Coming 'round the mountain (lots o pictures)

A couple of weeks ago a sweet couple handed us an envelope at church. I didn't look in it until later that day and when I did I was amazed at what I found. Not only had they very sweetly encouraged us but they blessed us with 2 train tickets to Silverton and back. Our executive pastor and his wife got the same envelope so we chatted about what we could do. Mark and Steve came up with the plan and we decided to go together. Today was the day! 

You've got to understand that although I've lived in Durango almost 20 years, I've actually never ridden the train. We did the polar express a few years ago but that only goes to the end of town. This was a first for me. And we did it up and back. I was a bit nervous about an 8 hour train ride on my still somewhat sore bum but it was actually fabulous and we had a blast. 

Mark had the window seat on the way up and he took 230 pictures. I thought you might think that was an exaggerated number so I had him send me proof. 

He sent it with the picture of his head out the window and a ton of arms and cameras hanging out behind him. Hilarious :) you'll notice its number 50 of 230....

He did take a few amazing pictures though. So I'll highlight those for you.

This fartsy artsy one 

These sweet ones of the train

This awesome one of a guy named Klondike Mike who is a prospector and lives in a teepee that you can see from the train. He prospects his claims up there and rides the train to and from his teepee.

This beautiful one of Silverton skyline :)

And this neat one of the train. 

On the ride up the conductor came back shouting that there was a moose running next to the train up ahead. We stuck our heads out the windows (totally against the rules) and we saw it. It was too far away to get a good picture but both Mark and I were able to see it running ahead. Pretty cool.

We had lunch at Handlebars (of course we did) 

Then walked around a bit which felt nice. We got some fudge and hopped back on the train. I got the window seat on the way down and wasn't as camera happy as Mark was - much to his annoyance. He kept wanting me to snap a picture. I was pretty sure that if 230 pictures didn't capture the beauty of the mountains then nothing would.

So I tried a few different angles. 

Up

Down

Front while the engine was blowing steam 

Front by the river

Front with Mark hanging off (we had stopped for water)

Back. Notice it's a lot like front but with a caboose instead of an engine. Lori pointed that out for me ;)

Side with the pretty red flower thingys

And one of the beautiful colors (that were barely starting to turn sadly- we had hoped to see more) 

Here are Steve and Lori. We've now been to Phoenix, Branson, Orlando and Silverton together. World travelers we are! 

And us. So cute yes? 

Wonderful day. So blessed!

Legoland, Colorado.

We didn't have a lot of BIG things going on around here this weekend. We did lots of things but not many that were picture worthy (as you will see). 

I suppose the highlight (for the kids for sure!) was Kale had his friend, Michael, over for their first sleepover. Kale met Michael at church about 8 months ago and once they discovered that they both loved Legos they've been begging for time together. 

We finally were able to coordinate schedules and it happened. Michael had a football game on Saturday morning then he came home with us and spent the night. 

This is pretty much all they did. 

Does this surprise me? No. They played Legos, jumped a little on the trampoline, played some more Legos, then played a little Lego Star Wars video game, then played Legos. I'm pretty sure they both were in heaven. 

Michael even said he loved our family when we fed him banana pancakes for dinner...yeah us! 

Beautiful Knitted Hearts

I was reflecting the other day, on the beautiful women God has brought into my life. Specifically women who I do not have daily contact with anymore. Women whose lives have intertwined with mine for a season (from being a student in our youth group to college friends to ladies I've had the privilege of doing ministry with), and during that time God did something beautiful in our lives and in our relationship, so that even if we don't talk for days, weeks or even months, we can be together with each other like we've only been a part for a moment.

I think in general those are rare. But I can look back and think of several women who I've spent time with this year, either in person, on the phone or on Skype, and feel like no time has passed. We can laugh, talk, and give testimony to God's work in our lives like we used to when we saw each other frequently. I think that's something only God can do.

 A gift from the King Who made our hearts, loves our friendships, and blesses us with His presence when we get together. 

Fun on Friday 35 (I accidentally posted 33 twice...)

FF hasn't been happening as regularly thanks to birthday breaks and stuff. We had fun on a Friday but it was labeled birthday fun :)

This week, instead of a FF outing, we invited our awesome firefighting captain friend, Mike Krupa, to come teach a fire safety class to our kids and their homeschooling buddies. I realized that kids in public school usually will get a visit from the fire department and teach them fire safety. I wasn't sure about how to teach that without scaring my kids. Kale tends to be very sensitive to things like that. He doesn't want to go away to college ever. I would expect that from an 8 year old...hopefully he'll feel differently when he's 18.

Krupa came to the house and did an amazing job teaching 9 kids ages 18 months to 8 1/2 years. Not an easy task! The kids already know and love him which made it so much fun. He was sweet, funny, patient and just wonderful. I was so blessed he came.

See the concern on Kale's face?Our youngest student, SomerAt the end of his presentation he went out to the car (the kids were bummed he didn't drive a big fire truck!) and got his gear. That. Was. Awesome.
They had a blast trying it on.
The girls weren't as interested in dressing up so no pictures of them. At one point during Krupa's presentation he was asking the kids about the different ways they could get out of their rooms. He asked them what they should do if the door was blocked. They said go out the window. At this point Kale leaned over and quietly said to me that Mark and I needed to get each of the kids their own sledge hammers....yeah right. He's a thinker that one! I told him that I was confident he could open the window without a sledgehammer :)

Christmas 1,2,3,4

We had four Christmas' this year. You may be thinking it's a lot and you'd be right. I'm gonna attempt to recap them all in this one little bitty post. Or a not so little bitty. We'll see how I do.

