Landon started Pre-K this year. I had to work and wasn't able to take him to his first day in Mrs. Treirweiller and Mrs. Taylor's class. But, Daddy did a good job getting him dressed and ready to go!

He found his cubby and his spot in circle time. He was a little aprehensive at first and there were a few little tears, but when he got to go out to the playground he was juuust fine.

This is the same school he went to last year for Pre-School, Bethany Learning Center. We just love the program here! He's learning a lot and also getting Chrisitian instruction. We are really hoping to be able to keep him there for Kindergarten next year. They have a private elementary school on the same campus and we have some close friends who have their daughter there.

Landon has grown so much in his pre-school lessons and his understanding of God and we're excited to see where he goes this year!!

Can you say ...Dramatic??

Landonism:

We're hop in the car to drive to Daddy's gym yesterday and it was not parked in the garage so it was really hot when we got in. Especially considering it was already over 100 degrees at 10am.

Landon says to me:
Mommy? Why does God have to make it so hot??

I replied:
Because it's perfect for lizards and cactus-es. (Didn't think he'd know cacti.)

He says:
I don't like it!
It's destroying my world! ...my life, my dreams. (sinks his head down in sadness)

This was the conversation...verbatim. No embellishing. No exaggeration. No lie.

Landon van Gogh

If you ever wondered what we look like through the eyes of a 4 year old...wonder, no more.

THIS is Mommy:

(notice I'm smiling)

THIS is Daddy:

(notice the extra circles? they're glasses)

Mommy: Landon?

Landon: Yeah.

Mommy: Why does Daddy have so much hair?

Landon: Because his hair is so caaa-raaaazy.

Daddy: Watch it, buddy.

Landon & Mommy: (giggle-giggle)

* * * * * By the way, Landon still has both ears in tact...for now.

Tour de Colorado

Seriously, this was just beautiful. Can you see the snow on the caps of the mountains in the distance??


On this day, I think I was a bit, distracted...well, maybe seduced by the surroundings, when I agreed to bike 16 miles from this lake, all the way to a park on the other side of Vail!

I asked Carlos about the distance and he said, "oh honey, it's all downhill and it will go fast!"

Okay..so he was only part right. We started at 10, 600 elevation and went down roughly 2,000 feet. But it was NOT downhill coasting! I locked up my gears at least 6 times, maybe more and of course, Carlos was happy to laugh at me then...and still now.

Carlos had to pull Landon and he was huffing and puffing too! ...so I didn't feel THAT out of shape. (I'm totally lying. I thought I was going to die.)

Having said all this...the views? My goodness! Everywhere we looked was a picture. I took 350 pictures on this trip....but from what I saw, I could have easily taken 3500!

The temperature was ...cold! Must have been in the upper 50's. But, we were working so hard the cold air felt, cool at best. Landon was all bundled up in his little chariot.

We joked that he had a party back there, with a pillow, blankets, toys, snacks, coloring books, drinks, you name it! No DVD though. I had to draw the line somewhere.

We stopped in Vail Village to eat lunch and buy Landon a little toy at a toy store there. I've never been to a Swiss Village, but this is what I imagine it would look like. TONS of families there and in Beaver Creek too!

We were really surprised at how well Landon handled the ride...we took off around 11am and rode until aroud 5pm. After lunch we found a little park in Vail Village to let him play at. There are more pictures in the slideshow below.

This is where we biked to ...a beautiful park on the other side of Vail called Donovan Park.

We had the company that we rented the bikes from pick us up from here. If only parks in Arizona looked like this! Landon had a much-deserved good time with some other little kids after handling the 16 mile, 6 hour trip!

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Halfway to Heaven....Hiking

The first day after we arrived in Beaver Creek we took the chairlift to the top of the mountain for a little hiking. The views, as you can imagine were breathtaking and the weather was a wonderful breezy & 70's.
Landon enjoyed yelling his name at the top of his lungs to hear his echo. Carlos almost had him convinced it wasn't an echo, but instead another little boy who was also named Landon yelling back!
This picture was an interesting one...I propped up our backpacks...set the timer and ran downhill to the picture. I almost couldn't stop and kept running down.

