Sunday Steamboat - Our first snow!

When we woke up this morning we could see snow-capped mountains in the distance and we knew Adam was right - those clouds we saw yesterday were snow clouds. After church we headed back to Steamboat again. We drove up the same off road track we took the day before and found the ground entirely white! The trees were dripping so clearly it was melting but it was pretty deep. Certainly more snow that I'd ever seen before. Almost as soon as we got out of the truck a snow fight ensued. Rynn got nailed in the shoulder by Daddy and started crying. Audrey offered a snowball to Rynn for retaliation. Daddy managed to make everyone wince or cry with his mean ol' snowballs, but it was a blast. Then we made a crude snowman using a bit of spray paint we had bought

for Audrey's bike for the mouth and one of Adam's Tennesee hats. We started to get so hot Adam actually took off his shirt and went bare. The kids ended up with their jackets off. Audrey surprised us all by making yellow snow......

An interesting fact about the snow in Steamboat: "But it's not just any snow here in Steamboat, we have the driest and fluffiest snow in the world. It's so different, we coined the phrase Champagne Powder.. In fact, meteorologists have measured Steamboat's Champagne Powder. as having 70% less moisture content than average snow." - from snowguide.org.

I don't know what they mean by dry - our pants were wet when we were done, and our hands were freezing from touching the snow. However this being the only snow I've ever really seen I guess I don't know what wet snow is. If we had had gloves, though, we could have stayed out there all day.

Rynn says, "I like to throw it at Daddy! HAHAHAHAH!!!"

Audrey says, "We ate it and it was good!"

Adam says, "It's a different kind of cold"

Kerry says, "We're gonna get so sick of snow that we're going to laugh at how excited we were today."

Saturday Steamboat Springs

Today we drove about 45 miles to Steamboat Springs, a top 10 international ski resort town. I needed a trip to WalMart anyway and it is the closest one. We decided to follow a road sign pointing to something called "Fish Creek Falls." Once there we hiked 1/4 mile to this stunning sight. Adam and Audrey got off the path for a bit and climbed the rocks toward the falls, but it started to rain a little so they headed back. Then we backtracked and took a different trail to the falls overlook. On the way up there we kept seeing little chipmunk looking things crossing the sidewalk and all over. This of course got Adam truly excited and he took at least 20 pictures of them. They would come right up to us and one sniffed Adam's shoe. Later we read a sign that said they were a kind of ground squirrel. He vows he is going to go back and catch one some day.

Here are a few pics we took at the falls overlook.

After that we drove up further into the mountains west of Steamboat to a place called Rabbit Ears Pass. Adam saw snow clouds and thought maybe we'd catch some snow. We didn't get to see any, however, and after some adventurous off-roading we headed back home.

And Bigger Steps

Today I am sitting outside on the playground watching my girls enjoy fall. The wind is blowing so hard and making all of our noses sniffly and the leaves are falling from the aspen trees like snow. One day I'll look back on days like this and think of them as "the good ol' days." Just the knowledge that I am savoring these days makes me a little less sad that the girls are growing up. Today Rynn counted to ten by herself for the first time as she rode her bike all the way to school by herself. Inside Audrey opted to read a book by herself and was getting all the words right, even the big ones. The girls are both excited about reading. Every night Adam or myself reads a few books in the green chair before bed. Yesterday I ordered the phonics, math, and writing books from Abeka for kindergarten so Audrey can review the things she learned last year. I'd hate for her to forget her special sounds and her cursive writing. She isn't learning those things in public school but she is learning to print which is important and the best thing of all is she is really getting excited about reading - something she never was before. I am not sure if it's because the light has come on for her or if it's because of her kindergarten class. She has confidence because the work is easy for her and the classroom is really rich in literature. I'm volunteering in her class for an hour each Monday and I can see she is the first one done with her work. Every day she comes home with a different story to tell about books she read or songs she learned in music class. It's really the polar opposite from Bethel which is not what I'd want for her in the long run but something she truly can use this year - a break from tests, confidence building, a good fun kindergarten year. Here she is getting out of class.
This week we've been trying something different outside. Adam somehow got an old bike from someone and it fits Audrey just right. Since then we've been riding all around the apartment complex - Audrey and Rynn on their bikes and myself on rollerblades! Yes it sounds nuts but it's actually a lot easier than running after them. Then we stop on the playground and have a little snack, and go back upstairs to put my skates up. We come back down and play on the playground some more. Sometimes I bring Adam's computer out. You'd think the other mothers out here would think I was an oddball but there are no other mothers out here. Yes - children, no - parents. Hooray for supervision? I don't let my girls out of my sight.





