Claire's Tumbles Into Two

For Claire's 2nd Birthday we had a tumbling party at the local recreation center where Claire takes her weekly tumbling class. We were fortunate that Miss Sarah, her tumbling teacher, was able to host her party. Mrs. Sarah did a great job incorporating some of Claire's favorite activities including Ring Around the Rosie, Wheels on the Bus, the Parachute, Open Play Time and Music Time! Thanks to all our friends and family who made it a great celebration and brought toys to donate to Toys for Tots!

The kids playing with the parachute

Claire showing off her bar skills

Music time

Claire and her 100% edible tumbling room cake

Claire Turns Two

Happy 2nd Birthday to Claire!

Claire at age 2

Claire at age 1

Claire at 3 days old

Maine Trip -December 2011

In December we took a quick trip back to Maine to see Melissa's family. While we were there we..

Hung out with Papa and made many trips to see the cows, pigs, and sheep of Deb Tone Farm

Hung out with the cousins and met their hamsters

Enjoyed a scenic drive along the coast and went to the beach

Celebrated Claire and Grandpa Tom's Birthdays

Hung out with the Borish family!

Photo Shoot

We had one of those absolutely beautiful days here in Colorado, where it was sunny, blue skies as far as you can see and warm for Novemeber so we headed out to Jackass Hill to take some photos of Claire and the family. Here are some of the pictures from that gorgeous day!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent Thanksgiving with Dave's family. Our Thanksgiving traditions involve watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and setting up our Christmas tree.

On Friday we headed out with the family to pick out a tree at Wilmore Nursery.

While we were there Claire enjoyed spending some time in the bouncy house

Our tree!


Then it was back home to put up the tree and add the lights. Claire and Sparky opted to take a nap on the couch during this part

Each year we let Claire pick out an ornament and this year she picked out one that reminded us of her Halloween costume


Putting the first ornament on the tree with Daddy


All done! Take note that the bottom 1/3rd of the tree is the most decorated because that was what Claire could reach

Family photo in front of the tree

Happy Halloween

Claire's 2nd Halloweeen was filled with fun times with friends and family. It all kicked off with a trip to the Fall Festival with Amy, Olivia, and Timmy. Claire enjoyed planting a spider plant and hanging out in the pumpkin patch.

Next it was on to the Halloween Party & Parade at Primrose on Friday afternoon before Halloween. It is always fun to see the class all dressed up and this year the teachers made some very yummmy snacks including peanut butter eyeballs.

On Saturday after a fun tumbling class in costume it was off to meet Jessica Hooks who was in town for Boo at the Zoo! At the zoo we enjoyed seeing the animal, collecting some candy and meeting up with Claire's friends Alba, Siddharth, Livi and Timmy. We were very lucky to have great fall weather instead of the traditional snowny Colorado Halloween.

On Sunday we spent some time with the Lindeke's Tebowing at brunch before the adults headed out to the Bronco's game. At the game we had the chance to hang out on the sidelines during warmups with Jessica and her friend Erin. It was pretty cool to be that close to the players! We then headed up to our awesome seats and enjoyed the first few minutes of the game before the Bronco's self destructed and lost big time to the Lions. After the game we had the chance to head back down onto the field and exit through the players tunnel and tailgate in the players/coaches lot. It was truly a once in a lifetime chance and we are very thankful to Jessica, Erin and Renee for bringing us along!

On Monday night it was time to trick or treat. We took our little German Girl to Dave's parent's neighboorhood where she charmed lots of neighbors into giving her extra pieces of chocolate. We started out the night with her whispering "trick or treat" and ended with her boldly asking "chocolate please".

It was a fun filled weekend and as always it amazes us to see how much she has changed in just one year.

