9 year anniversary

Lyle and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on the 7th. In some ways I can't believe we have been married 9 years! And in other ways it's "I can't believe it's only been 9 years!" because I can't remember or imagine life without us together:) We didn't celebrate much besides going out to dinner with the kids this year because we were pretty busy getting settled into our summer schedules after our CO trip. However; Ella and Luke did make it special for us.....they treated us to a nice dinner at the restaurant "Marriage" conveniently located in Ella's room!! Ella worked very hard and secretively getting the restaurant set up. Besides Luke, she wouldn't let anyone peak...well except for daddy who had to come in and light the candles!!

When we walked in Ella was standing behind the laundry hamper which she used as her greeting table. She asked how many we had and then walked us to our table....obviously we eat out too much!

This was our table setting minus the food. I only got shots after the chef brought us our dinner. Our chef was Luke! He didn't care too much about what was going on but just did whatever Ella told him to do!

The restaurant was decorated very nice....see the fancy brick sculpture and romantic candles. Ella said she was trying to make it "peaceful and inviting"

Here is our menu. The top word is the name of the restaurant "Marriage".  When we asked our waitress what the name of the place was she said, "Are you not from around here? Because if you were you would have heard of this place! It is great! It is called Marriage!" Haha!
On the menu we had: drink- milk, water, coke, beer
                                   appetizers- chips
                                   food- hamburgers, sandwiches, hotdogs, ????, grilled chicken
We are working on spelling!! I give her an A for effort though!

Thanks so much for our sweet dinner kids! You made our anniversary very very special! We love you! And I love you too, Lyle!

Luke's first original artwork

I've posted many of Ella's creative art pieces in the past but none of Luke's because well, he just really hasn't done anything. I started to worry a little about it because Ella was drawing all sorts of things when she was three. But then Luke came to me one day with his drawings....pumpkins! I made a huge deal out of them because I was so relieved to see him starting to draw and be a little creative. He was so proud that now we have pumpkins ALL over the house! These two particular pumpkins were presents to Lyle on Father's Day:)

Best Daddy!

Lyle had a rough Father's Day this year. He was at the hospital ALL weekend. On Sunday at about 7 pm Ella really started to worry that we wouldn't be able to make it special for him at all but at last around 8 he came home and the kids got to surprise him!
We love you, Daddy! You are a GREAT father! (Notice the #1 dad medal Ella made for him:)

Lake City Day 3, 4, 5,6

I started out planning to do a blog post for each day of the trip but I have really ran out of time so I'm grouping the lasts days all together in one big post...hang in there with me!
Here it goes....
We took a trip up to Deer Lakes way at the top of the mountain. It was a beautiful view!
While up there we had a nice picnic and the kids got a huge kick out of a chipmunk that was stealing cheezits. It was really funny!

While Ella was busy catching another fish, Luke and I hiked to a pretty waterfall where we stuck our feet in the icy cold water and took funny pictures!

We then went back home where we walked to the river next to the cabin and threw about 800 rocks in...Luke's absolute favorite thing to do in all of CO!!

We then helped Mims build a washer pit (a really fun game) outside. We spent lots of time here over the next couple of days!

We had lots of yummy dinners out on the patio.

We rented this crazy thing one day and drove on some of the mountain trails. We called it Big Red. While we were going up the trails you could hear Ella say, "Come on, Big Red, you can make it!" and while we were going down really fast you could hear Luke say, "Full speed ahead!" Luke absolutely loved that thing! ( And yes, we know how stupid we looked in those helmets!)
One of the trails took us up to Carson City, an old ghost town. We had to reassure the kids several times that there weren't actually ghosts there!

The trails took us up so high that the kids got to see some of the left over CO snow!

But Ella said her favorite part was getting to see Aunt Amber and Uncle Logan who were nice enough to make the trip over to come spend a couple days with us! They played and wrestled with both of them all weekend. They are the best!

Time for family pictures:

The night before we left, the kids got some good snuggle time with Mims who read them a book all about the birds they had seen that day. They wrote the date they saw them in a bird book so we could always remember seeing them and then when we come again we can search for others we didn't see.

But all good things must some to an end:( We had a long trip back made even longer by a three hour plane delay. But the kids made the best of it!! There were so many other things we did and funny stories I wish I had the energy to share...like the horse that 'LOVED' Ella but I think I have share enough. We had a great trip and made lots of good memories! We can't wait until next year!

Lake City Day 2

The next day we got up early to go fishing. The cabin is next to the beautiful Lake San Cristobal which is full of rainbow trout. Ella loved fishing!

She caught our first trout of the trip! She was very pleased with herself!

Luke loved fishing too at first but...

was much happier throwing rocks in the river downstream with me!

We brought Ella's prize home to Mims who showed the kids how to filet a fish!

Lake City 2012 Day 1

Since we are delayed in the Denver airport on our way home I thought I would get caught up on blogging about our trip.
We got to the cabin around 1:30 and the kids quickly started exploring.
The first time Ella came she was 18 months and Mims and Pa had gotten this cute little rocking chair for her. Ella was a little big for it now so Luke took it over.

Then we went for a walk around the cabin exploring and picking up pine cones for a new game mims and pa had for the kids....pine cone baseball!

Although it is a little of a hike down from the cabin in the woods to get to the waterfall, I wanted to take them there because it is so beautiful and unique. They thought it was so cool!

When we got back from our walk we played pine cone baseball with pa. It was a huge hit and we played it several times throughout the week. Luke thought it was especially funny when he hit pa!

Headed to Lake City, CO

Memorial Day we headed to the airport to catch a plane to CO where Mims and Pa have a cabin. This trip has been planned for several months now and the anticipation has been killing the kids (and Lyle and I:). Our plane didn't leave until 8 am but at 4:15 am I found Ella in her room completely dressed with her carry-on on her back!! I wish I would have recorded some if the conversations between Ella and Luke that morning. They were SO excited!! Ella woke Luke up and he ran to his room and started putting on the clothes we had lined out the day before. He couldn't wait to get on the plane!