The makeover

I forgot to post pictures of the updated living room!  After much searching thru craigslist for a couch… I became hopeless and purchased a new one. I kept finding people trying to sell couches for MORE than you could buy it for at Nebraska Furniture Mart. Otherwise the couches just seemed dirty or dingy. We did find the coffee table on craigslist though.  I am LOVING the new couch, and have even found some time to sit on it!  It not only looks good, but is very comfy! Is it bad that my couch costed more than my car??? (that's not saying much if you read my last post… ya know the one about the 1,000 dollar car?)  anyhow, it wasn't much more than the car…. but nonetheless seems very weird.

The pictures seem blurry… and I need to make some tie backs for the new curtains.

The wall color comes across strange in this picture too. It really is more of a natural earthy grey color

NonaJane wearing an outfit my mother sewed for me when I was her age!

NonaJane being her usual self… in the cute outfit my mother made :)

Granby Ranch 2014

Trying it all out before the trip

The ski trip has come and gone, in the blink of an eye much like all highly anticipated events.  Adam managed to record nearly 3 hours of video on his GoPro, so he has been re-living the ski trip on his 70 inch mancave TV.  It was Jack's first year skiing in the mountains. He had an interesting level of excitement and fear leading up to the trip.  The unknown factor of the size and speed of the mountain had him nervous. But he knew he should be excited based on the giddiness of Adam! We had been piecing together Jack's ski clothes over the past year or so.. and it definitely turned out AWESOME. He looked like he belonged in the x-games.  We of course had NonaJane suited up from head to toe too.  A nice collection of craigslist, swap-n-shop purchases, and a few new items thrown in.

Snow cuties

       
We headed out bright and early Friday morning, with Kristin shoved in the back seat for good measure.  Kristin likes us enough that we were able to hire her for a small amount to go with us on an expense free work trip :)  We are so GLAD we did!!! Kristin spent her days inside the condo with NonaJane while we were all out skiing.  We were able to take her up the lift to enjoy the view off the scenic path, and we also took her out tubing with us on the last day. NonaJane was happy as a clam every time we came in, and Kristin even cleaned our condo for us more than once while we were all out!  We've already hinted to her that we hope to take her with us on future trips as well!

6:00 AM

First family picture in the mountains

There was a LARGE group of people meeting us at the condos in Granby Ranch Colorado.  13 people (to be exact) would be staying in our two bedroom condo (did I mention that four of them are 4 and under???).  There was us, Adam's brother Ryan, his girlfriend Brooke along with their kids Emma and Zane.  Adam's cousin Luke, his wife Amy and their children Landon and Lauren and of course our babysitter Kristin. 13 people was definitely too many… but without spoiling a story later in this post we'll just say the condo got roomier as the week went on...
 We also planned this trip along with the Ryan and Lohman families whom Adam grew up skiing with.  There was 3 generations of skiers on the slope, and a lot of memories flying around (for them anyways… it was my first time at this resort).   But Adam's first time skiing EVER was at this resort when he was 7, along with his childhood friends the Ryan's and the Lohman's.  It was pretty meaningful for all of them to get to bring their children here for their first time skiing too!

Emma, Adam, myself, and Ryan

The first morning Adam was already taking Jack down green and blue runs with the use of a harness.    Jack was able to turn and direct his skis, he just didn't have the strength or consistency to stop or turn quickly when needed.  Apparently while I was a bit behind skiing with Luke and Amy, Adam had a bit of a momentary slip up and accidentally let go of the harness reigns.  Jack unknowingly took off skiing on his own.  He was doing great... until a pole got in his way.  Luckily it was padded, and so was he.  Other than being disgruntled at Adam for "letting me go!" he was injury free.  Adam modified by wrapping the harnesses around his arms to ensure he could not let go of him again! The rest of the trip was event free for Jack… but not for everyone else in the group :(     (spoiler alert!!!)

Jack leading Adam down the mountain (Adam deserves some props for skiing with that harness… it is NOT as easy as it looks. You have to be able to react fast)

                                                                                                                         

Headed up the ski lift

Midway thru the first day, Adam, myself, Ryan and Brooke ventured over to the black and blue runs to check them out.  Luke and Amy (Adam's cousin and wife) decided to stay on the green runs for some more practice (since it was their first time skiing in the mountains).  Not more than an hour later we received a disturbing phone call and text from Amy stating "Gashed my knee open. Can't stand up. Waiting on ski patrol now to take me down the mountain."  It was definitely a helpless feeling not knowing exactly what the injury entailed, how it happened, nor being able to immediately be at her side.  We skied down and actually ran into the patrol men pulling an empty toboggan behind them. "Did you just help a girl with a gashed knee??"  -"We sure did.   If you know her, she is in the first aid center"

Taking a short break to play in some snowy Aspen trees

and make snow angels :)

