My boys

Grant has been home this week on paternity leave.  Awesome.  I've been lucky to have three weeks of 24 hr. assistance from either Grant or my Mom.  Tomorrow marks my first day mommy-ing it solo.  But Will has enjoyed his uninterrupted "Daddy time."

Reading The Pokey Little Puppy.  My dad always read to me when I was little and so it makes me really happy to see Grant read to Will.

Chatting.  About manly things I'm sure... Probably predicting the chances for a good snow season this year... (Grant is 95% convinced that Will will be skiing this year...)

And of course, snuggling.  

And now I'm off to snuggle my little man :)

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...

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.

Easter Reunion Weekend

Grantie came home to visit for Easter!  It was a perfect weekend.  We did some shopping, ate lots of good food, and celebrated Easter together.  We took a few pictures but the settings on the camera were a little wonky so they're mediocre at best.  

One night we headed to the Gaylord Texan, a huge, fabulous hotel in Grapevine.  Instead of paying the $10 for parking we parked about a mile away in the neighborhood by our church and walked over.  

On hotel ground they have a vineyard and lots of cool landscaping with fountains & such.

Here is a view of the pool.  We didn't sneak our swimming suits in :)

Baby bumpin it. 28 weeks.

Inside the giant atrium there are a few restaurants.  Again, the camera wasn't quite cooperating (read: we don't know how to work it...) so we only got a few pictures:

But Grant did manage to snap this lovely picture:

We had dinner at a lovely little Mexican restaurant on the "riverwalk" inside the hotel atrium.  We were serenaded by the mariachi band and Grant translated "La Cucaracha" for me...  "The cockroach can't walk anymore because he doesn't have his back two legs."  Lovely.  I'll have to look up the history on that one so I'm not so disgusted...

The next day we thought we'd check out the new Legoland at Grapevine Mills Mall.

The line was well over an hour, so we just took pictures with the Lego statues instead.  Real classy.

And now Grantie is gone... again.  He's actually in Chicago this week doing some training for his new job at Fidelity- pretty sweet.  

Only THREE more weeks of this exciting long distance marriage.  The Texas spring, or rather, summer storms have arrived, bringing golf-ball sized hail, tornado sirens, and nasty, nasty humidity.  What a good time to move to Colorado!!

Happy Birthday Grantie!

Today is a very special day.  Today Grant turns twenty-six years old!  It's the fourth birthday Grant has had since we met and the first that we have had to spend apart.

Normally I would make him a scrumptious Hawaiian cake as it has become tradition.  I've heard rumors that Grant's mom will be making the cake this year so I'm feeling glad that Grant will get some (even if I really just want some for myself...)

I was a bit stressed out about finding Grant the perfect birthday present.  Gifting long distance just doesn't compare to physically giving a present to someone... so I had to make it really good.  After hours of research, (really...) I finally found the perfect present!!

For one night in June we'll be staying in Vail:

Really, does it get more beautiful that that?!

And we'll be attending the Teva Mountain Games!

According to the website, "Professional and amateur athletes from around the world converge upon the mountains and rivers of Vail to compete in eight sports and 24 disciplines for more than $100,000 in prize money. This year’s sporting events include kayaking, rafting, mountain biking, road cycling,World Cup Bouldering, amateur climbing, fly fishing, stand up paddling, trail running and a half  marathon."

I'll be running the half marathon while Grant cheers me on!!

Bahaha. Actually I thought about doing the 5K Mud Run, but then decided the obstacle course section probably wouldn't be appropriate for an 8 month pregnant lady...  But Grant is going to look over the events and see if he wants to participate.  

I am stoked.  Grantie is stoked.  And he is 26.  And we are happy.  Happy birthdaying that is!

A Short Flight Away

Things are picking up at school and at the studio: My culminating presentation for my Master's degree is next week and it's competition season at the studio.  Since the next month or so will be so busy, I bought a ticket to Denver to spend some time with Grant before the long haul.

While I was there, we headed out for one of our favorite activities, hiking!  This time we hiked around Castlewood Canyon State Park:

It was a beautiful spring day in Colorado: the sun was shining and since we started in the morning we were out before it got too hot.

Leslie came along with us.  We are excited to both be in Denver, close to the Tanners.  And they are excited that we'll be bringing their first grandson with us! (Although he'll still be a fetus at that point...)

We followed the perfect little trail along these falls; nothing too steep or crazy for me and the ever-growing Baby T.  

Grant got a feel for the water and ruled swimming out for the day:

Cold, ya think Grantie?

I wore this lovely ensemble which included Ron's jacket.  I always dismiss hiking fashion until I look back and realize how dorky I look in pictures.  Some things will never change...

We made it up to the ruins of this old dam.  As Grantie would say, "We went on a dam hike."  There is the rest of my lovely fashion statement.  

It was a great weekend and I feel like I'm toughening up emotionally.  I'm not one to get super homesick when I'm away from family.  But if I get to see my family for a while and then have to leave... that's another story.  I'm horrible with goodbyes.  Maybe because this was the third goodbye I had to say to Grant in the last month, or maybe because the hormones were on a lull that day, this goodbye was much easier than the last two.  

Now to plan our next rendezvous... 

Disney World Chronicles #7: Getting Involved

I'm clearly way way behind on my Disney World posts.  Thus, the next few posts will be whirlwinds of pictures and stories.  For today, the stories of excited, involved husbands.

First, we have Logan, the bird man.

Well, hello birdie.  Hey, he's got a dollar!

He was a tickly bird.

I like the face on this one.  Rethinking your enthusiastic involvement yet, Logan?

Love the laugh.

And of course, the ever involved, Grant Tanner:

This is the part where they say, "Wow, you're mighty tall," as if he wasn't already aware.

Picked out to show off a death scene:

Shot!

The slow death of a true volunteer.

Next at Disney World, Toy Story 1, 2, & 3 with Logan Mallory as Woody and Grant Tanner as Buzz Lightyear.  Or, I suppose it's the other way around... Especially if Grant wears his new cowboy boots that make him 6'8...

Turtle! Turtle!

Yesterday I took Grant lunch at work.  It has been really rainy lately so it was a bit cooler outside, (although super muggy).  We stuffed our faces in the comfortable A/C and then took a little jaunt out to the giant sauna also known as Mother Nature.

And we made friends!

 "Hola!  I'm a giant turtle with a pointy nose and awesome webbed hand-fin things!  I speak Spanish because hey, I'm from Texas so I'm basically half-Mexican!  Woot!"

This is "Squirty" swimming next to our new half-Mexican pointy nosed friend.  I just named him.  Just right now.  Because I name things.  They were interested in the ever tempting goodies Grant threw to them.

Carrots!  Oh, and this is Squirty's friend... um... Lyle... yep.  They are covered in gross lake moss.  Lyle and Squirty liked eating carrots but had to venture into shallow water to get them.  The fish in the lake we much faster.  And honestly.. much scarier. 

"Hey Lyle!  That's my carrot!"

"You wish!  Eat my swimming turtle dust, Squirty!"

They are extremely competitive... when the fish aren't around.

This is when Grant hit Lyle on the head with a carrot.  Good thing they have those creepy extendable and shrinkable necks.  How handy in case of flying carrot pieces!?

Excuse my strange weirdness today... I basically woke up laughing... must be a 3 day weekend...

In case you're not sick of turtles and basic stupidity, get a little more turtle action here.  "Turtle!  Turtle!"