Zoo Day with Jordan and Jaden

We took granddaughter Jordan (9) and her brother Jaden (almost 5) to the Denver Zoo on Saturday. It was our first adventure with the two of them together with just the two of us. It was a gorgeous day! We packed a lunch and rented a wheel chair for Dwight. The kids rode the train and the carousel and we got to see the afternoon sea lion show. It was a great day and we're looking forward to the next time. Oh, and congratulations to Jordan, who exceeded her goal by selling 500 boxes of Girl Scout cookies!! (We bought 3 of them)

Caleb comes to Denver for a hockey tournament!

Grandson Caleb (age 7) came to Colorado for a 3-day hockey tournament at Westminster's Ice Centre February 12-14 and we loved seeing him play. A large contingency of parents and grandparents traveled from Kearney NE with the team, including Caleb's mom, grandma, great aunt and uncles and cousin Jillian, who all came down to Littleton for dinner at our house on Saturday night. We spent the evening watching the Winter Olympics and thoroughly enjoyed the visit! Here's a picture of Caleb on the ice:

Rodeo!

We went to the National Western Stock Show and rodeo on Saturday with granddaughter Kyra (age 11). We've been taking her since she was 4 or 5 so we think it's the 7th or 8th year she's gone with us and we hope she never tires of it! Now that Kyra has her own mobile phone, with camera, she's taking pictures all the time. The rodeo was exciting and fun. Afterwards, we visited the barns and met some of the animals.

Road Trip!

A few days after Christmas, son Steve, Beth and their girls arrived our house from New Mexico with a 26' van packed to the gills, on their way moving to Michigan City, Indiana. They stayed with us in Littleton for a couple of days, we celebrated Grace's third birthday, and a friend flew in from Wisconsin to help with the drive east. On January 2nd, we took Beth and the girls to the Denver airport, they flew to Chicago where Beth's parents picked them up, and the other four adults (Steve and friend Jim, Sharon and Dwight) started the drive east in two vehicles. Sharon and Dwight drove Steve and Beth's family van (accompanied by Mello, a gentle and sweet Chocolate Lab, who kept asking where we were taking her!) Steve and Jim drove the truck hauling Steve's other car on a trailer. Steve and family now live near Beth's parents while Steve completes a master's degree in social work at Indiana University NW. They will probably be there 2-3 years.

The following are pictures of Grace (3) and Ava (1) with Dwight and Sharon, also one of Grace with granddaughter Kyra (age 11) who came down from Boulder with her mom, Angela, for Grace's birthday party. Our first night on the road was spent in Kearney, Nebraska, so we got to have dinner with grandson Caleb (age 7) and his mom, Dawn. On our second day, we stopped for lunch in Omaha so Steve could visit with friend Howard. We spent our second night in Iowa City and it was so cold that the rental truck wouldn't start the next morning so we spent half of day 3 waiting for mechanics to get it going. By the time we arrived Chicago, it was rush hour, but fortunately we were skirting the southern edge of the metro area and had no problem.

We arrived Michigan City, Indiana in the early evening of day 3 and the unpacking and moving in process started the following morning with help from Beth's sister, Mary, their father, and some friends that work for Beth's parents. Dwight and I flew home on January 6th. It was nice to discover that after 38 years of marriage we could still enjoy 3 days in a car with each other!

Thanksgiving in New Mexico

Since it's almost Christmas, we decided we needed to post a few of our Thanksgiving pictures! We spent the weekend in Belen, New Mexico, with son Steve, Beth and their girls, Grace and Ava. We did a day trip to Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge and enjoyed a visit with grandson Kaelan and his mom, Genevieve. The highlight of the weekend (besides the turkey!) was Granddad and Grace making sopapillas!

Dwight, Grace, Ava and Beth bird watching at Bosque del Apache.

Ava, Steve, Sharon at Bosque del Apache.

Genevieve (Kaelan's mom), enjoying a break from her studies (she'll graduate in May as a Nurse Practitioner)

Granddad and Kaelan - Kaelan and his mom came down from Albuquerque for a visit.

Granddad and Grace make sopapillas! The recipe is one that Dwight collected from his friend, Mrs. Lopez, in the 1960's in Truchas, New Mexico.

Visited sisters in California, cruised Baja with friends!

In November we celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary with a trip to Southern California to visit Donna and Annie in their new home, and spend a couple of days with Marcia, who was in town for a conference. Following the weekend visit, we cruised for 4 days to Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico with friends Tom and Carmen, who were celebrating their 4th anniversary. The weather was so-so, but that didn't stop us from having a relaxing and wonderful time! The following pictures show visits to the Blackstock and Kruschke parental gravesites, Tom's miracle packing job that got us all to the port, and our first full day of the cruise - Catalina Island.

Race for the Cure, Dog Park at Chatfield State Park

Angela and Kyra and one of Angela's co-workers joined Sharon in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure on Sunday, October 4th. It was pretty chilly until the sun came out, but we were very comfortable after completing the 5K walk. Denver has one of the largest events like this in the nation - over 60,000 participants!

Angela thought she was hiding but didn't realize that Sharon had sneaked up on her and taken the earlier picture (see above)!

Dwight and Kirk at Chatfield State Park a couple of weeks ago. The dog park there is HUGE and Kirk loves it!

Summer's End

Sharon and granddaughter Jordan attended the Genesis Presbyterian Church annual retreat, "The Summit", in late August at the beautiful YMCA of the Rockies. The subject matter was presented very creatively and with lots of laughter. We all attended "Zombie University", identified those parts of our lives that get in the way of our relationships with God and family and called them zombies, even naming them and trying to stone them out of our lives! Here Sharon poses with the Zombie University mascot.

All who attended Zombie University received a diploma and commemorative pen from Pastor Don and C.E. Director Rob. Here is Jordan receiving her diploma.

Jordan shows off her diploma!

Dwight flew down to Albuquerque to attend a funeral on Friday and got to spend an overnight with Steve and family. Here he is with granddaughters Grace (above) and Ava (below).



Granddaughter Kyra spent part of the Labor Day weekend with us and joined Sharon and Kirk at the church picnic. Kirk really liked the singing!

Kyra and Granddad finally got to go fishing on Sunday! Didn't catch anything but it was quite an adventure.

Kyra thinks fishing is fun!