Fall begins!

Here are just a few fun shots from the week!

Jadeyn still loves to torment Newt and Dozer. They tolerate him pretty well when he corners them, but will bolt when given the chance! Doesn't this just ooze exuberance and love. This kid does everything with exuberance!!

Here is our little tough guy in his new football PJs on opening football day! He LOVES anything to do with balls. He has a great throwing arm already. We had several neighbors over for the Broncos opening game and BBQ on Sunday and he had a blast running around with the kids. It was great to have the neighbors together again. Its been awhile since we've done one of these things and it was great. However, you couldn't have asked for a better opening week. All our favorite teams had dramatic come from behind wins in the last few minutes: MICHIGAN over Notre Dame, DENVER over Cincinnati, GREENBAY over Chicago(where Jay Cutler threw 4 interceptions heehee) and finally PATRIOTS over Buffalo (way to go Brady!)

Tons of fun!

Jadeyn will often occupy himself while we are cooking by disassembling the Tupperware cupboard: pushing them around, stacking them, getting into them, wearing them as hats!!



Ahhh, the joys of discovering EZ cheese! Don't have to say much more than that!!!!

Mesa Lakes, Colorado

Mesa Lakes, Colorado

NICE BROOK TROUT!

We thought that we might make you a bit jealous with these pictures! What a fishing trip!! This beauty was caught in a high mountain lake that we had all to ourselves. The turquiose water was so clear that you could see the shadows of the fish swimming in the deep and it glistened beautifully in the sun. We only got one bite at this lake, but boy was it a big one! I started to reel this big boy in and knew he was going to be huge. As his belly flashed orange in the sun as he came through the water, I couldn't believe that this was a brook trout!! A HUGE native brookie! He was a fighter as I brought him to shore. He started flipping and flopping and broke my line just as Kevin stepped on him to keep him from making it back to the water! Check out the size of that mouth; and his teeth were like razors! Normally a "big" brookie that we catch is about 8-10 inches long, so this one was a shock! Yeah, Kevin was jealous but he was sure proud of me!

KICKIN' IT AT CAMP!

Here are my boys kickin' it at camp. Jadeyn tried to do EVERYTHING that his Daddy does. When we were chopping some wood for the fire, he would give a mighty grunt with each chop!

For those of you who may not know a ton about the native fish of the Rockies: the top fish in this photo is a Brook Trout; a nice one too. They are usually 8-10 inches long. Its not very often that you can find them bigger. They are a native fish (not planted) and have to be able to winter in order to get any bigger. They are a lot of fun to catch, nice little fighters, and they are beautiful fish. Their bellies and fins are bright orange with a white and black stripe at the ends. Lovely spots and a few bright magenta spots on their sides.

LITTLE HELPING HANDS!

Jadeyn is our little fisherman! We fished about twice as much as we normally would have because every waking moment he was tugging on our fingers, pointing towards the lake and crying out "Shish! Shish!" He does great with a pole and by the way he reels he has a "special" way of enticing the fish or tangling the line, whatever the case may be!

WHOA!

Jadeyn was so excited about the HUGE fish! Its more than 2/3 his length. He has to poke every fish we catch and then he will giggle. On this one though, we had to be careful about the sharp teeth cause he wanted to poke its tongue.

Yard Work

We spend a little bit of time in the yard this last weekend repairing some dead places in the grass. As you can tell, Jadeyn was excited to help! He would take little spriggets of grass and carefully "plant" them!

Grand Lake, CO Camping

We spent the weekend near Grand Lake, just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. Great times! Beautiful country despite the damage that the pine beetles have done to the lodge poles. I'd say about 90% of the pines are dead on that side of the park; its pretty sad. The lake was beautiful and the river coming out of it was spectacular.


While peacefully fishing, we heard a noise from across the river. A HUGE moose was making his way up the bank across from us. We got to watch this magnificent animal mosey along his way and hear the grunting and clopping of his hoofs. Pretty Special. On the way to camp, passing through RMNP, we were fortunate to see a nice herd of Big Horned Sheep as well. Two nice males with giant horns. Wow!


Jadeyn still LOVES fishing! Each time Kevin would cast, Jadeyn would holler "throw it!" And he would get so excited when we would bring a fish to shore. But he still giggles when he watches us gut them. Hummm... He passed the time on the shore by throwing rocks into the river and stirring the water with a stick. He also became fascinated with the worm bucket!

Jadeyn entertained himself by throwing rocks into the lake and river. He's got a great arm on him and would giggle every time he threw it far enough to make the water splash!

The nights were pretty chilly. Some bottles we left outside the tent froze, to that tells your just about how cold it got. We stayed nice and relatively warm in the tent and only had to bring Jadeyn in the sleeping bags with us in the early morning hours.
During one of Jadeyn's naps, Kevin went to the lake to fish and I got to stay back at camp to read. Nice to just relax and watch the chipmunks romp! (one even climbed up my leg, into my lap and up on my shoulder before jumping off! Cool!).

"Throw Ball!"

Jadeyn sure has a good arm on him!
Just watch these throws as he coaches himself by hollering "Throw ball!"

Water and Smiles!

Poor Fishy!

We love having a tropical fish aquarium even with all the maintenance, vacuuming, etc. Jadeyn's 5th word (and favorite word) was fish! Actually "shish." Well, we got back from our camping trip to a sad surprise. Three of our Rosy Barbs had something wrong with them. Their mouths were all swollen and red, kind of, well, really gross looking. By the next day their skin was white and coming off. Eeww! Cottonmouth disease. So treatment time. (Don't laugh at the pictures. Try taking a picture of a moving fish in a tank! Its really tough! But you can zoom in and see the poor things better).

The anti-fungal medication said that is could lightly tint the tank water: our tank is currently emerald green! That's not a light tint!

48 hours later we start the water changes. I'm filling up the garbage can with pails of water and Jadeyn got so excited. He started searching the room and came running up with a racquetball container and wanted to help! We let him scoop up his little bit of water and walk with us to the bathtub to dump it. He was so proud and happy that he could help out his "shish!"