First Ski Lesson!

January 16, 2011 - We took the kids to Echo Mountain for their first ski lesson!

The lesson was 2 hrs. long and they were skiing down the bunny hill by the end. It wasn't totally without event, Alison was apparently sick! Good thing it was just hot chocolate and easily covered with a little more snow!

Martin was not going to leave. After hiding under a table in the "lodge" (term used very loosely at this particular po-dunk hill) and really wanted to keep on going! He's already becoming a ski bum. He wants to do it everyday! (I told you so!) So, he's happy to be going back! He, naturally, thinks he's the greatest skier ever! He can't get his own skis on, but he's the bomb! So fun to see them fall in love with something new.

3 car pile up on the magic carpet!

Winter fun! Sledding behind our school!

We had a snow day for the first time in Kindergarten! We made the most of it in spite of the frigid temps! The sun was in full force and the kids had so much fun with their friends!

Summer 2010

What an adventuresome summer we've had this year. Alison and Martin are at a great age to go explore and see what fun there is to be had out there. They are game for most stuff and getting more brave all the time!

We did some swimming lessons for Alison and spent a great deal of time at the pool with friends and just swimming! Some big swimming milestones have been met. The kids now go down all the water slides in the different pools. We've even at the very end of summer added jumping off of diving boards. So much clean fun to be had around our community.

We spent three weeks in Reno with some side trips to San Francisco and Grover Hot Springs and a trip back to Roseville to see a couple of my Sierra College girlfriends. It was an action packed 3 weeks. We did the 4th of July up in Virginia City.

The Broncos season has started and the kids are enjoying the games! We'll be going to many, so that's a good thing. They do really well!

We capped off this summer with a trip up to Glenwood Springs and took a 4 wheel drive (poor Expedition doesn't have very high clearance!) to Crystal City and then to the Adventure Park where we zipped and zoomed down the mountain at blazing speeds on the Alpine Coaster! It was a whirlwind weekend, but very fun!

Crystal City proved a very good place for Jim to practice using his fancy camera! The pics at the top of the blog are also the Glenwood Trip.

The biggest milestone we crossed this summer was Alison and Martin starting Kindergarten. They are in the same class with Mrs. Christensen and Mrs. Alexander (student teacher). They like their class and are slowly learning more of the kids' names. Martin has a built in buddy in the other morning K class in family friend (pre-school counterpart) Carter. He's the 3rd kid in the Bronco picture above. So they play together at recess. We have a few girls on our street in their class as well. So far, Ali's not copping to having any friends. I'm sure that will all change as they get going.

Alison's Cheerleading Camp at OneTrueMedia.com

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Swimming 4/15/10 at OneTrueMedia.com

Ali went down the big waterslide for the first time today! She got a bit freaked in the current at the bottom and Martin had a little incident with a kickboard, but otherwise he swam backstroke across the whole 25 - to which he said "That was amazing!"

Ali has now done the full 25 freestyle and backstroke 25 as well!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

5th Birthday Party Videos and Pictures

Here's the WHOLE party in 11 mins!!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Golfing with Dad!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

It's been a while!

I haven't been keeping up terribly well, so now I'll try to catch up from Christmas to yesterday's 5th Birthday! Phew! That's a lot to do!

Christmas 2009 was what I will dub "sick" Christmas. Jim and I were super sick during Christmas and my Dad managed to catch it as well! My Dad and Jim and Martin went to a Broncos game before they got hit with the sick, so at least they have that.
We had as nice a visit as we could with all the coughing and fevers. The kids had asked Santa for a few things and got some and didn't get some of the others.

Martin desperately wanted a Smart Cycle - a bicycle powered video game. NO DICE! Sorry kiddo! Santa read bad reviews and decided against it! Instead he scored a huge Geo Trax Cars Set up with 2 remote control cars to drive on the tracks.

Alison wanted Zhu Zhu pets, but like Tickle Me Elmo from years past...NO CAN DO! The little hamsters that make noise and ride around in their "habitat" weren't to be at Christmas, but we make up for it at Birthday! The other thing she desperately wanted was a "Princess Music Box". SCORE!! We managed that and Christmas was saved!

For New Years We had a group of friends and their kids over and most all of them *gasp* made it to midnight! It was fun to have a little adult fun and conversation and we got to play games and laugh a lot.

All in all, I declare Holidays 2009 a great time!