good time!
B and I sat with my sis and her hubby. I really wish I would've felt better and could've enjoyed it more. I nibbled on some mashed potatoes while everyone dined on all sorts of good stuff.
My sweet niece conked out shortly after and slept most of the time! She's such a doll baby:)
All of the older cousins got to sit allllll by themselves:) They were seriously stuck to each other like glue the whole trip. They called themselves "The Club" and ran around playing with these walkie talkies the house provided, going on outings to lakes and fishing, playing wii, and so much more. It was SO much fun to see them soak up their time together. Samuel keeps saying he wishes we were still there....
Some mountain views on our way back to the house for a special evening...
We tucked little ones into bed and had a big celebration. We all wore our pins throughout the weekend with my grandparent's wedding pic on them and my mom and aunt put together a really special sideshow of pictures with their favorite music on it.
Afterwards, we spent time laughing and crying while sharing special memories and thanks to the wonderful, amazing people who started our family and have set an example of love for 60 years! (66 if you count the 6 years they "went together" in high school:)
So many people, so many tears, SO much laughter and love! I hope the reunion was everything my grandparents hoped it would be.
The next day I forgot my camera (dang it) but B and I were on breakfast duty with my Aunt J and Uncle G and we wowed our family with homemade Cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, bacon and cantelope. Oh, and coffee. There are many coffee drinkers in the family apparently:)
Almost makes me wish I liked the stuff. Almost.
Then a big group took off for fishing! Ben went with one group and two of my bro-in-laws took all 6 of the older cousins on their own fishing expedition. Unfortunately, the fish were not biting for either group that day but I think they all had fun!
Meanwhile, another big group of us (excepting my poor mom, who got sick with a nasty virus) went to Breckinridge, a nearby town to sightsee. We walked around and got to take a gondola ride up the mountain! Eliana just sat in my lap and looked around. It was so pretty (and a little scary.) I'll have to bum some pics off of someone!
We ate a little lunch at a pizza place and then headed back for naps. The 2 little ones (Eliana and her cuz Evelyn) fell asleep on the way back. We ended up back at the house at the same time as the adult fishing crew and almost immediately headed back out again for some outlet shopping!
Gotta pack in as much as you can:) It was, overall, a much, much better day than Friday and it felt good to be out doing things. We had tacos for dinner and there was lots of game playing and Olympic watching going on.
I wish I could be back there now.......:) More tomorrow!
Saturday, August 18, 2012
We enter Colorado!
We figured out very quickly that Eliana will NOT sleep in her pack n' play while camping. Who knows why. Toddlers have no rhyme or reason!
Each night, we tucked her in close to us on the air mattress and as soon as her eyes drifted closed, she slept like a log!
She rolled off once or twice onto Samuel's sleeping bag and I hauled her up. She slept through the whole thing:)
Sleeping Beauty on the morning we left:) She's pink because the tent is red!
Zakkai's joyful morning face.
He gets it from his father...
I finally talked Father Thomas into moving and we piled our gear into the van and took off! I didn't realize the time had changed while we were there and was disappointed to realize we were leaving an hour later than I'd hoped. Anxious to see family!
We took a few wrong turns/exits that were poorly marked and our 3 hr 12 min drive Thursday morning to my sister's house took more like 4 1/2 hours. Yuck.
We were immediately greeted by my grandparents, my sister, brother in law and my 2 nieces! Pretty soon my mom and step dad and aunt J and uncle G showed up and we were out the door and ready for our trip up the mountain barely 1 1/2 hours after we'd showed up.
Thankfully we had just enough time to wash the Nebraska dirt off before we left:)
The mountains. Oh, the mountains. They make the most boring drive absolutely amazing! The boys were like, "How in the world did the mountains get there?!"
I said, "God created them." Amazing.
An hour and 15 min later, we pulled up caravan-style to our new "Home away from home." A huge 8 bedroom, 6 bathroom, 2 living room, 2 kitchen-ed retreat! We packed in almost 40 people.
That first day was filled with everyone helping everyone unload cars, finding assigned bedrooms (my sisters did an awesome job planning it all out) and greeting long-lost family members. I have to admit, the most exciting reunion for me was getting to hug my family from Texas. I've miss y'all! :)
My mom and sisters and aunts jumped right in and started making burgers and hotdogs for all of us, while the men did the grillin'. Pretty amazing how much food was pulled together so quickly!
After dinner, my older sisters (who had planned most of the reunion) had a big family meeting where they talked about schedules and things to do and house rules, etc. We were ready for some fun!!!
Too bad some altitude sickness ruined that plan the next day. More on that tomorrow.
For now, enjoy a couple videos of Eliana while traveling last Tuesday.
I was trying to capture her sweet high-pitched voice. She says most things in a 2 toned, 2 syllable way and we wanted it on video before it goes away:) Ignore the creepy voice at the end of the movie; I'm pretty sure that's Ben's book on tape. haha.
