Monthly Archives: January 2016

Twitter pics – Dec & Jan

Carter’s teacher is still only posting a couple times a month so there are a whole lot more photos of Raine than Carter.

12/3 – Raine and Mackenzie did a passion project on the American Fuzzy Lop
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12/14 – Raine and Jimmy working on math
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12/16 – Raine and Mackenzie experimenting with magnets
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12/18 – Raine is in the middle of the top-right photo and on the far right in the bottom-right photo
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1/7 – Raine is in the bottom-left photo
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1/8 – Raine is in the top-middle of the top-right photo and in the bottom-left of the bottom-right photo
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1/12 – Raine and Zoe working on a flow map in the bottom photo
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1/13 – Carter is on the far right (standing by himself) in front of the fire truck
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1/19 – Raine reading to Evan in the bottom-right photo
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1/21 – Raine with her hand raised in the photo on the left
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1/28 – Raine working on maker spaces in the middle-left photo
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1/29 – Raine and Mackenzie working on spelling words in the bottom right photo
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1/29 – Carter is standing right next to the librarian, Mrs. Kessel, looking up at her. They got ice cream for finishing the 2×2 book challenge.
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Here are some stories that Raine wrote around Christmas time:
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Carter lost his 2nd tooth

Carter finally lost his second tooth yesterday. There were no tears with this one, unlike the last. Carter went to bed hoping for a big payout this morning; he was a little disappointed to “only” find $3. Raine assured him that that was the going rate for teeth and this seemed to pacify him. Daddy and I just shook our heads and lamented how we only got 3 quarters for our teeth!

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Denver ski trip – part 2

Sunday morning, January 3, we checked out of our little cabin and headed back down the mountain. We found a church to attend prior to heading over to Uncle Jake’s house in Centennial — their ward met way too early in the morning for us to get to. We had dinner with them and made a quick visit to the home of one of Daddy’s high school friends, Nathan Smith, in Parker. They had fun catching up, especially watching videos from Nathan’s mission farewell in the late 90’s.

We spent the night at the Anderson’s house and then went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science the next morning. I didn’t take many photos, but here are the ones I managed to snap before we headed out to the airport to catch our flight home.

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Seth, Grant, Rose, and Raine

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Carter and Daddy

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Raine and Rose

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Carter and the walrus display

Denver ski trip – part 1

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New Year’s weekend we spent in Denver, teaching the kids to ski and visiting with family and friends. We flew in on New Year’s Eve day and headed to the Ellis’s house. They graciously invited us to stay at their house where they fed us dinner, taught us how to play Kinect games, and then fed us chocolate fondue!

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We stayed up chatting until the wee hours of the morning (until around 3:00 am I believe). Needless to say, we weren’t up real early the next morning!

We packed our bags and headed up the mountain to Loveland ski resort where we were determined to teach the kids to ski.

Eventually, we made it out of the lodge with all the gear we needed — but not before a minor meltdown. (What were we thinking when we put 15 layers of clothes on a kid who hates to wear anything besides shorts and a t-shirt and then made him sit around in the sport shop while we buckled hard plastic boots on his feet?!! Of course he lost it! But we’re pros at handling meltdowns and soon enough we had him outside and geared up.)

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The next hurdle was getting them to the base of the lift. Wow, we were on the verge of a Mommy meltdown before we got anywhere close to that lift! Seriously, who puts the lift 100 feet uphill from the lodge?!! It is hard enough to duck-walk yourself that far uphill in skis, let alone drag a small child that far — a small child who has never even stood up on skis, let alone maneuvered them up a hill! And yes, we eventually took the skis off and hiked up in our boots but hiking up hill in ski boots, carrying two people’s skis, is no simple task either. Luckily, once we got to the surface lift, it was a cinch to ride with a brand-new skier.

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The kids quickly figured out how to balance and we made a bunch of runs down the bunny hill before we headed back to the lodge for lunch.

As soon as we finished eating, however, I looked over to find Carter fast asleep on the bench. The kid can sleep anywhere!

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Daddy and Raine went to try the chair lift while I waited in the lodge with Carter. She was pretty good by the end of the day.

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Eventually, I had to wake up that sleepy kid because we were loosing daylight. I convinced him to put on all his gear one more time so we could make a few more runs. This picture is him showing me how he could jump in his skis — I love the tongue!

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After an exhausting day of skiing, we headed to Idaho Springs where we checked into our cabin at Indian Hot Springs.

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We had dinner at the Main Street Restaurant and then headed over to the mineral hot springs to soak our weary muscles. (Actually, I think that I’m the only who had weary muscles, but it sure felt good.)

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The next morning we drove back up to Loveland, dropped the kids off at the kid’s club, and then Daddy and I skied the rest of the mountain.

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It was a great day for skiing; the temps got all the way up to 25 degrees so we didn’t freeze to death! They didn’t have any fresh snow, but it had been so cold the week before that the snow they received earlier never melted.

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