Fun Times with the Smiths

 We had so much fun with Candace and the girls over Thanksgiving week. We spent a lot of time with Carsten and Grant as well. Here is Carsten playing with Miss Laney. The boys were very patient with the girls even when Laney hit them a time or two and had to get "time outs".

 Laney found this little gun of the boys that shoots plastic disks and she named it the "smacker". We have no idea how she came up with the name but she was infatuated with it.

 Here are Carsten and Charlie with their awesome drawings. Do you notice they are very similar? Charlie is wearing her Hello Kitty winter hat we got for her.

 We had beautiful warm weather and we didn't mention the fact that we didn't have snow to Charlie. She was hoping for snow but we kept her busy and we don't think she missed it. She looks so cute in her glasses and here she is getting "the business" from her mom.

Dennis loves giving the grand kids treats. Here they are waiting for their ice cream cones with chocolate syrup in the middle!! 

Cousins

Here are 4 of our 7 grandchildren enjoying a snack and playing in our backyard the Saturday after Thanksgiving. From left to right are Grant (4), Carsten (6), Charla (4) and Alaina (2). They had so much fun together!

Gooseberry Mesa

Dennis met his friends Todd and Shawn in Las Vegas Friday evening at the American Motorcycle Hall of Fame Induction ceremony. Today the three of them went mountain biking at the Gooseberry Mesa trail out of Hurricane Utah. Dennis has wanted to ride this trail for years. He said  it was awesome and the scenery doesn't look too bad either.

Favorite Quilts

Here are some of the quilts I have made over the past few years.

 

 This one was for baby Katya. This was the first quilt I made after mom helped me buy my Pfaff sewing machine in Boulder CO when we were both visiting Rena and family. The quilt was not quite finished in this picture; it still needed to be quilted and the binding put on.

I made two of these "truck" quilts for Carsten and Grant when they got their bunk beds.

 This was a small wall hanging made from a kit with civil war fabrics.

This was Grant's baby quilt. It was only about the 3rd quilt I had ever made.

This one was for baby Charla. Since we didn't know if she would be a girl or a boy I made it gender neutral.

Fun Times with Family

We had a great time with Colleen and Skip and we SO appreciate that they made the trip. It was really wonderful to have family in the house and I am thinking that their good vibes will carry us through the long winter. We met them last Saturday night in Denver at Wanda and Clarence McDavid’s house. We also had the pleasure of meeting Colleen and Skips friend’s Vicky and Charles that they first met in Omaha.  We all went out to dinner at “Ted’s”, as in Ted Turner, where we chose various bison selections from the menu and celebrated Colleen’s birthday.

On Sunday we had Rena, Nathan, Carsten, Grant and Robin and Ross over for bison burgers (what, bison again?) and celebrated Colleen’s birthday again!! 

Dennis had a small job on Monday and then he and Skip went mountain biking on a trail in Lyon’s behind Rena and Nathan’s house. Colleen cooked us a great dinner of roast chicken and veggies.

On Tuesday Dennis had two jobs so Skip drove me to work so he and Colleen could do some sight-seeing in Boulder, have lunch on Pearl Street and then visited Dennis at his second job.

On Wednesday, Dennis and Skip went on a mountain biking adventure at Buffalo Creek, a cool area about  2 hours south/west of Longmont. I took the afternoon off from work and Colleen and I did a short hike in Lyons and then visited a quilt shop in town before the boys got out of school. Rena and Nathan made us a fantasic dinner and then the ladies took the boys trick-or-treating while the guys handed out candy. The kid’s neighborhood was a blast and there were tons of kids out and lots of spooky houses to visit. Nathan bought 170 full size candy bars and handed them ALL out!!! 

Today was Colleen and Skips last day with us and Dennis drove them to Robin and Ross’s in the afternoon. They will hang out with them for a bit and then Robin will get them to the airport.

It will be very quiet in the house tonight. Thank you again for the great visit Colleen and Skip!!!

 

 

Colleen and Skip are in town!!

Dennis and Skip enjoying cigar and beer time in the Colorado sun!!