Smiles

There are lots of reasons to smile:

-We're officially Coloradoans- plates, drivers' licenses and everything.
-The Baby T countdown is less than 20 days.  (Assuming he doesn't make a late debut.)
-Painting is officially done.
-We had gyros from Bucci's Greek & Italian Specialties.  Yum.
-My latest migraine is over.  Hooray.  Embarrassingly, this one was caused by a sugar-overdose.  (As was the last.)  I'm officially off sweets for the next month.

What are you smiling about today?!

We've been busy...

The last few weeks, we've been quite busy.  Not just Grant and me, but a long list of household items have been kept busy as well.  For example...

The kitchen has been busy pretending to be a craft room:

Hikey Hikes

  During our last getaway before Baby T arrives, we checked out a few of the hundreds of hikes located near Estes Park.

We stuck to the weeny mile-long hikes (walks) around lakes. 

Elk Day

Last year, I talked about how to sneak up on a deer.  Click here if you missed that glorious post.  

Well, last weekend during our day-trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, just outside of Estes Park, we needed no such skills.  These elk were begging to be our friends.  No sneaking necessary.

Um, yep. He's right next to us.

And it wasn't just one or two elk.  There was a whole bushel of them.  A bushel and a peck. 

Mr. Shedder here was feeling a little protective of his territory.  Whoa.  

They were honestly beautiful.  (Not that I wasn't also picturing what one of these might look like on my plate... or in the smoker... oh man.)

But they were just so darn friendly I couldn't maintain the hunter's daughter mentality for very long.

A few hours later we headed back this way again and the elk were still all there.  

This picture shows how close they were to the road and to people.  No stranger danger there.  

Father Knows Best

"Time in nature is worth double."

-Mike Peterson

Amen.

The Last Getaway

Four weeks. 

28 days.

Less than one month of un-parenthooded-ness.  

We ran away for our last getaway before life changes forever (hooray for that!).

Estes Park was our destination:

Building Baby's Room: Part 3

My book finally came!  After figuring out which patterns I wanted where, I headed back to Snappy Quilts to buy the fabric.  If you recall, I originally picked out these fabrics for the baby's bedding.  But of course, as life goes, half the fabric I picked were out of stock and un-orderable... of course.

But I found some great substitutes that I actually like a bit better than my original choices!

Teva Mountain Games: The Race

As part of Grantie's birthday present, he registered to compete in any event he wanted.  He picked the Mountain Biking race and signed up for the Sport division- basically Intermediate (so we thought).

This is my face before I saw all the other bikers and became basically scared for Grant's safety...

Baby Walls

I went to Home Depot.  By myself. Woot for me.  Jumping off of a nursery blog post found here, I went to get a paint sample that would closely match Restoration Hardware's color Silver Sage.  I ended up leaving not only with a Glidden sample made up to match Silver Sage, but four other grey Glidden samples. 

Teva Mountain Games

Because we were apart for Grant's big birthday #26, I got him a present that we could enjoy together!  We packed up the cooler:

And took off last Friday evening:

Mountains. are. the. best.

And I couldn't resist taking one of these lovely side-mirror self-portraits.  

We headed up to Vail for the Teva Mountain Games!  We just stayed one night; long enough to collect oodles of free stuff, watch a couple incredible adventure sports, and of course, catch enough UV rays to turn me into a lobster... Worth it.

Among the events we watched were: 

Bouldering. These ladies had some serious skills. They had five minutes to figure out how to get to the top of their "puzzle." That one in the middle is basically doing the splits... on a wall.. holding on to pebbles sticking out of the wall...

Rock climbing seems like it would be fun and challenging.  My main concern would be my total weeny hands.  I can't even do the monkey bars.  It kills.  Something about lack of callouses. (Just call me princess hands...)

The next event we witnessed was the Kayak Freestyle.  It was awesome.  They created a "feature" in the middle of the river where kayakers had 1 minute to rack up as many points as they could doing tricks like flips and spins and such.  

This guy was kind of a "feature hog" during the warm-up sessions.  But he was really fun to watch so we didn't mind.  

We've developed a new language since listening to the silly announcers at the games.  Mostly, we have learned to say, "He totally killed it," after every mildly impressive trick, lap, or attempt.  That girl in her kayak there at the bottom... yeah she was totally killin' it out there.  Totally.

The last event we checked out I think was called the Freeride Dual.  Basically these bikers had to cross a crazy looking course in the fastest time.  I was a bit pooped by this time so I sat on the curb behind the big crowd while Grant got closer and took some great pictures.

