Welcome to the Family, Grizz!

Our little family has grown recently. We got a puppy Miniature Schnauzer from a breeder in Wyoming.  After much debate, we decided to go with the name Griswold (Grizz for short).  So far he's a little furball that's full of energy most of the time.  Welcome to the family, Grizz!

More pictures of Grizz

Breckenridge 2017

We didn't get much hiking in, but the girls had a good time none the less.  Kara spotted a fox on the lodge play structure and captured it on camera.  The girls thought that was awesome! 



Link to pictures

Visit from Mimi and Papa - Summer 2017

Pictures of Mimi and Papa's visit.  We had a good time in Louisville and and a short trip to Colorado Springs for the Renaissance Festival and Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
We also had a visit with the cousins on July 4!


link to pictures

Disney Cruise!

Early this summer, we headed down to Florida with Grandma and Grandpa to catch our first Disney Cruise out of Port Canaveral.  We hit some turbulence on our descent, which Emily thought was just the greatest thing ever. Grandma and Mom were gripping their seats while Emily was giggling and cackling every time the plane shook or dropped.   After landing in Orlando, we caught a shuttle to a hotel in Cocoa Beach.  We got there just in time to grab some dinner and then head to bed.

We woke up the next morning (June 10th) and took a quick stroll on the beach.  Mimi and Uncle Trey coincidentally were in Orlando meeting up with Trey's girlfriend, Ashley, so they came out to say hi.  We grabbed some breakfast with them and then headed out to the port to catch the ship.  We cruised on the Disney Fantasy ship, which was pretty awesome.  They had a theater for live shows (and also movies), a full-sized movie theater, two pools (that kids could use) on deck complete with an awesome water slide, three dining rooms, and a huge kids area (called the Oceaneer Club) with interactive games like Star Wars and Dr. Strange.  We spent the first day exploring the ship.  Kara and Dad stumbled upon the Midship Detective Agency activity, which was actually Dad's favorite part of the entire cruise!  Basically, you get a case assigned to you at a kiosk in the middle of the ship.  They have a couple Mickey Mouse mysteries, but they also have a Muppet one, which was the one Kara chose to start.  From there, you go to certain framed pictures on the ship.  When you hold your picture up, the pictures will come to life and give you clues or otherwise help you with the mystery.  The cards can be used to complete actions (eg turning a wrench or popping balloons).  They had several variations, so you could do it more than once (which we did).  We had dinner the first night in the Royal Court dining room.  Both girls tried escargot (Emily actually ate a couple snails!) and we finished off the meal with Mickey Ice Cream Bars (except for Mom and Grandma, who opted for more grown-up desserts).

Day 2 was a day At Sea.  We started off the day by hitting the pools.  Kara also hit the big water slide, called the AquaDuck.  Emily was a little too small for that slide, so she did the smaller slide over and over again.  After swimming for a couple of hours, we headed back to our room to get ready for our character greeting with Elsa and Anna from Frozen.  After that we grabbed some lunch and headed back to the room for an afternoon nap (both girls were pretty good about taking naps on the cruise). We took it pretty easy the rest of the afternoon, checking out the ship some more and getting some pictures with characters.  We had dinner that night at the Animator's Palate, which has TV screens all around the dining room.  They had an interactive show with Crush from Finding Nemo.  He would talk to the kids and make jokes with them.  Unfortunately our table wasn't situated right next to the screen, so the girls didn't get to talk with Crush.  They enjoyed watching him, though.  After dinner we hit the Aladdin musical show, which was basically a condensed version of the movie (still entertaining).  It was almost 9:30 at night when the show got over (which is late for Kara and super-late for Emily.  We got both girls back to the room and to bed, so we could get rest for our next adventure.

