Last weekend, I had a fun opportunity to see my dad and stepmom, along with my niece and nephew, in Virginia. My dad and Joyce had driven out to spend some time with Joyce's daughter Tina and her family, and they watched the kids over the weekend while Tina and Mike were out of town. Unfortunately, since I was there over the weekend, I didn't get to see those two but I did get to have some fun with Tyler and Hayden. On Saturday when I arrived, my dad, Tyler, and I went right away to play some putt-putt.
Tyler's favorite hole (and mine too!) is one where you hit your ball into this stream at the tee, and then it goes down the stream and flows over a grate at the end and into the hole. Or you could go the boring route and just hit it down the turf, I guess. But we didn't do that!
Last time I visited, my camera battery died and I didn't get any photos of Hayden, so I made sure to have everything fully charged this time!
Like most toddlers, Hayden is very active! I got a lot of action shots.
You can see that Kaldi, their black lab, knows exactly where to hang out for maximum snacking opportunity.
I got to play some Wii with Tyler. I really think Mario baseball is one of the most fun games I've played on the Wii. I am starting to be convinced that we need to get one...
Lilly may not have figured out the hang-out-around-the-highchair bit yet, but she sure did love to give Hayden kisses. For the most part, Hayden just giggled.
I tried to get some nice shots of the kids with Mimi and Grandpa Don...
Okay, as usual, I am a couple of weeks behind in my blog postings. But we went to Jeff and Shauna's wedding last week in Colorado, and it was a great time! Everything was beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures at the actual event. I was filming, believe it or not! I filmed (I want to say "I videotaped" but there was no actual tape... so I'm not sure what terminology I should use!) the ceremony and parts of the reception. That was a lot of fun and it is fun to get to use our video camera.
I did, however, get some shots earlier on the big day. Chris must have done something nice for Jeff because he got the awesome job of picking up a keg at New Belgium for their reception. He brought the crew with him, and we all got to enjoy a few samples before the guys moved along to help get ready for the evening.
As for the rest of the day, I'll follow the lead of Hans and post the photos from the photo booth - which was an awesome wedding idea. I think we may be stealing that one.
I have to admit it - I have wedding fever. I literally lay awake when I'm on call at work, thinking about wedding stuff. It keeps me up! Argh! But I am having so much fun. Many of the things I'm doing are DIY, but this far in advance, it is hard to tell if I'm biting off more than I can chew. I love the things we've completed so far, and I want to believe I'm on schedule for getting everything done. But I guess we'll see!
I want lots of the things we're planning to be a surprise to people, so I don't want to talk details or post photos. I just had to say how much I appreciate Chris for putting up with my insanity! When I told him today about the wonderful plan I have for lighting the reception site, I thought he was going to nix it immediately. (I almost wanted to be talked out of it...) But he just asked a lot of questions and talked about how he thought we could do the logistics better. What a guy! I am definitely marrying the perfect man.
Okay, this is the last post about our week in Colorado. The last few days were a blur... we got to spend lots of time with friends and family, getting brunch, getting pedicures (me), and working on wedding crafts. I don't have too many photos, unfortunately.
We did manage to go to a couple of our favorite breweries. We visited Odell's, which neither Chris nor I had ever been to.
We also made the obligatory New Belgium stop! Awesome! And their tasting room has such great lighting - always a plus.
The day before we left, we hit Rock Bottom again with Jasmine and Leah.
We had an amazing week and as always, it was much too short.
We just got back from another trip to CO, this one much shorter. We were out this weekend for Jeff and Shauna's wedding, which was wonderful and I'll blog about it soon. But this is still about the week we spent out there in April. I have to hurry up! I'm going to forget everything!
On the day after the bachelor party, Sunday, Chris and I drove up with my mom to meet up with my family for 2 nights in a condo in Vail. We relaxed and played games a bit with the fam. We started to teach Chris bridge but we didn't really have a cohesive teaching strategy and I don't know how much he got out of it. We'll work on that! We also spent quite a bit of time in the hot tub.
We came up with a great joke, along with Laura. We would... oh, I better put this video clip in before I tell you about it. (My first video clip inserted into the blog! I hope it works!)
HA HA! The camera is waterproof!! We had a great time getting every single person with that trick, because we were having breakfast and everyone trickled over to the hot tub individually. This is actually just a reenactment, I know you wouldn't believe it because of our stellar acting skills.
Chip was our first victim.
Aunt Lisa didn't really react because I didn't get upset - I kind of just watched her and waited for her to react. We hadn't honed our trick yet.
Will didn't react either, he recognized the camera as waterproof right away. Party pooper!
Jasmine was the most upset, because when we did it for her, I yelled at Chris for bumping me. She was mad at me for yelling at him. Good thing she doesn't see what a nag I am around the house!
We took a walk into town and walked around a little bit on Monday.
It was chilly so we warmed up by the fire.
Later on, Laura and Will worked on some domino action.
Chris tried to relax and read but I had to pester him a little bit.
Jasmine, Laura, and I did a portrait session. My sister is so beautiful.
So is my cousin!
We also did some portraits with poses we copied from the ads in my wedding magazine. Chris was sitting in the spot we wanted to use for a sitting pose on the couch, so he went first for this one. We were supposed to have a flower in our hand, but we couldn't find any props. I was going to photoshop something in, but I'm not really up for that right now. Use your imagination! :)
I'm so glad Aunt Lisa arrived in time to get some photos of her.
We took a couple more pics when we took another quick walk before leaving on Tuesday.
Then I got a haircut in Fort Collins, we had dinner at the Rio with a bunch of amigos. No photos of that, unfortunately.
