November 25th, 2007: Travis' First Food!

After a good report at his 4 month Dr. visit, Travis was given the go ahead to start transitioning to food. So, on Sunday he was able to try rice cereal for the first time! So far he is eating really well.

November 24, 2007: Holiday Weekend Fun!

I was able to get take the weekend off after Thanksgiving and use some of my use or lose annual leave before the end of the year. Nolan, Barrett and I took advantage of the time off early Friday to take in the movie "Underdog." Our realtor had called a few days earlier to let us know that her company sponsors a free movie every year. A nice idea. Our friend Sally from Billings, and her kids, JP and James were at the house when we returned home, so the boys enjoyed playing with their friends through midday.

By early afternooon, we were packed up and ready to head up to Estes Park to enjoy the holiday light parade that Kelly and I have been to several times. The parade was great as usual, although it was REALLY cold. Before the parade, we had a great dinner at Ed's, one of our favorite eateries up there (and where a few of you may recall we had breakfast before the wedding back almost 9 years ago).

Earlier in the day, we had decided to use one of our free nights at LaQuinta and head down to Westminster for the night after the parade. We wanted to go see Nolan's hockey coach from Billings and his Bantam A team play one of their games at a tournament there in Westminster Saturday morning. As it turned out, the Billings folks were staying in the same hotel as us so we even got to visit briefly at breakfast. Congrats to coach Jason and the Billings Junior Bulls Bantam A team, as they were able to win the entire tournament and only gave up 1 goal in the entire 5 games they played. Jason informed us that these guys were ranked 16th in the country for their age division! Pretty impressive.

After watching the game, we made several stops to do some shopping around Westminster and then in Fort Collins along the route back north to Cheyenne. We even enjoyed dinner at one of Kelly and I's old hangouts, the Armadillo, in Fort Collins. On our way into the restaurant we saw three reindeer walking down the streets of Fort Collins, and the boys got to get up close with Prancer. They were both amazed and Nolan had been mentioning that he really wanted to see one of the real reindeer. Great stuff!

Happy Thanksgiving 2007

I had to work a day shift on Thanksgiving Day this year, but it still worked out well that we could enjoy dinner with our friends, the Dramko's. After work, I headed out to their house where Kelly and the boys were already enjoying the day. The boys were sledding down the hill near the house and it turned out to be a fantastic sledding hill. I couldn't resist a few trips down the hill since I knew I would be changing out of my work clothes anyhow and it didn't matter if I got all snowy.

We had a great turkey dinner with all the fixin's and enjoyed the company and a little football on TV too. The boys had a great time playing as usual.

November 21st, 2007: Travis is 4 months old.

November 20, 2007: Let the Winter Begin

Well, it has obviously been a long time since I posted but we hope you are all entering the holidays happily.

I spent November 8-14 in Michigan giving a hand to my Mom and Dad after my Mom endured another cancer surgery. It was great to be able to get back and lend a hand and my Mom is doing very well early in this round of recovery. She was planning to be in Wyoming for Thanksgiving, but we are very thankful that her regular checkups found this cancer and before it got into the lymph nodes and that the surgery was successful. She is already on the road to recovery and we'll just have to have a nice "holiday" dinner when she next gets to visit us in the Cowboy State!

Today we will begin to experience winter in southeast Wyoming as a strong cold front will push through and take our temeperatures from 20 degrees above normal Monday to near normal Tuesday and then to around 15 to 20 degrees below normal Wednesday. Snow is expected Tuesday night but model uncertainty is making this a difficult forecast. I am thankful to be off until Thanksgiving Day so I can observe how conditions evolve from home. I took advantage of the 70+ temperatures today for some creative storage of yard toys, etc. for the cold months using existing "climbers" and tarps as small storage areas. And Kelly and I also started getting some Christmas lights/decorations out into the yard before conditions turn cold through at least the rest of the week. This as future posts will show, includes our own "tumbleweed Christmas tree" in the front yard, even with colored lights!

Hockey season is in full swing and Nolan is having a blast with Thursday practices and Sunday scrimmages. The scrimmages are new to the association here, so we are working out the kinks and trying to incorporate the various ideas of the many coaches we have for the 3-6 year olds. Tournaments begin soon for the mini-Mites with the first one in Casper in early December. Nolan is also one of a few of the 6 year olds who have been asked to play-up with the Mites against one of the Colorado teams in early December, so he is excited about having another game to play. Kelly and I are on a mission now to create enough interested families so we can attend the Billings mite and mini-mite tournament in late March 2008. Rock Springs is not having a tournament this year, and there will not be a Cowboy State Games in February, so we are hoping to help create more game opportunities. Our mini-mites will be playing in Littleton, Colorado late in January too, so that will be fun.

And finally a few pictures:

"Barrett the cat tamer" November 5th.

And this is how Nolan fell asleep while listening to the Broncos beat the Titans tonight on Monday Night Football.

Halloween 2007