The Northern Lights Again?

 I could hardly believe my eyes when I read there was another chance of seeing the northern lights!  It was COLD out that night so I peeked out the back but didn't see anything - and then I remembered that sometimes you can't see them with the naked eye, just your camera!  SO I walked out the front and sure enough I could see some purple (last time was red)!!  Back in to put on a heavy hooded coat and boots and walked back out so see what I could capture!

I wasn't disappointed!!  But didn't stay out very long due to the cold!

I love the 3 different shades of purple as I walked further each time!  WOW - once again I was amazed!

After coming back in and checking facebook to see if anybody else had posted any (and of course they had!!), I came to a local news channel that was asking people to send in their pictures!  SO I DID!

I was ready for bed at 10:00pm so decided to tape the news, JUST in case my pic would be on - and sure enough the next day when I watched it, there it was!  I was extremely pleased!

It's the little things in life that make you secretly smile to yourself!

Volleyball

 And the following weekend we headed to Denver for Kenzie's volleyball tournament!  Rayna and Jaime decided to come up too so we all met at the house to get adjustments!  Gary and Glenn stayed home to watch the Broncos game - and yes, another win!!  

The rest of us all went to the meet which Day 1 was at Kenzie's regular training place - there's sure not a lot of seating but we did get to sit right on the court and it was "watch out for flying volleyballs"!!!

That girl can jump!!!  And she's great at spiking the ball!

Support from her family!

They won 2 of their 3 games and played great!  In between the 2nd and 3rd game, the 4 of us went to a sandwich place to eat dinner - the sandwich was good BUT Jaime had to order on gluten free bread and her order took 20 minutes!!!  Not acceptable!

By the time we got home that night, we were all tired so it was an early night!

Since the team had lost 1 game, we knew the next day their games would be at Golden!!!  YAY - a chance to see Evan!!

We all got up pretty early - Jessi had frozen cinnamon rolls so she had laid them out and cooked them in the morning and Gary had made and cooked an egg casserole the day before so we just had to heat that up for breakfast which worked out great!

Jessi drove our car over with me and Kenzie and one other player as the girls had to ref early - Gary, Gwyn and Glenn came in Gary's car!

We met Evan in the lobby of his dorm and all enjoyed cinnamon rolls and coffee!

Evan opened up his birthday card since we'll be gone once again around his birthday!

Then he gave us a tour of the campus and we really enjoyed that!  It's hard to believe that Jessi went there for a year as I sure didn't remember much of that!

Then it was the first game in their smaller gym at the college - again, you sit right in front of where they play so had to watch out for the balls again!!  They won the first game and it was a real nail-biter!!!

Unfortunately they lost the next one but they played excellent and it went into overtime!!  A fun game to watch!!

Glenn and I with the kids!

We had packed a lunch so walked over to where the cars were and enjoyed a picnic in the sun - it felt good to be outside, even though it was a little bit windy!!

And then it was time to say our goodbyes and head back home!

Wrestling Meet

 January weekends are always busy as we try to see a wrestling meet and a volleyball meet before we head to Baja - so even though we just got home from Estes Park on a Monday afternoon, Friday found us heading back up that way to Ft. Collins!  And we had snow - it was a miserable drive up there as we didn't drive out of bad roads till we got past Castle Rock!  But we made it safe and sound which is all that counts!

We had brought both of our computers up for Robby to work on so he got busy on them - I actually relaxed a while till Jill got home!  After a great dinner, Jill had to pick up Parker from practice and then we played some games!

Saturday morning I woke up early, glanced at my phone and read the time wrong so I was up PLENTY early!   But noticed that I had 40 emails!!!!  I NEVER get that many in one day!!  So looked at the first one and then noticed they were basically all the same - an alarm was going off at our house!!  PANIC!  After I went upstairs, Robby came down as he was getting the same emails that I was getting as he is the Admin on our camera outside - I immediately texted neighbor Al to see if he was up but no response!  Robby said the outside camera which is mounted on the outside of the office wall, was picking up the sound!  At that time, we figured it was just a low battery on a smoke alarm (they're all connected) but it still was an unknown!  So I called Brad who was up and asked if he would drive over there to check it out!  Sure enough, it was just the alarms going off and as soon as he turned up the furnace, they went off!  Gosh that was a scary moment for a while!

Robby headed out early to get Parker to the meet and the rest of us followed later!  The meet was in Ft. Collins at a different school but the gym was really small!  In facte, all the wrestlers had to sit in the bleachers with the spectators so it made for some cramped quarters!

We got to see Parker wrestle at least 3 times I think!  In between we would get up and walk outside to get some fresh air or watch the other wrestlers!  Parker did great, even though he had a hurt shoulder.

Sitting in the stands - Aleah joined us late morning!

Parker pinned this guy!  He's fun to watch!

And another win!

His last match of the day was for the championship of his weight class - he did well considering he was wrestling a junior with 2 more years experience but he ended up in 2nd place which was great!

It was nice to grab pictures of the 4 of us at the meet!

Parker was hurting by the time he came home but was all smiles for the picture!

It was a relaxing evening!  And after coffee and donuts the next morning, we headed on back home!

