Shop, Shop, Shop & Dinner Out

Day 3!!

After 2 days of hiking, we decided to take it a little easy on Monday, Day 3 of our CO trip! We were all tired from the hikes, and the weather took a turn for the worse (40s & windy). The boys went out for wings and then to a movie (The Watchmen, so none of the girls really wanted to go see it). The girls decided to hit the outlet mall instead!! :) And we had a blast!

Mostly we were all excited for the Carter's outlet, where Laney made out like a bandit, since everyone was buying for her! She should definitely be set on spring clothes! We all did some good shopping for ourselves, too, including some new spring clothes for me & mom (now if only it would get warm enough to wear them!) and a new COACH PURSE for Ruth! Mostly we just had a really good time laughing, trying stuff on, laughing at the stuff we tried on, and telling stories. Oddly enough, the person who left with the least amount of stuff: Jessica, as usual!

Digging through Ruthie's purse while waiting for the rest of us to get out of Carter's. Laney was a little cranky during the shopping, mostly because it was nap time and she doesn't nap well in the little stroller. Eventually, Mom & I drove her around in the van until she fell asleep, then moved her back to the stroller and continued the shopping! But I should have realized it was a sign of things to come...

Post-nap, we had to have a little snack. Ruth broke up this cookie for Laney, and when she asked which cookie piece Laney wanted, she went for the giant half, instead of the pieces Ruth had broken for her. Who can blame her?! :)

The haul...

Laney's portion of "the haul!" Told you it helps to have EVERYONE shopping for you!

After everyone got home and showered, we decided to head to Nordy's for dinner out. Nordy's is a really neat place that serves bbq. And, like most neat bbq places, it does the bbq theme all out- the decorations and feel of the place was just really neat. UNfortunately, Miss Elena was about done by this point on Monday. She'd spent an entire day in the car, had two days with little to no nap, and had been drug around the mall all day long. So we had a serious toddler meltdown on our hands. Mike kept her entertained for awhile by putting bbq sauce on her binky, but when we put her back in her chair to eat, she absolutely lost it. Jess tried walking and rocking her for awhile, because she was so exhausted, but she wasn't having any of it. So, eventually, I just put her in the van and drove around the block. I've never used the car to put her asleep until Monday, and then I had to do it twice in one day!! She was totally out in less than 5 minutes, poor thing. She had just had all she could take. So, she slept through dinner, but the rest of us really enjoyed the bbq- it was amazing!

The aunts & niece, right after we got there. The look on her face alone should have told us that all was not well in "Laneyland!"

Uncle Mike, pacifying the monster with bbq sauce.

The pups... this is Jessica's dog, Sarge, and his friend Maggie. Maggie belongs to Jess & Mike's friend, Rob, who lives a block away. Maggie stays with them a lot because Rob works nights and needs to sleep, and because Sarge & Mags are GREAT friends. We really loved playing with both of them. And Laney learned very quickly how to tell Sarge to "GO!" and "SIT!" Actually, since we've got home, she's tried those commands on me. Didn't work as well as it does with Sarge!!

And that was the end of day 3... a very low-key day, just like vacations should be (minus the toddler meltdown)! Up next: Estes/Rocky Mountain National Park

Horsetooth Mountain & Birthday Fun!

Day Two!!

Day Two (Sunday) was a very important day in Colorado: Josh's Birthday! So we started off by going to church, and after church we stopped for a pre-lunch snack at the Buttercream Cupcakery. Josh had read about this cute little shop in a blog post of Jessica's, so we thought it would be a fun way to start celebrating his birthday (and it was)!

Laney say, "Cupcakes are delicious!"

Aunt Jessica is the best because she gives me yummy treats ALL THE TIME! :) Guess aunts are supposed to spoil, particularly the ones that live out of town!

It was a pretty small shop, so we kind of took over the place. But we each bought a cupcake and soda or coffee, plus we bought a dozen for the birthday party, so I'd say it was well worth it to them! Gotta love Daddy & Uncle "Mock" sitting with Laney at the kiddy table!

After the Cupcakery and some actual lunch, most of us headed off to hike Horsetooth Mountain. Because it was a much more strenuous hike than Devil's Backbone, we couldn't bring Laney along, so Grandma stayed home to watch her (which was MUCH appreciated). The rest of us (with the dogs) dressed cool (it was 70 degrees and sunny) and hit the road. Horsetooth Mountain is about a 5 mile hike, with about 1500 feet in elevation. Which doesn't seem like a lot, since people climb 14,000 foot (and higher) mountains pretty regularly. But, let me tell you, it was a pretty hard hike for the "flatlanders" in the group. Between the altitude alone (serious lack of oxygen for someone like us) and the steep hills, I wasn't so sure I was going to make it all the way up. But I did, and I'm pretty proud of myself for doing it! We had to stop about 976 times on the way up, but we made it! And going down was WAAAY easier! And the view from the top was totally worth it. Plus, Horsetooth Mountain is one of the most recognizable landmarks when you're back down in Ft. Collins, so it was really neat to look up for the rest of the week and be able to say "I stood on top of that." All in all, totally worth the wheezing, sweating and seriously sore muscles!

