Friday, January 31, 2014

The Year of the Horse

Happy Chinese New Year!
 
 
It's the year of the horse, and though none of us in the family are horses, a bunch of us are supposed to have a good year:
 
 Sheep (JR) will have an especially good year with promotions at work possibly in their near future.
 
Tigers (Me) pondering any potential real estate deals should proceed with them, as it will be a good year for property for hungry tigers.
 
 Dogs (Jason) will have a good year in relationships.
 
No mention of my two little Pigs, but I'm sure they'll do just fine.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Repeat

I am at home.
With 3 kids.
 
They cancelled school again today...
because it's 35 degrees and raining.
 
Ya know what happens when it's 35 degrees and raining?
Yep, it rains.
 
Apparently Houston thinks 35 degrees means "we need to shut down the city".
 
They might need a science tutorial.
 Here you go Houston, I got this, I did teach science for two years after all:
Water freezes at 32 degrees.
 
My kids haven't gone to a full week of school since before Christmas break.
It's been over a month.
I'm dying.
 

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Icepocalypse '14

I know you're all dying to see the pictures of the Houston Icepocalypse.
 
The Icepocalypse that crippled the city and cancelled school for the whole day.
 
 
The icicles off the house.
 
 
The icicle on the fence.


I even had icicles on my back-up camera!


And if you aren't totally blown away with what I've already showed you, just check out our back yard.
 
 
So to compare, here's the one day we got enough snow for Durango to cancel school:
 
So yeah. Very similar.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Houston, He has Arrived.

When we told JR we were moving he was most upset to leave his theater group.
I promised him I would find him somewhere to perform in Houston.
 
 
We arrived in Houston on a Friday and that Monday he went to his first audition with Wildfish Theater for Seussical the Musical.
 
 
Good luck ice cream before try-outs

The cast list came in last night, and JR was cast as one of the lead roles.
 
He's Horton the Elephant. 
 
(As in Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches the Egg...both stories are combined in the musical.)

He's excited, and we are so happy for him. 
Lot of singing in this one, and he'll have 2 shows the first weekend in May.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

I'm Here

I promise I'm still here and haven't given up on blogging.
 
I just have nothing to say.
 
I tried really hard to think of something to post and all I could come up with is that we've been eating lots of Mexican food....which is always a good thing.
 
 
And it's nice enough to sit outside in shorts and t-shirts.
We're enjoying it now. Soon it will be too hot to even step outside much less eat outside.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Fashion Fabulous Friday


Belts and tucked in shirts certainly add some time to the morning routine.
Having pajama day almost every other week sure was a lot easier than this!
 
 
Short hair and uniforms.
This is like baptism by fire coming from Colorado's state dress code of 
"a Broncos T-shirt is formal wear".

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The End of a Hair-a

Yes, I went with a bad pun for my title.
I couldn't help it, it was go with the bad pun or cry.
 
I didn't really think their new school was serious about the rule "boys must have hair cut above the ears", but when 3 people including the principal, the admissions lady, and a coach told me I'd have to cut their hair before they could start I realized they were pretty serious.
 
I've always blamed Jason for Kyle and Reed's long hair.
I teased "Jason wants the boys' hair to look just like his did in 1976".
But seeing it cut off today was not easy.
 
I won't be able to tell them "shake your long flowing locks" anymore.
 
Who are these kids?!
 

Monday, January 13, 2014

We Are Texans Again

Not that we weren't Texans before, so I guess I should say we are Texans living in Texas again.
 
Not much to report. 
Trying to get set up in our rent house, trying to get the kids in school.
 
 
I either forgot how many people live in Houston or they've had a huge influx of residents.  I almost started crying in HEB (the grocery store) yesterday.  It was so crowded it was like the day before Thanksgiving, but apparently that's how it is all the time.
 
 
We've been wearing shorts since we got here, I also forgot that you sweat during the winter months.
I remembered when I broke into a flop sweat doing the laundry.
 
 
I'm also predicting Kyle will break his arm before we move out of this house. 
(He loves climbing the trees and has already fallen out and landed on his head.)

