Mardi Gras......

I decided to do a Mardi Gras wreath this week, break up the pink, and red & hearts of Valentine's Day that is approaching.

The Blizzard of '12

Well, i don't think we can count this one as a blizzard, not by native standards.  We got about 17-19 inches out here depending on where you measured.  Eric measured by hours of shoveling, and it was about 5.  The snow started late Thursday night and continued into Saturday morning.  By then though the flakes were big and fat, and had slowed down.  On Friday Bri came over and she and the boys (with Eric's help) made a snow fort in the front yard complete with connecting tunnels and a fox hole.  Unfortunately all of this playing in the snow hurt Bri's back, and she ended up on the couch for 2 days,  But, we had a great snow weekend though with lots of eating and game playing.  By Saturday morning it was dry enough for Eric and A to go to a magic card game.  Rohan got to hang out with me and Auntie Bri.  We enjoyed movies and video games and hung out.

"No"



Snow Day Spillman Style



17 inches at 9am Saturday.  It started to slow after that.

Sunday

After church Sunday we took the boys to the new golden corral that opened not to far from us.  We've been to them before in Kansas, but for some reason they seemed to be bigger, and flow better.  Now i will admit that we went on a Sunday, after Church, right at lunchtime, with a bowling ally right behind them.  So, probably not our best idea.  However, it would seem to me this is the BEST time to try out a restaurant, when they are busy to see how things go.  We learned some things.  Never go at that time ever again, it was just to busy, period. If you want something, you HAVE to make yourself known, there are no lines for anything, there is no real definition of where the saute booth ends and the grill begins.  I don't like the lay out at all, it's not very Buffet like, really it's more cafeteria like.  The food though, now THAT was awesome.  Everything we ate we liked, i think the only thing that wasn't liked was the Mac 'n Cheese Rohan tried (but he's very diva like with his M&C) so we will go back, but maybe next time it'll be a Tuesday at 3 pm.

The boys discovered the cotton candy & chocolate fountain......

Howdy Ma'am

35.....

Friday the 13th has never been a big deal to me, I'm only superstitious about a few things (THANKS mom) but the 13th isn't one of them.  I like the number 13, it used to be my soccer jersey number.  And i have even more reason to like it, since it's Eric's birthday.  It was the big 35 for him this year, but as every other year Eric took it in stride. The boys and i gave him his gifts on Friday morning, which included his very own camping chair in the shape of R2D2 from Star wars, and a new work bag.  The boys got him some Reece's peanut butter cups (his favorite) then he had to work BOO!!  But he was able to come home at lunch time and eat with us.  For dinner i made Tai Chicken soup and a spice cake for dessert.  We played some games and had a pretty good day.  Eric isn't big on party's so this was a perfect way for us to help him celebrate.  He got pretty spoiled i think with Shirts from his parents and some cash money from my mom (wow she knows what people like) the weekend was good with a lot of relaxing on Saturday, Eric was able to go play Magic while the boys and i hung out ate whatever we wanted and watched Seinfeld (well, i watched they fell asleep) and then Sunday we took the boys back to the museum for some play time.  We also got to see the new Elmo & Big Bird planetarium show, it was really cool.  All in all (except for an incident with Rohan) it was a GREAT weekend.  I wish they could all be like that, minimal money spent, but lots of fun & memories.  Happy birthday to my love!! 

Eric's very own camping chair, and new bag

Bag of holding (it's funny because its a D20)

This cake is terrible, but as the boys learned, even if it doesn't LOOK awesome, it still tatstes awesome

Birthday wish!

The boys are horrible slumber party dates :-)

Eric’s brother Jesse and his girlfriend Lorina came to visit us this past weekend.  It’s been over 5 years since Jesse was in CO, and Lorina had never been, so when they asked if they could stay with us, we were happy to have them.  It’s always fun when people come to visit, you get to play tourist in your own state.  They got in Friday afternoon, really too late to do anything, so we took them to southlands, and looked at the skating rink and hi0t up a couple stores.  It was then home for dinner and marbles.  Jesse and Lorina fell right into the game, like they’d been playing their whole lives.  Jesse won then Lorina then Eric (I very rarely win at marbles).  Saturday morning Bria came over and watched the boys for us while we took our guests to the Royal Gorge.  We set out early in the morning and headed to Cannon city.  Unfortunately Lorina got altitude sickness just into Colorado springs, so we stopped for lunch and got some cool pictures of the air force base & mountains.  Our drive was easy going to the gorge, although none of us could remember how to get there, we’ve all been there before but, as kids.  Lorina was in awe, having never been here, she was amazed with the mountains and the gorge.  We went on the gondola, which was a bad idea for me, unfortunately I was so scared, I didn’t take any pictures while we were in the gondola. Eric was able to get some pictures while we took the incline railway.  We of course walked on the bride, and took some more pictures.  On our way back from the gorge we stopped at The Winery at Holy Cross Abbey.  We saw it on our way in, and decided it would be cool to see.  We ended up doing a small wine tasting and taking some delicious wine home.  We then headed home, our plan was to stop at the cheesecake factory, but typical to Colorado weather, once we hit the divide, we were met with a blizzard.  What would have normally taken 1 hr, took us almost 3.  So instead we went to the California Pizza kitchen.  Sunday we took them along with the boys to the museum, we were lucky to catch the last weekend of the “Sue” exhibit with the moving dinosaurs.  We went to Rodizzio’s for lunch, which is a Brazilian restaurant which offers over a dozen rotisserie grilled meats, perfectly seasoned and carved tableside by Brazilian Gauchos. Authentic Brazilian appetizers, salads, homemade desserts. We were all happily stuffed by the time we left, Aragorn the most I think.  He had a blast telling the waiter what he wanted, and using the tongs to grab what they cut for him.  After lunch we headed to the aquarium.  We’ve been a couple time before, but the boys were never that interested.  Sunday was great though there was broncos game and we went later in the evening, so we were some of the very few people there.  We got up close and personal views of all the animals, and we even got to feed the sting rays, which was a first for all of us.  The boys got to stay up late Sunday night to get more time with uncle Jesse, whom the boys have really grown to like (Rohan wore his Jayhawks jersey for 4 days, so he could be like uncle Jesse).  We had a great visit, and we look forward to them coming back with kids next time!

All of us after the skyride

The royal gorge view

The sky ride ( i should not have gotten on)

The Abby in Cannon City

View of downtown Denver

All of us at dinner

Cheese!!

Purple starfish!

1st pic with his nephews

Brothers.

You know you hear the music

Jelly fish

Aragorn feeding/petting the sting rays

I LOVE Rohan's face in this one.....EWWWWW fish water!

Sometimes...

You have to forget that it will take you 3 hours to clean them and their clothes up.  I let the boys play in the mud last Thursday because we were having such awesome weather.  The boys loved it, and were surprised i was so easy going about letting them get so dirty (this is NOT like me) but i thought, hey kids should get dirty now and then right?