Estes Park, CO

For Christmas one of the pastors at Wellspring (I think he would be considered the pastoral care pastor - or some such title) gave each of the elders a groupon for a 2 night stay at a lodge in Estes Park.  Chris' aunt and uncle were kind enough to keep Elianna for the 3 days 2 night stint which basically means Elianna got to play all day with 2 people as her captive audience.  Aunt Bobbi says she got her nails done and her hair done multiple times during the day.  Elianna loves it!

After dropping Elianna off, Chris and I headed to dinner at Smokin' Daves BBQ in Lyons CO which is right outside of Estes Park.  It was then super nice to get to our lodge and do absolutely nothing!  It's nice to do every once in a while!  After sleeping in (unheard of!) Wednesday morning, we ate breakfast and headed out to Rocky Mountain National Park to snowshoe (Nathan and Kim, you would be so proud of us!).  We actually snowshoed for the next 3 hours covering over 3 miles most of which we decided to blaze our own trails and some of which was up the side of the mountain.  It was a great great time but my legs were super duper tired!  A definite activity we will do again.

White rabbit

Snow packed trail

Huge tracks

Chris out on the ice in the middle of the lake

There is also a video of him sliding on the lake.  I have to figure out how to get it on here - Elianna loves to watch it!

Part of our groupon deal was a gift certificate for $ off at a local restaurant - the Wapiti.  I have no idea how exactly it is said, but it's fun to try to say it.  We had some phenomenal loaded potatoes!  There is one place in NJ that we always enjoy getting loaded fries or potatoes from.  These loaded potatoes sure did give them a run for their money!  Delicious!  After dinner we met up with the teaching pastor from our church who brought his family up on the same groupon present.  I'm not sure how Chris was able to swim and horse around with the kids after our excursion that morning.  I opted to sit out and visit.

Thursday morning we decided we would get up early and climb Old Man Mountain.  For those of you who don't know (and for those of you who do know - stop laughing!), I am scared to death of heights!  Extremely scared to death!  Keep that in mind.  Our alarm went off at 5:30 am and we hiked over to the mountain.  Let me back up to the night before - Chris talked to one of the guys at the front desk of the lodge who told him how to get to Old Man Mountain and then he said sunrise was around 6am.  We thought that was weird because the sun doesn't come up for us until around 7am but what did we know?  We don't live there.  Fast forward back to our early morning.  Of course, when we got to the mountain, it was still dark.  We waited a bit but after feeling a bit creepy just sitting there in the dark (the starting place was in a neighborhood), we decided to climb up a bit.  And then a little bit more.  And then...  Until I couldn't handle it anymore.  The dark threw me off and freaked me out.  Being the chicken great wife that I am, I opted to sit on a rock and wait for Chris to climb to the top.  Didn't want him to miss out on the fun.  So off he went.  And off I went to sit on a rock.

Did I mention that I did not take my phone with me?  As I sat on a rock, the wind began to pick up and since I dressed to climb and not to sit on a rock, I grew colder and colder.  (Did the formalness of that sentence help you feel sorry for me?)  And I had no phone to keep track of the time.  Did I mention it got colder and colder?  Thankfully, there was a little place to sit between two rocks to help ward off some of the wind.  However those two rocks did nothing to help my wandering mind of my Chris falling and not getting up and my having no idea.  My only positive thought was that he had water and banana chips in his backpack.  After beginning to hyperventilate, I decided to climb down (which in my crazy mind was way scarier than going up) and run the 0.7 miles back to our lodge.  Go to the breakfast room and ask the guy to let me into my room so that I could get my cell phone and call Chris to make sure he wasn't stuck somewhere with only water and banana chips to live on.

While the guy in the breakfast room searched everywhere for his keys (I found them on the counter), Chris climbed down from the mountain only to find that I was gone.  But I didn't know he was looking for me because I was going to my room to get my phone to call him.  Whew!  This story is getting long.... Anyway, by the time I got to my phone, Chris had called twice.  When I called him back he was now running the 0.7 miles back to our lodge.  Needless to say it was one of those reunion things where the couple are running towards each other and giving each other hugs while telling the other one how much they love them and that they are glad they didn't have to eat banana chips alone somewhere on the mountain.

Apparently what I thought was the top of the mountain was no where near the top.  It was probably a fourth of the way to the top of the mountain.  Yes that means I probably made it less than an eighth up the mountain.

Picture from EnjoyEstesPark.com

Just wanted to show you how big the mountain is that he climbed

The view Chris had from the top of the mountain

That was pretty much how we ended our Estes Park trip.  We packed up, checked out, ate lunch, picked up Elianna, hung out with Aunt Bobbi and Uncle Royce and then headed home.  Whew!  It was a great time and are so thankful to Jim and Angela for their awesome gift!

Deer outside of our lodge - there ended up being about 8-10

Cultivating a Heart for Motherhood

If you are like me, I get totally run down chasing after 1 munchkin.  Many of you have way more (or just a few more) than I do which right now I cannot even begin to imagine.  Cultivating a Heart for Motherhood is an eBook written by Joy Forney from Grace Full Mama.  She not only has this awesome book but blogs about parenting, marriage (new series to come in February) and her life as a missionary in Indonesia with 5 (yes you read that correctly) kiddos.  Click on the links below to be taken to 1) Grace Full Mama blog and 2) the link for Cultivating a Heart for Motherhood.

1) Grace Full Mama

2) Cultivating a Heart for Motherhood

I hope you will be blessed as much as I have been!

Picture taken from GraceFullMama.com

"Moo-are-ve-lous!"