Adam's been working so hard. Well he's been working so long anyway. Starting at 7:30am he's at work driving aliens around and he doesn't get to come home most nights til 7pm though he is scheduled to come home at 3:30. He's really bummed about the lack of family time and exercise. We miss him tons too. Wow this wind is getting chilly. Need to get inside and get a light jacket. We can't wait for the weekend. We are supposed to go over to Steamboat and maybe even see some snow!

Small Steps

Each day the girls grow up a little bit more. Audrey has been getting a lot more responsible and Rynn is learning lots of new skills. Audrey helps out a lot around the house without fussing but getting Rynn to do anything is like pulling teeth. Here Audrey is cooking dinner (with Mom's help =) One bonus to letting them cook I've found is they actually eat the food. Tonight was shake'n bake pork chops and both girls helped with the shakin' part.

A few days ago I caught Rynn on her daddy's computer. The little mouse was just perfect for her hands, and she had opened all kinds of windows and caused havoc. She always asks to play "dotcom" but I never let her, but this time I did, and the girl totally owned Nickjr.com. I couldn't believe how she had mouse skills I had never seen and knew just where to click.

Taco Soup for Rachel

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground meat
2 can diced rotel (1 original & 1 hot)
1 can red beans
1 pkg. taco seasoning
1 bag corn chips
1 pkg. dry hidden valley ranch dip
1 onion
1 can navy beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can water
shredded cheese

Brown ground meat and onion. Add rotel, corn, and all cans of beans. Don't drain the cans. Add packages of ranch dip seasoning and water. Cook for 30 minutes. Top with corn chips and cheese. Don't add salt or pepper.

I changed this a bit because I couldn't find one of the cans of beans (beans were labeled red kidney beans - not both) so I added an extra can of corn instead (the best part!). We also did not top with cheese. I used an extra hot rotel instead of just hot and regretted it - it was too hot but still delicious. You might want to just put mild in there for your girls but the way it's listed above is the way they serve it at school. I absolutely LOVE this stuff! Now you have to send me your recipe!

Fun with Pronghorn

Pronghorn are so abundant here. We see them absolutely everywhere we go. We've been making the mistake of calling them deer or antelope, but it turns out they are neither. In fact Wikipedia says they are more abundant here than humans. Here's a video I shot a few days ago of a herd of them from our balcony. They've been out there every day since.

Thoughts On..

Wildlife
It's everywhere. Monday morning we woke up to a child screaming at the top of its lungs. Later when we kept hearing it all day we realized it was the elk across the street. Saturday we were driving along through town and some little critter peered at me from 5 feet from my window. We thought it was a groundhog but it wasn't - I've forgotten the name of it. We've seen dead porcupine, foxes, & pronghorn on the side of the road. And EVERYWHERE you look are deer. We're so used to seeing them everywhere that it's no big deal to see them at the gas station. Magpies are also all over. They look a little like bluejays but they are quite a bit bigger.

Church
For the past two Sundays we've gone to the same Baptist church. It has been nice, contemporary like Bethel. The preacher was earnest and the teaching was Biblical. The people were very friendly. However I think it may be a little bit too casual for us. They have some kind of coffee shop in there and the people in Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops sipping latte's while the pastor poured his heart out was a little disturbing to Adam and I. The teens didn't have to come into the sanctuary - they had their own little sofa area in the back where they could hear the sermon but sat there texting each other. What was important was the message of course, but unlike Bro. Tony's message that always spoke to my heart, I just didn't feel anything at these. So the search for a church home will continue next week. I know how important it is for us all to find the right place for us.


Grocery Shopping
I absolutely can NOT wait for Wal Mart to open in November. Right now we have Safeway and City Market for groceries and K-Mart for other things. The prices on groceries are outrageous - everything is on average $.50 more per item than it is in La. It adds up fast. I don't know if my girls will be eating chicken noodle soup again - it's $1.60 per can here instead of 60 cents. Yeah Wal-Mart cannot get here soon enough. The stores are VERY nice though, especially Safeway. Very high class looking inside. And the buggies are adorable. There are little cars on the front of the buggies and the girls both sit inside and pretend to drive their car around while I shop. They LOVE it.


