At Home in the Mountains

 We had a fantastic visit with Rachel this weekend. My parents picked her up in Denver Friday night. I am sure they had a lot of fun Friday night and Saturday morning, but we didn't get to participate in that part. On Saturday we had a day filled with lots of family from both sides of the aisle. Aaron's dad was in Denver for a conference. He stayed at the ranch on Friday night so met us at our property late Saturday morning to see the house and how it was coming. My parents and Rachel met us there as well. We were also watching Theyben and Dustin for the day so the girls had some fun cousin time. We hung out at the property for awhile and then went back to our house in Divide for lunch. Aaron's Dad took off after lunch and the rest of us went hiking at Mueller State Park. I had never been before and definitely want to go back. We are considering getting a state park pass. It is so close we could go often. The visitor center was fun for the kids. THey had a animal track ex...

Maddy coloring while we wait for food at Scottish Rite. The cafeteria is her favorite place to eat!  Besides moving into a real house, the big event of September was Maddy's surgery. The tendon in her right heel had gotten very tight from a growth spurt. We tried to work on it quite a while through therapy but just couldn't get the flexibility needed for her to get her heel flat on the ground. She was walking on her toes on her right foot so the doctor decided surgery was in order and the therapist agreed so we schedule it for September 13th. We had to miss a whole week of school to do the surgery. waiting to talk to anesthesia  We traveled down on Saturday and were able to help Bethany celebrate her 6th birthday! I forgot those pics so will add those in at the end. We had a great time with the kids playing and doing all the normal birthday activities like eating cake and ice cream and opening presents.  On Sunday we had to start her pre-op wipes. The had some...

We had our first snow on October 6th. The kids thought it was great and keep asking when it's going to snow again. Kelsay does not like to wear her winter coat. Having basically never worn a winter coat for her entire life she says that it is "too big". I think she will get used to it in time. She was a lot more open to wearing it on the snow day than she has been when its just been cold in the morning. She was mad at her teachers at school for making her wear her coat to go to the playground. Such is the life of a two year old. Meanwhile, we love living in Divide. Divide is 9,000 ft elevation so it is quite a bit higher than where we are building our house. That elevation creates a totally different climate. We seem to see more deer in our area. A few weeks ago we had a heard of about 40 elk that were hanging out in a pasture down the road for a few days. We have lots of Aspen and Spruce versus the Pondarosa Pines that dominate our property. Divide has also actually ...

It has been a beautiful fall in this area. We have been enjoying the fall colors for about a month now. We've been up to Cripple Creek/Victor several times. We also have an aspen grove behind our house that has been gorgeous. We've had terrible wind today and that grove is almost bare. I think all the trees will be bare soon. These pictures are from a hike that Kelsay and I did with my parents a couple of weeks ago. We hiked to Horse Thief Falls. Kelsay still talks about hiking to the waterfall. She did great on the hike. It was a very steep trail and she hiked a good bit of it. After the hike we went to the Fortune Club (and old milkshake fav during the Aspen Wilderness years) and got burgers for lunch. Aaron and I took the girls for milkshakes today because Maddy had the day off from school. The lady there said her daughter and son-in-law bought the Fortune Club in May. For those of you who remember, it used to be a shabby little store with people...