Megan Turns 19

Jippers.....when did this girl grow up?  I can't believe that she is 19 already. And this is the first birthday she is celebrating away from home. This momma is having a hard time with that but I better get used to it because it will not be the last. I doubt I will ever have her home again on her birthday...boo. 

The night before her birthday we Skyped while she opened her presents that I sent her....it was fun. She just makes me laugh with all her expressions and the things she gets excited about. It is just so wonderful in so many ways.  I just love this girl.  Thank goodness for Skype.

 new Marvels of Shield shirt

 sour gummy worms of course

 homemade cookies....does she like them????

She went to Grandma's on Sunday for dinner and a little celebration. Tyler of course was there and she brought one of her girlfriends from her floor too. Jessie, Mary and Lars also showed up and I hear they all played an exciting game of Nuts.  And of course, had cake and ice cream afterwards.  Thanks Mom for being there for her on her actual birthday.

The day after her birthday, we Skyped again as she had one more present that was coming in the mail and it was late.  She didn't ask for this gift, but I knew she would love it so I wanted to see her reaction.  She was so excited to get this.......

Her favorite...one of her favorite.....actors.  I remember getting a Shaun Cassidy poster when I was young and just about died seeing it on my wall every single day.  I was in heaven and I think Megan is too. 

Happy Birthday to my Meggy Moo

(Yes I can still call you that)

Space....the Final Frontier

We love space in our house.....and we have for a long time. We love to get the scope out whenever we can to look into the universe.  We even have apps on our phones that tells us where everything is at any minute of the day or night.  But Feb 20th, was a great sight in the skies.  Venus was visible with Mars above it (look really close) and they were sitting next to the moon. That doesn't happen very often.

I was working a BB game at the high school and Karl texts me to go look outside right now towards the west.  So cool. And he is such a good man and took a picture of it too. Not a bad shot my dear.

Toby

Kayla absolutely loves this bunny. All the other kids have pretty much decided that he isn't as fun anymore, but Kayla still loves to hold him and take him out of the cage to let him hop around.  For Christmas, we gave him his own blanket so he has something to lay on and burrow into. 

He is good to just hang out with her. But he will definitely let you know when he is ready to return to his cage.  But until that time, he is content to just chill. We really do love our Toby.

Valentine's Day 2015

Our Valentine's Day was lots of fun this year.....It fell on a Saturday so that made it easy to do something really fun (no school and no work). The night before, we had our tradition of heart pizza and chocolate fondue.  The girls each had a friend over for the evening to hang out with.

Also.....for Karl this whole week I did something different for him each day.  I first gave a kiss to him on the mirror every day of the week and on Saturday I added the pictures of us to those "kisses".

Friday, I heart attacked his car while he was at work.

 Kayla helped me...

All the other days I left little things for him in his car to find before he left the garage.  I hope he liked all the little reminders that I love him throughout the week. He left me this one morning which I thought was really sweet.

Saturday was a surprise for my family.  I knew where I wanted to go and they didn't.  It was fun cuz it was driving Kayla crazy wanting to know where. I told them how to dress and to bring a jacket and we headed out that Saturday morning.  I just gave Karl directions where to go.  It was fun.  We ended up in Cripple Creek for their annual Ice Festival. 

It was the first weekend of the event and there were lots of people there.  There was some fun sculptures to see. 

Some had tarps over them......

Some had people working on them.....

And some were already done like the slide. No one wanted to go down it though....no fun.  There were food vendors and merchandise vendors down one side of the street and the ice down the other.  It really was fun to see them with their chain saws out there cutting the ice blocks. 

Our favorite was this one....at least it was mine. We stayed a long time watching them. 

Another favorite was the DJ booth. There was music blaring the whole time we were there....the kind that made you want to just dance.

We walked up the street all the way to the top and then back down again. By the time we made it back to this one, the sun had heated up and a couple of spikes had fallen off. It was really sad to see it break.  All that hard work.

The ice maze was now partially closed because it was melting so fast, but we were able to get some pictures inside it.

Karl's feet were hurting so he went to sit down while me and the girls went up the hill a couple of blocks to see the jail. Along the way, we ran into the fire truck and the girls got hats.

Then on to the jail where they were giving free tours for today. It was interesting to see how little the jail actually was, but how many people they could put in it.  Each cell had 6 hammocks...3 on top, 3 on the bottom. Upstairs was solitary confinement.

 

And the women and children were housed in a different area in the jail, away from those rough men. We thought it was interesting that they had access to a bathtub where the men did not.

We had a great time on our little surprise trip to the mountains today.  It was fun to be together as a family and what great weather we had.

And we made it back in time to drop off the girls and still make it to our reservation at Outback for our Valentine's dinner.  Then it was home to watch a movie together since there were not really any good ones at the theater.

Karl got me flowers and some chocolate and he gave the girls flowers too. I got the girls each a favorite treat and Karl got a big huge bag of pistachios.  I had sent a package to Tyler and Megan full of snacks, treats, and things too.

 Had to laugh...we attached the balloon to Duke's collar and he walked around all Saturday night and some of Sunday with it on and never tried to get it off.  It was funny to see him playing catch with his ball and a balloon trailing behind him.

It was a great Valentine's Day.......XOXOXO.......SWAK!