Black Island Farms

October 9, 2010-  We packed up the kids for a 4 day weekend in Utah so Nate could go elk hunting with his dad and brother Kelly.  The highlight of the trip was Black Island Farms!  We went last year and just had to go again this year!  It is such a fun place, my favorite by far!  

We went with Nate's brother Kelly's wife, Tausha, and their kids, Nate's Mom, and his Brother and S-I-L, Jason and Kate, and their kids.  Brynlee and Gracen LOVED having such a big group of fun cousins to go with! Here are some pictures of our fun!

These two were best buds!  It doesn't always happen that way, but it sure was cute to see them holding hands and getting along so well!

Swinging!

Gracen had to ride on the shark!

Duck racing!

Sliding!

More sliding!

Love her hair in this one!  She was scared of the big black slide.  Last year she went on it and didn't have any problems, this time she kept saying it was too fast, faster than last year.  I didn't see her come out the first time, so I kept telling her to go back and do it again.  Once she finally did it again, she really was flying out of that thing, it was funny!  Her pants must have been ultra slick this year!

Pouting!

Love this boy!  He was mad about wanting to race Kensy in the big black tube slide, which isn't possible.  She came out first and he stomped off into the weeds to pout!

Drumming!

Riding!

Digging and Burying!

Smiling!

Riding to pick out the perfect pumpkin!

Have I convinced you that this place is awesome yet?!  Well, we loved it!

Spent nearly 4 hours, doing all of this plus, watched some pig races, went through a corn maze, and jumped in a big pumpkin bounce house.  

We had a great time going to visit our family in Utah!  Nate didn't have much luck finding an elk, but I think he enjoyed a nice break to go hunting!  

Have I mentioned that we love being so close to home??  

An 8-9 hour drive seems like nothing compared to what it used to be!

Rock Ledge Ranch

October 2, 2010-  We ventured out to the Rock Ledge Ranch, a living history museum/farm,  where they were having a harvest festival.  It was free to get into the place, then you had to buy tickets for the little games they had.  We just wandered around and checked out the old buildings and farm animals.  We bought some candy at the little store they had, and watched a few demonstrations. 

Gracen tried out some stilts they had.

We walked up to the Rock Ledge House and one of the volunteers was making apple cider.  We stopped to see how the contraption above worked, and she made Nate come up and try turning the handle to squeeze the juice out of the apples.  It was a lot harder than it looked.  Not sure that Nate enjoyed being picked on to try it out, but the kids and I liked watching him up there!

Gracen heard a little group of people getting ready to play some music and wanted to go listen.  He could have stayed and listened for a while.

Closer shot.

My Girl in front of the rock ledge house. 

Some of the old farm equipment that Gracen HAD to sit on!

Back in September...

 

Nate's parents came out for a visit.  They brought a few of our things we had been storing at their house and a chain saw to help cut down 3 Russian olive trees in our backyard.  We didn't really like the trees, and I am allergic to them, so we decided they would have to go.  That was quite a chore, and we appreciated their help with it!  While they were here, there was a balloon festival going on downtown so we went to the evening event which was the Balloon Glo.  It was kinda cool seeing all the balloons lit up as the sun was just finishing going down.  We stayed and wandered around a bit to look at the different balloons.  Most were just different patterns and colors, but there was an energizer bunny and a pig.

September 14th, Nate celebrated the big 3-0!  I had to tease him a bit about being old, I still have 3 more years until I hit 30.  He worked that day, and we celebrated when he came home with dinner and the most awesome black forest cherry cake I have EVER made!  Ever.  I've tried this cake at least 3 times and failed quite miserably once.  It is his favorite though, so I keep at it.  When I got it out he asked me if I bought it at the store.  We kept things pretty low key on this one, but I think it was a good birthday for him!

A little lop sided, yes, but it tasted pretty good!

Aside from that, September wasn't too eventful for us.  Just normal day to day stuff.  Here are some pictures from a day Gracen and I made cookies.  He loves to cook with me, and after I cleaned everything up, this is where I found him patiently waiting for the cookies to bake...

