June 25th, 2007: Another Afternoon In Colorado

Monday, we made another quick run down to the ice rink in Windsor, CO for a few hours of skating. It was 100+ on the Suburban thermometer, but even with the heat there were only about a dozen people on the ice at any given time. By the end of the public skating period, we were almost the only people on the ice again. Great for less than $10. Kelly came along and got the pictures shown below.

After skating we ran down to the mall in Loveland and did some shopping and then went to On The Border for dinner. At dinner, I noticed that an older couple who I worked with in Estes Park in 1993 was in the restaurant. After dinner we visited briefly with them and exchanged email addresses, and hopefully we can get together with them some time. They lived in Estes Park in 1993, but now live in Fort Collins, CO. Funny how small the world can be.

June 17, 2007: Fathers Day Trip to Rocky Mountain National Park

Last Sunday, we decided to head up into Rocky Mountain National Park and take advantage of being so close to one of our favorite locations.

We had a great day, with a picnic lunch near the Alluvial Fan (Endovalley) area and a trip up Trail Ridge Road (including a visit to the store where I used to work in the summers of 1992 and 1993).

After coming back down Trail Ridge in the late afternoon, we swung through Estes Park just long enough to grab a bite to eat at Ed's (and catch Tiger's missed put on 18 in the US Open). We had a great dinner at the recently (a few years ago it turns out) renovated Ed's and wound our way through a few shops and playgrounds along the way. On the way home, we watched a little thunderstorm get quite big and produce a nice lightning display in NE CO and SE WY.

Below are a customary few pictures...

At the Alluvial Fan.

Again at the Alluvial Fan.

Nolan...rock climbing (aka...bouldering) at the Alluvial Fan.

Nolan in the snow at the base of the stair "trail" above Trail Ridge Store.

Nolan resting on the rocks on the trail above Trail Ridge Store (note the road in the background).

Nolan at the top of the stair "trail" above Trail Ridge Store. He's not quite ready for Longs Peak, but we'll probably have to try it in a few years! Kelly and Barrett waited on us down in the store, in which the food service area is being totally renovated this summer by the new concessionaire, Xanterra. Otherwise it is the same old place. I get a kick out of the fact that this sign was changed a few years back as it used to say something about being "higher than Oregon's famed Mt. Hood" which is actually about 800 feet lower than this point. Some whiny Pacific Northwesterners must have been 'offended' by RMNP poking a little fun at another national park being vertically challenged.

June 16, 2007: Garage, what's a Garage?

We had a very successful garage sale and trip to Goodwill and Salvation Army today. I awoke at 5am and moved our mass of "stuff" out to the driveway for an 8am start. First folks started arriving at 7am which was actually nice since they were spending. We quickly surpassed our $10 fee for advertising in the Cheyenne paper (for two days)--which was amazing after hearing from the Billings Gazette last year that they wanted $50 (!!) for a single day of announcing a garage sale!--and ended up passing on a lot of our old stuff to anyone interested.

So...2 months after I started work here we actually have a garage that can be used by both of our cars! It is still tight with bikes, etc. but we are VERY excited to have moved up at least into the 2-car garage world. I would say "bring on the hail storms," but that might not be good, so I'll just say "bring on the snow." I'm parking indoors!

June 15, 2007: Challenge to Jazzy!

That's right, the Zeltwanger's posted a picture of their micro-hood installation during their recent move-in, so I decided to photograph ours as well (although, my MIC was not nearly as willing to come help with the install). Why? Well, just thought we could post a direct challenge to see Jazzy's work when he gets to install one during his move in (even if you're renting, Jim!). In the words of Ted Knight in you know which movie, "Well, ...we're waiting..."

Oh, and I had to include a pic of the finished product too. We love it!

June 12, 2007: Nolan's First T-ball Game

Nolan had his first t-ball game last Tuesday and had a great time. His team is full of energetic 4 and 5 year olds!

June 8, 2007: Bikle Visit

We enjoyed a brief afternoon visit with the Bikle's a week ago this past Friday. Chuck even broke out his Viola de Gamba for a brief demonstration. After he played a song, Nolan asked him if he could play "Twinkle, Twinkle" and Chuck broke right into it without missing a stride.




We may have another visit from Chuck and Laura later this summer when they next come south for another lesson with their instructor in Denver. It was great to visit with more friends from Montana!

June 5, 2007: Astros vs. Rockies

We decided after Kelly's doctor appointment Tuesday to take advantage of a Rockies Value Game and head down to the big city and see Kelly's Astros play. Barrett and I rooted on the Rockies, while Nolan wore his Astros shirt and joined Kelly in rooting for them. The Astros prevailed 4-1 in a very good game (including a bench/bullpen clearing situation--I wouldn't really call it a fight though).

We got down to Denver real early to pick up our ticket package since it also included a parking pass, and then drove around the city a little bit. We stopped at Invesco to see the Bronco fountain and to drop by the Broncos store. The following picture is of the boys outside Invesco Field and check out the hail shaft in the background from a nearby thunderstorm!


