Special time with Aunt Julie

Aunt Julie was flying to Vegas on her birthday to meet up with Uncle Kevin. She somehow managed a 2-hour layover at the Denver International Airport. Hmmmm!!! What a coincidence! The 2-hours was plenty of time for hugs & kisses from the Dolan chitlins.

I got the kids out of school early, so we would be on time. We waited at the baggage claim area anxiously looking for a glimpse of Aunt Julie. Once she came into view, the kids went sprinting towards her. She dropped her suitcase, got down on her knees and braced herself for the impact!!! I don't think she would have cared if they knocked her over and she cracked her head on the floor! The kids each had a rose for her and they smothered her with hugs & kisses. As you can see from the picture, she was smiling so hard she about split her cheeks!!!


We found a place out of the way to sit down and have a nice chat. Since it was Aunt Julie's birthday, we brought cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday to her. She was so surprised!!! Aunt Julie opened her present and was ecstatic to find out that she was getting a facial and paraffin hand dip at the spa at the hotel in Las Vegas! I found out later that her wonderful husband added to the relaxation and pampering by booking her for a massage as well. Sounds like the princess got the royal treatment!!!

We were sad when Aunt Julie had to leave to get on her plane, but we were happy to have gotten a chance for hugs & kisses & cupcakes!!!

Some recent pics

Mattea dressed up as Sheriff Woody.
I remember when Josh used to wear
that costume!

Here's the kids in the car with us running errands. Can you feel the love???

Here's the boys on their way to work with Dad. It was Take Your Child to Work Day and he was brave enough to take both of them with him! He proudly showed them off all day and put them to work. I saw pictures of Josh shredding papers and drawing on Dad's white board. Alex was chief photographer and videographer for the day. They attended meetings and were well-behaved all day. Both of them fell asleep on the way home! I guess it's not that easy being in Dad's shoes for a day!!!

Update

It's been awhile since I've posted. Things are going well. Even though we have only been here for 3 weeks, it seems like it's been longer. That's probably because we've been hard at work getting boxes unpacked, rooms organized, etc since we got here. Neither Jeff nor I took much time off work, so we have been taking care of those things at night and on the weekends. It will be nice when we're settled and have some time to explore the beautiful state of Colorado!!!

We had a visit last week from Uncle Kevin. He was in town for business and stopped by several times to see us. It was nice to have family in town. He even ditched his hotel Thursday night and stayed with us. What a treat! He brought trinkets from the expo for all of us and the kids thought it was Christmas! We are looking forward to our 2-hour visit with Aunt Julie at the Denver airport next week on her birthday!!!

My mom and dad came out for a visit this week. We are SOOOO excited to have them here! They had a visit previously scheduled for June, but I think they were sympathetic to our situation, so they came out here to help us get some boxes unpacked and put away, hang some pictures on the wall and get organized. It's not all work and no play, though. Today, they took a trip to Colorado Springs to have some fun on their own. I wish I was there with them!!! We are hoping to take them tomorrow night to Casa Bonita since the kids had such a great time there in December with Grandma Carol & Grandpa Pete.

Hopefully, I will get our "We've Moved" postcards in the mail soon! I'm sure most of you know our updated information, but I couldn't resist making some cute cards online!!! We're looking forward to lots of visitors and have already talked about when we'll head back to Iowa for a visit.

Please keep in touch. We miss you all!!!

Joshie's Question of the Day

"Mommy, how are license plates made?"

Back to school

We took Mattea to her new school this morning. The kids in her class were at circle time. She walked right in, took off her coat and sat right down in the middle of the circle. It didn't take her long to feel comfortable. We got the low-down on the routine from Miss Lindsey and then we took off to register the boys for school. After some paperwork at the Admissions office, we went to the school and got a tour. The boys have been assigned to the "A" track. The "A" track is just coming off from a 3-week break, so the timing is perfect. The boys will be in school until May 30th then they will be off until July 9th. They lucked out with that!!! Hopefully, they will do great things in their 1st 9 weeks because after that, they move on to the next grade! The boys are much less excited than Mattea was for her first day at a new school, but they will be just fine.

There's no turning back now!

The movers arrived this morning around 8:30am. There are just two of them and they don't look like bodybuilders or anything, but they work very well together and make everything look easy! The weather today couldn't be better. It's 50 degrees right now, but it feels even warmer than that. It's a beautiful sunny day. We met some more new neighbors and they continue to be very friendly (and mostly from the Midwest so far!). The boys are playing with a boy named Jacob. We met his sister, Renee and little brother, Jackson earlier this morning. The boys share a bedroom that is decorated in Star Wars, so you can bet we'll be checking that out for some good ideas for Joshua's room.

Anyway, all is going well so far. All of the boxes are getting stacked up all over the house and it's looking pretty overwhelming! But, we'll get out what we need and then just plug away at the rest. I'm looking around at all of this open canvas and wondering how best to decorate. I'm weeks away from that, but I could use some ideas. So, who's going to come out here and help me figure that out??? : )

We'll keep you posted on our progress. I'll send pics as soon as I come across my cable to download pictures!!!

The Dolan's have arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have arrived! We got here earlier this afternoon and drove straight to our new house. Since we don't own it yet, we took the kids around the back and walked the bike path down to the playground. As we were walking back to the house, our realtor called to check on us. He wanted to know if we wanted to get into the house. We answered with a resounding YES!!! So, the kiddos raced in, took off their shoes and went to discover their rooms. They wandered around the whole house and took it all in. They pushed buttons, peeked in closets and made plans for how they wanted to decorate their bedrooms. Everyone is happy with the house and we can't wait until tomorrow morning when it's all ours!!!

One of our new neighbors stopped down already to meet us! She has a 3-year old daughter who spotted Mattea and insisted her Mom bring her down to meet us. We were absolutely delighted to find that Mattea would have a playmate in the neighborhood. We got the lowdown on the neighborhood and it sounds like a fabulous place to live! There are a TON of boys in the neighborhood which is why Katie (Mattea's new friend) was so excited to see her! The boys will have new friends in no time. We even found out that one of the neighborhood families are HUGE Star Wars fans!

We drove to Mattea's new school to show it to her. She said, "That's my new school?" We said "Yes, it is." She said, "Well, drop me off!" We told her it wasn't time to go there yet, but she was insistent that we drop her off. It was pretty funny. We might have to stop by tomorrow and let her meet her teachers and new friends! We also drove by the boys' new school. There weren't any requests from the boys to drop THEM off! Shocking...

So, it's been a long few days and Jeff & I are both exhausted. We're at his apartment now and plan on having an early night. We'll set up the air mattress and have a big slumber party. I would imagine that Jeff & I will be asleep before the kids tonight.

We thanked Aunt Kelly many times during our trip since her well-packed travel bag kept us fed and happy with snacks, drinks & movies. Grandma Judie came through with some Dora activity books for Mattea, too. When we arrived safely in Aurora, Colorado, we thanked Daddy for getting us here safely. He did ALL the driving.

This weekend will be a busy one, so we wanted to make sure we let you all know that we arrived safely. We may have the web cam on sporadically this weekend, so feel free to ring us if you see us online.

We'll talk to you all soon!!!

Love,
Jeff, Tracy, Alex, Josh, Mattea & Indy Dolan