“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ― Mark Twain
With winter upon us, we turned to inside adventures, including a biking class for Treyden at Boulder indoor cycling which had a class of 4 kids and a very fun instructor.
We also went to an indoor climbing gym and Treyden absolutely loved it! He actually climbed several routes unaided, with some impressive moves.
Doug and the kids took a trip to the Denver Children’s museum with our friends Tara, Arlo, and Gina.
Our little astronauts!
This seemed to be a chilly winter for Boulder but occasionally the weather warmed up for some outside adventures.
Of course the kids were thrilled to go outside and play with their friends Arlo and Gina no matter the weather.
With little snow, trips to the bike park worked well on warm days.
Longing for adventure, we chose to go to Aspen and the Winter X games. Dad and Treyden enjoyed the snow board big air final Friday night.
Unfortunately, Doug and Carleigh suffered with the flu all day Saturday. But with everyone feeling better on Sunday we made it out to witness Shawn White out do the rest of the competition in the Superpipe preliminaries. His tricks wer clearly bigger, more difficult and better performed than any other competitor.
After returning from our Thanksgiving tour, it was time to decorate for Christmas!
Treyden and Carleigh loved decorating the tree (note all the ornaments are on 1 side, bottom half).
Peek-a-boo from the diaper box during decorating festivities.
And a dance party!
Here’s a cute picture of Treyden and Carleigh watching Dora together
Being an adventurer, dad decided that grocery shopping with bicycles would be a nice challenge for a day.
Carleigh was thrilled to run up the ramp, giving many spectators a chuckle.
We went to Pops and Sheryl’s house in Ft. Collins for an early X mas celebration.
Pops and Sheryl got the kids some great presents.
and we got to visit with Don and Janine
Carleigh has taken a new liking to treating things like babies. She enjoyed wrapping up stuffed animals and putting them in the scooter and backpack.
An awesome snow storm hit before Christmas, dropping 16” and creating a great opportunity to have our friends Arlo, Gina, and Tara over for some sofa diving and sledding.
Doug’s family came to Colorado for the Christmas / New Years vacation. The kids helped dad clean the house in preparation.
Grandma and grandpa arrived first, bringing a photo book of their previous trip in April, to watch the kids while Doug and Lana went to Mexico.
Grandma was fantastic with kiddos, teaching them piano,
and giving them horsey-back rides
With all of the snow we had to go sledding. Here’s a good video that grandma took of Doug and Treyden.
After a candle light Christmas Eve church service grandma read bedtime stories.
Christmas morning was exhilarating! New pajamas, news skis, new jacket…
Of course, Carleigh had to try on Treyden’s new ski helmet and jacket,
And Santa brought tinker toys!!!
And a dog stuffed animal that Carleigh loved dressing up and hauling around. She named him Og the dog.
After the presents were opened it was time to go try out the new skis and ski outfit!
Christmas evening the cousins showed up! Brad, Katie, Grayson, Chase, Cullen, and Brooks! Carleigh and Brooks hit it off immediately.
And Treyden was very intrigued with Grayson and his games.
Here’s grandma and grandpa with all their (present) grand kids. Parker arrives in March!
After a night at our place, everyone headed for Steamboat. We had an excellent feast in the lobby of our condo, joined by Pops.
It was great to have Doug’s entire family together in one place.
The lobby ended up being a nightly tradition with a fantastic meal (usually prepared by grandma), followed by a game or just hanging out. Here’s poker night.
Brad, Katie, Grayson and Chase skied all 4 of the days they were there. Here’s Grayson.
Grandma and grandpa got to spend a lot of time with their youngest grandkids. We really appreciate them watching the kids for us. The kids certainly had a blast!
Cullen took one day off to hang out with Treyden, which was much appreciated by Treyden.
Carleigh loved exchanging drinks with Brooks.
and everyone else!
The girls had a night out to celebrate Joy’s upcoming baby (Parker).
It was great to see all the cousins together. Treyden loved every moment of it and learned so much. Here he is with Chase and Cullen.
