Our Very Merry Christmas!

Here is a little peak into the Young family christmas morning.  We had a wonderful christmas filled with traditions, family fun time, great friends and great food! The only thing that was missing was fresh snow.  I guess you could say we had a semi white christmas.  We still have some leftover half melted/froze again snow from a few weeks ago.

 Andrew really got into the traditions this year  Everything from the normal Santa stuff to the full celebration of Jesus' birthday including a birthday cake with candles.  He was so exciting to see that baby Jesus was in the manger on Christmas morning.

We hope all our friends and family were as blessed as we were this year.

Our Pug-Deer.  I don't think he was too fond of his Christmas gift.

My 3 Christmas boys!

Passing down the memories!  Mama's favorite games as a kid.  

That's Andrew's "oooh cool" face!  He has carried these notebooks around all day!

Again with the "ooh cool" face while getting all the "odds and ends" from his stocking!

FINALLY!!!!! What an amazing day!

This is a two part praise!  

Part 1: SNOW.  We finally got "real" snow, not just a dusting.  Normally snow starts by halloween here and NOv is normally the 2nd snowiest month of the year.  THis year I thin the official numbers for Nov were less then 1 inch.  But we made up for it today as you can see form the pics below.    Cont past the photos to read about Part 2

this is what it looked like when we got up Thur. morning.

This is the view at about 11am from Maria's house.  It cont. most of the day.  I think we ended up with around 7 inches.

Part 2:  It's actually hard for me to actually say this with confidence, ok here I go...

JOHN GOT THE FTE (full time employee)!!!!

yep you read it correctly.  It's official.  After waiting almost 3 yrs and after every date we've been given falling through, this time it's for real.  He got the official offer today.  I can hardly believe it.  I truly was beginning to think this was all just a sick joke and it would NEVER actually go through.  But it did.  Have I said how shocked, amazed and excited I am?  Ok, just checking!

Like I said in the title...  What an amazing day!  God is good...  scratch that God is GREAT!!!!!! As if I didn't already know that!  :)

Tae Bo

So Andrew and John decided to work out a little Sunday morning.  It was so cute watching Andrew try to keep up with the big boys.  Sorry it's sideways.  Hopefully you have a laptop that you can turn so you don't have to turn your head!  ")

First snow

We only got a half an inch, maybe.  Most of it melted as soon as it fell.  BUt it is still or first official SNOW!  :)

Star Wars

As you can see, we had a theme for our Halloween this year... Star Wars.  We all had a lot of fun, especially me, since my costume was "Mama the photographer".  John, and Ross weren't so lucky.  They got drug into the mess with Andrew, but they had fun, well, OK Ross didn't have fun at all, but it made for cute pics and fun entertainment.  Plus I think it helped Andrew score more candy, not that he needed more, in a little over an hour he racked up half a pillowcase full.  I felt like Santa as I walked through the neighborhood with the bag over my shoulder.

Earlier in the day we met up with the Obssuths and took al the kids to the Tiny Tot Halloween in Old Town, Fort Collins.  AHHHHH  It was a mad house.  Too chaotic for me.  But at least I got a good pic of Dale (Buz lightyear), Cole (giraffe), Maria (Tigger), and Andrew(Clone Trooper)

Pug Yoda I am.   Hate you I do!

Cutest little Clone Trooper.

Adams's Falls and Mr. Moose

Ok so it's been too long since I got my little booty in gear and posted anything.    I really don't have may great pics to post but I can at least give ya'll an update.

Where to begin...  how about Andrew and school...  yuck!  I can't really say that it is a little better, but his teacher still bugs me.  We had our parent teacher conference a couple of weeks ago. *Yeah the year is 25% over* anyway... It went fairly well.  John didn't really notice anything about Ms. T.  It's gotta be the "mom's 6th sense"  Plus I get to see her reg. day to day behavior.  LIke when the last little boy in Andrew's class to get picked up, was putting his papers into his bag and then saw his mom, he got so excited (normally dad picks him up) that he held onto his box a ran over to her.  Ms. T hollered out to him, "Jacob, no, you will finish your job."  He was heart broken.  And started crying, which her reply was "oh please..."  I heard him through his tears ask Ms. T, "I can't go home with my mom at all?"  Mom came over to him so Ms. T didn't respond.  Is it really so hard for her to say something more like, "Jacob lets finish your job first and then we can show Mommy all your hard work."  Instead of making him feel like he couldn't see his mom at all.  I know for many people there isn't much difference in that, but if you've worked with kids, or have your own, you know it can be black and white to a 3yr old..

