1st Father's Day

This past weekend we went camping with my parents. It has become an annual tradition over Father's Day with them!

Greg & I had tried for over 3wks to get out and camp, but had been so busy, so this was the first weekend out for us, and I did surprisingly well. Wasn't too sure how I'd handle the air mattress and the ground, but that wasn't what bothered me! It was so hot where we were at, that the heat and the bending over constantly is what eventually got to me. We're hoping to make a few more trips up the mountains before Baby Davis arrives!

Below are a few pics of the Dad's enjoying their weekend:

Burgers, Brats & Bellies

Nothing like good clean 'nothing' for a 3 day weekend! Below are pics from the past weekend out at Greg's family farm. The wheat was extremely lush and green--quite the change from the past 4yrs I've been in the family.

Here we are with Greg's middle brother, sister-in-law and our niece:

Below are just some of the wind towers that have been installed on the Davis properties:

My sister-in-law and I going belly to belly. Obviously I lose in this category! (not that I'm disappointed!):

Greg with Uncle Harry & Uncle Dave:

My niece didn't want to think about food when she could be playing outside (without her shoes, of course...)

And this just proves that boys never grow up and they're never too old to play with toys...

Post Christmas

Well, we have almost finished Christmas! We meet with Greg's family on New Year's, and that will pretty much be all.

We started our Christmas with having some friends over for a small & intimate Christmas dinner, which really was a wonderful time. We fixed Prime Rib, Vegetable Au Te, fresh rolls, and a Cafe Chardoney. Our friends brought wonderful desserts and Tom & Jerry's to finish the evening off -- it was a fun and relaxing time!! Both of us have lived here in the Springs for almost 9yrs and have really made some great friends, which have become a form of family for us. What a great season to gather and enjoy those you love! We then headed out the next morning for my family's house and spent 3dys playing in the snow, opening presents, going to movies, & venturing to Estes for a winter drive/hike through the Park.

My highlight for Christmas this year: Greg developed several wedding photos and had them all matted, framed, & in collage form!!! They are simply wonderful!! I've got three collages to hang and have a few single frames as well to place around the house. We'd had a few pics done initially when our wedding was, but in the midst of moving, etc. pics couldn't be an option because of space. He then topped it off with new candles for my candelabras & new bubble bath from my most favorite store ever--Bath & Body Works. Ah yes...he did quite well. :) I on the other hand, had a travel bag personalized & "accessorized" for his reffing, as his old one was quite worn and not quite large enough. Now he has extra space and new ref shirts, etc. to go with it! He's already using it.

I know I've been a picture posting fool lately, but here's some photos of our holidays! Enjoy(especially you Grandma!!)....

The Christmas Dinner Table

Greg opening his new reffing bag

This was my 'early' Christmas present: Greg built a mantel for one of our fireplaces!! I love it handsome. :)

This was the first picture I opened. He had it framed with the matte all our friends signed at the wedding.

Here we are 'matching' for Christmas morning

My little sister with Milo

The first collage I opened!!

Our '2006 Christmas in Estes' photo

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone!

I'm Looking At A White Christmas

All and all we had a great party. All of our friends, and their friends, and their friends friends.... oh yes. It was awesome. AND...my eggnog punch and pumpkin cheesecake was a HIT! (you're welcome Micah. lol. Anytime I can bring "glory" back to the family as far as dessert cooking goes, I'm happy to do it!) It was great to have friends together and to just enjoy the Christmas music, board games, food, and funny stories. The menu consisted of:

• Steak & Chicken Fajitas
• Salads & Queso with Chips
• Egg Nog Punch
• Cheescakes and other sweet delights
• Several appetizers and other snacks of taste

Today we finally got outside to start digging away from being locked down for the past 48hrs literally. The entire city went on shut down and even the malls, banks, and PO's closed. Now, I realize that living out here in the Forest that we would get more weather than we did when in Rockrimmon, but seriously -- this was our 3rd major storm since October, and every time we've gotten almost tripple what people get in the city--especially those on the West side and downtown. Not so much the North because they seem to be close enough to the Palmer Divide (we sit on it). Needless to say, after seeing the pics, you will understand why we will still be having a White Christmas come Sunday & Monday!

