Celebrating Early

With Vanessa being here, Josh and I decided to take advantage of her babysitting services and celebrate our 11 year anniversary a little early. It was the first night in 7 years that we have been away overnight from our kids! We had such a good time...

The location: Glen Eyrie Castle, Colorado Springs

This is what I get now when I ask Josh to pose for a picture. He definitely needs to be a model!

The dinner:

Sooo good, but hard to ignore the fact that we paid a small fortune for it (we could have fed our whole family for a week on what we spent on this one meal)!

The activity: Hiking to The Punch Bowls

After our little night out we are both asking ourselves, why did we not do this sooner! It was so nice to have some alone time with each other, and although we missed the little ones, I'm not sure they even noticed we were gone! It was a great night, I love you Joshua and thanks Vanessa!

The bike that finally learned how to ride

Last week the Schneiders invited us over for Sunday dinner. When we got there we were amazed to hear that Jordyn, their 4 year old and one of Sam's best friends, was riding her bike without training wheels. Sammy thought it looked like a lot of fun, so on he jumped and tried to take off. Much to his disappointment, after many near crashes he told me "that bike doesn't know how to ride!" and off he stormed. Sam has had some good fits before, but never have I seen him this upset!

One week later, we went outside and took Sam's training wheels off so he could try again. After only 5 minutes of practice, he had it! He rides like a pro, all except for the braking part (we'll work on that). I felt like dropping to my knees and praising the angels of bike riding! Finally, he had a bike that knew how to ride! He was such a proud little boy, and so were we!

A pumpkin and two soldiers

Upon trying to better myself as a photographer, I turned my camera's settings on to "raw" format - Josh not knowing this erased most of the pictures because they came through in an unfamiliar format. Sigh, oh well, this is what we have left of the night, not the best pics, but a great night with our friends the Schneiders.

The mighty soldiers. They were so proud of their costumes, and I was so excited because they are real BDU's and will be great costumes for the next 20 years - not that I'm cheap or anything!

Sophie stole my witch hair - gives you a good look at what she might look like if she ever grows a LOT hair (and dyes it pitch black).

Vanessa and the pumpkin

Schneiders and the Ericksons. After a major snow storm earlier this week we were so happy to have a beautiful night for trick or treating!

Not everyone loves Fall

Living in a new community with trees far from full size, we don't have to many fun leaves to play in. Luckily we were able to visit Grandma and Grandpa Johnson where the leafs are plentiful! This was Sophia's first experience with leaves- and to put it bluntly, she hated them!



Caleb and Sam thought it would be a lot of fun to build a huge pile in the drive way and then run straight into them on their "plasma cars". Obviously Caleb had a blast doing this, but Sammy, well he was having a "Sammy Day" - things weren't going just as we wanted them to.

Eventually Sam was able to cheer up and enjoy the leaves a little.
Unfortunately Sophia never did.

Update on Polly

So many of you have been so kind to ask about how Polly is doing, so I thought I would give you a little update. We were able to drive out and see her last weekend, and this time she knew we were there! While there, they were able to transfer her out of the ICU and into a rehab center in Bountiful so our kids were able to see her as well. Considering where she was at a a month and a half ago, she has come so far and we are so proud of her. Hopefully by Thanksgiving she will be out of hospitals for good!

The mighty fisherman

On one of our hikes in Estes there was a frigid stream with beautiful trout swimming everywhere. Although it was freezing cold, Caleb kept begging us to let him catch a fish. Being skeptical parents we fought him over it for about an hour, telling him "it's too cold!" and "there is no way you can catch a fish anyway." After a while we finally gave in and told him to go for it. With no hesitation at all, Caleb reached in and caught a fish! He was so surprised, that he let it go only to realize, "hey, I just caught a fish!" He quickly snatched on to it again, but by then, the fish had woken up as well and wiggled out of his grasp. And there you have it, Caleb proved us wrong and is now a mighty fisherman.

Eating lunch with the elk

Last year our little fam decided to take a trip up to Estes Park and we had so much fun that this year we decided to do it again. We didn't see as many elk this time, and the fall leaves were all gone, but we had fun just the same. The highlights were having a picnic with the elk at the visitors center, hiking around Rocky Mountain National Park and, of course, eating dinner at Penelope's Famous Hamburgers - yum!

Notice the elk just hanging out behind us

A hike around one of the many lakes in Rocky Mountain State Park

The kids look so thrilled don't they! I promise it was fun!

Taking a break to give sis a little love

Dont ask, it scares me too!