Football and Weddings and Pumpkins, Oh My!

Whew, what a busy, fun filled month October has been! I practically blinked and it is over. And boy do we have some catching up to do!

We've finally have a decent amount of football games under our belt. I've been once with Dan and Theresa, once by myself, and once with Eric, and I have to say, the kids did the best when I went by myself! I almost talked myself out of going since I couldn't find anyone to go with me, but then decided to just go and see what happens and they were perfect angels. Now the next weekend when Eric came they were far from perfect angels, but we will blame it on the fact that daddy was there. I do think that these two enjoy a good football game and cheering on their Eagles- both the football team and the band!

 

 

 

Brady and Ashley finally went to their first wedding this year on October 9th for my cousin Kyle and his new wife Ashley, and I have to say that I think we are fans. These two are dancing machines, and I don't think we left the dance floor until we went home. 

They even got a little dance action going off the dance floor during the first dance. I hope Kyle and Ashley didn't mind that Brady and Ashley were having their own first dance on the sidelines.

Brayden is the ultimate sway-er. Side to side, side to side, side to side. I think this kid got his dancing moves from his daddy. He also had a little breakdance in him at one point- I'm not sure where he got those moves ha!

Ashley had a little more flair to her dancing and she would copy your arm and hand movements. She also reeeeeally wanted to dance with Brady, who I guess really didn't want to dance with her, because he ran away from her each time she tried to grab him to dance. 

October 13th we had our 5th annual Wave of Light ceremony. We brought the kids, which was probably a horrible idea because they were so cranky and noisy, but it was nice to get a little family picture in front of our bags, which now includes one for Jordan. I pray we never have to add another bag to this line.

The 14th was Eric's birthday, and the kids gave him some evening milk time snuggles to celebrate.

The early afternoon of the 16th we met up with Nichole, Connor, Grant, Emmy, and Erin for a little pumpkin patch fun! The kids were having way too much fun to take any "formal" pictures, so an array of pictures from the visit will have to do. 

We went to Possum Patch by Olney and it was very nice. There were lots of animals to see, which was Brady's favorite part (big surprise there), and then they had so much other fun stuff to do too, and we spent a lot of time on the playground equipment.

I'll let you decide who thought the tractor car ride was fun and who did not...

The kids also really liked this big bouncy blob. I can see this being something we wait in line for more times next year.

Again, we weren't in the mood for pictures, so our pumpkin pictures this year are little more "candid" than last year's ha!

That night we went to the wedding of my cousin Bo and his new wife Ali. We left before the dancing even started at their wedding, but the kids still enjoyed the yummy food and playing with all the table decorations and plates.

We turned 20 months old this month, which means we only have a few more months until we are officially two. When did that happen?!

Brayden is weighing 32 pounds and is around 34 inches tall. He is a total momma's boy and still cries when I leave him at daycare. Thankfully Amanda said that the tears don't last long. At home he will just randomly come up to me and hug my leg or my back if I'm sitting down and I'm pretty sure I melt a little inside each time he does that. Brady has been really into animals, and loves pointing out animals in his books. We are loving the live action Lion King movie, and he and Ashley will cheer and clap when it comes on and all the animals start showing up. This kid is still in his happy place outside, especially with a stick or a rock in his hand. He loves to stop by the cows, lean on the gate, and check them out. He loves a good car ride, and if he sees Dan or Theresa drive by, he is wanting a ride, no matter what they are up to. I think they know by now that if they don't have time for a ride they either drive by real fast and don't stop, or they go a different way than past our house ha! Brayden has a heart of gold, and is often bringing a toy over to Ashley to share, even without being prompted. His favorite word right now is "no", or really it's "no, no, no, no, no", and he will even get his hand up in the air and shake it at us as he's saying it. Brayden loves doing things on his own, especially going up the steps to daycare. I get a big "no, no" every time I try to hold his hand to help him. This boy is an eating machine. He easily eats two waffles, plus two servings each of fruits and veggies at breakfast time. I swear the other day he ate three pieces of pizza for dinner (yes judge me, I feed my kids pizza for dinner). But seriously, I can barely eat three pieces of pizza- not to mention fruit and veggies too! I worry for our grocery bill as he gets older. 