Now the drumroll...here are pics from the party and some from the past two days of weather:

Greg & Rick are just warming up!

Our friends, Jim & Carol. Don't they look so in love??!

Friends mingling

Greg prepping more meat for the fajitas

More friends: Jason & Jess. We had a blast guys!

Egg Nog Punch w/Spiced Captain Morgan!

Our friends Bob & Angela from choir

My Brother & Sister-in-law, as well as our friend, Nancy

Yet another grand friend from choir, James

And now pics from the storm the past 2 days:

Above pics were from Wednesday. Pic 1 is how much snow we had up against the house by afternoon. Pic 2 is Greg shoveling off a pathway for Milo to get up to the grass. Pic 3 is Milo stuck in the snow on back porch, as we gave up keeping up with the snowfall and the 55mph winds that lasted for over 48hrs.

Here is Greg out on the driveway today (Thursday) attempting to plow through.

I was standing in the middle of the road with snow up to the top of my thighs--this car didn't make it up the street yesterday!!

One of our neighbors works for CAT and called one of his colleagues to come out and front load our street!! It took him a few hours to clear the 4ft of snow on the road.

Hrs later we're still out shoveling and all the neighbors were just helping everyone else get dug out at this point. :)

I was sitting in a 8ft drift taking a break from shoveling

More plowing of our street outside our house.

Really this is the most snow I have seen in a very long time. Though, we've decided that the way the weather gets out here that we will be getting a snow blower, because all 3 storms thus far have produced at least a foot and lots of shoveling time!

Tomorrow we will be back to finishing Christmas shopping and getting our house ready for our Christmas Eve dinner with friends and Christmas Day with family.

Thanksgiving Briefing

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving with Greg's family at the farm. I really liked the way his mother helped do the table settings -- below is a picture. My mother-in-law did pilgrim hats with chocolate cookies, peanut butter cups, and frosting to add the needed touches -- I really thought it was the neatest thing!

I rode out to the farm with my two sister-in-laws late on Wednesday night, since all the boys had gone out early. Really was such a great trip and made the 3hr drive much faster! I also had a first since I'd moved to the Springs -- it took me 2hrs to get from downtown to end of Castle Rock! Now, for those of you who don't live here, normally that is about a 30-40 minute drive. Oh yea, and then I still had most of Denver to drive before the sister's house. Thank goodness I had my toll transponder and drove in the commuter lane the entire time. I felt like I was in New York again with the traffic that I was putting up with!! Grid lock is not the norm for Colorado. But all in all, we arrived at the Farm around 123oam --a few starbucks and dinner at Red Robin later!

This Thanksgiving has been rather hard for me. My Grandpa passed away last weekend. He had been sick from a cold and had alzheimer's for about 5yrs. But still, it was hard for me to just realize that Grandpa is gone -- he is up in Heaven laughing and telling his jokes and his mind is whole. I loved him so very much. I'd never really seen him with the alzheimer's because he was put in a nursing home when I was still working Overseas and when I quit doing that it took until last year to be able to go visit him. My cousin and I drove up last week on my only day in town to see my Grandpa in the hospital and I'm so very glad that I got to hold his hand and talk to him one last time. I am just grieving much more than I thought I would -- yesterday we walked into Greg's Grandparents house and it had that same "farm" smell that my Grandpa's did and I lost it; I was so overcome by emotion all of a sudden. You can read a small article and see his picture here. His service will be on Tuesday and I will be doing music with my cousin. Am ready to do the service and to say 'good bye'.

Today we left the farm and drove a few hours to see my family -- I will probably stay here most of the week. Am excited for the rest and time with my family. Though tomorrow is going to be cold, I think we will brave it to make the CSU/TCU game!