Colorado

Mary and I went to Colorado for a long weekend to visit Jon, Meg, and Solomon. We left early Friday morning and flew to Denver. The highlight of the whole trip for Mary was definitely the airplane!

At Denver, we rented a car (upgraded to a small SUV because of snow in the mountains) and drove to Glenwood Springs. It was snowing off and on for most of the drive, but the worst part was the white-out conditions during a steep downhill stretch right at the continental divide. Everyone drove about 20 mph and made it safely down the mountain!

We arrived at Jon and Meg's in the early afternoon. Here's the view of Mt. Sopris from their neighborhood:

Of course, one of the main purposes of the trip was to see our new nephew and cousin, Solomon, now about 9 months old! He had fun watching Mary dance and be goofy. He's quite the charmer.

On Saturday we hiked up a nice trail near their house and saw more spectacular scenery. Here's Meg (Solomon asleep on her back) and Mary:

Jon and Mary (don't worry, we held tight to Mary the whole time!):

Monkey Mary:Sunday we took a gondola up another mountain and explored some caves at the top. Here's the Gardner family on the gondola:
Mary on the gondola:

Here's Mary sporting some Colts gear with Mt. Sopris in the background:
Here comes Solomon! What a cutie.

Monday morning Jon and Meg went to work, and Mary and I spent about an hour in the hot springs pool in Glenwood Springs... a new experience for us. We showered and hit the road back to Denver. The trip back to Denver was much easier than the ride coming in... Monday was about 60 degrees and sunny, no snow (except the beautiful snow-capped mountains!). The scenery was amazing (Mary slept through the best parts) and we made it back to Denver with time to spare before our plane trip back home.

Thanks, Jon, Meg, and Solomon for a great time in Colorado... we can't wait to come back!!

Hannah's Birthday, Halloween, etc

Happy First Birthday, Hannah! This is Hannah on her birthday (Oct. 29), but we didn't really celebrate until Saturday, Nov. 1, so Halloween first...

Jacob and Mary "helped" me carve pumpkins on Thursday. They don't like the pumpkin insides (Jacob won't even look inside the pumpkin until it's all hollowed out), so I did most of the work.

Here we are just before heading out for trick-or-treating. At the last minute I put a witch hat and cape on Hannah. Can you believe how light it is outside in Indiana at 6 p.m. on Oct. 31? That's thanks to Eastern Daylight Saving Time. Finally this morning Jacob didn't have to wait at the bus stop in darkness, now that we're back to normal time, the way things SHOULD be. (I'll quit complaining now).On to Hannah's birthday party... opening gifts...

...playing with her new piano toy...

...me trying to explain to Jacob and Mary that they need to back off and let Hannah play with her own toys...

...making silly faces...

...Mary wondering, "when is it going to be MY birthday?"

We had a heart-themed birthday, in honor of Hannah's special heart

This is Hannah listening to everyone sing "Happy Birthday:"

She liked it so much that we sang it twice!

The traditional first cake and ice cream:Not sure about it:

She managed to eat most of it, though!

This is Hannah playing with her balloons later on:

In other news, Jacob has a new friend from school (this is really his very first friend!). He got to go to Aedan's house Sunday all afternoon to play. They had so much fun, just the boys! Here are Aedan and Jacob in front of Aedan's house: