Sidney's birthday weekend

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIDNEY!


So I am officially the mother of a teenager. Sidney turned 13 about two weeks ago and it also happened to be a three day weekend from school. So we decided to get out of town. The last time we all went out of town together was 2 1/2 years ago for by brother-in-law's wedding. We didn't even really go too far. We left on Saturday morning and went to the aquarium in Denver. I'd heard a lot of good things about it and we had a really great time!
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Chris was the only one brave enough to feed the sting rays.... ewwww!

After the aquarium we drove up to Estes Park. It's about an 1 1/2 hours northwest of Denver. It was absolutely beautiful there. We were completely surrounded by mountains and the weather was pretty nice. We enjoyed the quaint little town and all of it's shops. It was just nice to spend some quality time together as a family.

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This is the Stanly Hotel where they filmed the movie The Shining. I've never actually seen the movie, but I just may muster up the courage to see it now. There are all kinds of stories of paranormal activities happening here. They do ghost tours, but there were all booked while we were there. Maybe next time...




This is candy they sold in the gift shop. It's from the movie. It's MURDER spelled backwards. Megan thought it was really cool so she took a picture of it. Who would actually want candy with murder spelled backwards on it?



I think we realized after this weekend that we definitely need to get out of town more often. It was nice to get away. There are definitely more parts of Colorado that we need to explore and I'm sure we'll get around to it... eventually.

It's amazing what a coat of paint can do!

We were given this dresser by a guy in our ward and all we did was paint it and put some new drawer pulls on it. Isn't it amazing what a coat of paint can do?

This Labor Day I decided to put my kids to work...

sorting socks. They have such a rough life! :)

Addiction? I think not.

So a little while back my husband was having a "choice" day and was being a real jerk. I had to leave to take the girls somewhere and when I came back this is what I found on my kitchen table...



Oodles and oodles of diet pepsi! I was in heaven! I promptly forgave him for whatever he had done (which today I have no idea what it even was!) I set to work drinking my glorious diet pepsi. I just finished the last bottle of it about 3 days ago. I couldn't remember when he had bought all of it so I checked the date on the photo. July 24th...
Hi! My name is Gretchen and I'm a diet pepsi-aholic.

Depeche Mode

Let me start this post by saying that Depeche Mode was my favorite band all through high school. I saw them in concert back in 1994 and had a great time. Well they came to Red Rocks and we saw them again. I bought the tickets the day they went on sale back in March and so I felt like this day was never going to come! I was like a kid waiting for Christmas or my birthday! We went with the Roncos and had a blast! It was amazing. I just felt really, really OLD! They played a bunch of classics. And their new stuff is pretty good, too. It just reminded me of the days I spent as a teenage girl crying in my bedroom to half of these songs. Oh... the good old days!

Walking home

Today, and for the next two days, Megan only has half days of school so they can keep small groups of kids at a time for testing. The weather has been pretty mild around here, mid 70's generally, so I decided today I would walk the mile to the school to pick her up and we could walk home together. A little exercise would be good for both of us, right? Well leave it to Colorado.... I walked to the school and I saw the clouds. I thought we would have plenty of time to get home before the rain came. Wrong. About half-way home it started sprinkling. It really wasn't TOO bad. We didn't get THAT wet. Megan just looked at me and said, "Mom, we can never walk home from school EVER AGAIN!" Little does she know we're walking again tomorrow! Unless, of course, it's raining before I leave. :)

Back on track...

Well, it's been a little while since I have blogged. I miss doing it and I've decided to rededicate my efforts. I guess there were so many things I DIDN'T want to talk about so I avoided this place altogether. So after reading my friend Jennifer's blog she has inspired me to get it together (in more ways than one) and start doing more of what I enjoy doing.
The girls have been back in school now for a week. I can't believe how fast it goes. I know all you moms out there know what I mean. Sidney just started 7th grade and is about to turn 13! She is growing up so fast it's unbelievable. I've been noticing more and more little things she does that shows me that she is really a mature and responsible young woman. As for junior high, all I can say is... so far so good.
Megan is in 6th grade and just turned 11. She is one of the funniest kids I know. She has such a great sense of humor and a great imagination. Just last night we were at Buffy's house for dinner and after we ate she sat and played play dough with Ryan and made herself a tree picture using real leaves from Buffy's back yard and acorns that had fallen on the deck. I love that she still has that KID in her. She's not too cool to play with 5 year olds and do what she thinks is fun.
I'm not quite sure how I ended up with such great kids. All I know is that I am one lucky mom.