Finding some Consistency

We are enjoying life in Colorado and trying to get to know more people. In an effort to get some consistency in my life (I'm a creature of habit) I started exercising every morning before anyone in the house wakes up. I got a job at 24 hour Fitness and right now I'm just subbing classes there until they open a class for me. I also got a job at the YMCA where I will be teaching 1 class 2 mornings a week. On Mon/Wed/Fri I run with a neighbor,Michelle, or I try. The elevation here has me feeling like such a wimp. I get breathless really easy and I feel like I run at a tortiose pace. Michelle is really fast and she usually ends up leaving me at some point in the run. Lucky for me she injured one of her legs so she has slowed her 7 minute mile pace to almost 8. She asks me at least one time every morning if I can run a little faster. For most people running with someone like her just wouldn't be fun, but she is one of the first friends I have made here and I figure maybe I'll get a little faster if I run with her. Michelle took me on a hike up the Incline (it is the initial climb up to Pike's peak). It is 1 mile almost straight up. I think it is a 60% incline, then we ran a 4 mile trail down. The next 2 days my quads were dying. I felt like I had done lunges all the way up the mountain. The view was beautiful and next time I'll take a picture.

Peter's Passion

I noticed that Peter's notoriety on our blog is pretty nonexistent, so I thought I'd give everyone a glimpse into Peter's life right now. He is loving his job and I will spare you pictures of that. When he is not working, he is daydreaming about what our yard is going to look like when it is finished. The day the rocks were dropped off at our home, Peter called 5 times to ask how the yard was coming and to ask if I had seen the huge rocks that had been dropped off. I honestly couldn't tell much of a difference in the yard the first day. He is in love with the Rocks, which is a good thing because we have a lot of them in the yard. (Colorado is a desert and xeriscaping is a great way to conserve water. I couldn't give up grass completely, so at least 1/3 of the yard will have grass for the kids to play on.)

Originally we had planned on doing most of the work of installing our yard. Then we looked into it a little more and found out we would have to get a permit just to install a sprinkler system. (We were perfectly happy to put sprinklers on the lawn, but our HOA requires an installed system. Now we understand why that doesn't fly here. The people who don't have sprinkler systems don't water and their yards turn to dirt and weeds). After speaking with a landscaping company, it turned out the labor was the cheaper part of the landscaping. While Peter thought it would be really fulfilling to do the yard himself, I thought the few hours we had him home would be worth the price. We have had 5 guys working on the yard for 10 hours of the day for the past week and they will probably have about one more day of work left. Needless to say, I'm glad we paid for the work to be done. Otherwise we would probably not have a yard for at least another year.

We have spent a lot of time visiting stores to find plants to put in the yard. The plant part is something we wanted to do ourselves. We hit the plant season perfectly. Most stores are discounting their perrenials now so we have gotten most of our plants for 2 or 3 dollars. While I'd like to think I will get some say in the layout of the plants, I've pretty much given up hope on that. Peter's converted me to tall grasses. I used to hate them. They reminded me of these grasses we had when I was growing up. I thought they were ugly and they would cut your hands if you ran your fingers on them. Peter has a good eye for things like this and I am sure our yard is going to look great. I love that he has found a hobby to keep him busy and happy when he is not working. We'll post some pictures when our yard is finished. Right now we are waiting for the sod certificate that was suppose to be in the papers when we closed on our house.

Look at the size of that Rock!

Trouble

I came home from the grocery store the other day to find Katie and Hannah in a time out on the couch because they had been fighting. Our kids are not the type to fall asleep just anywhere, so I was surprised to see that Katie had actually fallen asleep.

Despite the girls ability to fight constantly, they can be pretty good friends for about an hour of the day.

Today Hannah and I made a pie together to share with some of our family. After taking the pie out of the oven I went upstairs to give Madison a bath. When I came back down, Katie had something in her mouth. I asked her what she was eating and then I looked on the counter. The beautiful pie was just within the reach of her little hand. Katie is notorious for doing things like this. We talked about always asking Mom if she wanted something. She just looked at me and stared. Later in the day she kept telling Hannah, "we always ask mom if we want someping".

A different kind of Tag

Memory Lane...the tag that gets everyone involved
I got this from my friend Laura's blog. I thought it would be fun! I hope you will play along. Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Garden of the Gods

Mike (Kim's brother) is an avid rock climber and has all of the equipment, so we headed to Garden of the God's for an afternoon of climbing and hiking. It has been a few years since I have gone rock climbing and my last climb was a little scary. I wasn't sure I was going to make it.

Have you ever been kissed by a giraffe?

-Hannah didn't want the giraffes tongues to touch her. She preferred feeding the baby giraffes.
-You would have thought Katie fed giraffes every day. Cousin Parker too.
-Uncle Jeff won't need hairgel for a few weeks.
-And Uncle Shawn will forever be able to say that yes, he has been kissed by a giraffe.

One Spoiled Face

Hannah is eating up every minute with her grandparents. We went to the zoo where she fed giraffes, rode a pony, rode a train, rode a carousel, pet a bearded dragon, and saw hundreds of animals. When she was asked what her favorite part of the day was, she responded "the chocolate ice cream".

Colorado Family Reunion

Kim's whole family joined us in Colorado for a family reunion.

Today we went to
Seven Falls.

Hannah and Katie even climbed the 244 stairs up to the top of the falls and back down again.

One of the highlights of the day was all of the chipmunks we saw. Hannah and Katie loved spotting them and then seeing how close they could get without scaring them away.