Estes Park #3

 Sunday is our "relaxing" day - except for a couple of things, most of the day is "do what you want"!  There were leftover cinnamon rolls so after breakfast, I headed up to the big cabin to indulge with coffee!!  Sitting by the fire it was pretty darn special!

This is the crew that started crafts yesterday - mostly ceramic items at the craft building!

Glenn and I with the grandkids!

Kenzie's boyfriend Cam came up for the day and also spent the night!

We did our predictions - once again Jill and Robby were the winners!

Jill gave us wrestling shirts to wear for Parker's wrestling meets - AWESOME!  Now we will fit right in with everyone!

Robby brought a tv up and got it all ready for the Broncos game on Sunday - Glenn made wings (yes, he brought our air fryer up) and they had a fun time at our cabin enjoying the WIN by the Broncos!

This is a picture of Day #2 at the craft center!

After finishing up there, they came back to the big cabin and some of them worked with the sea glass that I pick up in Mexico to make cute ornaments!

We even managed to get a picture of the whole family since Cam was there to take pictures!

Here's most of the ones that made the ornaments!

Sunday night was soup night - yummy!!  I also enjoyed another cocoa with all the trimmings!!  And we even got a picture of our original family - how special!!!  We haven't done that in a long time!

Robby and Parker left that evening as Parker had an early wrestling meet on Monday!  And the rest of us packed up on Monday morning and were all out of there by 10:00 checkout time!!  Another wonderful Estes Park trip in the books!!

Estes Park #2

 Saturday was our "Christmas" opening!  After a quick breakfast we headed up the road to the big cabin and settled in for presents!

All the grandkids got Colorado hoodie sweatshirts!

The girls got these darling "animal" slippers where the stuffed animal wraps around your leg - they were so cute I just had to order them!

This is "Henry" and he sits in my car and smiles at me and his legs bounce up and down and sideways when you drive!!  His eyes are magnitized and have different faces you can attach!  All the grandkids also received one of these to either put in their car or on their computer and they all loved them!

Jill and Robby with their calendar I made!

The kids with their photo books - Evans' last year to receive one!

And Jessi and Gary with their calendar!

All the grandkids according to age with their new sweatshirts!

Glenn made these darling snowmen for the 3 girls!

Homemade cinnamon and caramel rolls with coffee!

The "kids" right, left, center game that we do with money - oh my gosh did it get wild and crazy!!

The adults played it after the kids did - then there is a 3rd game for anyone 18 and older with a buy in - here are the winners from the 3 games!!  

The kids did some crafts in the afternoon - the adults had some downtime - and we all congregated for our evening meal which was Italian!

Then we headed over to the gym and they played volleyball - they all had a great time!

Later on that evening, Rayna took some of the teens into Estes Park where they got some food and found this neat globe!

It was a wonderful day spent with family!

Estes Park - #1

 It's time for the "family Christmas" get together at Estes Park -we sure missed having Brad (who had to stay home to take care of the dogs because they couldn't find someone to help out) and Matias (who had to work that weekend)!

Luckily the roads were great getting up there but of course Colorado has hardly had ANY snow and the same for Estes Park - no snow at all!  When we pulled in, all the ice skaters were disappointed to see that the pond was NOT frozen over as usual - so no ice skating this year!

We all met around 3:00 with the hopes of getting in our cabins!  No such luck!  Jill had booked the cabins and we always tell them we need them right beside each other - but you don't get to choose!  They just assign them!  Jill had also told them to NOT book us into a particular cabin as it did not work out sleeping wise so what do they do?  Booked us into that cabin - we were NOT happy so Jill and the reservation person worked and worked trying to find 2 cabins together but it was not to be!

Luckily, the 4 bedroom cabin was ready to get into and it was extremely nice - a completely different set-up than we've usually had!!  The 3 bedroom cabin was NOT up to par - Jill's and Glenn and I were in that cabin along with Aleah and Kenzie - no dishwasher which wasn't a big deal as we did the big meals at the large cabin, but there was no master bathroom and the 2 bathrooms they had were right next to each other - and only one had a shower!  Unfortunately it wasn't ready till 7:00 that night which was a bummer!

But it was taco night to eat and we all pitched in at the big cabin to get it ready - and before I forget, we were NOT right beside each other so had to drive a car each time we went UP!  We're sure hoping next year will be beside each other!

A picture of Jessi and I at the lodge before we went to the cabin!

Dinner - tacos!!

When we finally got word that our cabin was ready, Jill and I raced down in the cars along with the guys and got everything unloaded and stuff put in the frig - then back up the hill as it was game night!

 I had 3 Christmas games prepared so had divided the crew into 3 groups - I think their favorite was Jeopardy!!  Oh my did it get loud!!!  They were all Christmas categories and the 3 girls who were the captains of the teams had to say the answer!!  I can't believe how competitive this group is!!!  We all had a blast and Gwyn helped me by pulling the category and dollar values off the chart!

We had a cocoa bar that night - yummy!!!!  All kinds of toppings to put on and whipped cream and peppermint and chocolate spoons - so fun!

I think the kids went skating that night - they had a great time!!

And this was poker night for the teen boys and the guys!  Robby is so good to help teach the younger ones how to play and bid!  It was a LATE night for some of them!

And early Saturday morning, Glenn was up early to have his coffee beside the fire!

Christmas presents up next!