Ski Days

I've mentioned it before, but kids Kindergarten through the 5th grade ski for free in CO.  Their first lesson is also free.  In the first lesson, they basically just learn how to get around with their skis on, learn to go and to stop.  The very very basics.  A little teeny tiny bit of turning but that's reserved mostly for the 2nd lesson which you have to pay about $200 for.  Yeah.... we opted to simply have her go with Chris with the hopes that she would know enough and with practice, she would be fine.  Chris says she would do well with another lesson, but we'll see.

Anyway, here is her first lesson of skiing.  She originally wanted to learn snowboarding but for some reason they won't teach anyone younger than 7 years old to snowboard.  Next year she'll be hitting the slopes as a snowboarder (hopefully).

Chicken Love

We have had our chickens for almost a whole year now!  So hard to believe!  We have 3 Red Star hens and 3 Black Star hens.  The red ones are nice to people but are mean to the black ones (except for the skinny little one who everyone picks on).  Now, the black ones on the other hand, aren't as friendly.  They enjoy pecking Harley, who is scared of all of them, and occasionally, us.  They have also been known to fly up on the outside table when we are eating and steal our food.  Before putting a taller fence up, they would constantly fly over the fence despite my clipping their wings even.  I've seen one of them rear up at a hawk when it swooped down to grab it for dinner.  Hawk 0 - Chicken 1

Big Mama

She's big, she's broody, she's got pretty coloring and she's got an attitude

Chickens are a bit temperamental when it comes to eggs.  The weather has to be just according to how they want it or some of them don't lay eggs.  However, ours have done very well this winter.  Even though it's been pretty cold out, we still get between 3-4 eggs a day.  

Right now they have full range of the backyard.  Pretty soon they will be in for an awakening.  Rude they may say but I say pooping on my back porch is rude!  Yup, I'm very very tired of having to literally tiptoe off the porch due to the small bombs left everywhere.  As soon as the ground softens up a bit (I'm thinking we are close if this beautiful weather keeps up!), a fence to keep them on the back part of the yard will be going up.  Supervised visits may happen but will be rare.

They love chicken scratch but are very snooty about "real" food.  They like some fruits and vegetables but leave others for Harley to gobble up.  They do love a good cucumber "piñata".  It's fun to watch!

Our chickens are also crazy in that they don't mind the snow.  They will plow right on through the snow.  Our neighbors who have chickens, have a pristine white yard with no chicken tracks to be seen.  Ours is covered in chicken and dog tracks - everywhere!  Crazy chickens!

If we have extra eggs, Elianna has been selling them and making some money to save up and use for whatever she would like.  Right now, she's saving up for vacation money!  Wahoo!!!  Of course, she has to help take care of them so for now her chicken chores are to gather the eggs and feed them scratch.  The coop is still to high for her to reach up and secure them good for the night or to clean out.  Those are my jobs.  I guess I get paid in fresh eggs for now.  

I'm super excited that hopefully this Spring, a very talented friend will come and paint a cute chicken mural on the coop.  I'm thinking a chicken holding a frying pan cooking an egg with another chicken walking around holding a parasol.  Won't that be so fun?!?  It will bring some entertainment to an otherwise boring chicken house.

You looking at me?!?

Sleepover!!!

When we moved to Colorado, there were 3 other little girls that Elianna formed a good friendship with.  Back in July, one of the little girls (along with her family, of course) moved to Africa as missionaries.  We hosted a tea party (post to come later) when Noelle left.  Fast forward to now.  One of the other little girls and her family are moving to Missouri.  Before she leaves, we wanted to host another party for the girls.  This time it was a sleepover.  Technically, Elianna's first official sleepover.

July Tea Party

To say Elianna was excited would be a huge understatement!  For weeks she has been planning and telling me what exactly they were going to do.  She had BIG plans laid out in her head.  To be truthful, I was a bit nervous that all these plans were not going to turn out the way she had envisioned them.  At one point in the night, they were going slightly awry but after some covert maneuvering, the plans were back on track (the other girls wanted to play downstairs while Elianna had envisioned staying in her room all night).  

Since it was a Friday night, we had pizza but since no other neighbors or friends came over it was just the girls (mainly).  After pizza they played downstairs where the meltdown began to occur.  I quickly talked to Elianna and we came up with a new game plan:  Play downstairs and clean up for a few more minutes and then it was time to come up for cupcakes.  Pretty much any 6 year old will clean up and come upstairs for a cupcake!  They changed into their jammies and ate their cupcakes.  Then it was on to nail time where I did each of their finger nails with an assortment of colors, sparkles and nail gems.  After they brushed their teeth, they all climbed onto the blow up mattress and watched the new Annie.  Then came the hard part.  Talking them into actually going to sleep.  They really did quite well and part of me was ok with the talking since it was a sleepover after all.  I think they fell asleep around 10:30pm or so.  We did have to make one quick call to Dani's mom as a reassurance but other than that, they were good.

Morning came all to quickly (7am) but they ended up playing in Elianna's room until about 8:30am.  I made blueberry muffins and fresh eggs that I made them go gather from the nesting boxes.  They got dressed, cleaned up their stuff and played until their moms came at 10am.  Angela said Natalie told her that she had an "amazing time."  Success!!

Winter Park

One of Chris' campers rents a house (along with another family) in Tabernash (right outside of Winter Park CO) for 2 months.  Last year and again this year, they invited us to use the house during the week since they only use it on the weekends.  A house in the mountains to go relax at?  Of course!! This year we had ample time to plan so we pick an off week from camp and went Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

View from the back of the house

The original plan was to relax on Tuesday, Chris and Elianna go skiing/snowboarding Wednesday while I did nothing at the house and then head back Thursday afternoon.  However, Elianna ended up getting sick Tuesday night so we decided to postpone going skiing until Thursday.  It worked out just fine although I felt the most sorry for Harley because he was either super cold walking around in the snow or cooped up in the car.  

So back to Tuesday.  We did a lot of nothing and it was wonderful but we did take a walk/hike through the snow around what we think might be a lake.  It's hard to tell when there is several feet of snow (no kidding) on the ground.  It was a looong walk but fun!  Elianna struggled at the end but really due to her not listening to us to put her wool socks on so her feet were super cold.  Yeah... the lessons you learn as a kid.  We didn't know she didn't have them on until we got home and went to warm up her feet.  Not happy parents.  Harley loved loved loved the snow and bounded around in it.  He was exhausted by the end!

Wednesday we drove around a bit to see what we could find and dropped by Safeway to buy some carpet cleaner.  Remember how I said Elianna was sick Tuesday night?  Instead of calling for me when she got sick, she simply put her head over the top bunk and threw up onto the floor and then went back to sleep.  Not fun!  We also hung out in the hot tub.  Funny thing:  for some reason (truth: lack of communication between Chris and I) we packed in a hurry and didn't pack any swimsuits.  Oops!  

Thursday we packed it up and headed to Keystone for Chris and Elianna to hit the slopes.  Kids, Kindergarten through the 5th grade, ski for free... and then they get ya with parents having to buy lift tickets because what parent sends their 1st grader off by themselves?  Chris doesn't really mind though.  Elianna took a free ski lesson a few weeks ago but since the next one wasn't free ($175), we thought maybe she knew enough to go with Chris and be ok.  I think we may have to bite the bullet (or find an odd job) and have her continue with lessons a little bit longer.  She's pretty good (better than me for sure!) but we want her to learn and learn right.

Hello Moon!

Goodbye Moon!