After parking, we stopped by the Breckenridge Brewery for a little bite to eat (since our ticket package also included 4 hot dogs and 4 drinks at the stadium) before the game. The Denver chapter of Texas A&M alumni was supposed to be meeting there to distribute their tickets for the game, but we did not end up seeing any of them at the restaurant (we'll have to track them down later at another event).

We then went into Coors Field for the game and were there early enough for the boys to play on the playground in the Left Field corner (they think of everything, don't they). The playground was right behind our section so it worked out really nice as we waited for the game to start.


We were under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch at game time, but the weather was actually perfect as it was a nice warm evening (and all the storms were well east of Denver).



Here we are. Barrett did really well, but did get scared a few times about how dark it was getting. Nolan just had a blast the whole evening, especially when trash talking with me and pretending to fight after the bench clearing situation.



Above, another picture of the boys enjoying the game.



Here's Kelly and the boys toward the end of the evening.

We hit the exit to Coors Field just before 1030pm after the game and the boys did a great job walking the 1/2 mile or so to our parking area. We jumped on I25 and were back at the house at 1205am after the drive home.

We all had a great afternoon/evening enjoying being able to have this fun without taking a whole weekend to come down to Denver as we've had to do in the past! We are so thankful to have these opportunities, but we sure still miss Montana at times.

On that note, we have our second visitors from Billings coming by this Friday when the Bikles pass through town! It was great to see the Solum's last week and we really look forward to our visit with the Bikle's.

Nolan in High Demand!

Nolan had his first t-ball practice today at the park by where he will start school this fall. Ironically it was not for his team. We signed him up for YMCA t-ball in early May, and two teams have come calling! The Rangers called first, then the Padres...with the Padres first to practice on Sunday. Nolan did great practicing with the Padres, but when I returned home from work today he told me "the Padres have enough players, I'm going to play for the Rangers."

Kelly spoke to the organizer and in fact they had mistakenly put him on both rosters and he was needed on the Rangers. Amazingly, the YMCA t-ball has 14 teams and they play at a local soccer park dividing the 3 soccer fields up into 8 different little ball fields! It should be interesting when games start June 12th. The Rangers first practice will be next weekend, so practice will have to continue in our front yard.

Note: Nolan's connection to Texas continues since his Billings "house" Mite Hockey team was the Stars (in reference to Dallas) and now the Rangers (of course also in the Metroplex). Plus, a local antique store owner recently gave Nolan an old Nolan Ryan (as a Texas Ranger) Kellogg's Corn Flakes box when Kelly and my Mom were shopping for furniture for our 'heritage' room in the new house! Funny how things end up happening some times!

More to come soon...

The Tradition Continues...We found Poppies!

Hope you enjoyed this brief photo essay. The first four pictures were in our Billings backyard, beginning when Nolan was almost one and a half. Barrett joined the pictures when he was almost one and a half. The last is along a street near our church in Cheyenne.

Happy 34th Birthday to....ME!

Another great birthday today, and nice after a weekend of going through old stuff kept since I was a child. Kind of therapeutic really.

And Kelly discovered that season 5 of Scrubs was released...TODAY...so that tradition continues too! This DVD contains the great 100th episode (aka, the Wizard of Oz episode ending in IZ's rendition of "somewhere over the rainbow."

I also officially received my new wireless weather station today, so will start investigating where that can be placed around the yard.

Still no grass in our seeded back yard, but there is actual rain falling this evening so we'll see if we see some sprouts by the 14 day mark.

Back to celebrating!

We're getting more and more settled into our new home every day. We are doing very well going through a lot of old stuff we've collected over the years.

The boys are doing well and adjusting well to life in Cheyenne.

I've worked a full stretch of midnight shifts (7) and several evenings. My first opportunity to supervise a day shift will be this coming week so that should be fun. On one of my evening shifts last week, we had a confirmed tornado on the ground near I-25 to the north of Cheyenne and near Guernsey (not anywhere near the city of Cheyenne). It came from a very weak thunderstorm and only lasted a very brief time. My co-workers told me that is a typical WY tornado, but over in Nebraska we will see the more textbook type tornadoes. It was good to experience a first tornado in the forecast area so soon, and thank goodness it was out in open country.

Today (Sunday), we were eating lunch and heard the tornado siren going off. Apparently another very small funnel cloud touched down briefly and law enforcement saw it. All we could see from the house was rain shafts and no rotation, but apparently there was a brief tornado on the other side of town. No word on damage yet, if any. The storm fell apart very quickly after the warning was issued.

Later this afternoon we have a church picnic to attend, so hopefully the existing storms dissipate and we can enjoy that and meet some more folks.

For those of you who know, I've taken photos of the boys every year (after they were born, of course) by our poppies in our Billings back yard. We thought we were out of luck this year, so Saturday I took the boys to a big grove of Lilacs here in town for a photo.

As it turns out though, we saw some poppies on the way home from church today so we'll try to get over to that neighborhood today or tomorrow for an authentic "poppy pic."

Home Owners, Part Deux

We're in our house! We closed this morning and spent the day doing a bit of cleaning, screen door track repair, etc.

Reba (our dog) has now moved over to her new yard, but Rikki (the cat) will hold out in the hotel for at least another day.

