Ok, I think I'm done

Picasa never did post my entries and pictures so I did my best to remember what I had posted. These won't be as witty as the first set, but they are Erika originals so they're still good!

We actually had some sun today (but didn't get above freezing) so even though Denver's pretty much closed, we were able to get to Home Depot and pick up some goodies. The streets were at least passable. Our street was plowed by a real snowplow!

Usually we are just blessed to have our neighbor Greg get out with his 4-wheeler and plow attachment to help us out of our cul-de-sac. We all shovel out our walks and driveways and then Greg makes a big path up our cul-de-sac. Then we all shovel out extensions to our driveways to meet his main path. So I back out of our driveway and into someone else's extension to turn around and get out of the cul-de-sac. Fun, fun, fun!

RC said that Doug got 20" in Albuquerque (that is one funky word to spell) and did quite a bit of shoveling - welcome to our Winter Wonderland!

We wish you all the best for 2007 and hope it's fun of love and family and friends who care about you!

Big hugs,
the ones in Colorado

Ludicrous speed

Remember that line from spaceballs? That's what I felt like while shoveling this. We haven't had "a lot" of snow, not "tons" of snow, we've had a ridiculously ludicrous amount of snow!

First 27", then some melted and I could see the swings on our swingset again, then another 16"! Why? It's just crazy. Most of you haven't had to deal with this, but do you know what the worst part is? There is NOWHERE to put it!!! You try and shovel it, but your existing snowbank is so tall everything just rolls right back down on the pavement you just shoveled.

You can't even play in it! My kids would get lost in the front yard! And it's too cold anyway. You'd freeze. After shoveling it my core was warm but the exposed skin on my face hurt, and because I had just jeans on it was hours before my lower parts weren't chilled through.

I have never before pondered spending $600 so easily (think gas-powered 2-stage snow thrower). BTW - I had no idea that they were snow throwers. I always thought they were snow blowers. I now have my eye on a $263 Toro 1800. You have no idea how tempted I am.

doo, doo, doo lookin' out my backdoor

This was our 27" with blizzard #1

Rick and Erika sittin' in a tree...

I have been meaning to get a pic of this since it happened this fall, but here it is - finally! Apparently if you are lacking romance in your life - buy your man a chain saw.

Road trip

We decided pretty last minute that we would try and head up to Washington after all for Thanksgiving. What a trip! I don't think we'll ever do that again. Sore, sick and tired - yucky. We drove through/to CO, WY, ID, UT, OR and WA. Days long trips are just no fun.

We were able to stay with Denise and Josh, Kim and Curtis, Linda and Allen, my mom, and Keith and JoAnn (we love you all!!!). It's nice to be wanted! :) We went to my mom's for Thanksgiving since we had done Christmas with Rick's family the year before and we went a bit out of the way to stay the afternoon with Rick's family on the way home. We got to meet our newest little nephew Kevin and be there for his blessing. What a cutie! And Ashlyn and Nathan got to have another dose (they saw Denise's and Linda's kids on the way up) of "Cousin Frenzy" and loved every minute!

Making sugar cookies

Well, here is my attempt at creating a family tradition. I made 80-some-odd sugar cookies for the kiddos (minus a dozen + to take to mutual (the youth group activity)). I have since found out that the food coloring I have is out of date. Did you know they now make really cool coloring that actually turns frosting RED???? Not pink, but a real red! I'm so excited!Here is my son smiling for the camera. Anyone have any tips? He really thinks that this is smiling! What have you told your kids to do?

Thanksgiving dinner

I promised mom I'd blog about her Thanksgiving mishap - the pumpkin pie with no sugar!
Eatin' the pie.
Nathan being Nathan (with an actual smile)!

Older than dirt...

Here's Rick with his "Better than Sex" cake. Though he doesn't believe it's correctly named, he sure does like the cake. But enough of that. Here is Rick's cake (we were told not to invite anyone over) and him making a wish. He got lots of his beloved apple cider, Apples to Apples, phone calls from the fam (even Jake - he must be getting old to make his own birthday calls!) and some new Catan games - cities and knights along with the 5-6 player expansion! (Which we now have go and buy the regular game expansion in order to play - ugh). So as soon as the snow melts we'll have a game night!

