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').

Picture of the Week -- Week 10

This week, I had to travel to Minnesota for work. I haven't been to our Minnesota office for at least 3-4 years. In that time, I worked for a manager whom I never met in person. It was weird. But, while I was in Minnesota, I got to meet many of the people I work with on a daily basis, my new manager and even the manager I previously had never met!

One afternoon when we were in an all-day team meeting, my manager's boss brought us tickets to go to the Minnesota Wild hockey game. What a nice surprise! Even better was the fact that they were playing against the Colorado Avalanche!!! I don't really follow hockey, so I didn't realize that the Avs were on a MAJOR (like 20 games) losing streak! Needless to say, the Wild were victorious, but we had fun at the game anyway. It was definitely better than just sitting by myself in the hotel room.

[Picture to be added later... have to get it from my co-worker]

Picture of the Week -- Week 9

Josh started baseball practice this week. He is playing catcher again and really loves it! His coach also has him pegged to play center field because he isn't afraid to catch a fly ball. Josh isn't too keen on center field, though, because there isn't a lot of action in the outfield at this age. So, he fills his pockets with sunflower seeds and has his own little party in the outfield just waiting for a ball to come his way!