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

These People Are 6 Today


You can't really tell 5 year olds turning 6 that now's not a good time for their birthday, and can we postpone it a week or two?
 
 
You also can't fake them out by telling them January 7th hasn't come yet, and that it's in a few weeks.
 
 
I tried plan #3 and said, "Why don't you invite a friend and I'll take y'all out to lunch?"
After they named half their class as friends they just had to take to lunch, I went ahead and just threw them a party.
 
 
It was the same exact party they had last year (at our rec center in the gymnastics area), but I had no time or energy for originality this year.
Poor Jason didn't even get to come since he was home with the packers/movers. 
 
 
Here are their party guests.

 
 
And here they are happy to be the center of attention. 
(I get points for getting them each their own cake, right?)
 
Kyle had a fishing cake (I call it the "Fishing with Freddie" cake).


And Reed picked out bowling  (The bowling with Granny cake).
 
 
 
And they got to do this

And this

so everybody was happy.

Monday, January 6, 2014

So You Might Have Heard

When it comes to Jason's job and the rumors and the maybes of moving here, there, and beyond, I've always been told, "don't tell anybody anything until the moving truck shows up."
 
 
Well, there's definitely a moving truck outside my door and my house looks like this...so I'm guessing it's pretty safe to say we are going back to Houston.

Though we are happy to be near our families again in Houston, we have loved every second of living in Denver.  We have loved our house (it's our favorite of all our houses), our neighborhood, the kids' school, our church, we even love the weather.
And of course, we have really enjoyed our friends here.
 
We have all had a wonderful time.
Thank you, Denver (specifically Broomfield) for being so good to us!
 
I will always look back on our time on Gunnison Way with happiness. 
Such good, good memories here.
 
(Oh and if you were curious, Jason is still working for the same company, but he's now the VP of sales for North America which is a job they want based out of Houston.)

Friday, January 3, 2014

Fashion Fabulous Friday- NYE


These two looked like this on NYE since they were too young to be in the Crested Butte kids' torchlight parade. (Kyle went into hysterics when he found out there was a parade he couldn't be in.)
The torchlight parade is very cool. The paraders ride the ski lift up at dusk and then ski down with torches when it gets dark.  (Don't worry the kids' torches were really glow sticks.)
 
 
 As a parade participant, JR looked like this.  (It looked way better in real life.)

Thursday, January 2, 2014

First Class Travel

We went back to Crested Butte to celebrate the New Year.
 
The kids were slightly excited when we told them. 
Reed left me this drawing to let me know we needed to get in the car and go.
(Although that's JR's handwriting.)

It was easy to get Scott's parent's house this summer, but this winter was a different story.
You can't get to their house by car, you have to snowmobile in.
 
 
If you were wondering how we got all our stuff to their house on a snowmobile here's the picture.  You have to load everything in a sled and drag it up.
 
You can see all the cars in the background because that's as far as you can go on the road. From there it's foot, skis, snowshoes, or snowmobile.


Look at me being all wild west winter woman!


We could have just snowmobiled up to the house and called it a vacation.
The kids pretty much thought it was the most awesome thing ever.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2013 Blogdown Cliptacular

Here it is.
Our annual year in review.
(Disclaimer: As always, not all clips are necessarily the best or most exciting thing of that month.)
 
 
January
We thought it'd be a great idea to go skiing when it was -15.
 
 
 
February
Kyle, Reed, and I saw Phineas and Ferb Live while the bigger guys went hunting.

 
 
 
 
March
I went to a cooking class. (It didn't help.)
 
 
 
April
Kyle has the best celebration of a scored goal. Ever.
 
 
 
May
JR turned 10. I think he's still trying to celebrate.
 
 
 
June
JR might have had a birthday, but I certainly did not.
 
 
 
July
The new obsession.
 
 
 
August
My new favorite picture of all time was taken.
 
 

September
You might have heard. We had a flood.
 
 
 
October
JR won his first elected position.
 
 
 
November
We learned more about Jason than we wanted too.
 
 
 
December
JR kicked out Kyle's tooth and I had elves, a fat man, reindeer, and a fairy in and out of my house in one night!