Fall Follies

We had our first scary phone call from school this month when on a Friday afternoon we received a call that Claire had fallen at school and that she was not moving her arm and seemed to be in pain. Needless to say we both dashed out of work and tried to reach her as quickly as possible as we conference called out pediatrician to find out what to do as it was close to the end of the day. Dave picked Claire up and took her to the pediatrician's office and I was able to meet them there. Poor Claire seemed out of it and definitely was not using her arm at all. After meeting with a few nurses and nurse practitioners we were sent down to X-Ray. I think that we all experienced pain with the X-Ray as Claire was completely freaked out by the X-Ray machine and was screaming while I was holding her and Dave was waiting outside the room and could only hear what is going on. It sucked to say the least, but a good thing happened during the scream fest and that was that Claire or the X-ray technician fixed her arm. It turned out that she had nursemaids elbow and it needed to be popped back into place. We were very happy to learn that it was not broken and that her recovery took basically as long as it took to walk back upstairs to the clinic room. By the time we were back in the room she was eating, drinking, playing, and charming the nurses. While we hope that this is the biggest injury Claire will ever experience we know that this is probably the first of many emergency trips in our future.

Camping at Rocky Mountain National Park- Take 2

On the last weekend in August we headed back to Rocky Mountain National Park for another fun weekend of camping. This time we were staying at the Glacier Basin Campground with Natalia, Barry, & Alba. We had two great campsites with amazing views right next to each other so that the girls (and us) could easily move back and forth between the campsites.

View from our campfire area

We had planned on doing a hike with the girls and Dave suggested a hike that he and I had done backpacking 9 years ago. I remembered the hike as being beautiful and not that bad (after all we were carrying 30-40 pound packs then). Well, the 4.5 mile hike up to Sandbeach Lake was tougher than either of us remembered and the almost 2,000 feet of elevation gain was not kind to us. The boys were champs and carried both girls all the way up to the lake. Unfortunately we arrived at the top at the same time as the thunderstorm. We quickly ate our lunch and enjoyed the lake for 10 minutes before taking a group photo.

Seconds after this photo was taken, lighting struck the lake in one of the most amazing flashes of light I have ever seen and hope never to see again. Dave and Natalia ran for cover with the girls and Barry and I grabbed the bags. We set a pretty fast pace down in the rain, but it still took us more than three hours to descend. On the way down, Natalia and I helped out and carried the girls. The were both troopers, despite the rain they seemed to have a great time.

Claire and Alba in their rain gear back at the bottom of the hike

The whole gang in front of the trail head, post hike. Look at all t

hose smiles, we were proud of doing 9 miles with the girls!

Back at camp, we all hung out around the fire and enjoyed a great meal of lentils and rice prepared by Barry before snacking on some S'Mores made in the campfire. The girls enjoyed the campfire and seemed to understand that it was hot and pretty much stayed away. They were both adorable in their head lamps!

On the last day we returned to the picturesque (and flat) Sprague Lake to enjoy a walk and lunch before heading back to the real world. We feel very lucky to have such a great family to spend time with and that Claire is blessed with a great friend like Alba.

USA Pro Cycling Challenge - Colorado 2010

This summer we bent our rules on Claire and TV during the month of July and let Claire watch some of the Tour de France. We never anticipated that we would create a bike junkie. Claire loved watching the bike race and we would find her holding the remote and asking for bikes. On some of the teething nights, bikes would be the only thing that would calm her down and get her to sleep.

The whole family was excited this August as the USA Pro Cycling Challenge was here in Colorado - with many of our favorite riders from the Tour de France. We took a day off from work and school and watched the Prologue from the beautiful Garden of the Gods. We arrived early in the day in order to secure our amazing spot on the road (we were in a tight corner and when we stood on that side of the road, the bikes came amazing close to you) and to check out the team warm up area. Claire was on top of the world throughout the day as she watched a motorcycle come roaring by, followed by a bike, followed by a car with bikes on top - over and over again throughout the afternoon- all of this with a helicopter flying overhead.

Dave and Claire in front of the HTC Highroad team bus, sadly this team is ending this year.

The warm up board and bikes of team BMC

The broom wagon, which is suppose to sweep up riders that are not going to make the time cut for the day- luckily no one was "swept up" on day one.

Cadel Evans (Team BMC)