Charlie: again with the wandering off! Actually, I was totally jealous and would have loved to climb on top of this rock, but this was on the way up and I was doing good to just keep going.

By the time we saw this sign, I was absolutely dying, so I made Ruth take a picture of it. Sadly, we really weren't all that close to the top. But it gave me a little hope!

A "tooth" from up close. Just thought the sun on half this picture looked cool. And helps me remember how beautiful the weather was that day. Which was nice, since the rest of the week it was high in the 40s and windy/rainy!

The Price sisters, even if 2/3rds of us aren't Prices anymore! :)

Adorable Apostle family pic! By the way, Jess & Mike are absolutely the best hosts ever!

BFFs, Kate & Ruth at the very top. Told you: views were totally worth it!

Ruth & I at the very, very top! This is right after she sat on my finger and totally scraped it. So I'm kind of grimacing from the pain- either that pain, or the screaming pain in my legs. Either way, all pain was totally worth the view from the top!

No people, just the view! I love how you can see the cloud shadows on the ground. It's funny to be standing in the sun and look down and think "Wow, to them it's overcast right now."

After Horsetooth Mountain we headed back to Jess & Mike's for birthday dinner: mexican lasagna, YUM! We decided to celebrate Jessica's birthday, too, since it's in March. We picked up a dozen cupcakes from the bakery, opened presents, and laughed a lot! Especially at Josh's cupcake, which Mike was determined to get all 28 candles on. And he succeeded, although I seriously thought the table runner was going to catch on fire!

The birthday boy & girl, and the flaming cupcake!

Hanging out after dinner: Laney's favorite thing to do was empty Aunt Jessica's purse. She was digging for the chapstick, which she loved to play with. I seriously thought Mike was going to have a heart attack because she kept playing with the chapstick lid (which was rather the size of a small child's trachea, so I can see the cause for concern!). We eventually just threw away the lid and let her play with the chapstick. But the purse was still engrossing...

Ride an airplane with Aunt Jess! Also a classic game!

Once the birthday festivities were over, we retired to the hot tub to soothe the muscles after the Horsetooth hike. Definitely a great day in Colorado, and I love that I feel like I accomplished something by climbing to the very top!

Coming up soon: Shop, shop, shop, and Dinner Out!

Devil's Backbone, Alpacas & REST

Ok, so get ready for blog-o-rama! We had such an amazing trip to Colorado, and ended up with 831 pictures to show for it (and I even forgot my camera). So I've narrowed it down as best as I can, and I'm going to try to get the posts done quickly! And here's the first...

We decided to leave for our trip on Friday afternoon, when Josh got off work (4:00) and drive straight through to CO. It would make for a long night, but we figured we could sleep in Saturday, but still have most of the day to play. And it worked out pretty well... minus the part where Josh got sick from too much coffee, the altitude, and a lot of time behind the wheel! But everything else went pretty well, and we made it to Jess & Mike's house around 4:00. Just enough time to collapse into bed!

Uncle "Charla" and Laney stopping for dinner in Topeka. One thing about riding with a baby, you can't just drive through for dinner. So the trip took a little longer than advertised (13 hours). But, oh well!

It did work out as planned for Saturday, though, because we still had time to do some fun stuff- like climb Devil's Backbone and visit the alpaca farm! Devil's Backbone is a really long trail (like 18 miles), but we obviously didn't hike the whole thing! The part we hiked was actually a pretty easy trail, with a really neat overlook at the end. We tried to bring the carrying backpack for Laney, but she's a little too independent to be carried around when she has perfectly good legs (no idea where she got that independence). So our pace was pretty slow, and we didn't get to do the whole loop. But everybody had a good time anyway, and the views were pretty awesome.

The Looten family, just starting out. You can tell it's just the beginning of the hike, because Laney is still in the carrier. Didn't last long...

The reason it's called "Devil's Backbone." I'm kind of a closet geologist- that is, I don't know gobs about them, but I think rocks are really cool. So I though all of the different rock formations were amazing.

Something we saw a lot of while hiking: Charlie, wandering off on his own!