I haven't done very well in 2013 have I?  Ah well...  We are busy - very busy - here.  In addition to finishing the Advent Calendar posts (old old news), there is Toree's birthday to post, Elianna's karate accomplishments and very soon (as in next week) Chris and I's getaway to Estes Park.  

Usually I update the blog on Sunday afternoons but this past Sunday ended up being a bit crazy!  The leadership team for Wellspring met here at our house bright and early at 6am for breakfast.  So up early was I to get breakfast ready.  I made  {Click below to see recipes}

Overnight oatmeal
-Ended up pretty good if you ate it right away.  As with any oatmeal, the longer it sat there the mushier it got.

Bacon Egg and Cheese Ring
-Mine looked nothing like the beautiful picture but tasted good nonetheless.

While the men talked things over, Elianna and I hung out in my room doing what we like to do best.  Elianna played games on my phone and I slept.  It was the perfect arrangement.

Then it was off to church in a rush due to cleanup after everyone left.  Originally we were going to have friends over for lunch but it got canceled last minute due to one family dealing with a dying nephew and the other family dealing with a cranky 4 year old.  After church the same 2 families decided to get together for dinner that evening instead.  That then turned into 2 other families being added to the dinner and as we stood there talking it turned into 4 families going to lunch (neither of the original 2 but 2 that we would be seeing for dinner later that evening) because it was late and we were hungry.  All in all from the time we left for church that morning, we were only home 1 hour until 10pm that night.  Thankfully that 1 hour was the time slot that Caleb was getting baptized (or bapapatized as Elianna says it).  Thank you also to Sissy in reminding me so I wouldn't miss it!

So there you see why I didn't have a chance to update.  Marvelous excuses!  (For some reason Clarabell Cow's voice was saying "Moo-are-ve-lous!" while I typed that.  It's the brain of a mom with a 3 year old)  Truth be told, it probably won't get updated next Sunday either.  -Sigh which turns into huge yawn and zzz....

5 Years

We have been so busy since the New Year that sometimes I get so overwhelmed thinking of all the things that need done.  I missed putting up a post about my brother's birthday - Happy Birthday Eric!  I have conquered some of the Advent Calendar posts but still need to finish.  Yesterday Elianna had some sort of 24 hour flu bug which was no fun at all!  Needless to say, things have returned to "normal" after the holidays hype.

Today, however, I'm reminded of this day 5 years ago.  It is so hard to believe that this year we would be stressing about where to send Toree to kindergarten.  Facing having to do homework.  In kindergarten I liked my first boy, Randy, so the "boy thing" would be coming up.  Goodness!  It's funny that how even after 5 years, the details are so carefully etched into my mind.  Oh, sometimes I may not remember exactly how many pounds either of my girls were when they were born (thank goodness for previous posts I can go back and look at - please internet never permanently go down) but I can remember the little details of events on each of their birthdays.  

Today one specific memory sticks out in my mind for some reason.  After Toree died, some ladies from church brought over several dresses for me to pick for her to wear.  In the 6 weeks leading up to that moment, I had never once thought of picking out a dress for her to be buried in.  I was so glad someone else had.  But I wanted her to wear a hat.  Not just any hat but I wanted a white bonnet and in my minds eye I knew exactly how I wanted it to look.  Major problem.... it was the beginning of January.  No one was selling white bonnets.  My mom and I went to every store (it pretty much seemed like) but couldn't find a single white bonnet.  Finally we ended up at Babies R Us where the only white bonnets were ones sold with christening outfits for say $100.  All I need is the bonnet.  I remember walking the store twice - just in case I missed something.  After walking through, I stopped so disappointed and discouraged praying that God would help me.  At that moment, I happened to glance up and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something white.  There on top of those pillar things they have in Babies R Us, was a white bonnet exactly how I wanted it to look.  There was no price tag - nothing to indicate it was for sale.  I hadn't seen it before on my walk through.  It was like God had miraculously placed it there just for us.  I don't even remember how much the sales people ended up charging me for it but I remember thinking I didn't care.  God had granted a crazy desire of my heart.  

The irony of today is that while I'm sad in thinking about my little girl who I miss so much, I get to meet a new friend for coffee tonight.  Guess what her name is?  Yup, Torrey.  God must have knew I needed to sit down and talk to a Toree today.  God is good!

Happy New Year!

We spent ringing in the new year with our neighbors this year.  Not exactly what we had planned (sleeping in the new year) but nonetheless it was a great time!  Since we were next door, Elianna stayed up with us which is a first for her.  She was up before 8am (but I put her in our bed "so I could just check on the dogs real quick" hoping she would fall back asleep - which I'm thinking is a success!) so we will see how the day goes.  

This year our theme is 2013:  Passion will result in discipline.  In the past, new years resolutions have been made and never kept.  Why?  Why do we make these goals and yet never keep them?  I was determined to keep them this year and so I had talked about choosing discipline.  However, Chris diswayed me from that.  Instead he told me to look at it from this perspective.  If you don't have a passion about something, then you won't be disciplined enough to do it.  For example, if someone is passionate about playing basketball then their time will be spent on the basketball court playing.  If their not passionate about it then they won't go play.  Same with our goals, if we aren't passionate about loving our family, then we won't spend the time necessary with them.  Make sense?

So this year I want to be more passionate about:
~Loving God by consistent Bible study and prayer
~Loving my family by spending one on one time with Elianna and going on more dates with Chris
~Loving others by making set times to see friends who I don't normally get to see and being an encourager by sending out notes and cards
~Being healthy
~Keeping my house schedule

The last two are the two I am the least passionate about (have a bit but not alot) but praying that I gain a bit more of a passion for them this year.  And, of course, I'm passionate about finishing posts on our Advent Calendar.  Yikes!