One Day at a Time

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Lessons Learned the Hard Way. . . .

If you are going to build a fort out of cardboard boxes with your sister ...

... while she is cutting out windows and doors with scissors ...
... don't crawl inside the box ...
... and don't reach for the scissors from the inside without her knowing ...
... or she may just CUT part of your finger OFF! ...

Luckily there was no bone loss, just flesh and the entire fingernail bed as far as we can tell....
....good thing he is a boy!?

Cog Railroad

... we rode the Cog Railroad which leaves from Manitou Springs and goes to the top of Pikes Peak Mountain ...

... being the Texans that we are, and being the middle of JUNE, we jumped right on the train without thinking twice ... the ride up was beautiful ... you could see the entire city of Colorado Springs ... you can probably see several cities, Pikes Peak is over 14,000 feet ...

... you can see how impressed Kenzie was by all the beauty surrounding her ...

... HOWEVER, the HIGHER up the mountain we got...the COLDER it got ...

... yes, that is snow ...

... in JUNE! ...

... pretty soon that was all we saw out our window ...

... until we got to the TOP ...

... where it was 19 degrees! and we were in shorts and short sleeves...

... needless to say, we bought a couple of sweatshirts and a jacket...

it was an AWESOME ride, but next time we will know better....I'm sure people knew we were from Texas...all I have to say is at least none of us were in flip flops! : )

Rampart Range Reservoir

This is Rampart Range Reservoir, about 15 minutes further up the mountain ~ it is about a mile from the dam down to Nichols Reservoir, which makes it a nice little walk...

...Aiden loves to climb the hills and rocks...

... and B has to pick up every pine cone and rock

along the way...

... and yes, that's Pikes Peak in the background

...with all the snow...

in the middle of June! ...

Mackenzie's FAVORITE thing about Colorado

...upon moving up here Kenzie announced she didn't like it here... it's 'TOO FORRESTY'...

... there are too many trees ...

... however, there are also lots of these [rocks] ...

... and we see lots of these [animals] ...

... but mostly LOTS and LOTS of these ...

End of School Year 'Festivities'

The end of the school year was the usual ~ filled with fieldtrips ...

[ out at Kenny's Korral with Aiden's class ]

recognition ceremonies, ...

5th Grade Graduation Ceremonies, ...

The only thing different about the end of this school year is that we were living here....

...and then we moved here ~

Movin' On

We are finally getting 'settled' into our new place.....at least I finally decided to order internet service...

So much to catch up on.....where to start!?

Our last days in Lubbock were spent packing....cleaning....packing. It was hard to let the pantry dwindle down to nothing.....the though of leaving was rather depressing ~

The girls were ever so helpful....wrapping themselves up in packing celophane ~ I won't post the pic of Lonnie wrapping his head in it....need I say more? : )

It was hard to see everything so empty!

I couldn't help but think of the day we moved into our house and our good friends who were wonderful enough to help out.....those three years sure flew by ~

One last picture of the kiddos in front of our house ~ As you can see, Brigg was 'at the end of his rope'.....moving is exhausting!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

The End of a Decade

Ten years ago [in May] we came to Lubbock for undergraduate school at Texas Tech. We never left.....

We accepted an offer on our house last week ~ it's official...

with cold feet and heavy hearts we are movin' on.

I wasn't really sure what kind of an impact moving was making on Aiden until we were pulling into the drive one afternoon. From the back seat I heard an emotion-choked little voice say, "Mom, I am really gonna' miss our home."

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Lots of people have joked with us over the last several months that it will be so hard for us to leave behind the 'dream house' that we built here. However, I am always quick to correct them. We will miss much more than our house.

We have built a home here in this flat, wind-blown, dust-covered, west Texas town.

...the beautiful sunsets on the never-ending horizons... our wonderful neighbors... birth of a child... the cotton... community... good memories... all the people we have come to know here...

For the last ten years, this has been home ~

Spring in Colorado

Over Spring Break we went to visit Lonnie in Colorado. We were able to do a little house hunting, check-out the town some more and take a trip to the local zoo. If you have ever been to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, you know that it aptly boasts to be 'the nation's only mountain zoo.' It is literally built on the side of the mountain. I don't know if there is any flat terrain in the entire park.

I think this is the most eventful zoo trip we have ever had~

we saw a baby giraffe that was only three weeks old...

peacocks up close and personal...

Brigg danced with the porcupine...

and this lion got up from his nap, came over to the window, and literally snapped at the kids through the glass. Brigg was the only kiddo brave enough to stay 'plastered' to the window with the big kitty 6 inches from his face!

We also taught the kids about the wildlife to avoid in their new backyard....although Brigg didn't seem very afraid ~

HAPPY SPRING!

Monday, March 2, 2009

A Couple of New Toys

So Lonnie bought us both an iPhone a couple of weeks ago.....If you are in need of a new phone, I HIGHLY recommend one of these! These things are incredible. You have EVERYTHING you could possibly need ~ right at your fingertips : )

He also bought himself a new 'toy' before he headed up to Colorado this past weekend. If he can't get to the hospital in a blizzard in this......he's probably not going to get there!