Firemen in the hood. . . my sister's hood

For those of you who check out my sister's blog, this is old news. But, the other day Todd got to fight a house fire in Erika's neighborhood. Only about two streets away from her house. At one point she could see the flames from her house! Well, Bryan and my nephew Garrison walked over to see 'Uncle Todd' at work and snapped a couple photos. You can sort of see the burnt remains of a roof in the background.

Ari-ZONA!!

Thanks so much to Nick and Angie Kahler (and their children Emily-6 and Ethan-17 mo), our dear friends in Phoenix for showing us such a great time in Arizona this past weekend! The weather was warm, the food was fabulous and the company was fun and courageous (putting up with Jack Greer for a long car ride!) Nick and Todd were in Iraq together in 2003 and this was our first chance to all spend time together since they left Colorado a couple years ago. Guess what? The grass is ALWAYS green in Phoenix. It's amazing. Especially after our experience of 15 weeks of snow in Colorado Springs this winter. Thanks again ya'll and we look forward to your visit to Colorado this summer when you are needing an escape from the 115 degree weather!

The Return to Salida

So on the 13th of March, Todd, Jack Greer and I loaded up into my friend Claire's van (THANKS Claire!!) to make the return trek to Salida to pick up the Subaru. We made a day of it and had a great lunch in Salida, a calming walk by the river and a (thankfully) very uneventful drive!! So far the car has not had any more problems, but we're certainly not counting on it for much these days.

Baby Shower!

I went to a baby shower on the 13th for two of my dear friends, Claire & Priscilla. Congratulations to them both! Claire's Stella came on February 23rd (I believe) and Priscilla's is due in June!

March 2-4 Young Couples Retreat

So, we've been busy lately. Busy for us because we hardly do anything or go anywhere. The adventures started on Friday, March 2nd. We were heading down to a retreat center outside of Westcliffe, CO to listen to Andy Lewis tell us how to be better Christians :). Andy and Elizabeth flew out from Greenville for the weekend.

On our way to Westcliffe, we were going to make a 30 minute detour drive to one of our favorite towns, Salida. We thought we'd grab some lunch, some coffee, take a walk and then make our way to the retreat. Sounds like a great plan, huh? Yeah, we thought so too until the car broke down about 20 minutes outside of Salida. We love our Subaru. Really. But the last three months it has been in and out of the shop multiple times and finally it blew a gasket. Literally. Here are some pics of our hour and fifteen minute roadside rendezvous while waiting for the tow truck. Jack Greer did great.




When we finally made it to the retreat center late Friday night (in a rental car), we had a great weekend! We did some fun log pillow fighting. (Bryan is the upside down guy. . . great tactic!)


The location was beautiful and we got in some great tubing runs. Wish we had a picture of our jump. When you reach the bottom of the tubing hill there is a rooster tail stop, but it just launches you into the air. Hilarious and so much fun. We took the tubing very seriously as you can tell from the pictures. And it's hard to see the action shot because we were moving SO fast.

I'm a little small for this chair

We started cereal last week! Although I still have to prop J.G. up in the high chair! He seems to really like the stuff and trys desperately to grab the spoon or bowl!

Finally some privacy. . .

These pictures are horrible, but I wanted to show my sisters the curtains I'm making for my kitchen and mudroom. One down, three to go! Please ignore the gaping hole in the wall below the window and the lack of paint on the trim. Yes, we are still renovating. I'll try to post before and after photos another time.