Old Friends

I recently reconnected with an old friend. Monica and I met in Kindergarten and were great friends all the way through our senior year of high school. She went off to college and we kind of lost touch. I did get to see her briefly when she came to our wedding in 1987 but I hadn't spoken to her since. Come to find out, even though we are both from Kansas, she has been visiting Colorado every summer for many years. She has family here and they live about 10 minutes away from me! I couldn't believe it! We decided to meet for coffee and ended up talking for almost 3 hours! We had so much to catch up on. It was quite a walk down memory lane. I think there are just some people who are meant to be a part of our lives even if we don't see each other that often.



We laughed and cried and laughed some more. We talked about her being the first to drive (she was almost a year older than me, even though we were in the same grade). Her first car was a white VW bug. I LOVED that car! I still remember the excitement of just riding around with her and listening to the radio. It was great. She shared her memories of being at my house, sitting at the table and my Mom making egg salad sandwiches for us. We talked about loved ones we have lost. We talked about our kids and husbands. Before we knew it we had caught each other up on our lives.

I'm looking forwad to seeing her next summer!

Memorial Day

I hope you all had a nice Memorial Day Weekend. We went into the weekend not having any set plans but ended up driving to Wyoming for our annual fireworks shopping on Saturday. It was a nice little getaway.



On Sunday we went to see Night at the Museum, Battle at the Smithsonian . I thought it was good and the boys enjoyed it too. Mark stayed home because he wasn't feeling well.

On Monday we went for a hike with friends. We went to Castlewood Canyon State Park. We kept thinking any time we were going to get rained out but we didn't. It was actually perfect weather. Not too hot, not too cool.

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

From Memorial Day weekend

A couple of things to share with you...

On Saturday night Mark and I went to a book launch. Doesn't that sound fancy?? Anyway the boys went to Grandpa's and had a sleep over. They always have such a great time at his house. They even have their own room with bunk beds! Thank you for keeping them Grandpa, you are creating wonderful memories with them. The book launch was for a friend of ours, Leslie Gail who is a life coach. She has written a book called Life Simplified. It is a weekly guide to improving your life. I like the way it's written in a simple format that's easy to read and the tips are easy changes that make a big difference.I like the way it goes one week at a time also. It gives you time to ease into the habits. I would recommend that you check it out. You can also sign up for her "Monday Morning tips" which I enjoy and get a lot out of. So there you go.. my book review of the week..haha. Not to sound patronizing but it has been an inspiration to watch Leslie grow in her career. We've been friends for many years and we have watched her accomplish great things. It's amazing to me that anything she puts her mind to she just does it! She mentioned years ago that she was going to write a book.. and she did. Good for you, I can't wait to see what you do next.

Second we met our good friend Becky who was Connor's third grade teacher and also happens to be an artist, for lunch today and she had a surprise for us. Thank you so much Becky. You know how special you are to us and how much we love you! We will treasure this picture always...

From Becky's picture

New Years Eve...

On New Years Eve we went out to dinner with our friends and then back to our house to hang out and watch the ball drop at 10:00 our time...well would you believe we actually made it until Midnight!! We haven't done that in years. Anyway it was a nice relaxed evening. The kids enjoyed banging on metal bowls with spatulas and spoons at 12 and then we all had a toast with fake Champagne.....boy are we getting old or what??

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Christmas Spirit award

Thank you Terra at Emerson girls blog for awarding me this Christmas Spirit Award. You have been so busy but you somehow keep that Christmas spirit and spread it around to your family and friends. You surely deserve this award. This award is for bloggers who keep their blog going this busy time of year and who love Christmas. One of the requirements is that you list at least 5 things you love about Christmas. I would like to pass this award along to
Tamara at The Bailey family. She has a brand new baby girl this Christmas (her first) and is one of the most loving Mom's I know. She has always loved the Holidays and gets into the spirit of it. So here are my 5 favorite things about Christmas..................


1. I love decorating the tree with my family. I love seeing all the old familiar ornaments and talking about the stories that go along with them. Also watching the boys excited faces as they discover ornaments they had forgotten about or that they love. I love the ones they made at school.

2. I love the smells of Christmas candles.. cinnaman, spice..etc.

3. I enjoy looking forward to family coming over or coming to stay and just being together.

4. I love coming home to see our outside lights all lit up making the house seem warm and inviting.

5. I love listening to old familiar Christmas Cd's that are now on our Ipod.. wow we are catching up..haha I also love checking the mail everyday to see if we have any new Christmas cards.

Here are a few pictures of our house at Christmas.. Terra did a post (Terra's post) showing her house and I really enjoyed it so I thought I would do the same...

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

Christmas Party...

( I am reposting this because I doubled up on posts the day I posted this and not sure anyone saw it..:)


Last Friday night we had our 3rd annual Christmas get together/party with our friends the Gails and the Meyers. I think it gets better each year. So fun to get the kids together and watch them melt together like they play with one another every day. We really do need to get together more often. We will do better in the new year. We get to share some of the Jewish holidays with them. It's a fun tradition. I think the kids will always remember our get togethers. Alex loves Matzo Ball soup... and he wants me to make potato latkes, I may need some help with that..Les? Jenny?

