Thursday thoughts...

1. Yes, we're still covered in snow with single digit temperatures here. Make of that what you will.

2. Question: How do you get your comforter to stay evenly distributed inside a duvet cover? Seriously, I'm thinking about just sewing the darn thing together. ;)

3. Very proud of myself for buying winter boots for this year for Asher *last* year. Didn't have to go hunting up new boots in the stream of others doing the same thing with the first snowfall this year. Yay, me! (Bumped Asher to those and Micah to Asher's old ones. Hoping that the ones we bought Noah last year still fit, as we bought them deliberately too big. He stubbornly insists he doesn't need snow boots, so we haven't tried lately, lol.)

4. Course, simultaneously, I somehow neglected to register Noah for this weekend's JOAD tournament. I registered Micah just fine weeks ago and must have gotten distracted. Went to clarify the check-in time earlier this week and discovered my error. Lovely. Mom fail. ;) Fortunately, thanks to this weather, enough people are dropping out that we were able to snag him a place at the last minute. Whew.

While we were in Washington...

So. First, I'll refer y'all back to how things were. :)

On the day before we left for Washington, the paver patio in the backyard finally got underway. By the time we left, it was a nice layer of sand and a few scattered pavers. By the time we got home, it looked like this:

Nice, right? :) There are more plants between the shrubberies, but they're small...hoping they make it next spring. Also, from what we did see of the process, so very glad it was them and not us doing the work, lol. It looks fairly straightforward and all, but removing all that rock (and some concrete footings from the deck before) and leveling it out in our sloped backyard was not simple. Plus, those pavers were heavy. ;)

I took those pictures above on Monday morning after getting all the boys off to Options and high school, about an hour before the sun was covered up by the lovely storm clouds, when it was about 60 degrees. I'm proud of myself, because *this* is what it looked like 24 hours later (at a temperature of about 17 degrees):

So. Now we'll wait for meltage and a nice dry spell before they can come finish putting the sealant on and we can get stairs built. Whew. :) 

Cousins

Cousin pictures!

Yes, for all that we love Fort Collins, it does make me sad that the boys don't see their cousins more often. I had such awesome relationships with mine growing up, and saw them regularly. Sigh. Taking what we can get, we had so much fun visiting with my nieces and nephews in Prosser...Bekah's kiddos and Zach's oldest two live there, then babies Blaze and Alice live a few hours away from Prosser.

Here's Haylee (Zach's oldest, and the oldest grandkid at 16) with Alice (Joe's, and currently the youngest grandkid at 6 months-ish):

And Micah playing with Alice and Nana:

(It surprised me a little how well Micah and Asher took to the babies. They were happy to follow Blaze around and declared him adorable after he left. Awww.)

And the older kids pulled out Nana's ping pong table. Here's Quinn and Noah: (Quinn is Zach's middlest and is just a few weeks younger than Noah.)

I made Noah hold baby Alice for a picture. He was thrilled. Can you tell? ;)

A little later in the day, I confiscated the ping pong ball until these yahoos let me take this picture. From left to right, there's Noah, Micah, Aidan (Bekah's youngest, 9), Alexis (Bekah's oldest, 12), Quinn and Cade (Bekah's middlest, 9):

And at dinner Nana and Bekah alerted the restaurant to the fact that we were celebrating Quinn and Noah's birthdays. They were oh so delighted, as teenage boys are apt to be when made to wear giant sombreros and have everyone sing to them:

And that was our whirlwind visit to Washington. :)

Family

(Before you Washingtonians go getting upset that we didn't let you know we were coming or visit with you and all, please note that this was a very quick and packed visit for the express purpose of visiting our grandmas. So there. ;) Don't be mad. Come visit us in Colorado!)

Anyhow, alongside visiting our grandmas, we managed some time with other family as well. Thursday night, John & Nancy had an "open house" of sorts at their place for a bunch of family in the area to come visit with us...aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, kids of cousins and friends, etc. It was quite the full house. ;) The next morning, TJ (Nathan's brother from another mother) showed us his new home and let the boys play the Wii for a bit:

And on Saturday, we helped baby Blaze celebrate his first birthday:

(After his initial hesitation, he was stoked about the whole cake dealio, lol.)

And we got to meet baby Alice also! Here's Cassy with Blaze and mom holding Alice:

And we chatted with my baby brother, Joe:

And he took this picture of a bunch of us (though not nearly all):

There's Bridget (Joe's wife) holding Alice, my niece Haylee, baby sister Cassy and mom, me and Grams in the back. Then Cassy, Charlie and Blaze had to head back to Spokane and my middle sister Bekah and her family were able to join us after a day of football and basketball games for her kiddos. We ended up out to dinner:

And then headed back to mom's, where my nephew Quinn photobombed Bekah and me:

And here's mom and me, though we should really try to remember to take pictures during the day time when the light is better, lol:

Yes, Quinn is hiding behind us. ;) 

The boys had a great time visiting with cousins...which is the topic of the next post. Which I'll get to after I go start some stew and take boys to gymnastics, lol...

Grandmas

Last Wednesday, we flew to Washington to visit with family. Due to miscellaneous testing on campus, Noah didn't have classes Thursday or Friday so we took advantage of the long weekend. (Adjusting to not being able to just take off whenever we want now that we have one in school is taking some getting used to, lol.)

In any case, we arrived late Wednesday, rented a car and drove over the pass from Seattle to Yakima. (You west-siders can just keep your dreary rain, thank-you-very-much, lol.) Thursday, among other things, we visited with Nathan's grandma and had a lovely afternoon of sharing stories. The boys found some of them quite entertaining, and Nathan and I even learned a couple new ones.

We visited again Friday over lunch and had to say our goodbyes from there.

Saturday, we drove to Prosser and visited with most of my immediate family (missing my brother who lives here in Colorado, whom we're hoping to see over Thanksgiving). I remembered to get this shot of me and my grandma, as she was telling me about the rock garden she's planning to build in the spring and lamenting about some of her many flowers and how they still need to be cut back for winter.

Sadly, though, I neglected to get a picture of her with the boys...which makes me sad. 

But. It was a nice visit (too short to really visit with everyone as much as we'd have liked). And both grandmas are doing really well, which was a large reason for our visit, as both have had health issues recently.

In any case, we drove back over to Seattle Sunday morning and arrived home just after dinner. Whew.

(More pictures to come...)