The ATTEMPTED Christmas Card Picture!

Thanksgiving morning - we're all in our cute bib overalls -MOST of the kids are in good moods - time to take the Christmas card picture -yea, right..................

Let's see -Glenn looks half alive, Rayna and Mackenzie aren't even looking, Aleah is trying to crawl off my lap and Kylan is kissing Evan - NEXT........

Aleah is NOT happy on my lap - she cries, she screams - Glenn and I decide to cry right along with her at this point!! Rayna is totally bored - Mackenzie is getting a molar so her fingers are in her mouth and Evan and Kylan think this entire picture taking ordeal is hilarious!! NEXT......

We decided to switch backgrounds - maybe Aleah will like it better up here - hmmm, maybe not!! By the way, what in the heck are we all looking at???? (besides Rayna that is) - I have NO IDEA!! NEXT...........

And so the picture taking pretty much went like this for ALL of the pictures - but the question of the day is this: DID WE END UP WITH ONE TO USE ON THE CHRISTMAS CARD???? You'll just have to wait and see.................

Let There Be Light!

ANOTHER WORK WEEKEND???? That's right - but a FUN work weekend as I decorated for Christmas!! 7:00am on Saturday morning the decorating began - 4:00pm Sunday I was completely done (but of course a lot of other stuff was done in between times!!)!! The house looks absolutely amazing!!

I rearranged our small living room and with the couch now in front of the windows, the living room and dining room seem much bigger!! The "Travel Tree" is all decorated and once again as I hung each ornament, I reminisced about vacations!! I also had new ones to hang from Cozumel, Alaska and San Antonio!!

And while I was decorating on Saturday, Glenn decided to hang the lights in the dining room that we had purchased almost a year ago! We just can't seem to get enough light with that tall, tall ceiling so decided to suspend a couple of lights from the slanted ceiling in the dining room - not an easy process and I spent a lot of time HOLDING the ladder while Glenn climbed up and down I can't tell you how many times!! But the result is this:

We were excited for evening to come so we could tell if the lights really made any difference and they DO - the results are fantastic!! A big thank you to Glenn for getting that project done!! The one project that did NOT get done (as you can see in the picture) is the painting of the chimney pipe behind the hutch !!

Not only did Glenn get the lights hung, but he also climbed up that tall, tall ladder and washed my inside windows!! I did the lower ones, inside and out, but it was too windy to attempt the outside tall ones!! He also hung Christmas lights on the outside railing of our deck - we took a drive tonight after it got dark to check them out and they look festive from the road!

What a great feeling to know that the decorating is DONE so I can now concentrate on the Christmas cards, shopping, and baking!! After Thanksgiving, that is..............

Ah, Those Gorgeous Sunrises!!

You just can't beat these sunrises over the peak!!

Gordon Lightfoot - What A LEGEND!!

Another item crossed off my bucket list - last night was the awesome GORDON LIGHTFOOT concert!!!

I think he's one of those singers that you either love or just don't even know about! I first LOVED his song "If You Could Read My Mind" back in the early 70's - our high school had a swing choir and there were about 8 of us that sang in it - I played the guitar along with one other guy and a bass player - and we sang this song - many, many times!!

I grew to love his folk/ballad style songs and ended up with most of his cassettes, back in those days!! I've since ordered the old classics on CD's!!

Anyway, the concert was last night and good friends Karen and Joleen went with me - we were thankful the snow wasn't heavy but there was enough on the pass going down that we saw 2 accidents - one car was way over in the trees!! But we made it to C. Springs without any trouble, found a great parking spot almost right across from the Pikes Peak Center and walked around the block to a cute, contemporary bar/restaurant called "Nosh".

Monday night was not the usual menu but just the appetizer menu - all at 1/2 price - you can't beat that!! We ordered drinks and 4 appetizers to share and just had a great time eating, drinking and talking - definitely a great place on a Monday night to take some friends!! For dessert we ordered the "chocolate platter" and it was amazing!! The chocolate items were so rich that you had to have coffee to go with them!! YUM!!! And the great part about it - for the drinks, appetizers, coffee and dessert - a mere $33.00 to split amongst us!!

We had the usher take a quick photo of us before we went into the concert - not a great picture of me at all but the other gals look great!!

And then it was concert time!! We had front row balcony seats, dead center!! I was just so excited to see this guy walk out on the stage with his guitar - why I had NEVER been to one of his concerts when he was in his prime is beyond me - but he was great!! The guy will be 72 years old on Wed. and yes, he is old looking and couldn't begin to reach a lot of the high notes but the audience didn't care a bit - he just sang and sang and sang, one song right after the other!

