Spring Time

Happy Easter!

This was a really mild warm winter. All of the cold was concentrated in one week when it reached almost -20°F.  We did get one good snow storm, here is a picture of the boys in there fort.

We took a day and went to the train museum in Golden. The down side was the trains where mostly old and in poor shape. The good part was they don't mind letting the kids climb all over them.

Here is Leif and Bat Bear off on an adventure. Just imagine the basket has wings.

Cassandra got the idea of making some special fun easter eggs. Here is our combined creativity.

 Bunny

 Tanner Egg

 Alien King

 Chicken

 Minion

 Daddy Egg

 Easter Hat

 Guts inside

 Supper Leif

Tanner did not want to wait all day to open his Easter basket but with church at 9 am there was no time in the morning. Finally after church it was time

Cassandra giving Leif hints on where to look for eggs.

 Look What the Easter Bunny bought for Me!

2004 F-250 Supper Duty! (6.0 L Turbo Diesel)

The list of repairs needed on my old truck just kept getting longer and longer so I decided it was time to move on. About the same time this truck showed up at the local dealer and seemed perfect. A diesel was not really on my radar but it was a stupid good deal and everything else was perfect.

Fall 2010 & Holidays

Fall & Winter 2010

Here are the boys playing on the swing set. The green leaves in the background are our concord grape vines. This year Cassandra was faster than the squires and harvested several pounds which she processed in to home made  grape juice.

The bowl full of tomatoes where processed into pizza sauce which Cassandra freezes.

I have never seen broccoli grown before so I enjoyed watching this one grow up. It was allot of plant for not much food. 

Here is Leif playing one of the Boy's favorite games, mini golf.

   

This fall I was too busy studying for my Professional Engineering licence exam to go hunting. To make up for it we spent a Saturday up at Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), "Watching the elk bugle." We have heard for years how beautiful that is. Well it turns out that bugling is a part of the mating process and when people go to, "Watch the elk bugle," they are generally there for the entire show. We did't stick around for that part but we did get some up close pictures of the local heard. 

 Cassandra and Tanner at RMNP

Leif at RMNP

Cassandra always loves playing with the Boys in the Fall leaves

For Halloween Leif was a candy eating Dinosaur.

Tanner was Spiderman until he decided that was not cool enough and he wanted to wear his costume from last year.

Leif demonstrates here the proper use of Mr. Potato-head Accessories 

Play-dough

In November Tanner had his 5th birthday. This year was a family only birthday. We watched Toy Story 3 at the theater and made a transformer cake. It is amazing how fast he is growing up. I did not see it ahead of time but I felt like it was a major mile stone for us as a family. We are no longer the cute young couple with a baby and a Toddler trying to adjust to parenthood. Tanner is now school aged and I think that changes the way people look at our family.

Here is Tanners proud of his birthday present. A remote control car.

The Boys are in full fledged supper-hero mode. We are loving this stage. Tanner is wearing my old cape. Leif wears his cape all day every day, every where he goes. He is Batman and don't try to tell him different.

This fall Tanner took a Gymnastics class. The pit of foam is his favorite part.

During the Holiday break we went to visit the Wild Animal Sanctuary. This place specializes in rescuing large carnivores. Like lions, tigers, bears and wolves. These are the small pens where they acclimatize the animals to there new environment. Later they are moved to large acreage free range areas like the one below. Recently I heard they took in 40 lions from a circus in South America.  http://www.wildanimalsanctuary.org/

The boys like to hang out in the corner cupboard like a club house. They shut the door and if it where not for the clinking of dishes you would never know where they are. They keep telling there mom, 
"Quit tacking up all the space with your stuff." Anyway one day I decided to climb on in and join them. They where quite sure I would not fit they where quite wrong.

Ant Julia came to visit for Christmas. We all love Aunt Julia and no one loves her more than the boys. You may notice that sometimes we make Leif take off the cape in public (to protect his identity).

Finally Christmas came as is prone to happed on occasion. 

We had Christmas Dinner with our friends the Berretts. The kids acted out the Christmas story. Tanner was to cool for that so he is not pictured. We could not find any babies to play Jesus so Fazi the bear had to do.

 What better present could we come up with for Batman than a Bat-bear. The cape was home made and the two are now constant companions.

After I whoped out my pocket knife a few times to aid the present opening the boys insisted on having there own. I got them their kiddie butter knives from the kitchen and they insisted on using them to open every present after that. Do you know how long it takes a toddler to saw through wrapping ribbon with a butter knife? 

 Some after Christmas morning crash.

Cassandra found a pretty fun cookie recipe. You can mold it like play-dough and once you bake it the cookies actually tasted really good. The tank, anvil and elk along the left are mine. The turtle, pack-man and car across the top are Cassandra's. The piggy bank and eat me doll on the bottom right corner are Julia's. The thing in the middle is Tanners.

We decided to use our airline credits to take the kids to see Grammy & Papa. On the first day there we went to see the Jelly Belly factory. We had a good time and ate allot of jelly bellys.

 

 Cassandra and I took a day to go visit San Francisco and see the Van Gogh exhibit. This painting looked allot like me.

This is not a Van Gogh but the subject was an English guy with the last name of Stewart. We seem to have the same nose and hairline.

For dinner we had a "health food" snack at Ghiraradelli's chocolate factory. It is one of my favorite places in the city. Heavy equipment and chocolate make a good combination. The best part was getting to lick the roller =).

At long last Batman has found an accomplice.

We wanted to go to the beach especially so the boys could see it. Unbelievably it was warm and sunny! In the middle of January. So we rolled up our pants and waded in. It was so beautiful we stayed the whole afternoon. Eventually we saw some dolphins swimming out in the ocean. It was the best day on the beach I have seen yet.

  Grammy found a sea-weed monster on the beach. The kids where pretty sure it was real. We though about letting them take it home but decided to leave it there.

The boys at Ponderosa Park

Next it was scooter rides for everyone.

And then miniature golf. Cassandra seems to have picked up a small handicap.

Last but not least we went to Disney Land!

We convinced Leif to stop punching Winnie the Pooh in the nose long enough to take a picture. Everyone loved Pirates of the Caribbean except Leaf. My favorite ride was the Matterhorn. The boys really liked the Buzz Light Year ride they must have ridden it 3 times. Cassandra liked the gadget go-coaster in Toon Town. We got to that ride just before the park closed and there was no line so we went around and around.

The kids loved the toon toys in Toon Town.

Tanner really wanted to ride the tea cups. I managed to overcome my childhood memories of children ralphing all over the ride and got on with Tanner.

Kids and dynamite, only at Disney Land.