Ouray, CO - Part 1

So, I'm finally getting around to posting about our trip to Ouray, CO (pronounce your-AY) that we took a month ago! You will see a TON of pics on this post, and believe me, its not even half of them!!

This post is from our drive up and our first full day there. We left on a Monday morning right after breakfast and got there right about dinner time. The girls didn't sleep a wink the whole trip!! Thank God for portable DVD players is all I have to say (and thanks to Adam and Leanna for letting us borrow theirs!!). Let me tell you, packing 2 adults and 2 kids into the back of a Jeep Wrangler for 3 days is not easy!! But we managed to squeeze in and had a really great time.

Here are a few pics of our way in:

The beautiful Colorado skyline

Trout Lake - one of the most photographed lakes in the world!

My attempt at being artistic :o)

I love this pic with the shadow and sunlight

One of the main things you do in Ouray is go offroading. They say you can spend 3 weeks there and take a different trail everyday and still not go on them all! Ouray is an old mining town and there are tons of little mining trails and all kinds of offroad trails to go on. Our first day there, we tackled Engineer Pass. It took us all day, and we had a lovely pic-nic near the top. Come along on our journey:

This is Hannah's first picture ever - nice little Jeep ad, doncha think??

Here's Seth ready to go - that smile didn't leave his face the whole time

The girls are ready to go!!

And away we go...

The view from my side of the jeep

One highlight for Seth was finally being able to carry on some traditions to his own kids. One these trails, you drive extremely slow and enjoy every bit of scenery. So, the girls got to spend a lot of time on our laps, and even driving! (You see Hannah driving below, you'll see Cailyn's debut on the next post). Before you freak out about being on these huge cliffs with no seatbelts on the kids, the rules of offroading state that you do NOT wear a seat belt so you can bail out quickly when you need. So, on that note:

Hannah Driving - she did not want Daddy to help!

Cailyn and Mommy hanging out

When she got sleepy, she just snuggled right in

Seth took this pic - I think its AWESOME!

When we were there, the leaves were in the height of changing, and we took literally hundreds of pictures. Its nearly impossible to capture the grandure on film, but here's a few attempts:

Here's the girls at the summit at 12,840 feet! They were happy to be out of the car!

Mommy and Cailyn stealing a snuggle (check out the jeep trail behind us!!)

Hannah insisted on "mountain climbing", so here she is with Daddy. If this picture doesn't make you feel tiny, I don't know what will. What a mighty Creator we have!!

Continuing on the climb...

"Woohoo!! We made it!!"

Once we made it over the summit of Engineer, we headed down to see the Animas Forks mine which boasted one of the highlights of the day - a real bathroom!!! I never thought about how difficult it would be to convince our 3.5 year old - into whom we've been drilling the concept that you ONLY go on the potty- that its actually ok to go on the rock...but that's another post.

This neat little ghost town has some structures that are still in tact and you can even explore some of the houses - including the home of a former owner of the Hope Diamond - he bought it for his daughter. Oh Daddy.... :o) Anyway, while Daddy was away with Hannah, Cailyn and I had a fun little photo shoot.

Coming down into Animas Forks




Cailyn's Photo Shoot:









Hannah's Turn:

Coming down the stairs of one of the houses

To round out the day, we got to go through the tunnel outside of Ouray - the tradition is you honk the whole way through. As you can imagine, it was one of the girls' favorite things!

Finally we see "home". They call Ouray the "Switzerland of America".

So, that concludes our first day. Hopefully it won't be too long before we can post the pictures for day 2!

Woo hoo!!

As a recipient of this award, there are rules to follow. I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and one word only! Then I must pass it on to seven others! The questions are as follows:

1. Where is your cell phone? Couch
2. Where is your significant other? Walmart
3. Your hair color? blondeish
4. Your mother? work
5. Your father? airplane
6. Your favorite thing? Coffee
7. Your dream last night? forgot
8. Your dream/goal? glorify
9. The room you're in? office
10. Your hobby? writing
11. Your fear? spiders
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Europe
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you're not? shy
15. One of your wish-list items? massage
16. Where you grew up? Arizona
17. The last thing you did? pack
18. What are you wearing? clothes
19. Your TV? downstairs
20. Your pet? gone
21. Your computer? slow
22. Your mood? tired
23. Missing someone? yeppers
24. Your car? dusty
25. Something you're not wearing? shoes
26. Favorite store? Target
27. Your summer? wow
28. Love someone? always
29. Your favorite color? purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? morning
31. Last time you cried? week

The bloggers that I'm nominating:
Charity Verlander

Basha's Mama

Wallace and Dee

Mike and Morgan

Daniel and Tiffany

Amy Myers (won't tag ya' again :o) )

Now, for you recipients of this award, here's the deal:* Display your award.* Nominate at least 7 other blogs.* Enjoy your award!

