One Mean Mommy

Evelyn woke up from a nap the other day and this is what I found.  I thought it was funny enough that I needed to take a video, a picture with the camera, and a picture with my phone so I could text it to Jesse at work.  Needless to say she didn't appreciate it so much, but it makes for a great memory!

Calming down because mommy has come to save her...

Realizing I wasn't taking her out, just poking fun!

I wasn't too mean for too long, here's later in the day...all smiles again!

Christmas Card Adventures

Never a dull moment for us...not even when taking a Christmas card picture.  Jesse wanted to get some with mountains in the background so all of you would be compelled to come see them and us in person.  So we set out that morning for Ouray (pronounced you-ray), which is about 40 minutes south of us.  People around here refer to it as the "Swiss Alps of America" I think it even says that on the sign when you drive into town and when you see them you'll understand why.

We didn't want just any picture with mountains and snow in the background, it had to be the perfect spot so we scouted out the area first.  You would think that would be a quick drive around, but no not for us.  It actually involved driving all the way to Silverton, CO and back, which is 45 minutes past Ouray. We didn't find anything that screamed amazing picture and Evelyn was beyond done, so we headed back to Ouray and about 5 minutes outside of town found a great lookout point.  It was just about the only spot that didn't say "no stopping or standing; avalanche area". 

  

 

This is what it looked over into; it's a waterfall that comes from under the road.  The part Jesse and Evie are standing on juts out into the canyon and has a grated floor so you can see through. It was pretty amazing!

Now the best part.  We don't own a tripod and since all of us needed to be in the picture I came up with a perfect solution.  At the time we still had tons of boxes kicking around the house so we built a tower out of them and placed the camera on top...unfortunately none of those pictures turned out to well and fortunately some really nice people came while we were there and offered to take the picture for us.  It worked out really well and it was nice of them to help! 

This is what we ended up with...

And here is the final product!

Montrose Light Parade

Our first Holiday adventure was the Christmas Lights Parade.  There were lots of neat floats, but here are the ones that made us really want to take a picture.

This is the Horsefly Brewing Company and if you look closely you can see eight keg reindeer and Santa Claus.  Rudolf even had a red nose.

We thought this train was neat because it's was built around a truck as you can see from the back.  The best part was that the person driving couldn't see a thing; there was a man with a walkie talkie walking along side telling him when to brake and turn...you gotta love a small town!

 Here is one of the local propane companies.  They have a hot air balloon basket and burner which shot fire about 20 feet into the air.  It made for a cool show.

This was one of the last floats in the parade and made us laugh like crazy.  The EMT service in town had a Santa CPR dummy on a gurney falling out the back of their ambulance.  Over all we had a fun night.  The best part by far was coming home and getting to spend the next 2 days with my brother Robert and his wife Whitney on their way home from his Air Force Tech training!

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we went to Denver. We stayed with our good friends and surrogate family, the Hirads. I worked with Elizabeth when I taught 2nd grade. She helped me survive all of my years there, but was a total lifesaver my first year! We love to spend time with them and are grateful that Denver is only 4 1/2 hours away, especially when we are feeling a little home sick and missing our families.

This is a picture of from my visit last February (we didn't get a new one this time so this works). This is Tony, Elizabeth, and one of their daughters, April. We stayed at their house and had Thanksgiving dinner with the whole Hirad family at Tony's brother Alex's house. Here are a few of our picture memories. 

 

Sharron Hirad (on the right) cooked the entire meal and it was amazing!  All of the traditional Thanksgiving foods with some great Iranian dishes sprinkled throughout. Yum...my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Hats, Hats and More Hats!

Evelyn has had a thing for hats lately and since her hat box is at perfect reaching height she rarely goes without. She puts them all on herself and we've snapped some pretty cute pictures so I thought I'd share.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Temptations to Visit Us: Part Two

Home Sweet Home

We have been living here in Montrose since November 11th and are really starting to feel at home. I figured we could take a few snap shots and let you live vicariously through them...at least until you can come and see it all for yourselves.

This is our home...picture it now with 10 inches of snow. I have been told by many people around town that it's not normal and that we usually only get about 20-25 inches of snow per winter, which is nice and if true we've already gotten half of it. No pictures of the inside; if you want to see it, give us a call and we'll tell you how to get here!

