When I first moved to Denver, I worked for JD Edwards and one of my close colleagues was Joan. We kept in touch through the years, and we even stayed in her mothers house when we went to the Olympics in Salt Lake.
She recently retired from Oracle, and I took the boys with me to her party. They were well behaved and loved eating their sliders (mini hamburgers).
I am sure we will see Joan again, maybe this year we may get to ski with her in Salt Lake
The reports of my death has been greatly exaggerated I have been shrinking in size since December 25th, when Granddad and the boys created me, and it is true that today I was almost gone, but I did a small snow dance and now I am growing again.
Tyler had to get up early for his school test today, so he was pretty hungry once it finished and we just happened to be passing the doughnut shop, so we dropped into to take advantage of our free doughnuts as well as let Tyler pick out and eat his own.
One of the few things that Alan and I both enjoy is a night out to try out new restaurants. And we were lucky enough our house guest decided to babysit the boys to let us have a date night!! :)
We went to Vendome Bistro in Denver. It had a promising menu but in the end it was nothing mind blowing. Good french onion soup and rather nice sauce to my rabbit.
It was the official National Pie Day today. Luckily this didn't involve buying some super pricey card and instead was focused on pies.
I think you were supposed to make a dessert, but given I had already bought beef I made a traditional English beef pie which was enjoyed by all (well mainly me)
Cody has made it through 100 days of school, so he had to make something that used a 100 somethings. We made a 100 from a 100 Legos and the class thought it was excellent. Cody thought his 100 cheerios on a string was better.
We haven't done much this winter as we've been quite busy but we finally got our act together when Alan planned a snowshoeing trip at Bear Lake. It was an early start and the drive took about a little over an hour. When we got there, i was thinking, this is a little bit of a drive for an hour's hike!!!!
It took some time to get everybody dressed and strapped up and we were finally ready! We took the hike to Nymph Lake which was nicely packed down. In fact, the snow was so well packed that we slowly figured that the snow shoe was more of a work out add-on more than anything!!! So, by the time we got to the lake(i was actually surprised we made it!), only Alan still had his snow shoe on!
Nymph Lake was completely frozen. The kids were really intrigued by it and were initially careful with their steps. But it didn't take them long to forget about safety and were soon running and kicking ice all over the frozen water and having a blast!! Tyler was so excited that he explored the entire lake by walking from one side to another!
We stayed for a bit and had a small snack before making our way down because lunch time was beckoning. Even though our trip up took about 45 mins as there were lots of complaining, taking off snow shoes, taking pictures, taking little side trips, our trip trip down took about 13 mins!
After a little detour to go see Bear Lake(also frozen), we left and headed for The Other Side restaurant in Estes Park lunch. After a good workout, lunch sure tasted extra yummy!
Tyler getting his snow shoe on
Cody's turn
We're finally ready!
We only made about 20 yards when Cody wanted his shoes off!
Tyler looking all cool with his gadgets
Look at this huge snow ball!!!
On the way up
Group pic
Come on then!
Tyler testing out the frozen lake
It's so cool!
Let me kick this and see how far it goes!!!
Dancing on ice!!!
Tyler running and sliding
Family pic time
Just the boys!
Cool family picture!!!
Here are some videos:
This is at the beginning of the hike
This is where Tyler takes a slight detour
The kids having fun on the frozen lake
p.s. it was a good test for my new Mukluks!! Did i tell you i love my new MukLuks Boots??
I was doing some cleaning up of the kids toys and since i always complain about how many cars they have, i decided to count how many there is so i can quantify it!
It was about 100 cars! Seriously, who needs 100 cars?
So, i decided to purge a few, but call me crazy, i found it quite hard to pick out the ones i actually would throw! ha!! So, i finally decided, i'll throw out the ones that are plastic and NOT Hot Wheels or Matchbox!! I managed to get rid of about 20 cars! :) I think they still have enough variety to form a parking lot!!
A nice little parking lot
I kept most that were of different type of vehicles
For our first project for our sewing class, we were taught how to sew aprons! The teacher had prepared some patterns and we learnt how to cut the fabric, press and sew them!
There were quite a few steps to do it all but we all managed to churn it all out and we were all quite pleased with our creation. It was funny that we were all very critical of our own sewing but the teacher was fast to dismiss them as it was our sewing project!!
My apron was somehow very wide while Uyen's was very long! I guess next time we should try it out for size a little!!! Tangkwa's sexy apron was sexy indeed especially after she had sewn the frilly ribbon on the next strap!!(teacher's pet!!)
And for the cheap fabric challenge, Tangkwa and Uyen had won but i think it's because i had told them how much my material was. I thought i has getting a bargain at $6 per yard, but they had slipped in at $5.44!! Also, i had actually gotten the material specified in our book!!
The Contos are always coming up with new activities for the kids to do. One of them is this Parent Night Out event at a gym and Tyler had been to one before and really enjoyed it. He also stayed over with them and thoroughly enjoyed it! He even learned to eat waffles and scrambled eggs!!
Anyways, this weekend there was another one of these nights and we thought we'd return the favor and have Mateo over. The boys really enjoyed themselves and 3 of them played together really well. Cody is so funny when he tries to keep up with the two older boys.
The next morning, we took them swimming before going to badminton.