Job Hunting
Last Monday morning I checked with the principal of Audrey's school to find out if they needed any subs and indeed she was happy to find out about me. She gave me the numbers of two babysitters and a good daycare. I called the babysitters - they wanted $30 to watch Rynn and $15 for Audrey for the half day! Rynn had to be potty trained for the daycare. One babysitter was full and the other could only take them on Wed. and Thurs. To put that into perspective I used to pay a little more than that for a whole week for Rynn with Marie. Tuesday I went to the school board to find out the pay for subs to see if it would be worth it after day care. They pay $85 per day for subs but $160 per day for long term subs with teaching degrees. Then I still would have to figure out how to leave school to get Audrey and bring her to the babysitter. Adam's enjoying me playing Miss Mom around the house right now anyway so I'm going to stick with that for a bit.



Being a Homemaker
This is what I've always wanted! I don't know how long I'll get to do this, but I'm loving it. A typical day looks like this - walk Audrey to school by 8:00, then walk back to the house with Rynn. Rynn and I hang out for a few hours, cleaning and maybe watching Wiggles, Yo Gabba Gabba, and other disturbingly enjoyable programs. We walk over to the school to get Audrey at 11:00 and the kids both play on the playground there for 15 minutes. Then we come back and have lunch at the apartment. Then we go to the grocery store and run errands or we do laundry and go to the apartment playground. We've been to the library, or to visit Daddy at work a couple of times. Then we are back to clean up for Adam to come home and get dinner ready. I've done gumbo for Adam's office which they loved, and did some taco soup from a recipe I got from Mrs. Tessa (the lunch lady back at Bethel) as well as lots of other dishes. Yeah you guys thought I couldn't cook - life just didn't allow time for it before.

Every Weekend is a Vacation

This was our first real weekend in our new home since last weekend we were unpacking, so we decided to go exploring. Our travels brought us to Glenwood Springs. Our destination was Leadville, the highest town in the U.S., but we never made it that far. On the way we found a dead deer, and Audrey, being somewhat obsessed with questions regarding dead things, wanted to stop to look at it. That particular highway is nicknamed "Carnage Hwy" because of all the deer people hit. After an hour or two of scenery we ended up starting a new free vacation fad - rest stop hopping along the Glenwood Canyons. The rest stops all had long trails coming off of them so we went hiking up one of them. We probably only ended up hiking 3/4 of a mile or so into it, but we know next time to bring water with us. I think we also may need to wear khaki shorts, a fishing hat, hiking boots, and a backpack that ties around your waist, since everyone we met along the way was wearing that same getup!

Click

HERE

for more

pictures.

Here is a video of everyone at the creek. I won't be able to leave it up for long because it is taking up a lot of my allotted space so take a look before I take it down.

And a quick snippet of Glenwood Canyon...

(videos removed to save space)

I kept thinking today how much Daddy would like it if he saw the mountains, or how much Bailey and KK would love to hike by the river. I can't wait til you guys can come to visit!

Our Place

I won't go so far as to call it our new home - I'll reserve that honor for the house we buy hopefully within the next few months. Instead, allow me to introduce you to Our Place!

Remember, we are still unpacking, so there are boxes here and there, especially in our bedroom. I've left out the photo of that one and the 1/2 bath - nothing special there.

The kitchen is just the right size, the cabinets are cute. We have a dishwasher (YAY!) I washed the dishes by hand for 3 days before I even noticed it - assumed we didn't have one. Our fridge STUNK up until about yesterday. Really that's the only complaint I've had about the apartment itself.

The living area is large enough for us. I'm a little sorry we left our coffee table but I do like the space. We don't, however, have a dining area. Instead we sit at the bar on stools. The carpet is brand new as of last week so we bought an area rug, knowing how hard the girls are on carpet. Sadly, we couldn't fit our sofa that goes with the ottoman through the door so Adam took it to his office. I visited him today and discovered my sofa was all scratched up from moving and almost cried. He comforted me and told me we could fix it but I loved that thing. Too much, I guess - it's just an object after all.

Opening out from the living room is our balcony. It spans the entire length of the apartment. The complex is 3 stories total and the second floor is the only one with a balcony. I thought about spicing it up with some plants and chairs but when the cold weather started to set in Monday I figured it would be a waste. The whole thing will be covered in snow soon and we won't be here long enough for Spring. From the balcony you can see Audrey's school to the right with a mountain behind it, and to the left a pretty little house on a hill. The girls have been spending a lot of time playing out there.

