Thanksgiving 2

Our second Thanksgiving was here in Colorado with my Mom, Ginny, and the Goetz's. Kristina invited us over (or maybe I invited us over...) so somehow we made out with 2 Thanksgiving dinners this year without cooking much of it ourselves. We each had identical families-- mom, grandma (both 95), husband, and 2 kids. Somehow sitting down to a peaceful dinner proved difficult with only the 8:4 adult to kid ratio. Amelie was teething and tired, Logan had not yet warmed up to the kids he's known forever, and we all ate with one hand while bouncing babies or feeding Sporticus.  I'm sure we'll look back and treasure the noise and chaos, right?

After Thanksgiving, my mom, grandma, Amelie and I went to holiday tea at the Brown Palace hotel.  I dragged Mark there the first year we lived here-- I think he was the only man in the whole place.  This year we made it a lady's event. Amelie was a perfect angel, sleeping through the whole thing.  We woke her up at the end so we could take some pictures of her screaming in the fancy hotel.

My mom stayed the week, so Amelie and Sporticus got in some good Grandma Z time.  And the best part is we get to see her again for Christmas in 3 weeks!

Amelie- 5 months

At 5 months, Amelie is a delight. She is smiley and happy and thinks that getting undressed is the funniest thing ever.  Hopefully this doesn't influence her future career choice. We tried giving her rice cereal for the first time today-- she did not seem to think too highly of it, making a disgusted face and spitting it out.  I can't really blame her, rice cereal looks pretty gross to me too.  I guess we'll try again next month. She learned to roll over a few days before her 5 month birthday.  She and Daddy practiced all weekend long, and then she finally did it at daycare Monday morning when Mark was not there to see it.

Amelie Rolling Over

Amelie learned to roll over just before her 5 month birthday. She and Mark trained all weekend, and then she finally did it at daycare Monday morning.  Poor Mark... she did do it many more times for him that night, at least.

Thanksgiving #1

We got to have 2 Thanksgivings this year. The first one was in Oregon-- we flew out the weekend before, and the Andersons all accommodated us by having Thanksgiving dinner 5 days early. It was a quick trip, but we packed a lot in. We spend the first night at Dan & Jen's, where they dug out all their old trains for us and Logan had a blast building trains with Uncle Dan. The next morning we got to see my cousin Brett and my Uncle Kent for breakfast in Portland. Uncle Kent just happened to be visiting for a few days to help Brett install a fence on her farm. Logan loved seeing his cousin "Jet" (Aunt Jen, cousin Brett... he was having a hard time keeping the new names straight). It was a quick visit, but it was nice to introduce Amelie, and it sounds like we may get to see Kent & Paula in Colorado next year when they rent out their Port Townsend house and set off on a year long road trip.

After breakfast, we headed down to Corvallis, and settled in for Grandma & Grandpa time. Logan was Grandma's best friend this trip. Its funny, because a couple visits ago, he was all about Grandpa. Kids are funny that way... I guess you just have to be flattered when they pick you (even when you really don't feel like building another lego pirate ship) and not too offended when they don't (lucky you, you can read your book instead of building that lego pirate ship for the 10th time). We lucked out with nice weather, and got to go for a couple hikes in the big mossy forest near Mark's house. We also had time for pizza & cookies at American Dream, visits to a couple of parks, and lots of playtime with cousins and Mark's childhood toys. We got to catch up with Beverly & Evan and Bill & Rosie when they joined us for Thanksgiving dinner.  Sounds like we'll get to see the whole family this June for Bill & Rosie's graduation & wedding!

Amelie's first flight.  She slept with Daddy the whole time.

Hot chocolate at breakfast with Brett & Uncle Kent

Amelie and Grandpa A

Logan and Grandma A

Hiking. I'm going to say this is the top of Dimple Hill.  I may have that wrong.

Logan & Duncan checking out the little stream

Mark attacking the mashed potatoes during Thanksgiving dinner preparation

Cousins playing legos

Amelie

Amelie & Daddy.  They spent lots of time training front-to-back rolls.  She was so close, but did not end up doing it until Monday morning at daycare.  We got to see the video at least:)

Grandpa and Amelie, Pre-turkey (Thanks to Grandma for the Thanksgiving outfit!)

The Thanksgiving table

Grandpa and Amelie, Post turkey

Cousins

Climbing trees with Duncan & Henry

Shrubbery mazes

Playing tag with Uncle Dan. Logan loved his Uncle Dan... unfortunately this is the best picture I got.  We'll have to photoshop Dan's head on.

Amelie talking

First ER visit

We had our first ER visit this past weekend when Logan fell on the hike back to the car after a day climbing at Shelf. He was holding my hand, jumping down the trail, and threatening to pull me and Amelie over. We decided to switch and have him hold Mark's hand, but he refused. About a second later he tripped and fell straight into a sharp rock. There was blood gushing everywhere, but Mark managed to doctor him up with a couple of band aids and some climbing tape wrapped around his head. We had a thrilling ride to the ER... kind of surprising we didn't all end up as patients. Logan was pretty sad until we got to the waiting room at the ER, where he discovered a vending machine with Cheetos. After he got his bag of Cheetos, his spirits improved. In the end, he didn't get stitches-- they glued the wound together, put some tape on top, and we were done. I was pretty happy about that because the nurse had explained that the first step of stitches was to put his arms in a pillowcase and have him lie down on top of it so that he would basically be in a straightjacket. I don't think that would have gone over very well. We did get a $500 bill yesterday for the glue and tape (and that was after our insurance had kicked in their piece). Oh well, I'm just happy it wasn't more serious.

Carrying out the wounded

Amelie and I were covered in blood too...

Getting cleaned up at the hospital. We distracted him with my phone.

The Cheetos and Sponge Bob cartoons helped too

Independence Pass

We've spent much of the fall climbing season at Independence Pass near Aspen.  Its a beautiful setting, but comes with one caveat: the pass closes on November 7th. Therefore, it was  race against time to send before the pass closed. This year, they got some early snows and decided to close the pass a week early.  We drove 2.5 hours to find it closed on Friday... nothing like a nice 5 hour drive for no reason.  Mark rigged up the stroller and we pared down our gear and then went back the next day with the kids to hike up the road from the closure point.  It was about 7 miles round trip, and we weren't in shape for that after driving up to the base of the cliff all season.  It was exhausting, but at least we had nice weather. Some pictures from the weekend:

Rest day (well, rest morning) at Maroon Bells. It was icy and windy so we didn't stray far from the parking lot.

Mark rigged up to Logan.  He pulled the stroller from his harness so as not to tire his arms:).  I could have pushed it, but I'm already slower than him just carrying Amelie.

Logan taping up his fingers like Daddy

Miss Amelie watching Daddy climb

Sporticus

Sporticus came to visit and show us his moves.