Happy '10 to all! Hey 2009, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Taking the family to see Avatar.

Merry Christmas!! xoxo

Is officially starting his 5 (FIVE!!) day weekend.

Caroling

We made 3 dozen cookies and got together with 8 other families last night in order to mix and match the cookies to be handed out at the various homes we visited while caroling.   We split up into two groups of 4 families each, and each group visited at least 5 homes before meeting at the end at a retirement center where we sang half a dozen songs and gave out the remaining plates.  It was a great time and we all felt great after providing this service. 

We partenered with Amgen!

It's a done deal!  Our little Biotech lives for another day: Array BioPharma and Amgen Partner in Type 2 Diabetes

Is spending his Monday morning in jury duty.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Just saw a car marked 'student driver.' It's 4 degrees F outside with ice/snow all over the roads. I don't envy that teacher.

"Tip-Off" To Another Basketball Season

This year Austin was 1 of 4 Sophomore players to make it onto the JV team and the only Sophomore to also swing up to play on the varsity team when needed.  He is really excited.

Friday night was the "tip-off" to the basketball season for the families and players of the high school.  It was a fun night with a Chipotle burrito eating contest,  3-point shootout for the fans and the coaches, musical chairs (Nathan came out of the crowd to play, but was unsuccessful), and relay races (see photo of Austin below).

Austin also took part in the Varsity Slam Dunk Contest.  He did good, and showed that we all have a lot more to look forward to this season and the next 2 years!  You can follow the teams progress and also watch for more photos throughout the season by going to:  http://www.warriorhoops.us/

They have their first real games of the season this week in the Boulder Valley Invitational Tournament.  Be sure to follow the progress of the JV and varsity teams by clicking on the BVI Tournament link on the above webpage. 

"I would drive my wheelchair off of the Golden Gate Bridge." So wrong, but so funny.

We were talking about how hard it would be 2 be paralyzed or brain damaged from an accident and Nate says

Smarty Pants

Nathan is off to a great start to his 8th grade academic year!  We are very proud of his commitment to work hard in order to get ready for high school!

Fuzzy Face

Not sure how much deeper into "No-Shave November" I can take this fuzzy face....

cnn:"Illinois prison is top contender to house Gitmo detainees, administration says http://bit.ly/1iRTKv" Penalty 4 losing 2016 Olympics?

The Broncos are going to have to stop the slide before it starts by beating the Steelers tonight on MNF. C'mon Broncos!!

The bad thing about these Autumn snow storms is that once the sun comes out the snow melts fast. 52 and sunny today. :(

The bad thing about these Autumn snow storms is that once the sun comes out the snow melts fast. 52 and sunny today. :(

Snow Day #2 Pictures

We are having a crazy Autumn storm right now! This picture was taken yesterday morning:


This morning we had even more snow and it is supposed to keep snowing through the day:



No work/school the rest of the week (5 day weekend!!) AND we are going to have plenty of snow on the ground for Halloween this weekend. I will post some more pictures of our neighborhood a little later after we go sledding!

Snow Day!! No school/work today and probably not tomorrow either. We got at least 4'' last night and could have a foot total by tomorrow.

Lost 0-3. :-(

Losing 0-2 at halftime.

In Golden at Nate's soccer game. Losing 0-1 in 1st half.

AJ is going to have all 4 wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow. Keep him in your prayers.

Breaking in Dad's new skateboard.

Lisa came to Boulder on Friday to meet me for lunch. After lunch we went into the skate shop where one thing led to another... new skateboard!! Nate and I have been skating (and bonding) every free moment of every nice weather day since at least August, and my old board was beginning to be a hazard to ride. This one is sooooo smooth!! Nate and I spent nearly 3 hours on Saturday breaking it in. :-)

Lisa came by to get us for lunch and snapped some photos and a video. Since Nate rides "regular" (left foot forward) and I ride "goofy" (right foot forward), Nate decided to choreograph a ride in the bowl where we could skate doubles - including high fives and various poses on the board:

Carving the bowl on this new skateboard is like riding on air.

Nate wanted to give it a try as well.

Nate is testing out the "pop" of the new board by doing an ollie (jumping the board).

We never wanted to leave, especially on such a nice day!
(we did come back after Nate's soccer game and skated until dark!!)

Game over. We won 7-2! :-)

GOOOOAAAAAALLLLL!!! Nate just scored. 1-0 in first half.

FW: tonyhawk: "In Cambodia, you can shoot a bazooka at a cow for 80 bucks. I'm going next year for sure!"

At the skatepark with @nate breaking in my new skateboard. Christmas came early 4 me - thanks @lisa!! :-x

We just beat the Patriots? We just beat the Patriots!

First Snow!

It's snowing.

Rockies beat Phillies! Series tied 1-1 now.

Rocktober!!

The Rockies are in the playoffs! On labor day we made it out to see our team play the Reds. It was a close game, but we won. It was a very hot day, but a lot of fun.




Be sure to cheer them on now as they face the Phillies!

I got a raise! :-)
But not as much as last year. :-(
I guess it's best to just count my blessings and not b greedy. 2 bad I don't work 4 Citibank! ;-)

The Denver Broncos are 4-0!!

Rockies r headed 4 the playoffs!!

Winner winner now time for some Qdoba dinner. 5-0. Domination.