"Oh the things you can think, if only you try..."
Did you know you can spell other words with your "Happy Birthday" candles?

Lovin' the Cousins

Here we are at Temple Square in SLC. Before you yell at me, Ashlyn REFUSED to put on pants. We all went down to look at the nativities (the lights weren't up yet) and to see the new movie at the visitor's center. I'll have to go see it again without kids!
Here's Gavin, stayin cozy and happy being pushed by lovely Cousin Sally.

Preschool Halloween Party

What a haul, huh? Notice Nathan - he's holding a "camera", with one finger pushing the button to take a picture and making a "click-click" noise.

Flyin' fairy.

My new thing

Here are some (or all, if you want to get picky) of the digital scrapbooking pages that I've done. I have to wait until my computer won't die on me to make any more (these took HOURS b/c the computer was so slow) but I hope to have this replace my feeble efforts to scrapbook and record our lives for posterity.


Remember if you click on the pic, they should open bigger for you!

(pics got lost - boo!)

Yes, Jesus loves me

This is the Christus at the Salt Lake Temple Square visitor's center.

Temple Square

 We went to Temple Square with Denise and kiddos (and beautiful Cousin Sally) to see the new movie portraying the life of the prophet Joseph Smith released for his 200th birthday. They had gorgeous creches throughout temple square and the cousins enjoyed the time together. (Gavin was in a stroller pushed by Sally, but Tayler was up for pictures).

We love Denise!

 

She took some very adorable family pics (or she tried - and Nathan thwarted her!). Thanks! (And thanks to Josh for the shirt!)

Halloween

Sorry - this is the only pic we have of Nathan in his Superman outfit!

And here's pic of Ashlyn and Olivia!

Nathan's first big snow!

Obviously this was not today - as we just had a record temp of 80 - this was in October. But because of the picture problems I didn't post. So anyway... Nathan

loved the snow. He kept looking for a snowman out the window - like he thought they just came when snow came. :) So of course I had to make one for him. Please note that there was not a ton of snow, and this was the powder that is dry - not condusive to molding a ball. So no judgements on my snowman!

I took him out for a little while to play and he loved it. He didn't want to keep his gloves on however, so I gave up on that.

 

He would take them off, then play in the snow, then scream because it made his hands cold. Then I would warm them in my hands, put them into his pockets, and then he would go play in the big white temptation, starting the cycle all over again!

"Oh Holy Crud!"

http://www.fredmckinnon.com/media/OHolyNight.mp3

Ashlyn asked - mom is this cookie monster?

Be prepared - this is the worst singing you've heard all day! :)

Who's the fairest of them all?

Ashlyn came in this afternoon holding a magazine with this picture on the back cover. She held it out to me and asked, "Mom, is this Aunt Denise?"

:) Hope she reads this - it's nice to know you're beautiful!

So behind...

Man, I am so behind! I don't want to fight with Blogger over uploading pictures - and that's really the main point of why I blog - putting up pics so all of you can see the family! Anyway, Nathan said something so cute, I thought I'd share - and at least put SOMETHING up on the blog. Today when he sneezed I laughed and said, "Nathan! What was that!" He grinned and said, "Ribbit, ribbit." What a cute little froggie!

Timber!

Gone are those nasty cottonwoods. Most of you heard the story - but for those who haven't...