Did a Pig Just Fly Over??

Are they putting scarves and mittens on in Hades?

Nope. I just updated the blog!

Scroll down and enjoy three all new posts.

There's lots more to blog, but I need to get the 1800 pictures off of the camera, sort them, edit them, then blog them. Upcoming posts will include: Colorado vacation, random family times, and a trip to the zoo!

Let's Go Swimming!

Flagstaff just built the most brilliant thing it could have done: an indoor swimming complex, called The Aquaplex.

Its a huge complex with a swim area, basketball courts, raquetball courts, a rock climbing wall and more. But, of course, the most popular attraction is the pool. It has a lazy river, a hot tub, a kids play area with small water slides, hoses, fountains, and the like, a lap pool, water basketball area, and 2 waterslides that are for the "big kids" that run outside the building and back in, and are pitch black. Did I mention all of this is inside???

We took our kids along with Seth's brother, his wife and their two kids on opening weekend and it was a blast!! All of our kids are part fish, so all the kids fit right in. A few of us even got ourselves a quick cameo on a local news broadcast!

Can you hear her squealing??

Cailyn and Mommy kickin' it in the lazy river
Hannah and Jared in the lazy river

I know there aren't many pics in this post, but all the rest included grown ups, and we've made a pact not to include any grown up pictures (other than the one above b/c Mommy is covered most of the way LOL)

Yes, Deer

It has been so much fun getting to spend time with all of our family, particularly our niece and nephew. The four kids all get along GREAT, and its hilarious to watch them all together. All four of them seem to think they are "the boss", and we have 3 "mother hens" (or father hen in Jared's case), and one who wishes not to be mothered (to put it nicely).

One fun thing we did together was go to the Deer Farm up in northern Arizona. Its basically a huge petting zoo, where you get up close and personal (to say the least) with the deer, get to feed them, and see lots of other animals while you're at it.

Rachel (7yrs), Jared (4.5 yrs), Hannah (3.5 yrs), Cailyn (18 mos)

You'd never guess they're all related ;o)

Hannah and Cailyn's first big pet

Cailyn was completely fearless. She would try to hug all over the deer, get right in their face, etc.

Can YOU find Cailyn?

Yay!!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame...

One treat we got early in our time here in Arizona was going to a Diamondbacks baseball game with all four of us and Granny and Papa. This was Cailyn's first Diamondbacks game, and Hannah's first D-backs game since she was about Cailyn's age.

We had a blast cheering for our guys, boo-ing the Dodgers (we HATE the Dodgers!), and eating lots and lots of food!

Cailyn loved hanging out with Daddy at the ballpark

"Go D-backs!!"

Happy Love Birds

Mommy's girl

And the best part of ballgames:

COOKIES!!

One thing this family loves is baseball, and it will be difficult to leave it behind in a few months, but it was a blast hanging out together at one of our favorite places.

Stuck Holes and Awp

Ok, I'll admit upfront I don't have any pictures ready to post...its hard to catch up once you get behind! But I wanted to share a few stories...

Its getting chillier in northern Arizona, and the nights are blissfully cool. I put Cailyn in some fleece "footie pajamas" last night instead of her light cotton open-footed ones. Hannah saw her in them and told me,

"Mommy, I don't want to wear the jammies with the open holes in them. I want to wear the ones with the stuck holes."

*insert cricket chirping noise here* It took me a few minutes to realize she was talking about jammies that have feet on them. I love the way her little mind works and translates things to fit her logic. I think "feetie pajamas" will forever be "Stuck hole jammies" in our household now!

Cailyn is growing by leaps and bounds. She will be 18 months old on the 13th, finally cut her 6th tooth yesterday, and is talking more and more everyday. I did a really good job of keeping track of Hannah's words on our old baby blog when she was this age, so I thought I'd share some of Cailyns words to date, and how she says them:

Thank you (day-doo; doo-doo); Hi; Puppy; Kitty (ditty); Car (drr); Cinderella (lala); Hannah (anna); please (peese); help (awp); No; yes (zess); teeth (sees); nose; eyes; diaper (wee-wee); potty (pah-ee); excuse me (me-me); excuse you (zoo-zoo); animal (moo-moo); duck (duh-duh); tree (tee); bird (bah or tee-tee (for tweet tweet)); Pooh (boo); I don't know (ah no); Shoe; milk (mowp); drink (dink); cheese; breakfast (bass-iss); bite; fish (ish); read (deet); hands; amen; movie (muh-ee); Papa; Granny (nee-nee); Grandpa (papa); Grammy (mee-mee); Jared (ded); Daddy; Mommy

I'm sure there are more, but that's all my mushy brain can recall right now. :O)