Bars on the windows....

Joe has been working on the new suite for his business expansion and declared the other night (perhaps after a cocktail or two) that he needed help the next day so Jackson, Austin and Tyler went in to "help" him out.  I took little Miss Chewy to Costco to replace my 15th vacuum, not sure if I am just hard of those things or what but I have to return them all the time.

Also, we just received this confirmation in email.  Austin has put in for a choice acceptance to The School in the Woods.  Which is a FABULOUS outdoor 4th Grade venue here in Black Forest, they are a public school in our school district but they only take 70 kids a year and literally learn everything submersed in nature....they eat lunch outside every day and everything.  She would do so fantastic there - it's a lottery system to decide who gets in so there is definitely no guarantee, but we will wait and see.

https://schoolinthewoods.asd20.org/Pages/default.aspx

We have received your signed Academy District 20 school choice application for Austin DiFabio.  This completes all of the steps required for your application.  We will contact you if there are any questions.  You will be notified via email by April 1st of the choice school assignment for your student.

Valentine's Day!

Any holiday means that the littles and I get to go to school for the parties...which as you can imagine is a REALLY big deal around here.

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!!!!

Picture Dump

Wow...it's been forever but I promise we are still here.  And while this won't be a long post at least I can dump some pictures :-)  Apparently in no particular order either as I go through them.



My cousin Jenn and I - look at how the years have changed us, but we still laugh so stinkin' hard together. We had an impromptu trip to Glenwood Springs to see all three of my cousins - it was the first time we had all been together in forever and it just so happened to be on my late Grandmother's birthday...which made me cry, but that's because I am sap.

And of course Aunt Deb and us.

I think the waitress was getting after Joe about something so I was growling at him. LOL

Not every day that I don't get to be in the back row...that's a tall group of people there.

Then the very next weekend the Leake's came out to visit us.  Hard to believe it has been so many years that we had never even met their daughters.

We went up to Estes Park for the weekend which was amazing except for the 50MPH wind.  We ended up spending a great deal of time in the hotel hiding.

Logan sure liked driving Jackson around, and obviously he didn't mind it either.

We went to the zoo when we got back to the Springs...it just so happened to be the best zoo day ever.  All of the animals were super active and the place was empty.

My friend Scooter and his family came out so we all got together and went bowling...again talk about how time flies.

Look at that big girl facing forward in her seat. In Colorado you are supposed to be two before you turn, but she's so tall that I couldn't wait anymore.

Aunt J sent us a King Cake to celebrate the start of carnival from New Orleans.

And last but not least this was at the Indianapolis airport and I forgot to ever post it.

Ending on a high note...

November 29 - Today I am thankful for being "one of the guys", I definitely believe that the other people on my team know that I am a woman but they have started to accept me as one of their own.  It's hard starting out on a new team and having to prove yourself all over to people you've never met.  Especially on my current team - since all 8 of us are new, there is an odd competition environment that I am not used to.  But I must have made some progress as my new team saved me a reservation for dinner and my new boss took me around to show me some projects he wants me to take care of.  Work is going well and I feel as though I will be able to make a really good impact on the company, which always makes me happy.

November 30 - Today I am thankful for my sense of humor, the conference room would get very up tight after hours of new engineers competing for the top spot.  I would casually throw out a joke or quote a movie to lighten things up, kind of like a mom thing to get your kids to redirect except these were full grown adults (ones who should know better, but I digress).

***Update - all of my darn fish died. :-(  So I have gone back to the drawing board and ordered all new filtration systems and we'll see if we can get it back up and healthy.

I love my 30 days of thanks, probably more so since this month with two weeks traveling for work it would have been easy to get down...I must admit there were several days that it took me much longer than it should have to come up with a thankful post.  Sitting in a swelteringly hot conference room listening to others boast about their skills and experience knowing that I could be home with my family was a true test of my ability to bite my tongue, luckily I didn't bite it off.

Here's to December and staying on the home front. :-)

Catching up...

November 24 - Today I am thankful for the experience of being a contractor.  I have never done this before, an hourly wage, no paid time off but more money per hour.  It's still kind of odd to me but I am thankful to get to see how so many in my field work.

November 25 - Today I am thankful for Shop Small Saturday, Kelley and my folks and I went to The Keg to have lunch followed by Christmas ornament shopping and Kelley and I left the sleeping kiddos with Joe and ventured out to a brewery to catch up.  Without volleyball every week we don't see each other as much as we would like.

November 26 - Today I am thankful for visitors that just stop by, we were doing our wonderfully normal Sunday routine (I call it normal and wonderful because it very rarely happens but when it does I love spending the day home, cooking, cleaning and hanging out as a family), when Joe got a text that several groups were stopping by to say Hi.  I think at least one set just really wanted to meet the new puppy but that totally works.

November 27 - Today I am thankful for the fish tank in my office, I love watching the fish and just got all new ones yesterday (although minor update, it appears as though two of them have already died and one more is on the way out) perhaps that species does not appreciate my tank.  But nonetheless I like having them around and eventually find ones that do well.

November 28 - Today I am thankful for Joe and his attitude, while I generally think of myself as a super positive person I am packing to leave for Raleigh NC again today and it would have been really easy to get down about it.  Joe just keeps reminding me that it is a short trip this time and I will be back Friday evening and everyone will be fine so let's just get through it.