I'm a big dummy

So, here's the deal. I can be a big dummy sometimes. I was having issues with my laptop, so I threw in my ghost CD and ran the program to pull back a previously ghosted image to see if that would fix the problem. It didn't. Several days later, I realized that when I had pulled back the previously ghosted image (from January), I hadn't moved my pictures to our external hard drive. O.M.G. I freaked out. I lost ALL of our pictures from February and most from March. Luckily, I had posted a few to the blog, had uploaded the cruise pictures to Snapfish and had a few still on my camera, so at least I salvaged some of them. But, I am very sad. And I feel like a big dummy. I will see what I can do to find some pictures for Pics of the Week, but they may be slim pickins. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Pictures of the Week -- Week 13

Mattea attended the wedding of "Q" and "U" in her kindergarten class at Rolling Hills. She was thrilled with the prospect of dressing up in wedding attire to go to school. We picked out the most perfect dress, matching sweater and strappy sandals... with a heel, of course! I curled and braided her hair and we had a mini fashion shoot. She took a "quilt for the queen" as a wedding gift. She had a marvelous time at the wedding!!!

Josh had his first baseball game on Saturday. His team "mercy rolled" (his words) the other team in the 4th inning. We enjoyed absolutely gorgeous weather for the season opener! The neighbors ~ Dan, Gunnar, Anders and Elsa Lamphere ~ came to watch. I think they were good luck charms!

Jeff and Alex enjoyed a game of chess. What actually happened is that Alex and I began the game, but Alex started whooping my butt so bad that Jeff came in to rescue me. My knight in shining armor!

Pictures of the Week -- Week 12

This week was busy with the usual stuff ~ soccer, gymnastics, baseball, cooking, cleaning, working, doing homework, etc. But, we celebrated a very special boy's 10th birthday!!! See that story here. We spent the weekend in Estes Park and, in lieu of having a birthday party, Josh got to invite his best friend, Anders, to be our adopted son for the weekend. We had a great time! We took off Friday around dinner time and got to Solitude Cabins less than 2 hours later. I ran to the store while Jeff and the kids got settled in. We stayed up late playing video games and finally sacked out for the night. In the morning, we had breakfast in the cabin and then headed to the Estes Park Mountain shop. Initially, we were going to rent snowshoes, but the weather was so beautiful that we decided to go for a hike instead. The kids had a great time finding rocks to climb on, locating the best walking sticks and finding random snow to play in. We were excited to get to Gem Lake, but when we finally did, it was a little disappointing. The views on the way up were amazing, but the lake was really tiny. Like a pond, really. A frozen pond. We watched some teenage boys try to impress the girls they were with by dragging large logs and rocks to throw onto the pond. They were not very successful and ended up looking like dumb asses. Jeff & I jokingly commented to the kids that the teenagers were showing them what NOT to do. We actually meant it, though. : ) After the hike, we had a spaghetti dinner at the cabin and then played games, watched tv and goofed around. At about 8pm, we hit the hot tub, but it was only about 90 degrees and didn't even feel good. We were all looking forward to it so much and were pretty disappointed that it didn't work out. The kids didn't seem to mind, but we didn't stay long. On Sunday, we drove around Estes Park and did some souvenir shopping, but not much else was open this time of year. We found more rocks for the kids to climb on and Jeff pulled a flyer for some land. We dreamed of how wonderful it would be to have a cabin in the mountains. What a nice retreat it would be. Someday, maybe. We love Estes Park. It was a great weekend getaway and I'm sure we'll go back some other time this summer or fall. We have grand plans of doing a LOT of hiking this year.

Happy 10th Birthday, Joshie!!!

Happy Birthday to the sweetest, most lovable, sensitive, charming and full of spunk 10 year old I know!!!!

Josh enjoying his birthday breakfast in bed - a Dolan family tradition

Joshie ~ you are such a special boy. We are proud of you every single day. You are becoming a responsible and mature young man and it is so fun to watch you grow up. We love you to the moon and back!!!

Josh was a wee bit excited about his new iPod Touch and iHome!!!

Jeff's First Day at ProBuild

Note: Since Jeff is not into blogging, the opinions I am sharing here are all my own and are how I have perceived his recent job change and his feelings about leaving his old job.

Jeff left the house this morning at 7:20am in his new tailored suit for his first day at ProBuild. He wasn't a bit nervous, but was anxious and chomping at the bit to get started. He is scheduled in back-to-back meetings today and will start traveling next Monday. I can't wait to hear all about his adventures at his new gig!!!

Jeff's last week at the City & County of Denver was bittersweet. He attended going away parties and was humbled by the kind words and feelings shared by his bosses, peers and employees. Bill Vidal, the Mayor of Denver, proclaimed Wednesday, March 16, 2011 as "Jeff Dolan Day". (How cool is that???) He presented Jeff with a proclamation document which included many wonderful sentiments and is definitely a keepsake!!! Jeff made a final speech to his team and got choked up while expressing his pride in their teamwork, attitude and accomplishments. While at the City & County of Denver, Jeff facilitated major changes and accomplished more than anyone thought was possible. He has so much to be proud of and the experiences from his time at the City will definitely benefit him at ProBuild. We are so proud of him!!!

Picture of the Week -- Week 11

Mattea had been talking for weeks about leprechaun traps and what Lucky the Leprechaun might do to her room, but had never indicated that she had to build a leprechaun trap and bring it in to school. Finally, on Wednesday night, she informed me that she had to take a leprechaun trap to school THE NEXT DAY! Lovely. Of course, there was no time after school and then I played volleyball after dinner, so it was about 9pm before the leprechaun trap construction even began. Not many stores sell St. Patty's Day stuff, so I couldn't find a pot of gold or anything even close to it. I bought some gold covered candy and some rainblow licorice and somehow dove into the deep dark depths of my imagination to come up with something that would not be an embarrassing display of creativity. Mattea couldn't help, of course, since it was past her bedtime. When she woke up Thursday morning, she was delighted to see that not only had I made a decent leprechaun trap, but Lucky the Leprechaun had looked for gold at our house and totally trashed it when he didn't find any. We had fun taking pics of the mess. See those here. And behold, the decent leprechaun trap (which did NOT catch a leprechaun).

Happy St. Patty's Day!!!

Mattea has been talking for the past week about how Lucky the Leprechaun will be visiting our house and will mess it up if he doesn't find any gold. Since we KNOW there isn't any gold around here, we thought we'd be proactive and make a leprechaun trap to see if we could catch that little troublemaker... hopefully BEFORE he trashes the place. Apparently, the trap needs a little work because we didn't catch that pesky leprechaun. He must have trashed our house and then moved on to the next one because there was no sign of him anywhere this morning. What we did find was green water in the toilet bowl, green milk in the fridge, green water in the dog's bowl and messes all over on the main floor. We couldn't believe how strong and fast Lucky must be. He also must be stealthy because our "guard" dogs didn't catch him either.

Here are some shots of the mess and the trap (note: I was told that Mattea needed this trap LAST night, so it was created after volleyball at about 9:30pm. I'm just sayin').