I snuck a peek at the boys listening to a book on tape in the back. Samuel loved listening to the books while Zakkai was interested for a little bit and then was ready to move on. Typical!
Hope you're enjoying the trip catch-up!
Each night, we tucked her in close to us on the air mattress and as soon as her eyes drifted closed, she slept like a log!
She rolled off once or twice onto Samuel's sleeping bag and I hauled her up. She slept through the whole thing:)
Sleeping Beauty on the morning we left:) She's pink because the tent is red!
Zakkai's joyful morning face.
He gets it from his father...
I finally talked Father Thomas into moving and we piled our gear into the van and took off! I didn't realize the time had changed while we were there and was disappointed to realize we were leaving an hour later than I'd hoped. Anxious to see family!
We took a few wrong turns/exits that were poorly marked and our 3 hr 12 min drive Thursday morning to my sister's house took more like 4 1/2 hours. Yuck.
We were immediately greeted by my grandparents, my sister, brother in law and my 2 nieces! Pretty soon my mom and step dad and aunt J and uncle G showed up and we were out the door and ready for our trip up the mountain barely 1 1/2 hours after we'd showed up.
Thankfully we had just enough time to wash the Nebraska dirt off before we left:)
The mountains. Oh, the mountains. They make the most boring drive absolutely amazing! The boys were like, "How in the world did the mountains get there?!"
I said, "God created them." Amazing.
An hour and 15 min later, we pulled up caravan-style to our new "Home away from home." A huge 8 bedroom, 6 bathroom, 2 living room, 2 kitchen-ed retreat! We packed in almost 40 people.
That first day was filled with everyone helping everyone unload cars, finding assigned bedrooms (my sisters did an awesome job planning it all out) and greeting long-lost family members. I have to admit, the most exciting reunion for me was getting to hug my family from Texas. I've miss y'all! :)
My mom and sisters and aunts jumped right in and started making burgers and hotdogs for all of us, while the men did the grillin'. Pretty amazing how much food was pulled together so quickly!
After dinner, my older sisters (who had planned most of the reunion) had a big family meeting where they talked about schedules and things to do and house rules, etc. We were ready for some fun!!!
Too bad some altitude sickness ruined that plan the next day. More on that tomorrow.
For now, enjoy a couple videos of Eliana while traveling last Tuesday.
I was trying to capture her sweet high-pitched voice. She says most things in a 2 toned, 2 syllable way and we wanted it on video before it goes away:) Ignore the creepy voice at the end of the movie; I'm pretty sure that's Ben's book on tape. haha.
I snuck a peek at the boys listening to a book on tape in the back. Samuel loved listening to the books while Zakkai was interested for a little bit and then was ready to move on. Typical!
Hope you're enjoying the trip catch-up!
Friday, August 17, 2012
Camping Day 2!
Instead of driving straight to CO last Wednesday, we decided to spend a quiet day together as a family. After breakfast, I took the kiddos down to the lake to throw rocks so that Daddy could sneak in another nap. 14 hours of driving will wear you out!
It was so quiet and peaceful down there and the boys loved seeing how far they could throw the rocks.
Eliana decided that looked like a ton of fun and joined right in:)
Her rocks didn't go nearly as far but it was SO cute to watch her try!
My 3 rock throwers:)
I wish these pictures had turned out better~it was such a beautiful day and they all looked so cute down by the water.
Lake Ogallala
Someone waded right in the water in her tennis shoes:)
Getting adventurous...
After Ben woke up, we decided to check out the town of Ogallala. Totally not what they claim to be online. This was their "exciting" western town.
It turned out to be a block long, in the middle of a really random, spread out, ugly town. We drove by a few times and decided to hightale it back for the campsite, with marshmallows and chocolate in tow for s'mores.
This is what Eliana thought of the town...
We spent the afternoon reading while the boys watched a movie from the back of the van. It was really hot out so we couldn't do too much. Later we went back to the lake for round #2 of rock throwing and then finished out our night with hot dogs, corn on the cob and s'mores!!
Tomorrow comes Colorado!
It was so quiet and peaceful down there and the boys loved seeing how far they could throw the rocks.
Eliana decided that looked like a ton of fun and joined right in:)
Her rocks didn't go nearly as far but it was SO cute to watch her try!
My 3 rock throwers:)
I wish these pictures had turned out better~it was such a beautiful day and they all looked so cute down by the water.
Lake Ogallala
Someone waded right in the water in her tennis shoes:)
Getting adventurous...
After Ben woke up, we decided to check out the town of Ogallala. Totally not what they claim to be online. This was their "exciting" western town.
It turned out to be a block long, in the middle of a really random, spread out, ugly town. We drove by a few times and decided to hightale it back for the campsite, with marshmallows and chocolate in tow for s'mores.
This is what Eliana thought of the town...
We spent the afternoon reading while the boys watched a movie from the back of the van. It was really hot out so we couldn't do too much. Later we went back to the lake for round #2 of rock throwing and then finished out our night with hot dogs, corn on the cob and s'mores!!
Tomorrow comes Colorado!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)