We had a beautiful time, Landon looking for bugs for his bug catcher that he brought all the way from home, Carlos marveling at the sights and for me...it was a mecca of picture taking opportunities!

Here's a slide show of the pictures from our hike. To see the caption with the pictures put your cursor on the picture, it will temporarily stop the slide show and then the description will appear. Move the cursor off the picture and the slide show starts again. All the pictures have captions.

Beaver Creek Beauty

Here are just a few pictures to show you just outside our hotel. The pictures were taken either from our window in our room or just outside the back door of the hotel. You can hear Beaver Creek run when you open the door to our room and imagine pine and fresh air and you'll know exactly what it smells like here.

This is the center of the Village. The building on the right is the Beaver Creek Hyatt. The outdoor skating rink is open at night. We plan to skate a little later this week.

Pictures of our trip up to the top of the mountain and Landon's FIRST-ever football game up there are coming soon.

An Anniversary Date With Dinos

8 years has gone by in a blink of an eye!

And while, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science isn't the moooost romantic place to celebrate the milestone, we approached it with a great sense of humor about where we have come as a couple and family since August 11, 2001!

We were really impressed with the size and scope of the dino exhibit, especially one which was made of 80 percent actual fossils ad the other 20 percent were created in an on-site lab.

This Dino was giiii-nooormous. They had a chart to measure yourself against the dinosaur. Landon came up to his foot. I was up to his ankle. Can you imagine? I don't think you can tell but the tail goes to the upper left hand corner of this picture!

There was also a Human Body Exhibit. We were able to put on coats, gloves and glasses (actually were were required to)...and walked through a step by step process to collect cells from the inside of our cheek and look at them under a microscope. Landon wasn't that interested in this, but Carlos was into hamming it up.

What Landon WAS interested in were the hearts. In his hand in the picture below he was holding an actual sheep heart cut in half. Cold, a big squish and generally rather 'ick'.

We also were able to watch an IMAX under water movie which was pretty fascinating.

After leaving the museum we drove 2 hours to Beaver Creek and checked into the Beaver Creek Lodge.

This little community is gorgeous. Very charming and family friendly. I already know I'm going to wish we had more time here.

Here's an annual family Anniversary picture taken in the Village at Beaver Creek, CO. Temperatures overnight in the mid-40's...but at dinner time around mid-60's.

If you want to see last year's anniversary picture, click on older posts and look under August 2008.

Hello, Denver. Nice to meet you.

We thought it might be a long trip from Phoenix to Denver when Landon started asking "are we there yet" before we even got to the airport.

And then when security lines were sooooooo slow. Note: I did not say long. I said sloooooow.

SO slow in fact that we got to the airport an hour in advance and had to get a cart ride to the gate and ask someone to open the jetway so we could board the plane!

We've never had to do that before. Surprising, I know. But truly...we have never had to do that.

We made it on the plane...a kind man volunteered to move seats so we could all sit together and we sat back to relax and listen to the CAT in the seat behind us meow for the first 30 minutes of the flight.

(I bet there are no cats on planes to the Bahamas, Hawaii or Jamaica. Just saying.)

Our hotel is just a few blocks from the Colorado State Capital Building. You can actually see it from all the windows in our room. (beware...yucky phone picture)

Our room was a trade with my beloved Sis, who used to do a lot of traveling and racked up reward points.

We got a standard room for free and they upgraded us to a 2 bedroom/2 bath suite with a living room and kitchenette! I wish this was our room for the week.

Landon's room has bunk beds and a little table and a big ol' plasma that has been fixed on the cartoon network since we got here!

Tonight we'll hit 16th Street for to check out what all the fuss is about and grab some dinner.

Tomorrow we'll hit the The Museum of Nature and Science.

By the way... at the risk of being obbbbvious...Landon is already having a blast.

Here he is at the little Mexican joint at lunch with his toy bag as a sombrero.

By they way, did I mention the weather is BEAUTIFUL?? We at lunch outside. Does anyone else think it's odd that we lizards, from Zona eat lunch outside in the winter...while peeps here eat outside in the summer??