Canyon City

Last Sunday we took our first official one day family road trip to Canyon City, Colorado to show Johanna the Royal Gorge bridge.

'The Grand Canyon of the Arkansas River' is a 10-mile long canyon 50 feet wide with a depth of 1,250 feet. We've been over the bridge and under the bridge on white water raft and I still swear next we will be bungee jumping off :)

You would think Johanna would be intimidated by the height but she was all the more fascinated by the sensation of being so high.

She was quick to point out the boats down below then was obsessed with taking a peek every few feet to make sure a new batch of rafters hadn't gone by.

One thing she was careful not to do was step on the cracks of the wooden bridge. There were 1 inch gaps between some of the planks that you could peek through and see the water down below.

Representing my Ohio roots!

My favorite part of the park is their Old West town. There was a whole bunch of stuff to keep us entertained for the day.

Johanna got to try her luck at panning for gold. No gold but she did end up with a sopping wet shoe and sock...

Jail is fun when it's just you and Daddy...

...but not so much fun when an outlaw shows up! She wasn't too scared I think the boys braces gave it away that he wasn't too bad.

Looking down at the mules that you can ride down the gorge.

The Royal Gorge bridge is the highest bridge in the United States and was also in the world up until 2001 when it was surpassed by a bridge built in China. Cars can drive on it as well which was slightly unsettling while you were walking across!

Although Johanna couldn't ride the mules she was able to ride on the burros!

LOVED it!

After the petting zoo and wild animal exhibits we headed back to the main street for a gun slingin' show.

This is what I could hear from across the street: gunshot fired "What was that?!" second gunshot fired "What happened?!" Daddy explaining it is a pretend show..."Silly!"

After some burgers we headed back over the bridge and Johanna checked for boats one last time. Johanna had such a great time she zonked out as soon as we got into the car. See you next time Royal Gorge!

2 Months

Happy two months baby boy!

Wow. Two months already? Time flies when you're having fun! JJ is a happy little guy with a great disposition. He loves his sister, anytime he is getting a little fussy and Mommy isn't doing the trick I set him next to Johanna and he immediately cheers up. He loves to be held upright so he can look around at the world and take everything in. But he also loves being held closely snuggled up. He is still sleeping in our room and waking up every 3 hours to nurse. The greatest part is he falls right back asleep after eating. So far I've never had to stay up with him, just eat, sleep, repeat. At his 8 week and 1 day appointment last Friday he weighed 12lbs 11oz and was 23 inches long. He is wearing size two diapers and 3 month clothing.

On Sunday I decided to go to evening mass while Jeff stayed behind to watch the kids. I made sure to feed JJ right before I left and headed off on my merry way to be back no later than two hours. I silenced my phone and with it being my church's teen mass the band was rocking and I didn't hear it vibrate. When I finally did steal a peak I saw fifteen missed texts begging me to come home. Apparently JJ had started fussing about a half hour after I'd left and what do men immediately think is the one and only cause for baby distress? Surely they must be starving even though they'd just been fed a half hour earlier...no sarcasm there ;) I rushed home as fast as I could trying to mind the law considering I'd just left church and came home to a distraught husband screaming baby in hand with a toddler clinging to his leg. Poor Jeff! I do appreciate him agreeing to watch them but sadly I fear it may be a little while longer before he takes on the challenge again. With a little reminder that babies can not physically be starving if they've recently been fed and that it's always okay to put a crying baby down in his crib if he is feeling overwhelmed and that its all about prioritizing what is most important i.e. fussy baby vs Johanna playing with an ink pad = place baby in bouncy chair and resolve issue with Johanna... the kids were happy and sleeping shortly after. Love you Jeff!

Needless to say today I thought it would be best to try out a bottle with JJ. I have a few bags of milk frozen in the freezer so I thawed one out and poured it into the bottle to try out on bubs. And this is what happened:

"Hmm what is this thing in my mouth? Outta the way, make room for some fingers!"

Looks like we've got some more practicing to do :)

Love you so much Johnathan!

Update: JJ woke up from his nap and gobbled the remainder of his bottle down.. maybe he doesn't mind the bottle afterall? Woohoo!!

Fort Carson

On our drive home from a trip to Canyon City, we made a pit stop to feed JJ and stretch our legs. Being Memorial Day weekend it couldn't have worked out more perfectly that our break landed us at Fort Carson, an Army post that had a memorial park to walk around.

Soldiers from the Mountain Post who have given their lives to the Global War on Terrorism.

Sadly, the stones continued to wrap around the circle. Even though our children are young I feel it is never too early to teach them the lessons of remembering and honoring our fallen soldiers, especially on these holidays.