We had Italian food. I made lasagna and Spaghetti and meatballs. Mark made some delicious and beautiful hors deorves. He decided a couple of hours before the party (he operates best under pressure with little time, must be all those years of catering) He went to Whole foods and threw them together. I could just kick myself for not taking pictures. It would have been perfect for "What's cookin" Wed". Oh well maybe he will do it again for Christmas Eve...

slideshow - Powered by Smilebox" src="http://www.smilebox.com/globalImages/blogInstructions/blogLogoSmileboxSmall.gif" width=386>

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Getting ready for Thanksgiving...

First and foremost I wanted to say a big thanks to Terra for redesigning my blog. I love it and have already had several compliments on it. Thank you so much. I have a feeling you will be getting a few requests...

Well today is the boys last day of school before Thanksgiving. We are going to be celebrating Thanksgiving in Wichita. We are looking forward to seeing everyone! I have a few pictures to share.

We had lunch with Alex at school last week. They had a Thanksgiving lunch and we got to go. Connor wasn't there because he was on a field trip. I didn't have my camera so I took a picture with my phone, not the best but better than nothing. Sorry about the Garbage cans in the back.



I received a special invite from my friend and neighbor Garrett or as I like to call him my sweetie, to come to his school and have Thanksgiving lunch with him. (I was actually his 3rd choice, he wanted Alex or Connor but they were in school .. oh well, who's counting, right? haha) It was nice to see his school and meet his teachers and classmates. Thank you Garrett for inviting me!



We decided to put up our Christmas decorations early since we will be in Ks. next weekend. The boys did a good job decorating.




Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!!!

Hockey Game and more...

Well we've been staying busy with the kids off track and Grandma visiting. Grandma Mickey arrived Friday morning. Mark and the boys picked her up at the airport. Grandma took Alex to see High School Musical 3 (Connor was NOT interested). Anyway, Grandma and Alex had a nice outing and according to Alex it was the BEST HSM YET!!

Saturday night we went to a DU Hockey game. We were given GOLD LEVEL tickets by our good friends. Thank you again! The boys brought two friends and had a great time. A catered dinner was included and the boys just thought it was the best thing ever~! Until they realized there was free hot chocolate, popcorn AND Ice cream floats for dessert! The boys kept getting up for more popcorn and Hot chocolate. I thought they were all going to be sick. Alex did have a tummy ache when we got home, can't imagine why..haha

Gearing up for Halloween.. haven't carved our pumpkins yet, need to do that. We do have costumes picked out and ready to go..yeah! You'll have to wait for Halloween to see what they decided to be. Can't wait to post those pictures!

From Hockey game

From Hockey game

From Hockey game

From Hockey game

Hi Bonnie...

I am your new Avatar courtesy of DCR Design and your pal Terra! Enjoy seeing me next to all your comments and when you are following a blog...I have endless possibilities and look forward to hanging around with you for a long time!!

The Fourth of July

I hope you all had a good fourth. We had a fun day. Spent the day outside with Grandma, Grandpa and our neighborhood friends, visiting, watching the kids play and of course eating and drinking. We had lots of good food. Stayed out until about 10:30. We had great fireworks.. Only one misfired and of course headed straight for Grandma. Everyone was okay, no one got injured. Always relieved to make it through the 4th without incident.. knowing our family I'm sure you all know what I mean. It was fun to have Caitlyn with us also! I hope you all had a great day too!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Alex's Zoo Field Trip

On Friday Alex's class had a field trip to the Zoo. Mark had the day off so he went with us too. It was a nice day for it. Started out a little cool but warmed up. The kids did a little class and they brought out a few animals for the kids. One was a milk snake which most kids enjoyed touching but some didn't. Then we walked around a little while and found a nice place by the carousel to have lunch. Then we walked around the rest of the Zoo. It was a fun day.

Sunday

We had a good Sunday. It was really nice outside. The boys played outside all day. They are pretty tired now. Mark and his Dad worked on the minivan (our catering vehicle) for several hours today. It's really too old to put very much money into, but we are trying to "limp" it along. It's 10 or 11 years old and it has been a good vehicle for us. It's just wearing out. Mark is very tired and I'm sure Dad is too. Thanks for your help Dad. I know Mark really appreciated it!

One of the things the kids did today was play on the trampoline. They wanted to turn the hose on and spray it, which is something they do in the summer but it wasn't quite warm enough today. Our neighbor/friends were over too. They all really wanted to get wet so I ended up using warm water in buckets and pouring it down on them from the deck. They all loved it but were soon cold and wanted to put dry clothes on.







Photography courtesy of Helen C.

Monday.........

Well we've almost made it through Monday. The kids had a hard time going to sleep last night, partly because our neighbors stopped in and they got to playing and we lost track of time. Then we remembered Connor had homework. He had to weigh and measure 15 items and write it down. We only have bathroom scales and the least they will show is .5 lb. so at 9:00 last night we were all weighing ourselves and then holding things on the scale to see how much it weighed...like chairs, pots, broom etc...

I thought they would be really tired today but they seemed to have good days and are now outside playing basketball. They are going to watch a movie with the neighbors at 6:00. Not sure if they are watching at our house or theirs...

We just finished dinner (spaghetti). Mark is busy for the next 3 days..he's feeling pretty good these days. Looks tired at the end of the day but he is going to be 42 soon..getting old.haha. He works really hard and is holding up well. I'm proud of him. That's it for today.