After the hike, we headed to a friend of Jessica's, who has an alpaca farm not far from Devil's Backbone. Jess visited once just for fun, and knew that Laney would love it, since she's such an animal lover! And, Jess was right; Laney LOVED the alpacas. In all honesty, we all thought they were pretty hilarious! I was amazed at how thick their wool is. They looked all big and fat, but when you actually put your fingers down to where the wool ended, they were really skinny. I can't imagine what they look like when they're freshly sheared... pretty silly, I'd think!

My favorite alpacas. I just thought the coloring on these two were really neat. They were the "gentlemen" and were kept in a separate pen. So they were also very puffed up, trying to be manly. As if you can be manly when you look like a giant puffball. But they tried! :)

Laney kept telling the alpacas to "shh" (that's what she's doing here, I realize it looks like she's picking her nose, but, trust me, she's shushing the alpacas). She only did it to the ones in this pen, though. One of them had abnormally poufy hair that covered her eyes, and I think Laney thought that alpaca was sleeping, so she was telling the others to be quiet. Whatever her reasoning, it was pretty funny!

A farm girl at heart: gotta have a walking stick!

And Laney even learned a new word!

Since we'd all been a little short on sleep, after a brief break for ice cream for us and the dogs, we headed home for some relaxing...

Vegging for the boys:

Visiting for the girls:

And a bath for Laney! She loved Aunt Jess's huge tub!

To finish the night, a beautiful sunset... and a reminder that every time we looked out the windows, we saw MOUNTAINS! Colorado is pretty awesome!

So, those are the events of day one (and two, kind of) in Ft. Collins, CO! Stay tuned for more...

Catch Up!

Ok, so I’m way behind, and I know everyone’s probably annoyed… but it’s been really, really busy around our house lately! Besides the strep debacle, we’ve been working really hard with practices and prep for the Whose Verse is it, Anyway? Improv night from last week, and I have been working a second job (online, evaluating portfolios for eMINTS). It’s only 10 hours a week, but I’m finding that squeezing 10 hours in on top of everything else is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

SO… all that to say I’ve had lots of fun events, but not a lot of time for blogging! Since I figured I’d get virtual grenades lobbed at me if I didn’t update before CO (and since I know I’m going to have LOTS of blogging to do after CO), I decided I better get caught up now!!

Anyway, Fun Event #1… Service & Ski in Kansas City!
This is one of our favorite events because it is a great combination of a really fun event (skiing) with a really purposeful event (service). This year we worked at Center Baptist, a church in a not-so-nice part of Kansas City. They have a very small church, so they had to cut off the back part of their sanctuary and turn it into Sunday School rooms by using partial walls. To spruce up their rooms, we painted several of the walls a bright blue/turquoise, and painted some of the furniture white. We also just did some odd jobs- cleaned out a closet, ironed and hung curtains, washed windows, and picked up their grounds. We really had a great time, and we were so proud of our kids for how hard they worked. It really was a blessing to get to serve this church that has such a tough job bringing Christ into that neighborhood.

Lots of bodies... small space... bright blue! Shockingly enough, no one got painted, though!

The whole group in front of the church. Seriously small church!

For the second part of the day, we headed to Westin, MO for skiing! I thought this shot was so funny, because all around there was no snow, then there was just this mountain of snow with skiers and snowboarders all over it! Seemed kind of random!

I was going to tube, but we got there and had an extra skiing pass, so I decided to try skiing. I had only skiied once before, when I was a freshman in college, and it wasn't the greatest experience, so I wasn't very confident about it! But I really had a great time! The funny thing was, the Wii Ski game we got was actually helpful. Not that I was great, I still spent a lot of time "snowplowing," but I didn't fall, and I even steered some! :) It made me want to go skiing on this trip to Colorado!

The tubing looked like fun, too, though! Wish we could have done both! Here's the tubing group... they definitely had fun!

Overall, the skiing went really well. We only had 2 injuries, and neither of those were too long-lasting. And we got to really do some service for that church, which was an even better feeling.

Since we were staying out so late, Laney spent the day (and night) at Grandma & Grandpa's house. Sunday morning she helped get Aunt Roof ready to go. Clearly, Laney is NOT a morning person! But she does love Roof's boots!

Fun Event #2: Visiting Grandma & Grandpa Price!

The week after the Service & Ski trip, we packed up again (this time we took Laney with us) and headed to Great-Grandma & Grandpa Price's house! We were supposed to take this trip over President's Day weekend (since Josh and I both had a 3 day weekend) but the strep thing started then, so we cancelled that trip. We came close to cancelling the second trip, too, but we got everybody (Josh, Elena, me, and Charlie) on antibiotics fast enough, so we headed off!

