December 2011 - Part 2

Ahhhhh, VACATION! I always joke that we have to leave town to get Aaron all to ourselves, but it really is true! And then, we have SO much fun! Despite a 2.5 hour flight delay, followed by almost an hour on the runway for de-icing just getting out of Denver, our vacation was off to a great start. A huge Thank You to Southwest Airlines for their Photos with Santa set-up that provided an awesome distraction for the girls!

We started the trip off with a day at Disneyland/California Adventure right away! The crowds weren't too bad and each of the girls have new favorite rides. Colby loved Ariel's Undersea Adventure and Carter had a blast on Goofy's Sky Skool - although Mommy screamed the whole time! We then enjoyed several gorgeous days playing at the beach, Christmas Eve dinner with Jill, Justin, Haile & Cole and another day at Disneyland! Thanks to a very generous Christmas gift from one of my clients, we were able to go back on Christmas Day and enjoy all of our favorite rides all over again!

At the end of the trip, the girls and I stayed a couple of extra days with Jill and then detoured up to Portland for almost 2 weeks. Being away from Aaron was tough, but we had really enjoyed the family time. More pics from Portland will follow in the January post... if I don't forget ;)

December 2011

Once again, I am SO behind! December has always been a busy month for us and this year was no exception! The slideshow above includes everything from Dec 1 through Dec 20 when we headed out to Cali for our annual Disneyland Christmas Trip (see next post). Pictures include the usual variations in Colorado weather, lots of basketball games and Colby's 1st Haircut! We were so excited this past month to discover that Colby's hair has some of the curl that Carter's had at this age. Worth a try, we had Tara cut some layers to allow the curl to really bounce!

September 2011

Oh my goodness! I have gotten really bad at keeping this blog updated! Just realized I never did August... Anyway, here is September! Football season is well underway and we are thrilled with our 5-0 Eagles! We have also been enjoying some amazing weather that hardly feels like fall yet.

July 2011

What a busy month! July kicked off with town fireworks, a pancake breakfast and the Annual 4th of July Parade in Byers. A few hours later, we hopped on a plane for Portland and landed in time to see several fireworks shows from Grammy & Dadoo's own deck. The next morning, Aaron headed out to Nike to watch a big high school football camp and the girls and I hit one of our favorite Portland parks. The next week and a half were spent swimming at PGC, playing at various parks around town and enjoying family time. Aaron especially enjoyed attending the Nike camp and also a few summer league games that his star girls bb player happened to be playing in, in Portland!

Next, Aaron, the girls, Grammy and I all piled into Grammy's car and drove 9+ hours to Shoshone, ID for the Dille Family Reunion. The girls actually did really well in the car and we were the first to arrive! We enjoyed a few minutes chatting with Great Grandma Dille all to ourselves before the rest of the fam arrived the next day. On a side note - the next day also held special importance, as our niece, Winter Jean, was born to Emma and Pat!!! Wish we could have jumped in the car and headed down to SLC, but that might have been a little too much for the kids :)

Anyway, Shoshone was great as always and Carter had a blast with her 2nd cousin, Isabella and several other kids. We "discovered" Shoshone Falls and Dierke's Lake, which made for great outings and great fun.

... to be continued...

June - a little late...

Boy, am I behind! Summer has been great so far and we just returned from 3 weeks of travel to Portland and Idaho (more about those in my July post) to a fun-filled weekend of garage sale-ing and picnics at the park. Now, back to June. In addition to lots of tee ball games, we kept very busy playing in our own front yard. We finally brought some chairs out front, turned on the sprinkler and just played. In this slideshow, you will see an assortment of many different swimsuits and a few different water play toys. The girls also love riding their bikes and playing at the school playground. This is the first year that Carter has been tall enough to participate in swimming lessons here and she was super excited to join in. Despite telling her teachers that she already knew how to do everything they taught, she did learn quite a bit and is progressing really well. Unfortunately on the last day of lessons she fell while climbing up the ladder to the diving board and suffered a minor concussion. Thank goodness it wasn't worse and she was still brave enough to go off the board when we swam at PGC in Portland. You will also see a whole bunch of pictures in this slideshow from Elitch's - a big amusement park in Denver. With season passes, we managed to go 3 times in a one-week period and the girls loved every minute. Anyway, that about covers June and I will hopefully be more timely with our July pics and update next week ;) Hope you all are enjoying summer as much as we are!

March-May 2011

So, I guess it's been a busier Spring than I thought! Just logged on to our blog and discovered thath I haven't posted since the end of February! Wow! Well, to get caught up, I have posted slideshows from each of the past three months with a few tidbits about what we've been up to...
May 2011

May brought the end of the school year and the beginning of tee ball. Carter is playing on a "real team" this year that plays more organized games than she did in pee wee ball last year. It takes a bit of coaxing to get her there each time, but once she's on the field, she has a blast! The weather has finally gotten warm and we are loving spending time playing outside. Our front yard now fits right in with the Deer Trail way - bikes, other ride-on's, chairs and whatnot are strewn everywhere, but it means we're having fun!

April 2011

In early April, the girls and I took a trip up to Portland to celebrate Colby's 2nd Birthday before she actually turned two and would start requiring a paid seat on the airplane! Later in the month, we attended two different Easter Egg hunts and finally celebrated Colby's actual second birthday with lots of cake and "i peam" aka ice cream.

March 2011

In March, our Basketball season came to an end when the Girls Varsity Team lost at Regionals. It was a great ride for both teams this year and Aaron truly enjoyed coaching them. The girls had fun but were also super excited to have A LOT more Daddy-time when the season ended. Over Spring Break, we visited the Pirates exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Colorado's infamous "Casa Bonita," and discovered an awesome swimming center called Apex. Carter now asks to go about every other day!

February 2011

February has come and gone and we are SO ready for Spring! While there aren't as many pics as usual in the slideshow above (less than 100!), we did have a fun month. Lots and lots of basketball games kept us pretty busy and we are thrilled that Aaron's girls team is headed to Regionals this weekend! If they win on Saturday, we all go to State next weekend.

Other fun pics include a zoo trip (first in quite awhile), gymnastics class and lots of dress-up at home. Enjoy!