Some pictures of stuff...

We drove up Mt. Evans on Memorial Day.

We had to go to Colorado Springs last weekend to pick something up, so we stopped at Garden of the Gods for a little bit.

We Moved to Colorado!

I have been wanting to move back to Colorado ever since Anthony and I were married. It just never happened, and finally I resigned myself to the fact that we would live in Utah forever. As the years passed by, I started to hate living in Utah with a passion. I missed my family. I missed my friends. The thing that kept me holding on was the fact that my sister, Stacy, and her family lived in Utah too, and that Anthony's sister's family and his brother's family lived only 3 hours away.

Last summer my brother-in-law got a job in Colorado and they moved. I was really sad about it, depressed even. I was happy for them, but I didn't want us to be by ourselves in Utah. I kept how I felt to myself though, because I didn't want my sister to feel bad that they were leaving us.

In December Anthony surprised me by applying for some locksmith jobs in Colorado. He applied for some at the beginning of last year as well, but it didn't work out. So when he got an interview for a locksmith job in Aurora, I didn't want to get my hopes up too high. I was really excited when he got the call that he got the job and would start in February!

We broke our lease in Utah and moved to Colorado. We couldn't afford a place to live right away, and we wanted to make sure that we would be living somewhere we liked, so Anthony stayed in Littleton at Stacy and Kurt's house, and Mason and I stayed in Rye at my parents house until we could find our current apartment. We are extremely grateful to our family for letting us stay with them for so long, and for all of their help with everything! Mason really loved staying at Grandma and Grandad's house.

We moved into our current apartment about a month ago, and we have liked it so far! I love our new ward, there are so many friendly people. I am excited that a friend that I knew my freshman year of college is in our ward as well. We are close to a lot of places, we have 3 grocery stores nearby, and a bunch of other things. We aren't far from the fun things in downtown Denver, or far from the airport. But the best part about living here is that my entire family lives 2 hours or less away! We were sad that we moved further away from Anthony's siblings in Idaho though; but we did move 8 hours closer to the rest of his family!

our colorado vacation

We both took a week off work to fly to Colorado and spend some time with my family there, and have a late Christmas party.  We stayed the night at my sister Missy's house and the next day we had lunch with my other sister, Melanie, and went to see her new house.  That evening we headed down to my parent's house.  It was great to be able to visit Rye, because I haven't been there since July 2010.  My parents have had a lot of work done at their house this past summer, so it was cool to finally see all the changes.  We were able to do a lot of things while we were there.  We went ice skating, to my cousin's basketball game, had our family gift exchange, went to church, and had some cake and ice cream for Mason's 2nd and Finn's 1st birthdays.  I even got to see 2 of my very good friends, but was sad that we didn't have time to meet up with a 3rd.  Before we left we were also able to drive to Fort Collins to see Shauna's new house.  It is not very far from where the temple is going to be built!

It was a much needed vacation for me.  I am so glad that we were able to spend time with my parents and my sister's families!  

I took my new camera, but apparently I had it on the wrong settings for the majority of the time, so I didn't end up with a lot of good pictures.  

I never get tired of the view from my parent's front yard. 

Finn got a car to ride on and push, but Mason  thought it was for him to play with.   So Mason rode, and Finn pushed.

Happy birthday to Finn and Mason!

My dad collects root beer cans and bottles with brand names of people in our family.  He has Howie's Root Beer, Parker's Root Beer, and Mason's Root Beer.  Here is Mason with the Mason's Root Beer bottle.

WARNING: do not do sock bun curls if your hair is naturally curly

I saw a pin on pinterest the other day about sock bun curls.  I visited this blog to learn how to do it.  The theory behind it is that you put your hair in a high ponytail, cut the toe out of a dress sock, roll the sock up into a doughnut shape, dampen your hair with a few sprays of water, and lastly roll your ponytail up into a bun.  You sleep with it overnight and when you wake up your hair is dry and you take it out of the bun and voila, beautiful cascading curls!

Well, I decided to do this last night to change up the look of my naturally curly hair a bit.

This is how the curls were supposed to look.

THIS is how my curls looked when I took them out of the sock bun, except a lot more messy, and I wasn't smiling.  Not the look I was going for.

I tried to fix my hair by brushing it out, which was not a great idea either.  If it were the 80's, though, I would  sport this  look.

haunted rain forest at the aquarium

The Living Planet Aquarium decorated their rain forest exhibit for Halloween.

Mason and I had a fun time looking at the fish and other animals.  He even pet a stingray!  And the best part is that we met a little boy that was born the same day as Mason was.

cornbelly's

utah state fair

I took Mason to the state fair in September.  We had fun looking at everything.

Isn't this cool?

We got to see a sea lion show!

Mason got to do "Little Hands on the Farm".  He picked an apple, planted a seed, harvested,  milked a cow,  sheared a sheep, rode a tractor, and took his goods to the market where he got paid a farm buck that he got to spend on a package of cookies.

the boys went on a trip

Anthony's parents are in Idaho visiting from Ohio for a few weeks, so Anthony took Mason and went to Idaho for the weekend.  I wanted to go, but I had to work.  While they were there Mason had a fun time with his grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousins.  On Saturday they went swimming at a swim beach and from the looks of it Mason had a blast and Anthony got a funny sunburn!

The best part of the weekend is that a new nephew was born to Anthony's brother Carl and his wife Ashley!  

tin foil dinners

We drove to Millcreek canyon last weekend to build a fire and have tinfoil dinners.  We put stuffed pork chops, potatoes, carrots, onions, and cream of chicken soup in our dinners.  It turned out that the stuffed pork was really disgusting, but the vegetables tasted good!

He had fun digging in the dirt with sticks.

a visit to the zoo

We took a trip to the Hogle Zoo a couple of weekends ago.  They had their Zoorasic Park exhibit, which were animatronic dinosaurs in different spots around the zoo.  There was one dinosaur and its baby that would spit water at people.  We had fun looking at the animals and (fake) dinosaurs, but it was really hot and we were excited to head home and have some ice cream.

This scale was way off!  It said Mason weighed around 70 lbs (before the other little boy was on it)!  He is only 23 lbs.

This T-rex was pretty cool.  I can imagine that it could be pretty terrifying to a small child though.   It brought back memories of when I was little and my family went to Denver to see the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit, which was basically the same thing as this; I wouldn't even go in the same room as the T-rex.

The only picture we got of an actual animal happened to be a picture of the side you don't want to see of the gorilla.

first day of nursery

Mason had his first day of nursery a few weeks ago.  He didn't have any problems with us leaving him there, he just played the whole time (plus spilled water on himself).  We are so happy that he likes to go to nursery!

Mason and his daddy outside the church on his first day of nursery.

Here is what he colored on his first day of nursery!

Another visit to Wheeler Farm

This morning Mason saw a horse on TV and seemed pretty excited about it, so we decided to go to Wheeler Farm to look at the animals this afternoon.  The last few times we went to the farm he wasn't that interested in the animals, but he seemed to enjoy them this time.  Mason was so cute when he tried to crow like the rooster and bleat like the goats!

He just had his finger in his nose

The calf was super cute!

Mason loved the chickens, especially when he heard a rooster crow

He loved petting this little goat, and the goat loved it too!

I like these geese, they aren't mean.

I was happy to see they are putting a playground in at Wheeler Farm!