Visiting Grandma & Grandpa is always a great time to relax, run around on the farm, and just spend time visiting, and enjoying Grandma's YUMMY cooking! This weekend was no exception!

Saturday we slept in, then headed out in the mule to show Laney all of the animals. With pigs, cows, dogs, horses, cats, rabbits, ducks, etc. all to look at, Laney was ECSTATIC! We drove around to the different houses, and picked up a dog or two at each house so that we eventually had quite the pack following us around. Actually, we kind of collected uncles and cousins, too, so it ended up being quite the party! We even got to see a day-old calf, Uno. Definitely a good time!

We also visited Aunt Jane in her new house, hung out with the cousins, and had a huge family meal on Saturday night. It's funny, because a "family meal" doesn't sound like such a big deal. Until you start counting up how many people are ACTUALLY at a family meal. Since we were missing Mom & Dad & Ellen & Sam, and a few others, there were only about 30 of us. Poor Grandma was worn out by the time she cooked for all of us, but it was a great meal, and we had a good time visiting with all of the cousins. I'm amazed at how grown up all of my cousins are. I don't see them very often, so I still think of them as kids. But now they are practically grown (and some of them actually are grown)!!

Anyway, some fun pics from our trip to IL...

Laney being, well, Laney... never met a camera she didn't like!

Like mother, like daughter!

Laney and Grandpa Price, definitely buds! Laney loved that Grandpa could make a cow noise that actually sounded like a cow (as opposed to her's). Every time he did it she would turn and grin at him.

Hanging out with the cousins at Aunt Jane's house!

Guilty, Guilty, Guilty

I know, I know, it LOOKS like a totally innocent face. But the face you're seeing there is none other than The Carrier.

Let me 'splain...

So, I am completely susceptible to strep throat. Seriously, if I LOOK at someone who has it, I'm catching it. But, since I'm not in schools all the time anymore, I haven't had it in a long time. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I started feeling yucky. Itchy eyes, nose and throat. Since the weather had been nice, I figured it was just allergies. After all, I couldn't be getting sick- it was going to be a three day weekend (President's Day) and we were headed to IL to visit Grandma & Grandpa. By Thursday morning, though, I had a fever of 102 and couldn't swallow without serious pain. So, off to the doctor I went. Yep, sure enough, it was strep. Trip cancelled, everyone disappointed, -2 sick days, not cool.

But, after a few more days, I felt better (Thank God for antibiotics). We postponed our trip to IL until this past weekend (not 3 days, but better than nothing). Life was looking up... UNTIL... last Wednesday Josh had a fever and called in sick to work. He has NEVER had strep in his life, and I've been done with my antibiotics for 4 days, so I'm totally not contagious anymore- he didn't catch it from me. At church that night, Charlie and Josh both look awful- Charlie went home early. The next day, Josh feels worse, so off to the doctor he goes... yep, STREP AGAIN. Meanwhile, Thursday morning I got a pounding headache and a sore throat, itchy eyes & nose again. I've been off antibiotics for 4 days... incubation period for strep is 2-4 days... totally susceptible...

So I started to think... I wasn't contagious anymore... Josh is highly resistant to strep... Josh, Charlie and I only "share" one thing-> ELENA! Typhoid Elena strikes again! So off to the doctor I drug her. They explained to me that it was "highly unlikely" that she could be carrying the strep bug and passing it to all of us, but they'd swab her if I really wanted them to (thanks for making me feel like the totally overreacting mom).

Well, I did really want them to. And, guess what... I was right! Miss Elena tested positive for strep, even though she'd been racing around the living room like a maniac the night before, obviously feeling A-OK. As Mom's friend, Sherry, put it: "So she's as happy as a kid dancing in a box while all the grownups around her feel like crap." (In case you've never had strep, it's pretty much awful. You're pretty sure you'd rather just die than even lay there. It's so beyond a sore throat it's amazing.)

Anyway, the ending of the story is that EVERYONE in our house (and Charlie) got on antibiotics before we went to visit Grandpa. And, Typhoid Elena has struck again! So, I don't know if this means she'll always be a carrier (and never get it, which would be wonderful for her, and really suck for me, since she'd pass it to me all the time) or if she didn't get sick because she's so young (under 2 they usually don't get strep). Guess time will tell!

So, that's my excuse for not having posted in awhile- everyone in my house has been feeling horrible... except for The Carrier, of course. Hopefully, I'll have time to post this weekend about our Service & Ski trip to KC, and the trip to IL to visit Grandma & Grandpa!