With Matt gone to Vegas (to celebrate his 30th birthday with his friends) and Gavin gone to visit his mom for the weekend, Lochlan & I embarked on a much-needed trip into the mountains together. Bryan (my brother-in-law) stayed here at the house to take care of the dogs (Thanks Bry!!!).
Lochlan & I drove to Silverthorne on Saturday morning to see our friends Kristin, Adam and Baryn in order to celebrate Baryn's 2nd birthday. (Mary, I have a bunch of photos of the party on my Facebook, so log in to that to see more).
It snowed the whole time we were there at the birthday party, and after spending 3 hours at the party, we almost went back to Colorado Springs, where it was blue skies and sunny. We decided to trek on further into the mountains and made our way towards Paonia. It was snowing over Vail Pass really badly, and there were about 6 accidents on the pass as we made our way through the storm. We finally made it to McClure Pass and it was snowing on this road, too! We slowly made our way down into Paonia and stayed with my old buddy, Dave, who turns somewhere close to 70 next month. He was happy to have our company, as it's just him and his little dog, Yogi, who live in their big house. We went out to Louie's for dinner, then had a drink at Thomas Waldo's. Lochlan was definitely a trooper and was up until 9pm that night! After he went to bed, my good friend, Donna, came up to Dave's house and hung out with us until almost midnight. The next morning, Lochlan & I went out to breakfast at the Diner with Donna, then took a little walk around downtown Paonia (until Lochlan's fingers started freezing, and it started flurrying). It was awesome to catch up with her and she hadn't met Lochlan until this trip, so it was so much fun having her finally meet the wee man.
After we left Donna, we drove over the Black Canyon to Gunnison (first going through a cattle drive, which I think is Lochlan's first), then headed north to Crested Butte. We hung out with Josiah and Carly at the playground, then we went in and out of a few stores in Crested Butte. I always love spending time with my awesome nephew and his wicked cute little sister. You can tell how much they love each other when you hang out with them. They help each other all of the time and are just so loving towards each other. It's the best and I wish we could see them more often. They love Lochlan and had fun making him laugh. They kept asking about Gavin, which was cute, too, as they met Gavin back in July when we were there visiting last. Josiah had a new haircut and was bordering on being obsessed with hair gel, so he didn't want his hat to mess up his 'do. It was so wild thinking that he is now old enough to care about his hair. What happened to those years? The past 9 1/2 years sure have flown by since he was born!!!
Mom, the photos of Josiah & Carly on the phone are from when they were talking to you.
I always dread leaving Crested Butte. Although I haven't lived there in five years, I still feel like it's my home. It's such a weird feeling to be there and not be living someplace there, but to just be visiting. I wish we could live there forever, but I doubt it will ever happen. It would be nice to be able to see Josiah (and Carly, too!) more often, and just be back in Paradise, livin' the dream! :)
After we left Crested Butte, we made our way back down to Gunnison to stay with our friends, Kevin, Crissy & Norah Abila. Crissy slaved away all day making 3 different batches of chili (hot, medium and mild), and there were a bunch of old friends that came over (Kevin, Kym & Tyler McNamara, Lars, Lindsay & Prestyn Nelson, Shannon Sprott, Frannie Cuccaro and her girls, and Adam Crist). It was so great to see everyone and catch up on life. I wish so much that we lived closer to these people, as it would be so great to have Lochlan grow up with such good kids.
The next morning, we woke up and of course it was snowing in Gunnison. We were supposed to hang out with Lindsay and Prestyn in the morning, but I decided we should get on the road instead, as I knew it would be totally dumping over Monarch Pass (which it was). We got home and unpacked, then Gavin's mom brought him home a bit later. I made the kids dinner, then we raced to the airport to pick Matt and his friend Derek up from the airport, as they were flying home from Las Vegas.
It was such a good weekend, and I'm glad we had a lot of distractions with our friends in the mountains, since Papa was gone to Vegas. With Thanksgiving in mind, I'm really thankful for such good friends and family, and feel so honored to have each of you in our lives. Without you all, we wouldn't have much, now would we?! ;)