There were lots of people.  And tons of dogs.  We had a few free bags of Eukanuba that we had to pawn off on various dog-owners.  

These guys were pretty crazy.  Bouldering: sounds fun.  Kayaking: sounds frightening but fun.  Crazy biker-event-stuff: I'll stay behind the camera... Forever.  I never was good on wheels anyway.

Next up: Grant makes his first attempt at professional adventure sports.  He may or may not have died... Stay tuned.

Building Baby's Room: Part 2

Yesterday I bought all of the fabric & notions & such needed for the nursery's bedding.  As of five minutes ago, I have successfully finished part one of T's bedding: a fitted crib sheet!  Woohoo!  Instead of uploading pictures right now, I'm going to be responsible and take a shower :)  Yes, it's almost 5PM...  Just wanted to revel in the glory of success...  Pictures coming soon.

Building Baby's Room: Part 1

Believe it or not, Grant is really the decorator in the family.  He has been saving pictures on his computer of home design ideas since we got married.  Recently, I discovered Pinterest where we've both started collecting fun ideas we find here & there on the net.

But now that we've got "T" to get ready for, I've had to take the reins a bit.  I'm usually hesitant to do anything drastic in our home because it's not my "thing" and Grant usually has stronger opinions than me.  But this time, I've said, "I'm doing it myself.  If you can be around to help, then I want your opinion.  If not, I've gotta man up and do it!"  Take that universe.

So, I did lots of research online picking out nurseries I liked and deciding which elements were most important.  After deciding that most of the bedding offered in sets didn't appeal to me, I'm venturing out and making my own!!  I ordered Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones, and headed out to Snappy Quilts, a local quilt shop that carries designer fabrics.

I picked out about five fabrics and got little samples of each.  The main nursery colors will be grey and white with green and orange accents.  The actual orange is a bit lighter than this picture shows- more of a creamsicle.  When my book gets here (finally), then I'll decide which fabrics to put where and I'll get started on the sewing!!

Also on the agenda for T's room: dresser, curtains, crib, walls... everything... hah.  This kid will have a killer nursery... eventually. Luckily (sort of) this kid won't let me sleep, so I'll have lots of extra work time between 1 and 5AM.  Excellent :)

Roxborough State Park

We were just getting settled in to our new home when we decided to head out to Roxborough Park.  It's only about 20 minutes from home which is awesome.

There are a couple different parks in the area with these beautiful red rocks.

Baby T was fairly cooperative on our little hike.  As awkward as pregnant hiking can be, it honestly can't be much more difficult than hiking with the baby once he's outside my body... (which he will be in less than 6 weeks!!)

We went on a fairly easy 2.5ish mile hike.  There were a few little paths off the main trail that led to outlooks like this one:

Look at that stud muffin :)  He was patient with my occasional slowness.  

Best new hiking discovery: hiking poles.  On an easy hike like this one, they just make you look like a weeny... but they come in handy for real hikes.  (And for hikers carrying fetuses).

It was also fun to give Grantie a short photography lesson.  He is (re)learning the aperture, shutter speed, ISO triangle and it's fun to play around with.  I also love the way the white grasses looked mixed with all the green.  

We bought a year-long state parks pass and we're excited to go see what other treasures we can find in our backyard.  Woot.

PS: I'm trying out extra-large pictures instead of the large ones.  I like being able to see so much more without clicking on each picture.  But are they too big?  Are the pictures getting cut off?  Feedback would be appreciated :)

Lovin' the Outdoor Livin'

One of the very best things about living in Colorado is all of the outdoor opportunities!  I have lots of pictures to post from our recent outgoings but iphoto+new internet+impatient pregnant lady= only one picture for today.

Top 3 "features" of the Great Outdoors:

3: Being outdoors creates so many opportunities for adventure.  Be it the christening of various flora and fauna (as if they don't already have names...), frolicking through the snow, and of course, adventure sporting, being outside makes us feel alive!!

2: There are few better ways to appreciate God's glories than by spending time enjoying his magnificent creations.

1: For some reason, being outdoors fosters the very best conversations.  It has something to do with the beauty of nature combined with the leisurely pace of life.  Grant and I have had some of our very best talks while hiking, kayaking, picnicking, etc.  This includes, but isn't limited to the day we met and the day he "put a ring on it." 

I'm so excited to live in the middle of some of the greatest of God's glories on earth.  Yay for nature.  Yay for life.