At Nate's soccer game. This kid is good! Winning 2-0 at half.

At the Rockies game! Got my seeds: 'eat, spit, b happy' words to live by.

Soooooo hungry.

At Nate's 1st soccer game of the season. Hope all of the falls at the skatepark this morning didn't mess him up.

At the denver skatepark 4 some shredding (and lots of falling).

Jerome K. Jerome: "It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do." but what if my job was 2 test video games?

Welcom Home Pioneers!

Here are pictures of Austin and his friend Cody getting home from the trek. Austin had a good time on trek and he said it wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. I'm was really glad to hear that because while he was away at trek his doctor called to say that he had tested positive for strep. I was so worried he was going to pass out on the trail or have to be pulled on the handcart. There was no way of contacting anyone on the trek because they were out in the middle of nowhere. Luckily none of these things happened and Austin had a great time!

Austin with his Ma and Pa (Jana & Dave)

Waimea Bay

We did so many fun things while we were in Hawaii that it was hard to include them all in the post about our trip. One fun thing we did while there was jumping off of the rock at Waimea bay, in North shore. It looked like so much fun and not too scary while we were walking up to it. Plus there were little kids jumping off of it. So I thought how hard could it be to jump off of this rock. Well, Austin, Brian and Nathan all jumped off of it with no problem and had so much fun doing it that they went multiple times.

Check out the guy right above Nate. He did a flip or two before landing in the water!

Then it was my turn. I climbed up the rock with Austin and thought I'd be okay going to the higher side of the rock. Well once I got up there it was a long way down. It was almost three stories high. I stood on the rock so long I had people (natives) telling me it wasn't really that far down and that I'd be ok. That it would be fun. I guess when you do something scary like this it's best not to think about it and to just do it. I waited way to long. So I climbed down to the lower part of the rock and managed to jump off. It was fun and I hoped Brian had gotten a good picture because I was not doing it again...ever.

At the dog park. This dog could chase tennis balls all day.

Just met a young buck (deer) while mountain biking. Put camera phone pics on later.

At the movies: Harry Potter #6.

Hot day. Out riding bikes with family. At the Jamba Juice pit-stop for Peach Pleasure.

In San Francisco. Thought it was Oct in CO when I awoke today

(Star) Trek

Today Austin left for Wyoming. He is going to be a pioneer for the next 4 days. To get ready for this day we had to buy him special pioneer clothes. Austin loved them, just kidding!
He got really sick this past weekend so we weren't even sure if he would be able to go. Austin hasn't really wanted to go on trek. He's been hemming and hawing about having to pull a hand cart and sleeping outside and crossing a river pulling a handcart. All of the work. It was too much he thought. Then he found out that some days they would be walking up to 10 miles in a day! Well that kinda helped home decide he didn't want to go. I helped him get ready to go and it seemed to me that he wasn't complaining as much. A good sign right? Maybe he was too sick to complain or maybe realizing that he might not be able to go. This morning when he woke up he didn't look that great. Blood shot eyes and a pretty rough cough. I said "AJ maybe you shouldn't go." He looked back at me and said "But I want to go." I was happy to hear that. He had changed his mind. He perked up a bit after waking up. And was happy to go.

Here is is in his pioneer clothes. Thanks Nina for the hat!

Austin and Cody ready to go!!

Austin with his Ma for the next few days

My handsome boy

Here is Austin with his family. They divide up the youth into families. They don't get to choose who is with them. Austin lucked out to get a great family. They chose the name Star Trek for their group name. I can't wait to hear about all of the fun he had when he gets back!

Visitors

This summer the missionaries moved into our basement.
Here they are playing crossfire with Nate.

We have green beans!

Nate and I were looking at the garden and discovered these beauties! There are so many green beans in the garden. We look at the plants everyday, I don't know how we missed all of them. They are really yummy! I'm thinking green bean casserole.

Austin boogie boarding

Nate boogie boarding

jumping off wall at Waikiki beach

Hawaii

Last night on Oahu

We had a blast in Hawaii! (Thanks Paul and Holly for letting us stay with you!) It was great being on vacation and not having anything else interfering with family time.Our family quickly adjusted to island life. We loved having the ocean so close to us and being there everyday of the trip. Here are some pictures to show you what we did.

Sorry guys.....no waves. I guess we can't go surfing.

Nate stood in for the strong guy at the Polynesian culutral center

Family Picture

Hanging at BYU Hawaii

Did you know that pineapples grow in the ground? I didn't.

Guess what? Pineapple frozen yogurt with fresh pineapple is the best!

I think I'd like one of these fields behind my house!

I'm trying to boogie board

These next pictures are of Brian and Austin. They jumped off of a wall at Waikiki beach. They would wait for a large wave and then throw themselves into it. It looked like fun. Austin convinced me to sit down on the wall and feel the waves. He said to hold on tight. We'll I sat on the wall and was blown over backwards by a huge wave so I decided jumping into the waves wouldn't be a safe thing for me to do.

Trying to convince Nate that he would be safe jumping off the wall. He didn't even try it. He saw what happened to me so he thought standing on the wall would be enough for him.

A look at Waikiki beach


Austin and Nate had a blast boogie boarding. If you look carefully you can see that AJ is pulling Nate back out so they can catch some waves

Paul and I flashing our shakas

Isn't this a great shot. Looks like we are going to be blown off of this cliff!