He watched them bake the entire time!

The final result was quite good!



One last picture for September...

Gracen "fishing" from our deck.  This boy loves our backyard, he hunts and fishes back there.  

One last thing I just remembered...Nate took his last set of boards, and won't have to take any more tests for about 3 1/2 years!!  I can't tell you how exciting that was!  He had some trouble with the test, something with the pictures not showing up.  A problem NBOME was having at all testing sites.  It wasn't good, and he was worried about the test a little.  He was offered a retake, but didn't want to do it without knowing whether he passed or not.  I don't blame him, who would want to sit through another 8 hour test??  We got his score back a few weeks ago and he did better on this one than any other test he's taken.  How that works I don't know, but we were pretty excited about it!!

Still Alive!

Yes, we are still alive and well here in Colorado.  Just over a week ago, Nate asked me about the blog...HE asked me!  That must really mean I've gotten behind on it if he even mentions the fact that I haven't been posting lately.  Didn't really know he even looked at it!

We have been busy!  Nate's job is going well.  He is on my least favorite rotation right now, surgical pathology, which he usually puts in about 12 hour days.  He's been on call a couple of times and has to work 12 days straight when he is on call.  I can't complain too much though, because while he does have to work the weekend, if he gets paged once he's home he can usually take care of it over the phone and doesn't have to go back to the hospital.   Other than work, he has a pretty big list of things to do in the yard and house that keep him busy on the weekends.  The kids and I don't see him much during the week, so we are grateful for the weekend when it comes!

Brynlee is loving school!  She is such a smart girl and I love how quickly she is learning things.  A few weeks ago, we had parent teacher conferences and her teacher had nothing but good things to say about her!  She is really good at math, does great in reading and was above average with most of her work.  She is on the honor roll for her school, she said there were only 8 in her class that received a certificate, so we celebrated with ice cream sundaes to let her know we are proud of her for working so hard.  Brynlee has also been taking gymnastics at her school for the last few weeks.  I've gone in and watched a couple of times and it just seems like complete chaos to me (picture about 50 or so little girls running around a small gym with only about 4-5 adults helping), but she enjoys it.  

Gracen is still a little monkey.  It's been a lot of fun having one on one time with him.  He loves to help me with chores, I think his favorite is laundry.  He loves to run and play in our back yard, usually refuses to wear a jacket or coat, even if it's only in the 30's out there.  He is getting more and more independent and I love it!  He loves it when Brynlee gets home from school and usually gets a little too excited and out of control.  He is excited for for our baby to be here.  He usually spends time talking to, kissing and rubbing baby, aka my belly each day.  He is so sweet when he talks to it and says, "Hi, baby."  The other day, I had a weird sharp pain in my side and had to sit down for a few minutes to get it to go away.  He was a little concerned and wanted to know what was wrong, so I explained it to him after which he told the baby, "Baby, you hurt mommy, now you need to tell her your sorry!"  I kinda laughed at him, then a few seconds later he said, "Baby says sorry mommy."  He is going to be a great big brother!

We finally closed on our house (Hooray!!) at the end of October.  So I have been busy organizing and painting.  Painting is on my list as one of my least favorite things to do right now, but I love the results we have so far!  Before and after pictures *might* make it on here when I finish.  I am just about 32 weeks pregnant, things are going pretty well with the pregnancy most days.  I *might* post a picture of my huge belly one of these days, we'll see!  Mostly I am excited to get past these next 8 weeks and meet this sweet little baby.  He or she is my most active.  I've been woken up once or twice in the middle of the night with it's wild movements.  It's hard to believe we are so close to having another one!  Hmmm, what else have I been doing??  I have been working in Brynlee's class 2 times a month and I love it!  It is so fun to see Brynlee at school and also to get to know the kids in her class.  Gracen and I go to toddler time at the library most weeks, he calls it "his class day."  Otherwise just the normal day to day things here.


There you have it!  Another long post with no pictures!  I am hoping to back track over the next few days and get a few posts (with pictures!) up about some of the fun things we've done over the past 2 months.  Mostly for my benefit, but feel free to read them!