Glenwood Caverns - LOTS of pictures

On the way to Denver to get to the airport we stopped in at Glenwood Springs, CO. They have a fun park there called Glenwood Caverns. We had never been, and I'd heard really good things about it. I am so glad we stopped in - it was a BLAST!

There is a cave tour, which was really neat.

There was a swing - wow! This isn't us on the swing. This swing pulled you up to the right and then blasted you off the edge of the mountain!! It was awesome. Below the swing, which you can't see is I-70 and the beautiful Colorado River. You could see lots of rafts river rafting down the river and they looked like little ants - that swing is about 1,700 or so feet up above the river and interstate.

The Colorado River, Glenwood Springs and I-70.

They had a rock climbing wall and Grandma and the kids did that together.

Look at those mountains!! I miss the mountains terribly.

Tyler getting up to the top.

Brena was actually a better climber than Tyler.

Can't get enough of the view...

This is at the swing platform - that railing behind us drops down and the swing goes right off the edge. Brena wasn't tall enough for the swing, so she didn't get to go and she screamed like you would not believe because she couldn't get on it.

The bungee jump - they were flipping all over the place on this thing.

Grandma doing flips!

Tyler flipping.

The alpine slide!! I had never done one of these before - and it was so much fun! This is actually the part coming up - you don't go down right here.

Coming up after we had gone down.

Bedtime Stories

It's hard not having a Daddy around. One of the things we have done that the kids love is bedtime stories. TJ calls at bedtime and I put the phone on speaker and he tells stories to the kids. They are usually Bakugan Princess stories. Tyler likes Bakugans and Brena likes princesses - so TJ combines the two for some pretty hilarious stories. It helps the kids a lot to have Daddy tell them stories. This will only work for the next few months. Once TJ deploys in late November/early December, we will only receive 2 phone calls a week. And, who knows what time they will be coming at. I am thinking of doing something like video recording or tape recording TJ telling stories, then we can watch or listen to him still, even if it's not "real time."

Listening to Daddy's stories. See the phone in the middle of the picture, on top of the garage toy?

I always catch Brena sneaking out of bed wanting to "hold Daddy." (the phone)
Brena has her own room, but she won't sleep in there anymore. She has to sleep with Tyler.

Another thing we did was take photos of the kids with TJ and press them onto pillow cases with special transfer paper. You can kind of see Brena's on her bed. The kids really like that too. I got that idea from my friend Kate - thanks Kate!

A lot happened in a week

The entire inside of the house (and garage) was painted (an ugly beige I might add, we will have to do some painting when we move in). We have baseboards and doors throughout the entire house. The cabinets are all in, in the kitchen and bathrooms. The counter tops are all in too. It was dark and rainy when I was trying to take pictures tonight, so everything looks kind of dark to me. We are supposed to get the carpet and wood floors in next week. It's so close to being done! I didn't want to leave the new house tonight, I just wanted to stay there forever. I didn't want to come back to this other house. I want to move in SO bad!!!!!!!! But, I figured sleeping on the cement slab wouldn't be too comfortable, so we went home.


Trying to get a better shot of the granite. I really like the silver that is speckled throughout it.

Yellow Belt!

Tyler tested for his yellow belt at Tae Kwon Do before we went on vacation. When we got back we found out he passed! He was very excited to get his yellow belt.

School's in session!

My sweet boy started 1st grade today! I asked him if he just wanted me to drop him off, or if he wanted me to walk him to his class. He said he wanted me to walk him to class. This boy is such a sweetie! And, he totally doesn't mind me kissing him in front of his classmates...yet :) Brena and I really missed him all day. I keep telling Brena she can't go to school in a couple of weeks because I will be all alone! She says "Mom *with a dramatic voice* I HAVE to go to school, don't cry at home." She will be going MWF 9-2:30pm - what in the world am I gonna do all day??? And, I am all too aware of how fast this year will fly and then I will be taking Brena to Kindergarten and Tyler to 2nd grade....ahhhh!!!!!! I have to stop thinking about it.

Peaches!!

It was one of the best times to be at my parents' house. The peaches were ready! My parents have a large orchard on the back part of their property and we got all the peaches we wanted. The kids were in heaven. I have given up trying to ever buy peaches anywhere else we have ever lived because they are never as good as Colorado peaches. It's very disappointing to bite into a peach, expecting it to taste as good as you think it should, and they never do.

Kim was lucky, she gets to can her peaches and take them home. I couldn't do that. So, I got the dried peaches and the peach leather (which I forgot to take! Can you mail them Dad, please??). This is the 2nd kitchen in my parents' house, it is a dedicated canning kitchen because they have so much fruit from the orchard. And my mom would get mad when my dad was making a mess with all the fruit stuff in her kitchen.

This was the after picture, because I forgot to take a before picture. This is the canning kitchen fridge, it was totally stuffed to the gills with peaches when we started that night. After we finished, there were just a few peaches left. But, there are plenty more peach trees ripening in the orchard, so there will be lots more soon.

We canned, dried, pureed...

My Dad is so silly...

Some of the orchard.

The pears will be ready soon...I wish everything could be ready at the same time so I could have had some!

Gotta use a ladder to get to the top!

Look at those peach beauties!!!

The apples will be ready in a month or two, missed out on those too!

High School friends

One of the fun things I got to do in Colorado was get together with some of my best high school friends. We got to have dinner and talk all night. Well, I had to leave around 11pm, they stayed until the place closed at 2am!

This is us on graduation day - May 1996! From left to right: Valerie, Shandee, Mandy, Sarah and me.

This is Valerie and I in the 9th grade. I think this picture was taken in 1993, but I could be wrong. We met in cross country and hit it off right away.

And this was us on August 7. I had to crop Mandy out of the picture. Mandy is a model (and GORGEOUS!) but her hair is under contract...or something like that, so she can't be in any photos. You can see her in the first picture (graduation) above. Oh, and one other thing I forgot to mention, Mandy and Valerie are twins.

This is Sarah and I. We played basketball together. I have such fond memories of all these girls! It was so good to go out with them and catch up. I wish we could do it more often!

House

It was so strange to come home and see the house, it looked so different. We have walls now! We have stucco too. Only 1 month to go.......

Brena's room and closet.

Master room

Kitchen

Front.

Camping

We went camping while we were in Colorado. I forgot how much I love to camp in the mountains. It's cold, it smells wonderful and it's just fun. It was strange to wear coats in the middle of August. I don't know what the temperature was at night, but the next day when we left it was 52 degrees at 11am. I wanted to stay forever.

Samuel aka SamSam

Brenalee and Kayleigh

Tyler and Brenalee

This was right before we went camping, aren't they so cute??!!

This is a wolfum. We first had these 6 years ago on a camping trip with our friends Kate and Travis. You can see the stick in the right bottom corner of the photo. It's a refrigerated biscuit that you put on that stick, then roast in the fire until it's cooked. Then you take it off the stick and it's got a hollowed out middle that you put cherry pie filling in (or whatever pie filling you like) and then spray whipped topping on the top, then you wolf it down. They are soooo yummy.

Kim and Kayleigh

The s'mores

Derek and Tyler roasting some hotdogs

Grandma, Derek and Brena