Do people still read these?

So, here we are in 2018 and I feel like I should maybe get back to writing a blog post every now and again to document our little lives.  Will people even read it?  I am thinking probably not, but maybe I’ll just do it for myself.  But that’s no promise that I’ll be very consistent or keep it up!

So 2017 is over!  How did that even happen?  2018 is kind of big year for us, well mostly for Noah. He turns five this March and will start kindergarten in the fall.  Pretty crazy for me to think he’s that big.  I have just figured out which elementary school we are zoned for, but that’s about all I know, I need to go to their open house.  And since we are renting who knows if where we live may change.  I am hoping not, but until we resign a lease we don’t know for sure.  Also this year Mike and I will celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary!  Again how does time go by like that!   Guess I should get used to it, life moves pretty fast!

Anyways, last year was pretty good.  We learned a lot about the Pacific Northwest and are excited for the adventures we will have this year.  Last year we went camping three times in Washington and one time in Idaho.  We went on a trip to Vancouver to test out Noah’s passport before we joined Mikey on  his work trip to Swindon, England and then stayed a little longer and vacationed in Paris!  We went to Colorado three times too!  Good thing I like to travel!   Maybe I’ll try to post a couple recaps of those trips.

Travel for 2018 has not gotten planned yet, but we did decide to make a trip up to Vancouver again, but this time it’s to go see a Colorado Avalanche hockey game against the Vancouver Canucks.  It should be a fun trip. We have also decided we need to make a trip to Texas to see my Grandmas and then I would guess that we will make it to Colorado once or twice throughout the year.  Mike and I also might try to go on a trip for our anniversary, so let me know if you have any great recommendations for a beach with adult beverages(and tacos).

Alright well I am off to do my first recap of last year.   Our trip to Vancouver.  Happy 2018 everyone!

The Painted Mines and Thanksgiving

We started off our Thanksgiving celebration with a family hike at the Painted Mines by Calhan, CO.  We had a great time exploring the area with Mikey's family before we had a lovely Thanksgiving meal together.  Noah took a few minutes to warm up to hiking around by himself, but then he was running around like a two year and had a great time exploring!  He even found some snow and threw snowballs at everyone.

We then had a nice quiet Thanksgiving at home and we made all sorts of fixings.  I think Noah might have tried a couple bites of turkey, but he would not eat any mashed potatoes.   We had a great Thanksgiving and hope you enjoyed yours as well!

Camping on the Western Slope

After the Fourth of July in Crested Butte, we headed over the pass to meet my parents at Erickson Springs Campground, just outside Paonia.   I'm not sure if Paonia counts as the Western Slope, but it seems pretty far west to me.  We had a nice drive over the pass.  Noah broke down once so we took a little walk outside of the car but after that it was smooth sailing.  We got to the campground and picked out our spot and my parents showed up about an hour later.  This was Noah's first night in the tent this summer and he did great!  We had pancakes for breakfast in the camper the following morning!  And then stories with Grandpa!

Big Bite!

After breakfast we decided to drive into Paonia.  We really wanted to go see a few of the wineries that are around town and also decided to have lunch on the river.  We had a very nice time sampling some wines before lunch.  At the second winery it started pouring rain so we hung out for a little while and learned about the town till the rain stopped.  We then headed down the hill to the river for lunch.  Noah really enjoyed throwing rocks in the Gunnison River.  After lunch we drove through town and looked for their local brewery but they were closed.  While we had been waiting out the rain the lady at the winery told us that we needed to stop for some of the best strudel, so we grabbed a few slices and hit the road to the next winery  which was the last winery.  It was nice and had a great patio with a wonderful view of the valley.  It would have been a great place to take a picnic lunch.  After we tried their wines we headed back to the campground to get some dinner cooking!

Enjoying the view

The last day we decided to head over to Marble and have a picnic and see if the rain would hold out for us to get a trip up to the Crystal Mill.  We walked around the old marble mining area and then had a picnic lunch before it started to rain.  We skipped driving up to the Mill and drove to Redstone just to look around while Dad went fishing.  

So excited to Drive Drive!

Family photo on some marble in Marble

Come this way Mommy!

Throwing rocks

We got to stop by Hayes Creek Falls on the way and then explored the little town while Mom looked around the antique store.  Then we headed back to find Dad along the river and went back to the camper to get out of the rain!  It rained all night so we slept in the camper and then headed home in the morning.

On our way back home we had a bit of a traffic jam with the locals!  Noah has so much fun Maaa-ing with them!

A Crested Butte 4th of July

Well I wrote these next two posts about two months ago.. figured I could just add some pictures and post them now anyways!  We decided that we enjoyed our last trip to Crested Butte for the Fourth of July, so this year we packed up and hit the road again to celebrate in Crested Butte.

We started off the Fourth of July with a fabulous pancake breakfast at the fire station.  It was held by all the firefighters for a small donation.  We ate a lot of pancakes and Noah really enjoyed his pancakes with sprinkles and whip cream.  We also got to see a fire truck and Noah and I got to climb in the fire truck and drive.  He was very excited!  He did not want to climb around the back of the fire truck, so we stayed in the front with the huge steering wheel.  Noah also wanted to talk to a firefighter, so we said hi and everyone was very friendly.