Christmas Eve we went to church and had our {now} traditional Sonic Christmas dinner. Apparently there are no pictures from that but I did get the kids in their Christmas jammies.Christmas #1
Christmas morning the kids raced from their rooms to see what Santa had brought them and see what they had each gotten each other. We had them get a gift for each other and it was wonderful! Their favorite gift of Christmas morning was what they had gotten each other. So cool. And just for documentations sake Kale got Kate a Sleeping beauty Barbie, Kate got Jack a talking Finn McMissle car from Cars2 and Jack got Kale Transformer Legos. All big hits!

Kate going through her Santa stuff. There's a fire going on the TV in the background. Oh yes. We were "that" family. Fake fires and all!Most of the unwrapping footage is blurry. They totally understand the fast opening thing...Why yes Santa does, in fact, put underwear in their stockings!After church we headed to our friends, the Beach's, for Christmas #2

These wonderful folks have shared this day with us for the past 3 years and we are blessed with friends who are family to be with on Christmas day. It makes being away from family so much easier. They blessed our kids with a few gifts (which the kids tore into) and then an awesome meal!And some Wii Just Dance! Only pics of the kids who participated. There was a no facebook or blog rule for photos taken of the adults!After this we went home and packed up the car to leave Monday morning for Golden. We plugged the kids in with DVD players we got them for Christmas {an awesome Black Friday find!} and headed over the rivers and mountains and through the woods and plains to grandma's house.Christmas #3 was spent with my family in Golden. No pictures of the kids opening, or tearing madly like crazy people, their presents but I got pictures of my family as we sat down to calmly open our gifts to each other after the kids went down for bed.

My brother, Nate, and his fiance, Sarah, and their dog, Sadie. They're getting married next August.Carson (or almost Uncle Carson as Kale calls him), my sis, Kelly's boyfriend, Kelly and my mom.My sis, Meghan and Micah, her hubby.My NYC sis, Katie, and Bob the Great! (my grandpa)My dad! He holding the scrapbook of our previous donations. They told us one year that they didn't need gifts so we took them seriously and decided to donate to charities in their name with the money we would've spent on gifts. This year we did the charity Read to Me. Sarah's sister founded it and they give books to new moms to help teach their kids to read. Giving money to charities has seriously been so much fun!And last but not least, us. Terrible self portrait!We did lots of stuff with my family but I'm only talking Christmas here so we're skipping on ahead to Christmas #4 with the Palmers. This happened on New Years Eve.

I have to share the video of Kale getting his set of Star Wars Legos from Uncle Chad and Aunt Alisha. He's been waiting a long time for a big Lego set and as you can see, he was quite thrilled. You only need to watch the first 10 seconds to get the idea :)


Here are all the men working on Kale's Lego projectJack barely breathed in between each gift. He LOVED tearing off the paper! And he was so thrilled for his brother and sister when they opened their gifts. He was a cutie! Here he is showing off his doctor kit. Dressed like this I just want to say "the human head weighs 8 pounds"Here's a pic of Jack opening all his stocking presents from the PalmersAnd sweet little girly with her new doll she got from Chad and Alisha. She was pretty excited to have a doll with glasses!And finally here's a collage of the kids with their presents. So fun!Not bad for four Christmas'!

Cavities and Parties

The busy-ness continues this week. We had some dear friends over for dinner on Monday night (the only night the husband had off that coordinated with our crazy schedule). Again...*sigh* no pictures....

Tuesday, though, I did take some pictures! Yay me!

We started off with a trip to the dentist. It was an appointment for me but the dentist looked at Kate and Jack's teeth. Jack has a small cavity (of course he does...he's the 3rd child...he had sweets way before the older two did...he sneaks candy...he's Jack...) and the dentist graciously filled it right there on the spot so Jack didn't have time to think about it. And Jack did amazing!

The kid has had his teeth checked out briefly by the hygienist but he's never even had them cleaned. He didn't move a muscle while they quickly filled it (without numbing him). What a relief!

Turns out I didn't need fillings...whew!

After Walmart, lunch and brief naps, we headed back out to our friend Kim's. She was hosting a Christmas party for our homeschool group. It was a chance for our kids to have a "class" party as well as share a project in front of everyone. The kids all presented what Christmas means to them.

Here's Kim giving instructions to the class.The kids could draw, build, sing, or write about it and then they had to present it. All of the kids did really neat stuff and it was so sweet to see them explain things to each other.

Kale drew this
This was Kate's
Aaaaaannnndd this is Jack's....Christmas tree I think? I didn't have him do a picture the day before like I did with the other kids because I didn't think he would be interested. I was wrong. During Kale's presentation Jack ran and got a piece of paper, a crayon, drew this and as soon as Kale was done he hopped up in front of everyone (totally out of turn of course) to do his presentation unprompted. He started off by saying "My name's Jack and this is Christmas". He pointed to his friends and the words toys and presents came out. It was so funny!
Here's the video (hopefully) of their presentations

--I made this video twice and the second one was worse so I opted to keep this one. The videos for Kale and Jack don't show up but what they said does. The video for Kate works but you can't hear her (she was too quiet when she spoke). You can get the gist though...hopefully. --

After this they got on their winter gear and went outsideWe had to drag them back inside so we could do some fun projects that my friend Tiffany brought for us. During the projects, the dads came over after work. Such a relief to have Mark's help!

We made candle holders
fabric wreathes
and beaded ornaments (no pics of that).

We had dinner together and then sang Christmas carols while Kim played pianoWe are so blessed by our friends!