Beth and Greg

This past weekend we went to Seattle to see Beth and Greg's new house! We left early Saturday morning and landed at lunch time. We ate at a great little hamburger place called Lunchbox Laboratory.

After that we headed to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. RIght now, Beth is a consultant there and loves it. Who wouldn't love getting to help decide how to spend tons of money on people in need!

Right across the street we went to see the new Chihuly permanent exhibit. If you don't know who he is, you still might recognize some of his amazing works of art in glass blowing.

The first thing we saw was the forest.

Next were depictions of Navajo baskets.

The sea life creations were amazing and my pictures do not reflect that at all!

This sculpture is the size of a house.

There was a great glass hall with humungous gorgeous flowers.

Outside there was a garden made of glass sculptures.

After that, we spent a quiet evening at home with Alfred, eating Chinese food and playing cards.

The next day we headed to the airport after a delicious brunch. We stopped to see the Troll Under the Bridge.

They'll be paying us a visit in a few weeks!

Little Rascal

Since we moved to the new house, Anna refuses to take a nap. She plays on the bed but does not go to sleep. It is really not much of an issue for us as she doesn't get too cranky. But she doesn't always make it through dinner!

Yes, that's mac n cheese! Babysitter took the picture on date night.

Little Misses

Mia has been asking for several months to go to school. Well, specifically, to wear a backpack to school. She now attends a Montessori preschool every Tuesday! With a backpack of course.

Anna has become a very typical two year old, into everything! But...she is soooo obedient. I say no and she stops. I say go do such and such and she hops right to it. What is up with that??? She is really really trying to talk now. There are some sounds she won't be able to say until her fistulas are closed at a later date, but she is making great progress.

Indoor Times

Our life here in Colorado is very different than it was in California. (And I'm not talking about new children and a new job and a new house!) I'm talking about living around the weather. In California we went to the park year round. Sometimes we wore summer clothes during January and February heat waves.

These days, all our summer clothes are packed away tight! We won't be needing them until May (or maybe for a trip to California in April.) We haven't been to the park in weeks. Instead, we go special places that we never go to in the summer months. Most are indoor playgrounds. We like Treehouse Discovery which has a playground as well as lots of toys to play with.

In the next few weeks we are going to check out a few indoor play spaces we haven't been to yet. Life is getting slowly back to normal!

Boxes Boxes Boxes

I think I will now start having time to blog again! Any time I have had even just a few minutes I have dug into boxes. Because the boxes were in storage for two months in a windy area, they are covered in a light film of dust. Not a big deal unless you are allergic to it and get sinus headaches and nausea! It took me a few days to realize why I wasn't feeling so well. We were worried there was something in the house bothering me. Luckily, that is not the case and I am feeling so much better as we get the boxes out of the house.

Speaking of boxes, here are Beth's birthday presents:

It seems quite normal to have boxes to ship off of for your daughter's birthday sitting in the kitchen, right? Well, these are not being shipped off. These I picked up from our gracious landlord who called and told me that they were delivered to our former condo. Yes, I sent my daughter's presents to our old condo. Obviously, I don't always pay the best of attention to what I am doing! There is an old Collins' saying, No brains, no headache.

So I let the girls open all the gifts.

Then we consolidated them all into a new box and sent them on their way.

Happy 32nd Beth!!

We're Still Here!

I am alive! We are doing well and the house is finally starting to look like home! I couldn't find the power cord to my computer for the longest time and then when I found it I got ready to write a post but we had no Internet! The cable company came today and replaced our router. I started typing this on my iPad using 3G but it's just not the same. I couldn't set up the pictures very well and I was too tired to figure it out. But now I'm ready to roll!

We are loving loving loving our house. All of us. There is so much more room than the condo! The girls have been playing with all their toys that were packed up for two months.

Dan and I have been unpacking unpacking unpacking. Wow! I've never moved with a two and three year old before. Can't say I would ever do it again! Everything takes forever due to interruptions, cooking meals, etc. Last time we moved it was a corporate move and they packed and unpacked us. Plus it was just Dan and me and we didn't mind eating out for every meal.

I don't have a lot of pictures because, frankly, I've been beyond busy! But New Years Day Mia found a ball of red string and began making bear traps.

Here she is at 8:00 A.M.

She took a half hour break to watch part of the Rose Parade and then resumed working at 9:30.

At noon she stopped for about fifteen minutes to eat lunch. Yes she is still in her pajamas! Do you know how much work we got done while she played??!!

Finally, at 2:00, the traps were finished. And yes, she did wear her pajamas for the entire day.

They must have worked because we have had no bears in our house!