Noah playing in the fire truck

Watching the parade in the backpack

After breakfast we headed over to the parade route, we had Noah in his backpack and we took him out at the beginning of the parade.  He got pretty scared of the parade, so we put him back in the backpack and he had a great time on dad's back.  After a little while we caught our twinkies and headed to find some lunch.  Noah was all about some pizza  and after lunch we headed back for naps and a quiet afternoon.  Then we went and joined hundreds of other people to watch the fireworks!! We stopped by a bar to get some dinner to go and got to play shuffleboard.  We headed to the park to enjoy a picnic dinner and listen to a local band.  We then took turns to head back to our hotel to get warmer clothes on and get Noah some other clothes too.   Then it was time for the fireworks!  Noah did great, even though he did seem scared at the beginning of the fireworks, he really seemed to really like them once he got used to the loud booms!  After that it was back to the hotel day get some sleep before our camping trip.

Our little musician

Waiting for lunch

Happy Halloween!

I think we are just going to end up skipping the last few months and get back to posting.  I have a few blogs that just need pictures about our camping trip in  July, and I might try to write up a post about Oregon, but other than that, we don't have very many exciting stories.  So, Happy Halloween!

Noah choose to dress up as Super Grover!  He picked it about a month ago and has been super excited for Halloween to get here.  He wasn't super excited about wearing his costume, but he wore it at daycare for their Halloween parade and party and he wore it Trick or Treating.  I am not sure how he picked Super Grover, we have not even watched Sesame Street in months, but he was Super Cute!

He and his whole class had a parade in the parking lot and a pumpkin painting party afterwards.  I joined his class for the parade and he said thank you for coming about four times.  We enjoyed some Halloween stories and then were off for the parade.  Here are few pictures from before the parade and then the class getting ready and then the cold trip around the parking lot!  All the kids were so cute!

We also got to go to Mikey's work and Trick or Treat around his new office.  Noah has asked where Daddy works and were his desk is, so it was fun to be able to show him where Daddy goes when we say he is at work.  He had a great time wandering around with a few other kids and got a gob of candy.  

The next day was Halloween, and we had some friends come over for dinner so that their daughter could come Trick or Treating with Noah.  We only went to about five houses, but they really got it figured out at the third house and were very ready to dig into the candy bowl to get their treats.  Noah was good at saying Trick or Treat, but was so distracted by candy he had to be reminded to say Thank You.  After the last house he asked to go to more houses, but he had already received plenty of candy that we were okay with calling that a great first Trick or Treating adventure.  As soon as we got back into the house he was ready to take his costume off and start eating candy!  It was a really fun night.  We had a lot of Trick or Treaters and went through a huge bag of candy.

Our basement!!!

We finished our basement!!  It has taken us 8 years to getting it done and we are sooooo excited that we have all this extra space to now live and play in!   So, get ready for a ton of picture of walls!

The first three are of the pre-anything done pictures of the basement.  We got all of our materials delivered one morning and Noah was so excited to see a huge truck in our very own driveway!

Our to be tv/living room!

The other side looking towards the stairs, and Mikey behind the pole.

The to be new office!

We had all the framing done by two guys we know and they hammered it out in less than three days!  And then they started hanging the drywall and mudding soon after!

To be living area and first look at the new can lights!

Drywall!  It's looking good!

Archway over the office entry instead of a door

Mud!

Looking more and more like bookshelves!

Ready for PAINT!!  It took about a month for the framing, drywall, mudding, and sanding, but we were finally ready to get painting!  It was really starting to look like a finished basement!

Living area

The office from the hallway

My parents helped us paint!  Here were doing the primer!  And you can see the bookshelves.

Mikey priming away!

After the primer we had to pick the colors we wanted, and I picked purple for the back of the bookcase and we picked grey for the walls!  We were very pleased with the grey, but the purple was just a bit more than we expected.  We kept it hoping the the shelves and all those leather bound books would make the purple look good or hide it!  

Bookshelves between the hallway to the office and the stairs

Living area

I think this next step might have been the hardest for us to pick, but I am so happy with how it turned out and how it looks.  CARPET and fake hardwood flooring!!  We had to move some stuff for the carpet to be put in so, it is all in the new office so you can't see the flooring in there very well, but you can see all our junk!  We are so excited to start moving stuff down there and are so happy with how it all turned out!  We just need the trim/baseboards and we will be completely done!  If you made it this far in the blog there are a few pictures of Noah playing downstairs.  I am not sure how he is going to handle furniture down there because he is loving the room to run around and around and around.

The LIVING ROOM!

Purple Bookshelves and a crooked picture :)

Here is the laundry room with fake tile flooring and then the office with a lot of junk and our new hardwood flooring!

 

Noah and Daddy went straight to playing in the basement!  Noah also likes to hide from us in the basement, he isn't too hard to find since he tells us to "Come on in" and giggles from time to time.  This is the only picture I took of our preexisting/finished bedroom we had in the basement, but now it has new carpet!  It is a room we had some water come through the window well in last year so we are so glad to have the drywall all fixed and new carpet!  That's our new basement!  Hope it that wasn't too boring for you!  Come on over and run around down there before we move the furniture!