Little wonders....

Have you ever heard "Little Wonders " by Rob Thomas? if not just go to the bottom of my blog and you will find it on my play list. This song seems to fit the day we had up at Rifle Falls. That morning, as rick left for work he asked what our plans were for the day. Seeing how school was out for the day. I told him we would be cleaning and i had calls to make and who knows what the day would bring. Well that doesn't sound fun he says, as he heads out the door to go to work. So while taking Sydney to school i started to think he was right. Kylie and Tanner and i headed to Mc D's for lunch then we went home to finish cleaning while we waited for Sydney's school to be done. When we picked up Sydney, we stopped at the house and picked up our snow boots and hats and gloves and headed up to rifle falls to see if the falls were still frozen. As you can see from the pictures it wasn't ...Dang! but there was still chunks of ice behind the falls so it was still kinda frozen.


The kids wanted a funny face picture, but I'm not sure what Sydney considers a funny face. Tanner and Kylie sure do.

The closer you got to the falls you could feel the mist ( boy, was it cold). You could see how it would make the snow on the trees freeze. It looked like a winter corn dog - snow on a stick and it was hard as a rock, but it sure was pretty.

I had to get a picture of the fallen winter corn dogs( i don't know what you would call them.. sorry) they were all over the ground in front of the falls.

You can hike around the falls up to the caves and beyond to the trails. Sydney wanted to be our leader so she found a cat tail and away we went.

Look close at this snow. (its probably hard to see) It looked like jagged glass and when you looked up close it was snowflakes that had froze and you could see their shapes up close. It was truly beautiful. we found huge sections of snow like this on the trail behind the falls.

its kinda hard to see their shapes in this picture. Tanner says that they look like crystal Christmas trees. they were way cool

on our way home we saw 2 bald eagles and a few deer, But our highlight was when we came up to where the golf course is. We saw a huge herd of elk, it seemed like there was about 75 (or more) They were all over the golf course so it was hard to get one big happy family picture of them...:)


We had such a great time, they keep asking when are we going up again. We have been up there in the fall and the winter and in summer, so i am thinking spring will be next.

Gone but not Forgotten.......I hope

I hope that you haven't forgotten or given up on us. My bad, it seems when i wanted to sit down and update the blog ,i got busy or just wasn't feeling up to it and before i knew it, months had passed. I thought that time flew by fast but it wasn't until i noticed when the last time i was on here that its been way to long. I thought that instead of really back tracking of what went on i thought that i would post a few of the pics that were taken and then move on with the New Year with better aspirations of keeping up on my blog. We shall see how it goes.




When tanner was 2 he wanted a buzz lightyear and woody, it was his favorite toys, he sure loved them. when we went to Disneyland when he was 2 1/2 and i thought he would love it but i think that the real buzz and woody kinda of scared him a little or he was just a little star struck. he was speechless. we found a little boy in our ward who loves woody and these toys needed to be played with again so we gave them to Ty. and it sounds like they are loved again.

Hi welcome to my messy kitchen. The kids wanted to play restaurant. I made soup and bread sticks. They were so funny, they made menus and they took our order, gave us our drinks

and even did the clean up.......(Sydney and i and rick were the customers)

Tanner taking our order

kylie giving our check......(wait didn't i cook the meal i should get a discount...)

Halloween 2008 Fairy,Fiona, Star trooper ( don't check out my messy craft closet)

Yeah Pumpkin time...

Thanksgiving day and Christmas day was spent with some of the elderly in rifle. Carol (ricks mom) works at the rifle housing authority. She wanted to have a Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner for those who had no family coming to see them for the holidays. Carol and i cooked the turkeys and hams and brought drinks and some sides while they brought some to. The kids loved it , they were getting them drinks and helping them with their food. We had such a great time. It made my holidays so much brighter. I hope we can do this often.

Ricks Birthday cake..34 and still cute as ever......

Kylie is really getting into her Christmas concert or she just got done yawning j/k she was singing her heart out..

Rifle has a parade of light during the month of December. We bundled up and head down town to watch. We went and picked up some Hot Cocoa and Chili and some yummy fudge . sat and waited for the parade to start. Boy, was it cold ,but we had a great time.

We love the fire trucks and like any parade they were loud.

Let it snow. This was our first snow storm. We have had plenty of it since, yeah baby i love snow. so do the kids Sydney is showing me that its snowing.

Kylie made a Mohawk out of snow....

Tanners didn't turn out so well....

This Christmas season we had a nativity bandit. When i would set up the nativity set and spread it out on the table. Then a few days (or less) it would some how rearrange itself to form a tight circle around the baby Jesus. I started to watch to see who had done it and caught Tanner moving it around. After watching him i started to understand why he felt like he had to move them, I never did move them again and i think that in the years to come i will have them form a tight circle around baby Jesus. And a Little child shall lead them ....... Thanks Tanner,

What a Wonderful World.....

It has been really crazy around here and i have noticed that our leaves on our tree in the front yard are starting to change color and if its happening here, just imagine what the canyons hold. We watched the first session of conference on Saturday and recorded the 2nd . We went for a drive to see the colors. We headed to Aspen and went to a place called Red Stone which was so pretty . They have a little town in the canyon with cute little houses. The pretty red rock and red sand was a pretty contrast to the green pines and splashes of yellow and orange and red here and there. It was raining so the colors weren't as bright as it is when its nice and warm. We then headed up McClures Pass Which was breath taking and the colors weren't that bad either. The road is really steep, and the switch backs are really tight,but the colors were really pretty. You had tons and tons of Green pine trees and then yellow splashes which looked more like Fireworks shooting up every where. we went to lunch in a little town called Paionia which i am told that they have wonderful fruit orchards, i could see some but we didn't have time to stop, Rick had to get back for the Priesthood session. It was so fun just being together and really seeing how Colorado is really like the signs says . " Welcome to Colorful Colorado "



Red Stone

Red Stone. You can kinda see the Red Sand in this Pic.

Starting up McClures Pass

The weather was rainy and cold and the pics really don't show just how beautiful it was up there. The clouds covered a lot, I am so glad we went because i heard that it snowed the next night and i am sure that most of the yellow leaves are off the trees, now its a mini winter wonder land.