Work in Progress

Our whole apartment is a work in progress. Right now, some of that work is going into making the austere white walls of the playroom a little friendlier...


Next up, some owls, some branches, some leaves...

Blue Skies

Have I mentioned how beautiful it is here? Horsetooth Reservoir, Ft. Collins, CO


This weekend we hit our local park, Aurora, Denver, Ft. Collins, the Broomfield Public Library, and the Broomfield Rec Center (which deserves a whole post of its own). The kids are happy and exhausted, and so are we.


Come visit. There's enough big blue sky for everyone.

On Finding Friends

We went to the WOW! Museum today to meet some new people (and hopefully make friends) and enjoy all the offerings there, but alas, it was no Terra Haute Children's Museum, and we didn't really succeed in making friends, either. Everyone we met already knew each other and it wasn't really an environment conducive to getting to know anyone. What a start to a blog post, right? Sorry. The kids had fun, even if it was a bit of a fail in my book.

Riding this car was Maddie's favorite part of the day. She can ride the ponies for free at the grocery store, but apparently, the car is infinitely better. Gavin was not that thrilled, though his big sister insists it was his favorite part of the museum, too.

He did get a kick out of the train depot.

The two of them gave me a lot of free tickets to ride the train, but it never pulled into the station.


Despite the presence of other children, Maddie and Gavin pretty much just played with each other, though Gavin did meet this handsome little boy, and as you can tell by the fistbump, they became fast friends.

A Day at the Park

We went to the park with our B'more to Boulder friends today because it was absolutely glorious outside.


I seriously cannot get over how wherever you go, there are mountains. This may seem ridiculous, but it's so fun to look up from the park/grocery store/traffic jam/whatever and see mountains. Even the mundane becomes a moment with God.


And here's super sweet smiley baby Gavin moments before he slipped and cut his mouth open. There was bleeding and crying, but fortunately, we hang out with pediatricians who assured us he was ok. And he was. Poor little daredevil.

Tomorrow we're heading to the WOW Children's Museum to meet up with some other parents and kids from a parenting forum I found here in Colorado. Maddie is so excited to meet people. I've told her we have friends out here that we just haven't met yet, and she is desperate to know when we'll meet them. We're awful friendsick, but it sure was nice to see familiar faces today!

Adventures in Botany

We're settling in and starting to explore! Today we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens (it was free, of course - gotta love these free museum days).


Maddie's favorite flower was the pink orchid (and she wanted to make sure I put that in the blog post).

Gavin loved being free to roam and explore - it was like being outside, only warmer.


Though it wasn't actually that cold out, so we explored the outside gardens, too. Can you tell he was pretty pleased with himself? Oh, the coordination! The skill!


There wasn't much to see in the gardens outside, given that it was winter, but that didn't bother the kids in the slightest.

Maddie was absolutely engrossed with an indoor waterfall. (Look how big she's getting! It seems impossible that she's almost three.)

(A better picture of said waterfall.)

I love this red fuzzy flower. Clearly, that's its scientific classification - I mean, I'm almost an expert after visiting the Botanic Gardens.

These two are amazing.

And I love getting to explore the world with them.

A Perfect Day

Sometimes I am struck by how lucky I am. How blessed. Today was one of those days.


I so needed today. We all did. After the stress of the last few weeks months, we just needed a fun day - a whole day totally devoted to fun, not just pieces of fun smooshed in between the stressful bits of moving across the country.


So we headed out to Rocky Mountain National Park today to enjoy the free admission, amazing views, and each other's company.


It was beautiful. Amazing. Restorative. Fun.



And cold. Really, really cold. And windy. So we didn't actually stay out on the mountain very long. There was this warming room - really, just a room with a little heat. Nothing amazing...


But the kids LOVED it. You would have thought they were at a party for two.



Really...just a kind-of warm room. Who knew?

We headed down the mountain a ways and ate lunch at Claire's in Estes Park. While Maddie was quite impressed with their apple juice and grapes ("I looooove these grapes!") she was most excited by a small, child-sized bench outside.

Gavin was pretty smitten with it, too.


It was a great day. A wonderfully perfect, much needed day that helped quiet any doubts in my mind that we did the right thing.


What a great place to be, a great place to raise kids, a great place to be a family. What a great day.

PS:

Could he be any cuter?

First Peak at Colorado

I took zero pictures on our first day, because traveling with a one-year-old, a two-year-old, a cat, and a lot of stuff was about as much (maybe more) than I could handle. So use your imagination. We arrived to a fantastic welcome from Fritz and Joanne, who welcomed our rather rag-tag and rowdy bunch into their home, let us make a mess, fed us pizza, and even (after all that!) invited us back. It's so good to have family in Boulder!


This is the view from our apartment. I wouldn't exactly say that the mountains are in our backyard, but seeing them from the window is amazing and calming. This picture doesn't do them justice.


We've mostly been running around buying groceries and borrowing stuff from people (thank you Naomi and Dan! It's wonderful to have friends in Boulder, too!). While that might not sound terribly exciting, again, here's the view.

I love the mountains. Maddie looks at them and says in awe, "Can we go there?" Yes, baby. We can go there any time we want!