Even though he had a drummer, bass, lead guitar and keyboard, they didn't back him up singing at all - it was just him and his music!! He kept switching between his 6 string and 12 string guitar so I got a kick out of using the binoculars and watching him actually play!! He's fantastic!!

I'm not sure how long he'll be able to keep up his concert schedule though - he was really short of air a lot of the time when he was singing(although that could have been due to the elevation) and let's face it - he's just getting old!!

I listened to his CD, all the way home - and know that I will NEVER grow tired of hearing his wonderful songs - thanks Gordon for ONE GREAT CONCERT!!!

A Rayna and Kylan Weekend!

Jaime and Brad decided they needed a night away from the kids so it was Nana and Papa to the rescue -they came down on Friday night and then headed Saturday morning to Mt. Princeton to soak in the hot springs!!

We bundled up the kids and went to the play park first thing!! Yes, it was VERY cold but the kids needed some fresh air and had a great time of course!! Rayna thought it got too warm and took off her coat for about a minute!

Kylan still takes naps which is kind of nice because then I can spend some quality time with Rayna - Jaime had brought down some fun crafts so we did a couple of them and then made place cards for our Thanksgiving table! Our evening consisted of watching 2 Christmas movies, homemade popcorn and TRYING to get a good night's sleep - which I didn't accomplish! I think that 3 year old little boy thought of everything he could to get his Nana out of her bed!! Luckily both him and Rayna were sleeping on a mattress at the foot of the bed but stilll............... kind of a short night for me!!

Glenn had spent the afternoon installing the new wood stove! It looks great and so far so good, it doesn't smoke like the old one at all!!! He had also picked up some deer food in town and both kids loved watching the deer come around to eat the food!

Sunday we bundled up the kids once again and went to cut wood!! The kids loved it - we stood back while Glenn would cut the tree and then we would all yell TIMBER!! Little Kylan loved carrying the wood and putting it all in a pile - the trees Glenn cut were smaller ones with pieces small enough that the kids could pick them up!

Rayna decided she needed to chop one of her own so Glenn found a really skinny one that she could just push over and pull up by the roots!!

More crafts on Sunday afternoon and Jaime and Brad returned, having had a great time soaking in the hot springs!! I was just a little envious - but wouldn't have given up our weekend with the grandkids for anything!!

And We're Ready For 2011 Camping!

We did get our camper picked up in Denver on Halloween weekend but I just hadn't taken any photos of it!! It was fun to repack it and find places for everything - not that I'll remember that by next spring anyway!!

The only other news that is worth mentioning is that I AM STILL SICK!! The upper respitory bug moved in right after the flu bug and it's really taking its' toll!! I'm too stubborn to stay home because really, all I do at work is sit at a desk anyway! I keep thinking each morning I wake up that it will be GONE but so far, it's still hanging around!!

We have snow in the forecast for this afternoon and evening to the tune of 3 to 5 inches - I guess we're past due for some accumulation so we'll wait and see if the weatherman is right!!

MAMMA MIA!

THE WEEKEND FINALLY ARRIVED - It was time to dress up and attend Mamma Mia at the Buell Theatre in downtown Denver!!

I drove up to Denver on Saturday morning to watch Jaime's kids during the day - Brad was hunting and Jaime had to work till 6:00 - Jill arrived along with Jessi and her kiddos and we all ate together before Jaime's babysitter arrived!

One quick pic before we go pick up Jaime at work!!

We dropped Jessi's kids off at her friends' house and with the Mamma Mia CD blaring, picked up Jaime and headed to nine mile station to catch the light rail to downtown - parking is non-existent downtown so this was the best way to get there!!

Jessi had ridden the light rail before so showed us the ropes as we purchased our round trip tickets and caught the right one!! This is a picture of Jaime and I on the light rail!!


It was fun walking the couple of blocks to the theater - everybody was milling around, some all dressed up, some not! It had been a LONG time since any of us girls had really dressesd up for a night out like this!

We grabbed one of the MANY women there to snap a picture of the 4 of us - actually, we figured the entire audience would be women and were surprised to see so many men there!! I think they enjoyed it though as much as we did!!

Our seats were in the 4th row of the balconey, dead center!! The seats were actually very good and although we were a ways from the stage, we could still see great and of course the music was fantastic!!

What an AWESOME performance!! The cast was fantastic and of course we were all out of our seats at the end, clapping and dancing - how can you NOT get into those songs????

It was fun comparing the musical cast to the movie cast of course - and now we're all excited to watch the movie once again!!!

Smiling but yawning, we headed back to the light rail where we snapped pics in front of the huge poster.............

What a great night the 4 of us had - now that we know the ropes to "Downtown Denver", we're anxious to have another GIRLS NIGHT OUT!!!