On Day 3 we stopped in at Cozumel, Mexico.  Both girls were up and at 'em by 7 am (of course).  Cozumel was where we did our big excursion for the cruise at this port.  We did the Dolphin Experience.  It was pretty awesome.  All of us got into an enclosure with a dolphin.  The trainer then took turns with us giving the dolphin kisses and letting her kiss us!  We all had fun (even Grandma).  After playing with the dolphins, we spent some time at the pool before heading back to the ship.  We took the rest of the afternoon pretty easy, just walking around the ship.  We finished up the evening with dinner at the Enchanted Garden dining room, which was decorated as an arboretum.

Day 4 took us to Grand Cayman.  We decided to just hang out on the ship for the morning (the girls were a little beat from the previous days' activities). After a short nap, we took the the tender into Georgetown to see what they had.  We happened to run into Grandma and Grandpa (who had headed over earlier in the morning) on the street and checked out Del Sol with them.  Mom and Dad had dinner at Palo, which was a fancy restaurant onboard to celebrate their 14th anniversary while the girls had dinner at Royal Court with Grandma and Grandpa.  After dinner, Mom and Dad rejoined everyone else to check out that night's show, Wishes.  The show got over around 9:30, so we herded the girls back to the room to get some rest.

We docked in Falmouth, Jamaica on Day 5.  We didn't have any specific plans in Jamaica (but we did have big plans for later in the evening), so we just hung out around the ship for the morning.  After breakfast, Emily and Kara spent some time in the kids club.  While they were in there, Mom and Dad caught Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 in the movie theater.  After the movie, we boosted the girls out of the kids club and grabbed some lunch.  By that time, Grandma and Grandpa had come back onto the ship from their morning adventure in Jamaica (mostly just wandering around shops).  Dad headed back to the room in the hopes to get a really good nap while Mom and Grandma ran into town to check out another Del Sol.  Unfortunately, the girls just couldn't get settled down for a nap.  They whispered to each other and kept each other up for more than an hour.  Eventually, the girls did settle down for a short nap (maybe an hour).  It was extra unfortunate they didn't get in a good nap because that night was Pirate night on the cruise!  Around 4:00 we headed to Bibbity Boppity Botique (which was renamed to the Pirate's League for that night) to get the girls made over in pirate make-up (check out the video below)!  Once the girls were all made over, we headed down to the atrium where there were several characters for meet and greets.  After meeting Stitch and Goofy (and also getting some group pictures) we headed to dinner at Animator's Palate.  Once we were done with dinner, Dad headed back to the room with Emily (in hopes that she would settle down and maybe get to sleep) while Mom and Kara headed to watch the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  Emily had a complete break down in the room and wouldn't stop crying until Mom came back.  So, Mom came back to hang out with Emily while Dad went to go watch the movie (Kara stayed there with Grandma and Grandpa).  After the movie, there was fireworks show at 11, which is ridiculously late for Kara.  Dad and Kara headed up there with Grandma and Grandpa and were surprised when Mom and Emily met us up there.   After Emily's little breakdown, she was fine.  After the show, we herded the girls back to the room to get some sleep.

Day 6 was a Day at Sea.  We spent much of the morning recovering from the excitement of Pirate Night and took it easy most of the day.  The girls spent some time in the kids club in the morning.  In the afternoon, we did a few cases with the Midship Detective Agency.  We had dinner that night at Animator's Palate.  They put on a pretty good show.  Each person draws a character, which was then animated.  After dinner we hit the show - Believe, which is about believing in magic.  Good entertainment for kids.

For Day 7 we stopped at Disney's private island in the Bahamas called Castaway Cay.  It's a pretty small island with a protected beach that can be found here.  We started off by just wandering the beach.  They have a few water attractions (a slide and a climbing structures out in the water).  While Kara and Grandpa were waiting for their turn on the waterslide, the lifeguards closed down the slide and sent everyone because they saw a storm approaching.  They weren't kidding!  As soon as everyone got back to shore, it started to rain.  Dad and Grandpa, who had wandered pretty far down the beach with the girls, quickly found some shelter thinking it would just blow over.  About 20 minutes later, it was still pouring!  The storm did eventually dissipate, and we wandered back to find Grandma and Mom.  We stayed out on the beach until early in the afternoon before heading back to the ship and getting in a little quiet time.  Late in the afternoon we headed to the movie theater to check out Cars 3, which had just been released in theaters.  The girls thought the movie was pretty good.  On the downside, we didn't get out of the movie until after our dining time, so we grabbed dinner at Cabana's (quick service buffet).  Since we'd hit the movie in the afternoon, we decided to skip the last show of the cruise.