Now we move down the hall to the entry. We have 3 locks on the door so I'm not worried about any of our freaky neighbors getting in. More about the freaky neighbors later! We've got the sofa table and an arrangement greeting you as you walk in from the front door - turning left takes you to the kitchen and right to the bedrooms. You probably can't tell from the pictures but there is a pantry and large broom closet off to the left by the kitchen and after the front door you can find a coat closet and another closet. Plenty of space, lots of shelves, quite large. Bringing all of our "stuff" with us should never have even been an issue.

On to the kids' room. We've bunked the beds again. They have 2 good size closets in their room and probably more room than they had in their old one. The carpet looks like it's from the 80's but we deal with it by covering it up with the little rug Momma made for the girls. They still have a few boxes in there I should unpack instead of blogging :)

Here's the bathroom - nothing impressive though Audrey was pretty amazed by the medicine cabinet hidden in the wall. The girl is easy to please! You can see Rynn's little Dora potty seat there - we are working on it, but she hasn't had a success yet.

That's where our virtual tour ends, folks! I'll have to post our room when we finish unpacking but it looks just like the kids' only we put the jungle carpet from my classroom on the floor and it has a walk-in closet and a 1/2 bath off of it. It's time to bathe the kids now and reprimand the cat for playing on the lazy susan. I hope you guys get to come up here and see the place for real sometime soon. I leave you with an image of the girls napping in the living room today, most likely dreaming of you!

Friday

We set out from Denver after having breakfast. It didn't take long to get to the mountains. Just leaving the city we got to see something new that had nothing to do with the landscape - a truck loaded with nothing but Corvettes.



The view was almost immediately spectacular. The mountains were so big, but even more impressive, at least to me, were the homes on them. Some of the multi-million dollar ones were perched precariously right on the edges. I didn't get any photos of them, but here are some of the mountains we saw.

It was at that point we discovered that an Escalade does not have enough horsepower or whatever it is to drag a car up a mountain, so we unattached the car and I took the wheel of the truck. From then on my pictures were relegated to sticking my camera out of the window while watching the road, so don't expect any spectacular photography. Here are some shots taken while we stopped for gas:

You can see the rest of the photos on our Flickr Album.

Catching up on the Last Week

It has been such an adventure with a good supply of highs and lows. Since I haven't had a good net connection since last Tuesday, I'll start from back then.

Tuesday we spent the whole day loading up our moving van. Well, mostly Adam and his dad did. Those guys are workhorses! Rachel and her girls came over and helped a bit, as did Momma. Adam's mom was there as well, working her tail off as usual and showing me a thing or two about moving. Everyone was really good about not being emotional until Bailey broke out bawling. Next thing you know everyone had wet eyes. Thanks, Bailey!

Wednesday morning we set out early, Adam and I and the kids in the Escalade pulling the Grand Prix, and Joyce and Carl in the moving van pulling their SUV. We drove all day, stopping often, and stayed the night just south of Oklahoma City.

Thursday we drove all day again, crossing Kansas. The kids watched The Wizard of Oz as we crossed and kept an eye out for Dorothy's house, and we DID see a sign for it. We even got to see a tornado forming:

That night we stayed in Denver. When we started to get close we could barely make out the mountains in the distance. Here's a pic of the Denver skyline. It's hard to tell the difference between the mountains and the clouds. Where you can see a sliver of sky you can tell where the mountains are.

yuck! Ignore the bugs on the windshield!

Friday's trip deserves its' own post because it was the most beautiful trip and I have a lot of pictures.

We Made It!

We are here in our new apartment and are really happy with everything so far. I only have minutes to post right now, but we will be getting our cable and internet on Tuesday so I'll have a HUGE post up then. Tomorrow Audrey starts school, Adam starts work, and our new life really begins. Thanks for checking in, Aunt Becky, Rachel & Luke, Mom & Dad, Grammy & Grandpa, Grandmother and Granddad. And a BIG BIG BIG THANK YOU to Adam's mom and dad for coming all the way to Colorado with us to see us here. Words can not thank you enough for all you have done.

If anyone wants our new address, please email me at mrskerry@kajnmail.com and let me know who you are.

I'll probably be making this blog private soon so you'll have to register to view it, so please don't give up when you see you don't have access. It's for our safety. See you (virtually) on Tuesday!