As for the rest of the family... well good and bad news.  

The good news is that John's official full time job (FTE) was posted and he made the short list.  THat just means he was at the top of the applicants for his boss the chose from.  We should be getting the official offer soon.  His boss wants the start date to be by Nov 10th.  Finally!!!!  We've only been waiting for a position like this for 4 1/2 years and they've been actually grooming him for this exact position for over 3 yrs.  Over the years we've had alot of hurry up and wait.  The gov.'s specialty.

Now the for the bad part, I almost broke my hand.  And it wasn't even while doing anything fun.  I simply slammed my knuckle into the couch.  Not on purpose of course.  I thought at first I just popped my knuckle.  But the next morning I woke up and most of my hand was swollen.  What little movement I had the first night was gone.  We had it checked out and the x-ray didn't show a fracture, but there was quite a bit of soft tissue swelling which is what was causing the pain.  I had to wear a splint for what seemed like forever, really only a week or so.    I'm glad to say it's pretty much back to normal.  I was even able to put my wedding ring back on last night.

As for my job, things are still going good.  Maria is growing like a weed.  She now holds her own bottle, sits up on her own, and is just days from crawling.  Then the fun will really begin.

We had a ton of fun this summer, from several trips to the zoo (which I forgot my camera each time) to camping out in Estes and enjoy the Colorado wildlife.

My parents brought their pop up out here and we joined them for Labor day weekend in the mountians at Estes Park.  The night beofre we got there they had a bear wondering around in the tent camp area, a few days after we got there a cow elk and her calf came wondering up about 30 yrds from the pop ups.  And on the las night we had 6 white tails does and a young buck come with in 20 ft from out pop up.  But I must say the wildlife highlight was as we were driving to Grand Lake for the day.  There were a ton of cars pulled over which normally means elk.  I've seen about as many elk as I have white tails in my life now, so unless they are buggleing, I'm not that interested.  But this was no elk.  It was a bull.  A bull MOOSE!  yep I got to see my first moose.  It was awesome.  Unfortunatly he never fully came out of the brush so the pictures weren't that clear, but it's enough that you can his his nice rack and know it was the real thing.

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful summer, is enjoying fall, and is getting ready for thanksgiving and christmas.  Yep I said it, Christmas.  You know it's only 61 days away.  Or for us, it's basically 42 days way, since we will be celebrating Christmas in MO Dec 6th-14th.  Hopefully we will get to catch up with most everyone.

I'll try to post some fall/halloween pics in a couple of weeks.

I will leave you with a few pics from our hike along the river to Adam's Falls in Grand Lake and the Moose.  

Need feedback...

Ok, a friend took some pics of us for their adoption scrapbook.  I need everyones opinion on if we should us one of these for our pic to go with our christmas cards, or should we redo them this fall with all of us having the same length pants on and my hair done better.  So please vote #1, #2, or Redo!

Thanks!

#1

#2

One of the saddest days of my life...

Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but still I spent the morning crying my eyes out.  Why all the water works you ask... Preschool.  Yep, Andrew's fist day of preschool.

I know I'm a little bit of a control freak at times... ok more then a little bit, but this preschool thing is killing me.  I'm so excited that he gets to go and make new friends, I just don't like his teacher.  Actually I can't stand Ms. T.  At first I thought it was just my control issues coming out since I've always had an inside connection for all his prior teachers at the daycare.  I could slide in my opinion/concerns without making a "formal" complaint, but then I realized that was a whole separate issue.  I was freaking out because she reminded me of someone.  Basically she's a dark hair version of Carol Verdi. If you recognize this name you know what I mean, if not, I'll just briefly say she is the worst teacher/boss I've ever been around and many people would say as deceptive as Satan himself!

Luckily I love her aid, Ms. Carrie.  I just pray I don't have to deal directly with Ms T. much this year and hopefully next year we will get assigned to a different teacher.