We had a great time getting to know Brad’s family even more and are looking forward to skiing and boarding with them again soon! The vacation went by too fast and it was soon time for Brad’s family and Patrick’s family to head home. After they left on Saturday, our friends Tara, Andy, Arlo and Gina joined us in Steamboat.
While Lana, Dianne, Tara, and Gina went for a hike, Doug and Don watched the boys while Carleigh had a nap. Don fell asleep on the couch and, humorously, became a very helpful babysitter!
Julie joined us on the hike with her dog Abbey.
With our kiddos at very similar ages and very similar adventure interests, we look forward to much more fun with Tara, Andy, Gina and Arlo. Here are the girls.
Treyden got to try out his new skis on the groomed snow of Howelsen Hill and did great!
Here’s Gina and Tara
And here’s Arlo skiing
A great trip! Thanks to everyone for coming out, we really enjoyed it and look forward to getting everyone together again soon!
Somehow I missed publishing this entry earlier this spring, but didn’t want to forget it!
Lana’s cousin Robin came for an overnight visit from New York in spring of 2011. We had a fantastic time catching up with her and enjoyed a quick hike in the foothills (flatirons) on the edge of Boulder. Treyden and Carleigh rode in the backpacks for the hike and then got out for a little play time on some rocks at the base of Royal Arch trail.
Thanks for spending some of your priceless vacation with us Robin!
Below are photos from an additional hike up Gregory Canyon.
The granola bar was the prize at the top. Birds! Treyden decided hiking down the trail sounded like fun. He made it all the way home (probably 1 mile, with a significant uphill right at the end). He realized that cruising downhill was actually quite fun! Especially jumping off the rocks! Out in front! A little play time to conclude the post: Playing catch with big bro… and dad!
Doug offered to help Lana’s mom and her husband, Ron, build a 2nd floor kitchen in the wide open clear story of their shop in East Boothbay, Maine. The only challenge was figuring out how the kids could be watched while Doug worked. Lana would be staying home in Boulder to work for the first week. Aunts Michelle and Abbie came to the rescue, offering to take a week out of their busy schedules to come to East Boothbay to hang out with Treyden and Carleigh. We chose to combine the trip with our previously determined Thanksgiving vacation to Houston, resulting in a 2.5 week tour. The next challenge was Doug traveling across the country by himself with both of our kids.
The kids were great so it went extremely well.
The kids behaved on the plane
Getting settled in involved a project for Treyden and Grandpa Ron on the tractor.
And having lobsters
Unfortunately, Noni and Ron’s truck took an unauthorized solo tour (transmission slipped out of park) down the shop driveway, bouncing off several trees and coming within 10 feet of going in the bay. Totaled.
After a week of fantastic times with Michelle and Abbie, Lana flew out to join the party, enabling Michelle and Abbie to return to their other obligations at home. Even though it was windy and chilly, we went to ocean point to see the surf and play on the beach.
The surf was pretty big and we enjoyed throwing rocks in the ocean.
The small pots at paradise cottage were excellent entertainment in the evenings.
Noni had the great idea of going to the botanical garden. They had an entire area set up for kids including kiddo sized chairs,
flat rocks to hop across ponds,
animal statues
and boats to play in.
Of course, playing on Columbus (a rock next to Seanook that is exposed at low tide) couldn’t be missed. Treyden particularly enjoyed exploring the snails attached to the rocks.
Playing with a golf ball and measuring cups was great fun with grandpa Ron.
Making pies and many other meals with Noni was one of Treyden’s favorite parts.
Unfortunately Carleigh got a nasty cough the day before we left, and we chose to take her to the ER (her first trip) to assess whether she was fit to travel. Even though her cough sounded like a barking seal, they said she should be OK to fly.
Our final night included of course, a lobster feast!
After 12 days for Doug and the kids and 5 days for Lana, we flew from Maine to Houston Texas to spend Thanksgiving at David and Cathy Kingsbury’s house.
Pops, Sherly and Uncle Bill also made the trip.
We had a fantastic Thanksgiving feast thanks to Sheryl and Cathy. Treyden and Carleigh had a blast playing with their cousins.