I ran on in and sure enough she was sitting there, her leg in a cardboard splint and wrapped in purple bandaging.  She seemed awfully calm and put together… so surely she would just need stitches.  Then her husband showed me a picture of her gory knee… yep.  Stitches wouldn't fix it.  After multiple hours of no pain medication, and shuffling between clinics and cars… she was taken by ambulance to Denver. She spent the rest of our vacation in a hospital bed recovering from surgery.  Can you imagine a stinkier vacation??? It definitely cast a bit of a shadow over the rest of us.  Feeling guilty for skiing on, but not knowing what else we could do. Plus we had extra room in the condo, extra food, but less fun company, bummer! It also added a small bit of paranoia for me… fearing the imminent possibility of injury.  Darn those maternal instincts!  I felt limited to boarding and skiing with caution… guess I will never make it to the x-games!  HAHA! That was never a dream of mine anyhow… but Adam on the other hand…

The four of us on a double tube about to head down… Jack was crying in fear.  But we all survived!

For the first 30 minutes we were the ONLY people on the hill.  Then some of the Ryan family joined us.

We were encouraged seeing how there were children skiing even younger than Jack! We have resolved that next year will be NonaJane's first year in skis, at the ripe age of 2 1/2.  Her daredevil approach to life should treat her well in the mountains.  We have no doubt that Jack will be ready to let go of the harness next year, which is exciting but scary at the same time :)  We will probably skip the tubing next year (because it was really expensive) but definitely think it will be something we do every couple of years.  It was ridiculously fast, and terrifying in a very thrilling way!

We are thankful for the opportunity to go on this trip, we are excited about the fun footage we have of Jack's first time in the mountains to cherish down the road, and are all praying for Amy's quick recovery.  She claims she wants to go with us again next year- because she is crazy and awesome like that!

New Year, New Craziness

The 2008 Vue that I sold...

I'm starting off the New Year with some new wheels.  Well... not exactly NEW wheels.  I kinda did something crazy.  A good friend was selling a family car, and was only asking $1,000.  I didn't need a car, but thought surely she wouldn't have any trouble selling a car for only a $1,000.  I mean really!? That is crazy. Shouldn't we all just drive a $1,000 dollar car? Cheaper insurance, cheaper tags, and who cares if you get a door ding... right?!  Then that night, while laying in bed.. I had a strange and overwhelming thought -"I should buy that car for ME".  Why not?  My car is paid off, I could sell it and save the money!  I kept thinking the crazy

The beauty that I bought !!!

thought would go away... but instead it grew.  Out of curiosity I found myself searching on Craigslist for 1,000 dollar cars. AND, they really don't exist.  They either were wrecked (better term would be mangled), had a 'bad' engine, or were painted purple with flames and topped off with some spinners. This is why people don't drive $1,000 dollar cars.  So, I waited up for Adam and told him my plan.  He wasn't exactly thrilled. Fast forward 11 days, I sold my car and am now a proud owner of my very own 1999 Oldsmobile eighty eight.  In GOLD. with no window tent, tweeters for my only functioning speakers, and a full bench seat thru the front (who would like to be my first front row middle seat rider???)   We did take the car in and have all the fluids replaced, a small leak repaired, and a basic once over.  The mechanic thought my little (more accurately described as BIG) car looked like it was in solid condition!  My brother and Dad felt it necessary to share with me a song by The Bottle Rockets -"1000 Dollar Car".  So apparently this feat of mine has been tried before... and it didn't go so well.  But hey, sometimes you just have to take a little gamble in life.  I've dived in and am taking a risk... I'm crossing my fingers that we get some time out of this car, and that we can use that time wisely to save, invest, and prepare for perhaps a more appealing car down the road :)

Jack really does like this car.. (even though he appears to be hiding from me in the picture)

*funny side note- we spent the weekend up at my parents house. We were poorly prepared for the drastic temperature change between Saturday and Sunday (because as you know I rarely if ever watch the news and am always shocked by the weather).  Anyhoo, on Sunday we decided to head to Nebraska Furniture Mart. We pulled in the lot in the Oldsmobile, in single digit weather, and hopped out with NO coats on us or our children.  All I could figure is that everyone who witnessed this ridiculousness was surely thinking "those poor poor people (literally and figuratively) they can't afford coats?!" Perhaps driving this car will be good for me in more ways than one.

We are also starting out this new year with a fresh face lift inside our house! I gave our kitchen, living room, and entry mud room/hallway, a new coat of paint.  New Year, New COLOR! (you would not believe how dirty walls can get in 5 years.. feeling much cleaner now) I'll post pictures on the finished room after we pick up our furniture on Saturday! Despite the fact that this is an incredibly unflattering picture of myself... I had to post because it is too funny.

Safety First!!!