But of course at Johanna's age, she just thought the huge tanks and 'copters were cooler than cool!

I think JJ got a little kick out of it too.

This is an actual piece of steel beam from the World Trade Center.

On the drive home I made Jeff pull over so I could snap a picture of the beautiful Colorado skyline. He saw it as a field of weeds (boys) but I thought the yellow was beautiful!

Computers never do a photo justice, but with a little color boost it was just how I remember it.

Happy Memorial Day everyone! Thank you to our families who have served and especially to our cousins Evan serving in the US Coast Guard and Brandon serving in the Army National Guard. We love you!

Race to the Shrine

On Saturday we loaded up the tahoe and headed down to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to run in their "Race to the Shrine" 5k. At 7 weeks postpartum I wasn't expecting much. Look, I'm even wearing one of Jeff's oversized running shirts instead of a normal cute fitted running shirt.

One of the perks to participating in this fundraising event for the zoo was free admission. Grandma Lori came along to help out with the kiddos while we were running then we all got to explore the zoo afterward. Thanks Lori!!

The run was literally a race to the shrine. See the tower on the top of the mountain? That would be the Will Rogers Shrine. Yes, an actual shrine in honor of Will Rogers the cowboy dude. To be honest I'm not entirely sure that's who it's named after,we didn't have time to stop inside. The road to the shrine is only accessible to cars except for one day a year when a bunch of wackos decide to run up to it. And that's what I now consider myself- a WACKO! It had nothing to do with just having a baby, I was feeling pretty good and able to tread out a 3-4 mile jog at a slow and steady 10 minute mile. I guess I was a little naive with how hard running at a 8.5% gradient increase from 6,800ft to 8,100ft was going to be. As soon as the starting gun was fired you were greeted with what else... a hill. And the hill never. went. away. Needless to say I spent a majority of the incline in a slow jog walking status. The last mile was spent cruising downhill which you would think, hey that's a breeze. Which for the first few minutes it was a much needed break. But man oh man, my knees weren't too happy with me. And my knees STILL aren't happy with me. Either I'm getting too old or running up and down  mountains is not my forte. Jeff finished 9th out of 22 in his 30-34year category, and I finished 12th out of 43 26-29yr olds. I won't bother posting times because frankly it isn't worth remembering! Although makes me wonder what the other 31 women were doing behind me, walking backward? But hey- I ran up a mountain and then ran down it to my beautiful smiling babies and I'm proud of it!

Now the zoo is something that we will be visiting again, preferably when we haven't just worn ourselves out with running and also when it's not thundering and raining like it was on our trip. Luckily while we were out racing, Grandma and the kiddos got to visit the giraffes while the sun was out. Can you believe how many giraffes they have here? If I remember correctly the total was somewhere around 22.

The exhibit was really worth the cost of zoo admission. You could get up close and personal with the beautiful creatures. Since the giraffe is Johanna's favorite animal as you can imagine she was in heaven!

After the race there was a party at the zoo's lodge where zoo keepers walked around with different animals to touch and feel.

At first Johanna wasn't sure what to think of the snakes but after watching a few older boys bravely pet this beautiful orange guy she insisted on giving it a try.

There was also a carousel that we had to check out. Now I wasn't sure if it was just my post-race jello legs or the fact I hadn't been on one in awhile I thought man, this is going a lot faster than a normal carousel. I had to hold on to the horse and Johanna for dear life. Now looking back at the collection of blurry pictures Jeff took I can only confirm that yes, it was indeed a freakishly fast carousel. Also, what is up with the horse behind me? Creepy!

The greatest thing about the Cheyenne Mountain zoo is the accessibility of their animals. We were able to get up close and personal with so many. Here we are at the chicken coup. Johanna is saying "chicken!" wanting to feed them her cookie.

Turns out she was able to feed them some chicken grain or whatever it is these ugly little things eat. And I'm not calling them ugly to be mean, they really were the ugliest little batch of chickens and roosters we'd ever seen.

Surprisingly their disheveled and pecked at feathers and skin weren't at all alarming to Johanna. She chased those things around yelling "Here chicken chickens! Eat! Eat! bawk bawk!"

Sadly, we didn't get to see all the animals due to the rain but were able to make our grand finale stop at the giraffe exhibit. They were staying dry indoors which made it all the easier to take part in the highlight of our day, feeding time!

For two dollars you got to purchase a few hand fulls of romaine lettuce. You would hold out the leaf while an eager giraffe would meander over to stick out his long black tongue and gobble it up.

Johanna loved it!

Lori and I joked that next time we should stop at the grocery store and smuggle in our own lettuce...just kidding!

Despite rain and sore knees we had a great time and can't wait to go back again.