Paonia

I had the morning and afternoon off from work today, so we took a day trip over to Paonia. Paonia is the town where I bought a house in 2005 and left in late 2007. It's an hours' drive from here in Crested Butte, but a completely different climate. Lots of farms, vineyards and much higher temperatures! We left Crested Butte a little after 11am this morning when it was 70 degrees. We got to Paonia at noon, and it was 85 degrees. Yikes! Too hot for the hot tub! Regardless, we went to a local farm and picked some eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and peaches. They also have a vineyard there, so I picked up a bottle of Reisling. After picking this produce, we ventured down to the river and threw rocks and sticks for awhile to some dogs who were wanting to get as wet as Lochlan. Then we went in to town for some ice cream and met up with a couple of my old friends to say "hello". It was a nice afternoon out of town and Lochlan is pretty excited to eat some of out loot in his lunchbox this week!

Lochlan & Hannah

I borrowed my co-workers' daughter, Hannah, yesterday, so that she could join Lochlan & I on our adventure to our community garden plot to see what grew this week. These are some photos I took along the way.

Telly-rides

Last Sunday was my first day off from work in weeks, so I decided to cut the cord from work and spend an entire day of family bliss. We drove down to Telluride for the day, as it's only 2 1/2 hours from us and is another ski town Matt and Lochlan have never been to. I used to work there lots and lots, but it's been 5 years since I've been there, although it hasn't changed much (just a few more $10 million dollar + homes). ;) Lochlan is now in love with gondolas, which he has also dubbed "Telly-rides", as he is not sure what the difference between a gondola and Telluride is. We also ran into some friends there (one of my Uncle Randy's best friends from college and his wife), so that was really cool. We walked around town, rode the gondolas, walked around the Mountain Village, climbed the climbing rocks, threw rocks in the pond, rode the gondolas some more, went to the playground, danced in the rain (Mama's favorite part), rode the gondolas some more, went for ice cream, then drove around to check out some ponds and more sights around the area. Lochlan is obsessed with gondolas now, in case you can't tell. Looks like he might be on the committee here to get some in Crested Butte, since we don't have one. ;)

Lochlan Turns 3!

We haven't had Lochlan's birthday party with his friends yet, but we gave him some presents on the actual day that the turned 3. He is super into puzzles and the harder, the better. So Papa picked him up some puzzles from our local children's toy store and Mama, in true hippie spirit of course, picked up some tie-dyed underpants for him. He also opened up his birthday card (and savings money) from Joannie and a couple of other bath toys from Matt & I. We are having a party for him with his friends on Sunday, August 5th, but these are some photos from his actual day on July 17th:

4th of July Afternoon

After Matt's race, we joined Lochlan's preschool float for the parade. It was so much fun hanging with some of the other parents and kiddos. The float consisted of the preschool directors' pick-up truck, inflatable swimming pools in the bed of the truck, and an outdoor patio furniture umbrella super screwed-in to the gate of the truck. Hysterical and a fun time was had by all! While waiting for the parade to the start, the para-gliding guy was back at it, and the kids had so much fun yelling and pointing at him. After, we hung out with some good friends for a quick drink, then the rain set in for the rest of the afternoon.

4th of July Morning

On the morning of July 4th, Matt ran the Gothic to Crested Butte 1/3 Marathon, and it's a 8+ mile race. The racers ran right past our house, so Lochlan and I went out to cheer the racers and Papa on! After he ran by, we hopped in the car, drove to town and were there waiting for Papa at the finish line. This is not an easy race, as it starts at over 10,000 feet above sea level and consists of dirt and paved roads. We are so proud of him and Lochlan was ecstatic to be cheering Papa on!

P.S. I was terrible with the camera that day; Don't mind Matt's head cut off in half of the photos.