 

 

Ashley is weighing 26.6 pounds and is about 33 inches tall. She loves her baby doll. She wants to be holding it at all times, and if she sees it laying somewhere she'll look at me and say "baby", like she needs my permission to go get her. It's pretty dang cute! She loves kissing your owies, and blowing kisses to say goodbye to someone. Like Brayden, if she sees Dan or Theresa drive by, especially if it's the jeep, she will want to take a ride with them, but usually only if mommy can come too. She is a really big helper around the house and has started wanting to help with the dishes after they are done eating. If I got groceries on the way home, she has to carry in a bag when we come inside, though she usually drags it on the floor, so I have to be strategic about which bag I give her to carry in. Ashley is a collector of rocks, and will lag behind on our walks picking out the most perfect one ten. She loves a good cuddle from her momma, and loves to tease dad by not giving him a hug or a kiss, though she will eventually do it. She is really good about helping you put her clothes on, and has to have her jacket zipped up if she is wearing one. Her vocabulary has really exploded as she is repeating almost everything that you say. She has recently loved pointing out the tractors, though both she and Brady are pretty scared of them when they are actually on and moving. 

 

 

 

It's hard to imagine it getting any better with these two, but I know we are still in for a wild and crazy fun ride!

The Mountains Were Calling...

Last week, Colorado's Rocky Mountains were calling our names, and we went! Our good friends Justin and Sam were getting married, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to celebrate the official start of their married lives. It was a beautiful few days of friendship, laughter, and mountain tops. 

We flew out Wednesday afternoon to Denver, and finally made it to our place in Dillon around 5. After checking out our beautiful AirBnB, we freshened up for the festivities that evening. We headed to Timberline Craft Kitchen for dinner, drinks, and conversation with other wedding guests and the almost bride and groom. You could tell how thankful Justin and Sam were that so many people headed out west to celebrate them. 

Thursday was wedding day, but not till later that afternoon. So to kill time in the morning we headed into Breckenridge, making a pit stop at Sapphire Point (where we took family pictures with Eric's family two years ago) for a beautiful photo op. 

Then we headed to town and did a little souvenir shopping and bar hopping. We ate lunch at a yummy little burger place, and I got to relive some of my favorite rolled ice cream from when Eric and I were in Breckenridge with his family. (I may or may not have gotten said rolled ice cream every day we went in to Breckenridge....but that's not an important detail.)

We got all dolled up for the rest of the festivities that day and made our way to the Dillon Marina Park Pavillion. This was the prettiest spot for a wedding I've ever been to, with the most picture perfect mountains in the background just beyond the lake. It was a lot warmer than I was expecting, so I did a little sweating in my long sleeved dress, but I do have to say that I was thankful for the sleeves that evening- the night still got pretty dang cold!

After everyone was choked up from the heartfelt ceremony (thanks to their officiant/Justin's brother in law Curt Frost, and Sam's friend Debbie), we enjoyed the scenery with yummy snacks and drinks. Before we knew it we were being sent off to their reception sight, which I swear was pulled straight from a magazine. 

We played a fun little game, ate delicious food and cake, and danced and drank all the way till they shut the wedding dance down. We were thankful for a shuttle to take us back to our AirBnB that night, and somehow we managed to stay up long enough once we got back for some time in the hot tub. Don't ask me how I was still awake, it was definitely way past my bedtime. 

The next morning we all enjoyed sleeping in until we woke up. We grabbed ate breakfast and packed up a backpack full of water for a nature hike! There were a few options thrown around as to which hike to take, but I think I can safely say that everyone was glad we went with a 3 mile hike instead of an 8 mile hike ha! 

