It has been a crazy, busy fall. But the one thing that we've definitely enjoyed is meeting Santa at a couple different places and telling him all about what is on our Christmas lists. In the photo, Santa came to watch the kids' holiday program for their daycare on Dec 7th. The program was great - much much better than we were expecting from a daycare. I think Anna & Ryan both enjoyed it too. And of course, getting to see Santa afterwards, was the icing on the cake.

10 Years and counting...

Last Friday was our 10th anniversary. Wow!

Larry surprised me by flying in his sister Michelle and wisking me away for a glorious weekend in Colorado Springs at the Broadmoor Hotel. It is a fabulous hotel nestled right up next to the Rockies, complete with 5-star service! We even got a couple's Swedish massage together. It was so great to be pampered for 2 days, to get to sleep in late with no kiddo interruptions, and mostly, just great to spend some quality one-on-one time with each other. That's something we really haven't made a high enough priority in our lives since having the kids, so it was a fabulous time for re-connecting. On Saturday, we did some local touristy things - saw Seven Falls, Garden of the Gods, and Larry humored me by stopping at a "Ghost Town" museum, so that we could pan for gold in the trough in back of their building. We did find some gold flakes, and I think we've resolved to do the "real thing" sometime in the near future with the kids.

In other news, Anna and Ryan started swimming lessons last week. Anna loves it. Ryan, not so much. Ryan spent the entire lesson crying for daddy. The funny thing is that when it was over, he said he wanted to come back again.

And finally, in even more exciting news, I finally got my Colorado teacher's license!! YIPPEE!!! So I'm officially job-hunting now and hopeful that I'll at least be able to get a sub job sometime yet this fall.

The Joy of Fall

We've been having some beautiful fall weather here in Denver this week. However, as I walk Anna to and from school every day, I've been noticing that the maple trees in our front and back yard are the ONLY ones in the entire neigborhood that are already shedding their leaves. (seriously - no exaggerating!) After chatting with a neighbor, she said these trees have always been like that - they are done dropping leaves by the time everyone else is just starting to rake. Hmmm... guess they just want to be first. Well, whatever the reason is, a little extra wind yesterday created the perfect opportunity for the kids to go outside and try to catch falling leaves. Anna even tried to catch some on her tongue (a la snowflakes). At times it really looked like it was snowing leaves. The kids had so much fun! These are the moments that I cherish and will remember forever.

Day Out with Thomas

So today was the big day - we got to meet Thomas the Train!!!!! We hadn't told Ryan that we were going to see Thomas, just in case bad weather cancelled it for us, or something else happened. We also wanted to surprise him. He was excited to see the trains in general, but I think a little shocked about actually seeing Thomas. He mostly just stared at the train without saying much. In general, we had a great time at the event. It was held at a RR museum in Golden so there were lots of other trains to see and climb on. They had a petting zoo, kids activities, a HUGE Thomas gift tent, and Sir Topham Hatt was there for photos. By the end of the day, both kids were exhausted, but had a great time. Here are some of the photos from the day.

Brrrrrr

Last weekend, we went "driving". Expensive, yes, but something Larry & I have always liked doing. Especially when we first move into a new area, we like to just drive around and check out the countryside around us and see what there is to do, etc. So on this day we went driving into the mountains to find a potential camping spot. We ended up in Leadville, which is located in the mountains south of Aspen at 10,000 ft. This is Turquoise Lake, a very beautiful area with fishing, camping, hiking, and some beaches. But at 10,000 ft in September, you can guess that the water is already quite chilly. Still, the kids wanted to "get their feet wet". We figured they'd touch the water and it would be so cold they'd be done in 1 minute. Nope - not the Strating kids!!! They kept going in further and further until their pants were wet and had to come off, then the shirts got wet too. Fortunately, whenever we go on these drives, we usually pack for worst case scenarios, so we had some towels and Anna had packed enough extra clothes for both kids for several days (she "saved the day" - her words!) We later found out from someone at a campsite that the water was 63 degrees that day. YIKES! The kids were definitely cold but had a lot of fun - even Ryan who normally hates getting wet with cold water.















Unfortunately, we didn't find anywhere to camp this year because the campgrounds with running water all closed for the season on Labor Day weekend. But I'm sure we'll check this lake out again next summer, and hopefully the water will be warmer then also!

Anna's 1st day of Kindergarten

This is the scrapbook layout I did of Anna's first day of Kindergarten. I'm not very good at keeping up-to-date with all of my scrapbooking, but I just loved this photo of her, and had a perfect digi-kit that matched her outfit beautifully. Not to mention that this, of all occasions, is SO huge in her life, I wanted to make sure I got it scrapbooked asap. The photo of her matches her personality and mood that day perfectly - smiling, happy, excited, bright and cheery, but the head tilt says that she's still shy and a little apprehensive about what exactly "kindergarten" is all about. I just can't believe I already have a 5 year old!