A Family Visit

There's a saying here in Colorado that we have 9 months of winter and 3 months of relatives. It's not far from the truth!! Michael's mom, step-dad, sister, niece, and nephew all came to visit us for a week! We had a wonderful time showing them around and letting them fall in love with Colorado. :)

Here's Grandma Sara with all her grandkids...

Heather just adores little Maddox... and he adores her as well! He would walk through the house calling, "Hefver! Hefver!"

Conner was frequently found riding this little bike out on the driveway while the bigger kids were riding 4-wheelers. Maybe next time he will be big enough to ride something motorized.

Here's Sara enjoying herself on the new swing that Michael built:

And here's Nick and Sheri just sitting here falling in love with Colorado. Look closely at Nick's face... surely you can see his excitement.

No? Okay, well maybe you can see it in THIS shot...

Hmmmmm, maybe not. But he did the zip line more than once, so he must've enjoyed it. The man rarely smiles! Let's try this one:

Ahhhhh! There's a smile!

As well he should be since he spent every spare moment up there building that treehouse with Michael! He even worked on it while Michael was down in Denver working! We finally found Nick's passion... and come to find out, he's just a big kid himself!

We celebrated Sheri's birthday while they were here, and due to a mistake on the part of the bakery, we ended up with THREE birthday cakes. Too bad we didn't invite the neighbors to help us eat it all!

And to work off all that cake, we took them on a hike over at 3 Sisters and made it up to the Brother's Lookout... breathtaking!!

We took a day trip over to Fairplay to visit the historic town of South Park, and then on up to Breckenridge to visit a real gold mine. This photo was taken about 1,100 feet into the mine. I tried not to think of the amount of earth above my head.

After the tour, we got to pan for gold!

Even Maddox got into that part! ...and when I say "into", I really mean INto. By the time he gave up his gold panning efforts, his lower extremities were quite saturated. :) No gold was found, but they all had fun trying.

And finally, Sheri and I took the kids on a horseback ride through the White Ranch Open Space park... I've never ridden a horse in more beautiful place!

While we rode, Grandma Sara stayed at the stables with Maddox and helped him ride a pony named Pudding! He had a blast. (Sara, I need to get those photos from you).

We ALL had a blast! Can't wait to do it again!
Michele

The New Room!

Here are a few shots from the various stages we've been through to get our new room! This first one is what one half of our garage looked like before they began.

And here are some early framing stages. In order to do this properly (ie. obtain the proper building permits), we had to have the floor engineered to raise it up level with the rest of the house. You can't see it in the photo, but they drilled through the concrete floor to install a concrete column and rebar.

That's Matt & Jon - the two guys who did the work for us. Through the framing, you can barely see the new door that they busted out from the laundry room.

Here we are inside at the insulation phase...

...and sheetrock phase.

It's looking like a room!

And here's the new occupant... a very triumphant Maddox running circles over his soft new carpet!

That's the same carpet we'll be getting throughout the rest of our upper floor in a couple of weeks. Goodbye to all that BLUE!

Michele

Boating on Lake Evergreen

It's been a long time since my last post and I owe you some photos... so here they are. This was from a beautiful day when Michael played hooky and we went out on Lake Evergreen. We just love his job!

No commentary necessary on these... just enjoy the pictures. Come on out to visit and you can enjoy it for real! :)












Check out this monster! The boys got a kick out of this "bicycle" on the water:

We kept telling the boys that day that people usually only do this on VACATION! Not just some random weekday while their dad is working! What a life...

Michele

A Day in the Life of a Small Boy

Maddox enjoyed some time out front with his trucks today. I must mention that Michael was in charge of dressing him today and he asked Maddox to go downstairs and pick out some shorts. A few minutes later, Maddox reappeared with these swimming trunks that Auntie Audrey sent him! They're a little big, but it's what he wanted to wear today!

That truck closest to him was given to Mason by his Aunt Sheri for his first birthday... that was almost 11 years ago! To watch Maddox playing with it was pretty neat. Of course, this new big one that Grandma Sara bought for Maddox is pretty cool, too!


What would A Day In The Life Of A Boy be without some photos of him and his dog? Maddox follows Abbey around all the time... it's so cute.

Today is actually Abbey's 6th birthday! In the photo below, she's showing you her new purple collar... it is part of the new electric fence we have installed. She's doing SUPER well with it and we're glad to not have to worry about where she's wandered off anymore!

Happy days...
Michele

The New Swing.. cont'd.

I didn't have any pictures of Mason earlier, but I caught him on the swing today.

Of course, Maddox doesn't let the opportunity go by without him having a turn too.

I've got lots more to post... the new room we're building, the tree house they've begun, boating on the lake... I just need a couple more hours in my day!

Michele

The New Swing

I promised my mom that I'd post something new today, and I don't make it a common practice to disappoint a Grammy who misses her grandbabies, so here I am!

Last week, Michael built a new swing in our back yard.


We call it the "One Size Fits All" swing...



Just look how much this little fella loves it!




There you go, Mom... there's no photos of Mason here because he was at Boy Scout camp.

Michele