We disembarked and headed home the next morning.  The trip home was uneventful, which is just the way Mom and Dad like travel to be.  The girls are already planning our next cruise!

Link to pictures

Emily's Spring Recitial - 2017

Emily finished up her first year of dance with her Spring Dance Recital.  her Tap/Ballet class did a tap dance to Bear Necessities.

Before the cruise Emily quotes, June 2:  "you're like the best mom I could ever have"(random, in the car)

"This is the best tasting meal you've ever made"- eating a leftover spaghetti and broccoli lunch

Spring Visit to Mimi and Papa's House

For Spring Break this year (2017) we decided to head down to Alabama to see Mimi and Papa (and Gigi and Uncle Trey!).  The week just seemed to flew by!

Montgomery Zoo
Went to see Beauty and the Beast
Meeting Trey's girlfriend, Ashley

We met up with Heather, Justin, Sean, and Robin in Auburn.  The kids had a great time playing on campus and eating pizza!

Our flight out of Atlanta was early in the afternoon, so we had time to meet up with some friends.  Uncle Trey and Ashley picked us up at the house early that morning and drove us up to Atlanta.  We were able to meet up with our friends Patrick, Akila, Amara, and their new baby Kareena and grabbed breakfast with them.  All in all, a great end to a great visit!

Link to pictures

Emily's 4th Birthday!

Emily is now a 4-year old, which is kind of hard to believe.  Where have the last 4 years gone?

Emily's birthday fell on a school day, so she took tiny cupcakes to share with her class.

Emily decided she didn't really want to invite people over for her birthday, but she did want to do something fun.  Of course that meant going to Chuck E. Cheese's.  As soon as Dad got home from work, we headed out to have some fun with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy.  Emily had a blast!  Fortunately, she decided that she'd rather have pizza from a restaurant than eat Chuck's pizza, so we stopped at MOD Pizza (the girls' new favorite restuarant) on the way home.

No 4-year old's birthday would be complete without cake.  Emily insisted Rainbow Cake (which is a white cake with rainbow sprinkles inside).  Happy 4th birthday, Emily!

Link to pictures

Kara's First Ski Trip

Dad finally got his act together enough to get Kara up on the mountain to try out skiing.  We've been meaning to get her up there every winter since we moved back to Colorado.  We got Kara signed up for lessons a day that she was off school - Friday, February 10th.  Grandpa was interested in skiing with us, so he came along.  When we got there, it was really windy (and warm, it was in the 40's).  Several trees had fallen down on the ski runs, so they eventually canceled lessons for that day.  We rescheduled the lessons for a couple of weeks later on Saturday, February 25, and Grandpa and Dad drove Kara back up again that day.  The weather was a little miserable (it was really cold and very windy), so Dad and Grandpa decided it wasn't worth the money to get out there in that weather.  Kara, on the other hand, jumped right in and never complained about the cold or wind.

Kara had never been skiing before, so she started with the basics and scooting around on her skis and then moved over to the kid hill with the magic carpet (it's a people mover that takes the kids back up the hill).  By the end of the day, Kara was getting pretty good.  She could turn, stop, and had pretty decent control.  The ski instructor recommended she sign up for the next level when she goes back up!

Kara had a great time, though the highlight for her was all the junk food she ate for lunch.  She had pizza, chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese, and fruit punch!  She was still on a sugar buzz at the end of lessons!

Watch for Kara in the pink coat and the red helmet in the videos below.

Link to pictures