Last of 2009

Christmas was wonderful. The boys and I experienced our first white Christmas and our first blizzard all in one 24 hour period. Christmas was very good, we were snowed in and got to spend the day at home which was very nice. The boys opened their presents (this is Kaleb playing with his Scooby Doo figurines, and his gifts piling up because he refused to open anything else) and then we all played out in the snow then the boys played with their gifts. Kaleb zonked out around 3pm, which in my opinion is a sign of a very successful Christmas.

Santa Pictures 2005-2009

Let's start at the beginning... Zachary in 2005, I LOVE this picture, it reminds me of a Norman Rockwell picture and I imagine him thinking "Are you the real Santa?"


Then, of course we needed a face shot for the 1st Christmas picture...
And then in 2008, I was about 7 months pregnant and Zachary would NOT sit with Santa, wanted nothing to do with the man so if you look carefully you can see my knee that Zachary is sitting on...
2007, Kaleb's 1st Christmas, same sort of look Zachary gave Santa on his first visit...
Had to have a picture of Kaleb with Santa alone for his 1st year then we got the 1st picture of both kiddos with the man in red...and Zachary still didn't want anything to do with the man...
2008 Zachary finally warmed up to the idea of Santa and who could resist this picture?

And the picture of the duo, this year Zachary is fine with Santa but Kaleb wanted nothing to do with him, yes, Zachary is holding Kaleb on the seat long enough for us to get the picture...
And the 2009 picture, no one crying, no one screaming, no one afraid and the picture won't load...I'll try to get it added but for now suffice it to say they are with the same Santa on the same chair just a year older and almost smiling...


And finally the 2009 Santa picture:

Colorado...

We had a wonderful time in Colorado, I cannot wait to live there but I guess that's exactly what I have to do...
We left after picking up Zachary early from pre-k, so around 10am. We arrived at David's house around 8:15, not bad really (also consider there was a time change in our favor).

On Wednesday we went to the huge REI store (they are very proud of their merchandise, so proud in fact that we didn't leave the store with any more than we entered with), we met with a co-worker of Jerry's where the van battery died, we ate at Casa Bonita which is a very unique Mexican restaurant with cliff divers and just a really neat dinning room and then we went back to the house to relax.

Thursday we (Jerry and David) did small projects around David's house and I cooked a traditional dinner, which came out wonderfully, if I do say so myself ;) And the boys played in what snow was left in the yard from a snowfall about a week before.

Friday was a busy day, we went to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo where apparently chipmunks are their official greeters...these guys were cute and very friendly (no the boys didn't actually touch one). The boys both fed giraffes crackers, both rode a pony and both rode the world's fastest merry-go-round; seriously this thing nearly flung Jerry and I off and we were there to hold Zachary and Kaleb on. The view from nearly every inch of the zoo is breathtaking...

We then visited the Shrine of the Sun - it was gorgeous, it was awesome, it was breathtaking - but any place in Colorado where you can see for miles is. We all climbed and made it up to the top of the "castle" (according to Zachary and Kaleb), it's approximately 6 flights of stairs - and I'm very out of shape! Lunch was at a Pizza Hut where we thought they'd have a buffet but they didn't, which was fine, we got to see a new baby, I'm betting just released from the hospital and on their way home, he was tiny, cute and sleeping. Then we headed to Seven Falls, again, breathtaking. We first took the elevator up to a fantastic view (my legs were very thankful for the ride instead of walk up). Zachary wanted to climb the stairs so down the elevator we went and Kaleb decided he needed to pee. Funny thing about Seven Falls, there is only 1 bathroom and it's no where near where we were so Kaleb peed on Colorado. Then we started our hike up the stairs, steep stairs, narrow stairs...I barely made it to the landing...110 steps up - Zachary wanted to go all the way - over 240 steps total - I was not going to make it so I had to pin Kaleb down so he wouldn't follow Zachary and daddy up the rest of the way. Zachary and daddy made it. (above picture: In about the center of the picture is me and Kaleb on the landing, to the right of that is the upper stairs, Jerry took this one)

Then we all went down. Don't know if I've told many people, but I have a slight fear of walking DOWN stairs. I'm not afraid of heights, dark, snakes, closed in places, water; none of that, but walking DOWN stairs freaks me out a bit, and these stairs were STRAIGHT DOWN...and steep....and you can see through the steps to the rocky mountain below...and it was cold...and I had to hold Zachary's hand so he didn't fall...but we made it and my legs were so tired! As we drove around we decided to drive through the Garden of the Gods, and as the name implies, at least to me, it was...I don't even know what word to use, beautiful, awesome, huge, breath taking (most of Colorado is, in my opinion), just WOW! If I lived near this place I'd be hiking it regularly! After all this we stopped at the shopping outlet in Castle Rock, of course the boys were tired and approaching melt down so we had to be quick and we were. By the time we got back to David's I was ready for bed, the boys weren't and neither of them napped the whole day!
Saturday we ventured to the Aquarium and Uncle David even came with us :-O The Aquarium is one of the best if not THE best I've ever been to. (above: Kaleb ducking after the sting ray splashed, notice the guy to the far right with the camera - he was not happy when it splashed all over the front of his pants, hehehe)
It was an enjoyable time. We had lunch at Hops (service was not very good) and headed back to pack. We attempted to go to the Coors plant for a tour but no way were we going to wait for 1 1/2 hours just to get on a shuttle.
On the ride back Kaleb peed on Kansas ;) And of course I took a picture! :)

The only bad part of the trip was the drive back and even that wasn't bad until the 1 mile marker at the boarder of Oklahoma, we sat in bumper to bumper traffic for over an hour, it took us 40 minutes to get 2 miles, yes that's a number two! All because the great state of Oklahoma had the road narrowed to 1 lane on THE major highway on a holiday weekend, no, brains are not a requirement for a state job here...but we made it home by 10pm and had to be up early for school/work the next day *sigh*

A Date with George!

We've seen Sesame Street Live twice now (different shows) and I got an advertisement that Curious George now has a Live show so I decided as one of the boys' Christmas gifts we'd go see George. It was a HUGE hit with the boys. We had awesome seats and the show was colorful, musical and had a story line both boys could follow, so all in all it was a wonderful night out :) On the way out after the show the venue staff were passing out coupons for the next Sesame Street Live show in March 2010, we will go to that show as well, it's about 3 weeks before Kaleb's birthday and will be such a nice treat for them again.
This is Zachary standing right in front of our seats, told you they were good, even better than sitting on the floor which is not stacked seating and is difficult for the kids to see over adults heads, those seats on the floor are $26 before all the fees!!! Our seats were $11 :)

I finally talked Kaleb into standing next to Zachary for a picture, I had to bribe him with a drink of my coke.



Some random shots from the show, Zachary insisted I take some pictures of George.

George is actually balancing on that ball and walked across stage on it, it really was quite impressive!
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We've had an unusual November, weather-wise. It's been in the 70's the whole month until just the other day so we've gone to the zoo several times, we fed the giraffes twice last week (last post) and on Friday we went and rode the carousal, it's the first time Zachary has been on one and didn't freak out :)
Zachary on his Zebra and Kaleb on a ???, it kina looks like a hippo?


If you've never been to the OKC Zoo, they have an awesome playground. This is one of the 3 very large play structures in the bigger kids area, this is the one the boys like to play on the best. You can barely see Zachary's head over the wall by the rattle snake.


If you look at the last picture of the play structure, behind Zachary is a tower, if you look at the right front corner of the tower and follow that beam down, there is a corner (which would be the far left corner of the top of the structure) and through the corner this is what I saw...

and the blue sucker does dye a little mouth blue :)