We did the Meadow Loop and Ridge Trail, which is clocking in at 3.2 miles long. All Trails says you gain 475 feet of elevation on the trail, and I'm pretty positive that all 475 feet of that is done in the first 100 feet of the trail. The climb up from the parking lot was steep. Some brave souls took the shortcut up, which was literally a straight climb up to the top of the hill, but I opted for the switch back trail that made it to the top, and my lungs still felt like they were going to give out on me.

Luckily the rest of the trail was relatively easy, and it provided us with some beautiful look out points for pictures. 

After the hike it was back to the house for lunch and naps. We travelled back in to Breckenridge to ride the gondola, and were presently surprised at the area at the Peak 8 stop. Once we got off the gondola there, we found a huge area with mini golf, a roller coaster, an alpine slide, food, drinks, and more. We were kind of bummed that when we were here with Eric's family a few years ago we didn't know about this place- it was so cool! We all enjoyed a trip down the alpine slide before heading back down on the gondola to get dinner. 

Saturday morning we rented two jeeps and headed off to the countryside to do some trails. We started out on Georgia Pass, which was totally off-road, through creeks, over rocks, and up a mountain. The view from the top of the trail was just beautiful, and we crossed the continental divide on this route.

After soaking in those views, we made our way back down the mountain to civilization and headed towards the Boreas Pass. On the way we soaked up the sights of rural Colorado, the most exciting being real cowboys moving cows down the side of the road. I'm sure they thought we were crazy city people stopping to watch them, but I just wanted to tell them that our kids just really love cows ha!

The Boreas Pass was beautiful, and the beginning of the trail was a little hard on my nerves as we drove up the side of a mountain with no guardrails and a huge drop to the bottom, but after that initial climb the trail was easy peasy. The trail overall was relatively uneventful, and it was heavily trafficked. We crossed the continental divide again on this trail, and this time we found a sign and took a picture by it. 

But after that trail, I think that most of us were craving something more "off-road". We headed to the last trail we would be able to do for the day, and I'm not going to lie, when we started out I was very disappointed. We went right past all the ski lifts and ski trails, and nothing seemed that exciting. I remember Kenny, who was driving the jeep Eric and I were in, saying that he wished we were doing something more like the first trail, with the rocky roads and exciting drive. Not even 5 minutes later we hit the rocks. 

We were still in the the trees, so it was hard to tell how high up we were, but the road very quickly turned from a dirt road to a rock road that was pretty narrow. This is an up and back trail, so we did run into vehicles coming back down the trail as we were headed up, and I'm not going to lie, it was a little intimidating as the roads were narrow and the rocks were loose. We commented multiple times about how we could feel the rocks moving under the tires.

The trees cleared and we were reeeeeeally high up the mountain. But we weren't away from the rocks. The trees had provided a nice barrier next to the trail, but towards the top it was wide open, and the trail was a tight switch back with all those loose rocks I mentioned earlier. Meeting vehicles on this portion of the trail made me feel like I wanted to throw up. I spent a lot of time going up this part of the trail with my hand holding tightly to the jeep and my face pointed towards the floor. I was very relieved when we reached a stopping point with some room to spread out a bit.

The view here was quite breathtaking. We ended up close to 13,000 feet above sea level, and we could have went even a little bit higher, but we had to have the jeeps back by five that afternoon so we needed to head back down the mountain to turn in the jeeps. It was probably a good idea that we headed down when we did, because as we went back down it started to rain on us, and wet, loose, rocks under your tires on the edge of a mountain doesn't sound fun. 

That night we took it easy and ordered some pizza and enjoyed our last night soaking up the views and soaking in the hot tub.

Sunday morning we left bright and early to get back to Denver to catch our flight home. We could have used a few more days in the mountains, but home was calling us and we were definitely ready to see Brady and Ashley again. We are looking forward to our next adventure!