Good news is Andrew was so excited to go to school and he had a great time.  In fact he asked me this morning if I was going to leave him there today, since yesterday I hung around for orientation.  My plan was to answer "yes, but at 10:45 school will be over for the day and I'll come pick you up.  However this is how the conversation went...

A: "Mom are you going to leave today?"

Me: "Yes, bu...."

A: "YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

For all of you who have gone through all those Early childhood courses all I can say is Ambivalent Feelings!!!!!

On a good note, when I asked Andrew if he had made any friends today, he said Lyla was his only new friend at school.  He said he had fun playing with her and helping her.  Lyla is the most physically challenged child in his class.  She doesn't walk or talk, but from what I can tell she shows a good range of emotions and is very mobile by scooting quickly across the floor.  Andrew has not been around any children with an obvious physical disabilities so it was wonderful to hear he took to her right away.  I knew there was a sweet loving boy under the typical "monkey" we see most days.

Here are some cute pics I managed to get before the water works display today!

Horsetooth Resv. boating

Last Wed. JOhn's boss invited the employees and their family to the lake for bbq/boating.  Sine John and Jean were visiting that got to enjoy a little of the boat and the bbq on the beach with us.  We had a blast!

We were all so proud of him!

I only posted this pic to prove that I got out there too.  John did a wonderful job of taking pics of me with my face all scrunched up.  

If you look closely, you can see my in-laws on the beach in the background.

John hanging on for hear life!

John and Andrew tubing at Horsetooth Resv.

(Sorry if it's hard to follow I was tryiing to keep my balance on the slippery deck of the boat.

John's boss was not very merciful!  I was siting down this time, but Marty was throwing him all over the place!

Lake Owen Camping Trip

Ok so this ahs taken forever for me to post.  I wanted to write a whole big spiel on our wonderful time at Lake Owen, but I just haven't had the time.  Hopefully the pics won't need much explanation.

Basically our campsite was surrounded by lodge pole pines and the door of our tent opened to a view of the lake and snow caped mountains as a back drop!

If you look closely you can see our blue tent on the back side of the lake against the trees.

this pic doesn't do the view justice!

There was a really nice trail that was part of an old railroad track.  JOhn and Andrew had fun climbing on the caboose.

Summer time Fun!

Our summer has started with a bang.  It seems like every time I blink something new is on the "to-do" calendar.  Of course if you know me very well, I wouldn't have it any other way.  :o)

Last weekend we held a BBQ at the park for all our friends.  We invited about 40 people and as they say expect 50%, we had 19 people there.  We taught an Englishman how to play volleyball, "open pit at a public park" sand volleyball.  He was such a sport.  He didn't shy away from the ball, in fact he even dove for it, and land practically face first in "cat poo" *sounds better with the English accent*  We then set up a temp net on the grass.  

It's been too long since John and I have played volleyball.  Our bodies quickly reminded us that we were not 16 anymore.  But we had fun regardless.

As you can see in the following pics Andrew has had a lot of water fun this summer.  We got him a $5 Slip 'N Slide.  There is the perfect little hill at Maria's house for it.  He is a slip n slide pro!  He has also enjoyed the new splash park at an awesome new park in Fort Collins.  I don't know if MO has any splash parks.  We have 3 now in FC.  The are just little fountain area, normally set up at parks, for kids to splash around in.  The water is chlorinated and recirculated so it's a little warmer then a sprinkler.    And of course my little fishy is addicted!

Andrew also got to go to his first Demolition Derby, or as he says the "BOOM BOOM BOOM Cars"!  There were about 22 of us in our group and we'd each put in a quarter and tried to pick the cars that we thought would survive.  Andrew is still talking about his "broken orange car"  He was good at telling us which ones to pick.  Luckily we didn't really listen considering his were almost always the first ones out.  I think his favorite part was watching the "HUGE" tractors trying to dry out the track in the beginning.  He just sat there in amazement.

His silly face glasses he got at Chucky Cheese.

The tractors preparing the field.

Watching his "broken orange car"

Splash park photos!

I'm sure there will be more summer fun pics to come!

My little fishy

Here are few picks of our daily swim adventure right here in our back yard, or should I say back porch.  I"m going to try to get him into swim lessons this summer.  As you can see, he's a natural fish!  Hopefully this weekend we will get alot of good picks at our BBQ.