The movers are set to deliver our goods May 1st (tomorrow) so we can start the unpacking.

Tuesday we will also welcome Grandma Carpenter to Cheyenne, and we are all looking forward to visiting and unpacking with her.

Hope to have more pics to post soon of a house filled with boxes!

More Pics from Cheyenne

We've had another nice week here in Wyoming. It was busy at times, but our work continues to lead up to getting rid of our "homeless" title early this week!

Above is a picture of the boys at Nolan's "kindergarten roundup" event at Bain Elementary. The staff assess the children's readiness for Kindergarten in the fall, and they gave Nolan a big "thumbs up" (just like when he did an assessment 12-18 months ago in Billings).

Lowe's had a special kids workshop Saturday morning where we built some squirrel feeders.

Listening to a bit of the NFL draft on Fox Sports Radio wasting a little time in the Hyundai before lunch after Lowe's on Saturday

After lunch Saturday, we spent some more time at the "green park" near our new house and I especially liked this picture of "B" on the playground.

Nolan at the "green park" on Saturday too! He is getting really close to being able to cross the monkey bars (or rings).

My new job is going quite well, with a WHOLE LOT of training going on right now. A much different environment exists here compared to NWS Billings...certainly not all bad...but I'm trying to overcome the bit of culture shock.

We get to do a final walk through in our house Sunday afternoon, and hope to be posting pictures of us in our new home after the April 30th closing!

Sunday in Sidney, Nebraska

We took a drive today into the Nebraska panhandle to see some of the forecast area covered by my new office.

Ended up eating lunch in Sidney, NE and then had to make a visit to Cabela's. The picture above is in the very large store there where they have a waterfall and several species on display (taxidermy of course). Definitely a fun place to stop with lots and lots of fun toys available.

Pictures from the past few days.

Above are a few shots Kelly took during their laundry adventure this week!


Nolan on Saturday at Lions Park having fun trying to figure out the labrynth.

Barrett on Saturday at Lions Park by the steam locomotive on display.

The Boys New Room

Kelly, Nolan, Barrett and our realtor went over to what will soon be our new house to make some measurements on Wednesday. Here are just a few pictures from the boys new room.

An evening in northern Colorado

On Wednesday, we took an evening trip down to Loveland, Colorado to get our fix of "On the Border" food. We also had to have some jewelry items checked out for warrantee purposes at the new mall area in Loveland, and the picture above is at the mall in a little area with some rocks and concrete animal forms the kids can climb on. And YES that is front range convection/thunderstorm in the background moving over Cheyenne while we were down in Colorado. We DID get to see a great lightning display while returning north to Wyoming though! The best news, this shopping/dining area is only about 45 minutes from our new home!

The Long and Short of it...

Interesting 3 days...

Our last night in Billings (Thursday night) was extremely long as both boys had a stomach bug or reaction to bad milk at the hotel or food at a local restaurant...but thankfully the overnight manager was great about helping us out with the messes. Kelly has also been fighting off a similar bug the last 24 hours.

We did get on the road a little late Friday morning, but after a short nap stop at the Kaycee, WY rest area we made it into Cheyenne in the early evening. Along the way, our Billings realtor was in contact with us for negotiations with our proposed buyer. They want us to put a new roof on the place, even after already coming down $4900 on the price of the house. Should be interesting to see how they react to our reply. More to come on this, we are sure.

We're at the LaQuinta on W. Lincolnway in Cheyenne in case anyone is passing through sometime in the next several days.

Our inspection for our new home in Cheyenne went fairly well Friday, with a gas leak at the gas water heater the main concern. The photos in the report make it look like something that the seller can get fixed pretty easily, so we are hopeful of that. We will meet with our realtor this afternoon (Saturday) to go over the report in detail and hopefully there is not anything else critical that will impede that end of our move.

The boys and I are off to Lowe's this morning for our first kids project here in Cheyenne.

Here are some pictures from the past few days...

Our living room full of boxes during Wed. loading.

Another snowy April day for moving in Billings.

Reba making sure her bone does not get loaded into the truck!

The boys saying good-bye Wednesday to Glenna (our day care provider the past 5 years).

The boys Thursday morning in the new Best Western in Billings.

Kelly, Nolan and Barrett surprised me by showing up for pizza and cake on my last day of work (Thursday) with the rest of the staff. This was the cake that Vickie ordered for the occasion.

Nolan and Barrett watching some cartoons at one of our LaQuinta rooms in Cheyenne (Saturday morning).

Happy Easter!

We hope you had a great Easter Sunday. We had a good morning of egg hunting and church before we got back to preparing our home for the arrival of the packing crew Monday morning.

We hope to be able to have our home sale progressing Monday, with just the inspection remaining mid-week if we can get all the offer paperwork arranged with the buyer and 3rd party folks.

Here are some pictures from our Easter Sunday. Click each photo to enlarge.

PCS Party

Thanks very much to Scott's coworkers and friends from the HAM Radio Community for a very enjoyable going away party at Buffalo Wild Wings on Monday, April 2nd. We thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to visit with you all before we depart.

Dora, Tally and Nolan saying good-bye.
The kids also had a great visit as you can see here.