We are pretty well settled and only have a few pictures left to put up. I did finally get Evie's name up on the wall. It turned out really well and goes great with the rest of her bedroom, which you can also see when you come to visit.

 This is the view to the south of us...the mountains here are beautiful and breath taking. Jesse LOVES them and takes pictures of them all the time. You should be able to click on this to make it bigger; if not just look a the mountains at the skyline.

 

Here is an example of the sunset we see each night.  We are at the edge of our subdivision so there are no houses to block our view to the west.

Hopefully you haven't minded my snarky comments about coming to visit us. We love our new community, but miss our friends and family a lot. Our spare room is waiting...

Temptations to Visit Us: Part One

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

About a week after moving here and in an attempt to runaway from our boxes for the day, we visited the Black Canyon.  It is about 15 minutes from our house and has amazing views.  During the summer there is lots to do: raft or kayak the river, hiking, camping, rock climbing, fishing, horse back rides, ranger guided tours and wildlife watching.  The day we went we stopped at about 12 scenic over looks, hiked, and went to the visitors center.  We learned a lot about this canyon, but the thing that sticks out most is that it takes the Gunnison River 100 years to deepen the canyon by just one inch.  That is amazing!  So here are some picture memories of our little adventure.

  Evelyn LOVED crawling and walking in the dirt and thankfully only tasted it a few times.  She had a blast exploring!

 

Love this picture of Evie

 This is the Painted Wall and a cool fact about it is that from the river to the rim it is 2250 feet tall and is 1000 feet taller than the Empire State Building.  It is the tallest cliff in Colorado and it's called the Painted Wall because the veining through the rocks makes it look like paint brush strokes.

The country around here is amazingly beautiful and makes me think quite often about our Heavenly Father and this world he has made for us to enjoy.  I feel blessed to live here where I am reminded on a daily basis of the love he has for us.

Ghosts and Ghouls and Mummies...Oh My!

Jesse and I don't usually do much on Halloween other than turn off our lights and pretend like we're not home, but this year since Evie was a little older we figured we'd switch things up a little.  Our ward Trunk or Treat was on the Friday before Halloween, so we dressed Evie up and took her to get candy that we could pass out on Monday, Halloween night.  Evelyn made a fabulous Mummy and was a charmer in her outfit.  It was a little chilly so we waited and showed up a little while after it started.  Unfortunately in our attempt to not have her in the cold too long, we missed all of the trunks.  When we got to the church lots of cars were pulling out of the parking lot.  Evie did get some tootsie rolls and a cookie almost as big as her face though so it wasn't a bust!

 Here we are getting ready and practicing our menacing faces.

 

The final product...I figure the red eyes in the top picture complete her outfit!  2 yards of cheese cloth, while it seems like a lot, barely wrapped a baby this size and her mummy bucket too.

On the way home after enjoying her cookie.  As you can see there are remnants everywhere!

Now for something totally different...

 These were the treats I made for our 13-14 Sunday school class.  They are cake balls and were easy and fun to make.  Gotta LOVE Better Homes and Garden for cute little tips like this!

On the Road Again...

For those of you who haven't already heard Jesse got a new job (after a long wait and many, many applications and interviews) and we are on the road again.  He interviewed last Saturday the 22nd at Montrose Memorial Hospital in Montrose, CO and by Monday the 24th he was offered a position.  We accepted on Wednesday the 26th and have already started packing and setting up our move.  His first day is November 28th so we don't have too much time to dilly-dally.  Our tentitive plans right now are to move on Veteran's Day so we have a little time to get settled and situated before Jesse has to start. 
 

Montrose is nestled in the San Juan Mountains which are part of the Rocky Mountain Range and from what I hear it's beautiful! Jesse says "it's the Swiss Alps of the United States", which explains a lot about why he wants to live there.  It is in section B1 of this map if you squint you can see it!  We will be about 1 hour south of Grand Junction and 4 1/2 hours from Denver.  I'm glad we finally found a position, but a little sad to leave our family here in Idaho.  We will have an extra room in our home there so make your reservations early! Wish us luck!