We went to Lowe's to see if they had their plants on sale (I had noticed that Home Depot did, but they didn't have a good selection so I wanted to check out Lowe's). They did, and when we went to ask if the trees were on sale the manager said they were 50% off. But, if we wanted 3 or more, he would give them to us at 75% off. Well, some of you may remember our meeting with a landscape designer just after Nathan was born - he designed a layout for our backyard including the removal of our evil male cottonwoods (brittle, shallow and prolific roots, branches and twigs down with every gust of wind, nasty and messy stuff in the spring) and the planting of 3 Autumn Blaze Maples. So, since we wanted 3 trees, we were super excited about his 75% offer. And when we went back to the tree selection (keep in mind this is the dregs - they've sold almost everything and just want to clearance out the rest) we found 3 Autumn Blaze Maples! So, we bought them, and were cautioned that these had to get in the ground THAT WEEK! Well, it was already Saturday, so that meant that if we wanted to get the trees in ground, that the cottonwoods had to come down - like now! We knew we wouldn't have time that week, and it would be dark by the time Rick would start working so it was a now or never thing. So we bought those trees (for under $20!) and went to work with the chainsaw. Rick did everything himself - my role was pulling a rope tied around various branches that might need some coaxing to fall the right way and not hit things like our house, the fence, etc. and hauling debris into piles. I'm so glad Rick was able to pick up that chainsaw (all it cost us was the cost of the bar) - it sure was helpful!

Here is our bumper crop of potatoes!

Here is an updated shiner pic!

And we took our first trip to the circus!

Header

Now we're a bit more purple, a few more visible abrasions and less red.

Hmmm, anonymous...

So you guys - who's signed up to get FeedBlitz of my blog as anonymous? I'm picturing some weirdo checking out my posts and looking at my beautiful kiddos. It must be all these exposes they've been running on internet child predators. It just makes me uncomfortable. Want to introduce yourself and calm my fears?

Today, part 1

We visited the Wildlife Experience in Parker(ish) for the free Smithsonian museum day. The kids made spider hats.
And enjoyed the bat exhibit (here they're hanging like bats in the bat cave.)
And got to dress up like animals and dance! And ... face painting!

Guanella Pass

Well, this trip was actually taken on the 22nd - Fall Equinox! We (read crazy Erika) did lots of research on what the nice areas were to view the foliage close to Denver. We came up with a list and quite a few mentioned Guanella Pass so we totally prepared ourselves with sack lunches and a lovely plan for a great trip. (Can you tell by my tone you are in for a good story here?)

We got directions online and planned to go west on 285, north on Guanella Pass, and the east on I-70. The route looks like this: [ . Get it? Just picture the vertical bar shorter and the horizontal bars longer. The pass itself is basically the vertical portion of the bracket. It is about 22 miles long and we were told to plan on a couple of hours. So we had the destination and date (an off-Friday) in place and then the forecast starts pooping on us. Snow, snow, snow. I-70 actually closed on Thursday (the day before our adventure). But all these people had just gone the weekend before and RAVED about it. So, off we went.

Hmmm, so it was definitely snowing.
The roads were slick and the visibility sucked. I had visions of all of my foliage pictures ruined by low clouds and snow. Then we turned onto the highway that makes up the pass -
IT WAS A DIRT ROAD!!!!
Ah! Why did no one mention this? This is a KEY point! Total washboard. Very narrow. Very snowy/muddy. Yikes.

Still we persevered.
We got higher and higher. Less mud, more compacted snow.
We had to drive around a little sportscar that was reversing down the road. (Still not sure why he was going backwards). We finally reached the top of the pass, where things started sloping downward. We were excited. We topped the crest and began down the other side. And this is what we saw.

My, oh, my. That can't be a road.
That's like a sledding hill. So wussy Erika turned around. Actually I was less than confident after the snowy trip up so I handed the steering wheel to Rick. And he got stuck. And another car slid out of control (the mom jumped out of the car and evactuated her kids - yelling at them to jump out and run up the hill) trying to stop and help us. After many pointless minutes with Rick and other husband pushing we tried the good old standby that Rick had been less than eager to try - the floor mats. And like every other time, it worked like a charm. :~P Well, if you count a long time stuck in the snow and my kids freezing on the side of the road "a charm". We shoulda done it first. Anyway, so much for that trip. Later that night on the news we saw stories about all the people who had gone up to see the fall colors and had a miserable time - lots of snow and clouds and generally yucky conditions. So I guess we weren't the only ones!

More birthday pics...

Here we have the cake
And the girls in the hammock.
And our pin the middle on the flower game.