Testing new iPhone app

Oh boy, here we go! Just when I thought I would never get caught up with this stuff, I found an app! Let's see how it works.

Mid December to end of January

 These pictures are out of oder, but 10 years from now I'm sure it won't matter to anyone......or maybe it only matters to me......
We spent a lot of days and nights at Modee and Pappy's house while we rented out our house and the boys loved all the fun outdoor activities. It has been a pretty slim year for snowfall and we were lucky to be there when the BIG sledding hill was covered and running fast. That is fun for the whole family. After Christmas we built some snow men and women and then held an archery lesson.

 

 

 Christmas was at Modee and Pappy's house in Ridgway. The boys helped pick out the tree, decorate it and counted, shook and sorted presents. The highlight of this year for Colter was his new kitten Sylvester. He was almost speechless when Eli, Gideon and Noah showed up with Sylvester on Christmas Eve. He had been asking, begging, bargaining, hoping and putting all of his power and energy into getting Sylvester for Christmas. He had traded all kinds of things including every other present under the tree if he could get just ONNNNNEEEEE kitten. He told all the Santas in the Four Corners region, even though he doubts that it would help out much. Dylan was most excited about his camo robe. He has been wearing it every day since, He loves the kitty as well and looks forward to kitty snuggles as soon as he walks through the door. Both boys love their new cameras and have taken hundreds of pictures of......guess who.....Sylvester!

 We stayed with our friends Penelope and Bob during our 2 month adventure and it was so fun to hang out with them for more than just a few hours. They are so fun to be around and Penelope is always full of creative and entertaining ideas. This year we decorated their tree with beads- Mardi Gras style and made a gingerbread pirate ship to enter into the contest. Colter thought up the plan and we made everything from scratch.

 Cute boys, bad lighting. Dylan's preschool holiday party. 

Sledding fun at Rob and Sheila's. 

 
 More fun at Modee's. Colter made his own skis for getting around the yard. The second picture is the "Is he really ours?? Oh, Thank You ALOT!" moment.

 

 
We stayed with the Blakney's for a week of fun snow and homeschool adventures. All of the kids had such a great time and amazing behavior. They played all day, made movies. went ninja adventures, studied animal homes and tracks, cross country skied and got the snowmobile working again for another year. Sheila and I were able to share ideas and responsibilities with the kiddos and we all enjoyed our time together.

 

Dylan is learning new yoga poses and is most proud of his Tree Pose right now. I love that this picture combines Mom and Dad's interests so well, yoga with dirtbike pajamas!

Ok, I'm catching up in chunks here. We have had a very fun and active winter with lots of skiing, snowboarding, sledding, cross country, snowmobiling, kitten training and snuggling, road tripping, and up until mid January- moving around.  I will continue to update as time permits and someday might catch back up to the present.

Testing out the video part of this site. Here is Colter snowboarding before he started Snowboard PE.

Seems to have worked, will try more next time.

Halloween to early December

It has been over 2 months since my last post and I feel like I am in a different world. We rented our house for 2 months and enjoyed staying in 5 different places in the area. It was an experimental "staycation" and we are very thankful to our friends and family for allowing us to stay and play with them or allowing us to take care of their homes and pets while they travelled. We learned a lot about flexibility, how little stuff we need to survive comfortably and how much we like being together. Minor inconveniences aside, it was a huge success.

We went to Moab for the annual Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival, some camping and mountain biking just before Halloween. Both boys enjoyed launching mini pumpkins in the sling shot, watching the wiener dog races and running through the maze. I'm afraid the boys will be better skiers than me soon, I KNOW they will be better than me at mountain biking! They both have incredible balance and good line choice, neither are skills I possess.

I love the picture of Trevor and Dylan sitting by the early morning campfire! They were two happy boys!




Halloween is always a huge deal in Telluride, everyone gets involved in the parades, trick or treating and all around community party. Any excuse to dress up and wonder around town......

We had a beautiful day in the upper 40's with bright sunshine for the parade. Dylan was a cute (I mean scary) skeleton during the day, but required a costume change to Ninja at night because he couldn't fit enough warm clothes under his skeleton costume. Colter played a convincing Vampire all day and loves to scare people. The Blakneys joined us for trick or treating and Sheila stole the show with her witch outfit, it was a great one!

Dr. Dylan was taking care of all his animals. He was very worried that they would get sick and miss out on play time. He would check them all out, give them a hug and kiss and send them back to play and report to Nurse Mommy that "this one is good, but he needs to brush his teeth" or "this one has a fever, he needs a snuggle" Dylan is a very caring little man who loves to spend time with other people playing.

Izzy the Super Cat!!! We love you Izzy and will miss having you around the house. IzzyKittly (Colter's first non Mama, Dada word) was over 11yrs old when he died a few weeks ago. We are all so sad to see him go, he was a special cat and a wonderfully patient and tolerant pet!






Just before we left our house, Trevor rescued this Long Eared Owl that had injured it's wing. We kept him in the garage for two days and the boys took him to the raptor rehab place.

It was a fantastic learning opportunity and Colter stayed with Hedwig Owlie LaBorde almost the entire time! The owl is doing better and we are hoping to be at his release party in the coming weeks.

Dylan has been dressing up in every costume available since Halloween. I love this age!

 
We did our annual Polar Express, Rec Center, Mexican food trip to Durango in early December. Sean, Sarah and Even Stogner, Cody, Annica and Rider Abbot, Modee and all of us had a great day and are hoping for another trip next year.

 

The boys must have climbed to the top of the huge slide about 100 times! They had such a great time, I can't believe how much energy they have.

 The Polar Express is always a fun treat. They did lots of improvements this year and the kids noticed the details. like the North Pole Village, the house where they dropped the boy off where he stands on the front porch with the huge present and waves, etc.

 Colter entertained himself with window drawings and still tolerates the story because he gets hot chocolate AND a cookie. In the train museum they had several trees decorated, here Evan and Dylan are playing with one of their favorite trains.

We acted out a story for Aunt Bonnie's book project. The boys had such a great time getting their costumes just right and setting up the props. It was a fun day with the cousins.  Colter is doing great at our homeschool and he is quite the artist. This was a shark and ocean drawing book that he decided to do every single page of.

  Yes, ski season is here again. We are having the best season yet. Colter is improving at both skiing and snowboarding, including Snowboard PE once a week. He can ski just about anywhere on the mountain and can snowboard on Lift 1, 10 and 4 with confident turns. Dylan is in his first year of Comets and is already skiing life 5, Prospect and See Forever! That little guy is a rock star and has named his skis "torpedo skis", for good reason! He has  mastered the Magic Carper on his snowboard and will be a force to be reckoned with in a year or two.

They both did gymnastics this fall and loved it! I was amazed at the strength and flexibility they both have now. It is a great program and we hope to do some more in the spring.

It has been a very dry winter for us so far (until last weekend anyway) and this cute picture of Dylan hauling our gear home after a day on the slopes tells the story pretty well!

 We ended up spending some time with Modee and Pappy during our 2 month adventure and this early December weekend was the Christmas tree chop and decorate time. They picked a tree that they could reach almost all of to decorate and were happy little elves.


I will have to stop here so that I can get something posted! Hopefully soon I will have later pics and stories downloaded and ready to go.