Granny Sheryl and Pops were really fun to hang out with as well.
One of the events of the vacation was a trip to the Gator Park where we could hold an albino python,
And a Caiman.
and watch alligator feeding time.
After that, we headed to a park nearby to burn some time before Pops, Bill, David and Doug were able to meet up with us after their golf outing. The dinner that followed to celebrate the birthday boys; Pops (70), David (40), Patrick (10), was quite memorable.
We went to the Houston Children’s museum and met each of the cousins for lunch at school on Monday.
Below is a picture showing Treyden’s love of water and surprising patience: By standing on a pedal, Treyden could fill the huge cauldron with water via a tiny spray gun. With such a small stream of water it took at least 10 minutes to fill the cauldron. Once full, the cauldron tipped over and spilled water in a big waterfall (shown below). We were surprised that he had the patience to do this several times all by himself.
A great trip! Thanks especially to Michelle and Abbie for watching the kids so much during Doug’s week of work. They really enjoyed getting to know you and learned a lot from you (specifically vocabulary for Carleigh)! And thanks to Noni, Ron, David and Cathy for hosting us!
Doug was a coach for Treyden’s first soccer team this fall. Their team name was Manchester United. It was 3 and 4 year olds playing in the under 5 year old league organized by the same club that Doug used to coach for, Boulder County Force. It was 4 v 4 and a fun mix of chaos and humor with moments of surprising skill.
One of the last adventures of the summer was to camp near Dillion reservoir with our friends Colin and Whitney as well as neighbor friends Rich, Susan, Lydia and Amelia. We had a great time biking, going to the Copper Mountain music festival, swimming in the fancy grand Timber Pool (Breckenridge),and hanging out around the camp sight. Carleigh enjoyed getting dirty seemingly the most.
In September, Pops and Sheryl offered to watch the kids again so that we could tailgate for and go to the Wyoming versus Nebraska football game with Julie, Bill, and Julie’s sister and husband. We had a great time tailgating in Laramie and watching the game live.
After visiting our friends Dongmei and John Oakey, who are now professors at the University of Wyoming, we returned to Fort Collins.
A little over a week later, Pops and Sheryl offered for us to join them at their condo timeshare in Breckenridge.
Again they watched the kids while we road the Lenawee trail, taking us over the top of Arapahoe Basin ski area. One heck of a climb, but the descent was awesome!
Yes, there is a scab on my forehead. I lost a fight with our trash can a few days before the trip. It was remarkably clumsy and resulted in a pretty deep cut.
The Lenawee trail includes very fun downhill single track through a variety of zones from alpine tundra to deep forest. Awesome!
We hit the fall color nearly perfect.
After a splendid evening of swimming and playing at the condo, we went for a hike with Pops and Sheryl to enjoy the fall color. Pops and Treyden made a neat little teepee together at the beginning of the trail.
Treyden did a pretty good job of hiking through the gorgeous aspen groves.
We had a few quick breaks where Carleigh got to get out of the backpack and walk around.
With Treyden slowing down and clouds looming we took turns carrying him.
A nice view of Dillion lake and the impending storms.
We made it to lily pad lake in time for a snack and some relaxation.
Followed by a quick hustle down before the rain hit!
The cameo shot of our new truck!
Thanks for an excellent Trip Pops and Sheryl!
We rounded out our fall adventures with a trip to Moab with our friends Carolyn and Rex. They scored a phenomenal camp sight within riding distance of slick rock and our own private area for Treyden, Carleigh and the pups to romp round. Treyden ended up biking down the rock in the photo below several times (right in our camp sight). He’s quite the slick rock rider!
This was our first time riding slick rock. It was truly remarkable. Miles and miles of red sand stone as far as the eye cold see, with a white dashed line telling you where the trail leads. Here’s Carolyn playing pac man, with Rex up ahead.
Slick rock is actually a misnomer. The friction on the rock was remarkable.
Here’s Rex dropping down one of many technical sections.
An excellent trip with a lot of good biking, camping and fun with friends.
