Christmas Joy

Here are the kiddos Christmas morning showing off their Christmas Swag! Madison and Taylor both got "bikes" from Santa. Madison prefers just sitting on hers and pushing on the ground. Taylor received copious amounts of Fire Station stuff from Santa and others and has proceeded to have all kinds of emergencies around the house everyday. Madison loves her baby dolls, stroller to push them in and her new dishes. Surprisingly, she seems to like the bowls and pretends to eat out of them with her spoon. I think she is wishing there was ice cream in those pretend dishes. Thank you to all for the Christmas Joy!

Thanksgiving Craziness

At Thanksgiving, we went to Texas and visited both families. The plane ride was crowded, but the kiddos were relatively good considering the delays. In Dallas, Taylor got to go bowling for the first time with our friends the Millers. He was also very pleased to ride the electric train. He had been wanting to do that since "I have ridden a steam engine and diesel, now I need an electric!" At uncle Jim's, Taylor and Sarah basically disappeared as they truly enjoyed playing make believe and reading stories with each other. Madison spent the Holiday begging anyone standing to hold her and begging them convincingly to take her outside.

Halloween Fun

For Halloween, we had a Butterfly and a Firefighter. We had fun at our MOMS club Halloween Party and Taylor celebrated with his friends Sophia and Sable. On the night of Halloween, Madison was too sick to go out, but Taylor and Daddy had a blast trick or treating with his friend Julia up the street and then they all had a ghoulish Dinner with a Skeleton Veggie tray and everything.

Denver Children's Museum

The kids and I went to the Denver Children's Museum today. It was a little stressful with the crawler/walker girl Madison who would not be held or sit in a stroller, but everyone had a blast. Taylor was impossible to pull away from the actual firetruck where he steered and blew the siren. He also dressed as a squirrel and climbed through a maze of tree trunks and tunnels as Madison happily followed along. She was not phased at all by the tunnels or the zillions of bigger kids trying to get around her. We had fun painting, playing with mirrors, shopping at the grocery store, playing basketball..... etc, etc. Everyone napped hard on the way home. Except for mom!

First Steps and FIrst Strokes

About two hours after Kevin left for a trip, Madison decides to take her first steps. This was on Sunday. This pic is a few weeks later when we could finally get a pic of her doing it. She is getting much more confident and choosing to walk often instead of just crawl.

Taylor has started swim lessons with dramatic improvement in just a few lessons. He now loves his gear and wanted to wear it at home.

Twin Peaks and Imogene Pass Road

The Thursday before Imogene Pass Race Day, Kevin and I decide we need to "clean the pipes" out a bit and get in a little hike without the kiddos on our backs. We choose Twin Peaks Trail just above Ouray. It was a lot steeper than we expected, with a uphill climb, downhill, then uphill again! However, we got some nice views of our Race Route from the trail as shown in the middle pictures above. Hopefully, we won't be too sore for race day... but we survived!


On Saturday we got up early for our 17 mile Mountain "Run" from Ouray to Telluride. I put run in quotes because I don't think I ran more than 12 of the miles since it goes up to 13,100 feet and I obviously didn't train as much uphill as the winners who finished before either Kevin and I summited.

It was the prettiest blue bird day ever with not a cloud in the sky and the most gorgeous scenery I have seen. We met lots of nice people commiserating along the way. I had fun taking people's pics who couldn't get anyone else to stop on the endless climb. I also enjoyed searching for the marmots squeaking in the distance. Kevin even met a guy from Houston who claimed he trained by running the Ship Channel Bridge! Crazy!

Kevin and I both did a lot better than we expected. I had hoped to finish in 5 hours but made it in 4:23 and Kevin made it in 4:07. Yes, it is a little frustrating given he did nothing the 5 weeks prior with a sore back and bad sinus infection, but that is Kevin. The fun is over and we paid dearly for it in soreness. However, it feels great to have an accomplishment like that and I actually can see wanting to do it again. Kevin and I claimed we may not have said the same thing if the weather was bad.

Telluride and Grandparents

Kevin's parents had met us in our rental house in Ridgeway (Between Ouray and Telluride) in order to help us watch the kids prior to the Imogene Pass Run. Here are some pics of them (Madison was asleep in the car) in front of the San Juan's and Ralph Lauren's Ranch. Now this is the most photographed stretch of highway in Colorado (maybe the west), and he owns all the land!!! Barbara like to say she has contributed a fence post to the cause with her Polo purchases.