Birthday, Birth Day & a Wedding!

This past week has been full of significant events!

Last Wednesday (9/30), my mother turned 60!!

Isn't she pretty??

Then on Thursday evening, in Dallas, at 5:30pm, Luke and Carrie welcomed Gabriel James into the world!

(Just barely missing his grandmother's 60th birthday)

Such a little "Peanut" - 5lbs, 12oz, 18.75in long!

He has little black fuzz on his head :)

Friday I had the day off to help with Beth's last minute wedding preparations, but it turned out that I need to make a few stops first.  So, before I went to the church to help decorate, I went to have my 1st x-ray and EKG.  How exciting, right?  (Turns out I'm fine) So, after that, I went to the church to see what I could do to help...

Later the night I went to the rehearsal dinner at A.Q. with Kristin (Beth's roommate).  We had a wonderful time just chatting and getting to know each other better.  Then I went to Suzanna's to put the rest of the reception favors together.  There I met some wonderful Missouri girls! (The wives and girlfriends of the groomsmen.)

The next morning, it was off to the Gupton's to get ready for the wedding...

Like my hair?? Beth's friend, Laura, did all the bridesmaids' hair and she did each of us in like 15 mins! That girl was amazing! :)

Then the wedding!!

I took this right after the ceremony (where we were all hiding in the nursery while everyone filed out of the sanctuary).  Aren't they precious?!

After the wedding, Andrew (& CJ) convinced me to drive to Dallas to see them and the new baby!  Andrew was down there with his family to watch the A&M game.  So, Duncan and I loaded up and headed out to Texas.  We stopped for a snack at Braum's in McAlester and guess who was there?  My parents on their way back from visiting the baby!

After we left Braum's (and Mom & Dad), we ran into rain.  We also made a few wrong turns (or non-turns) due to misnamed roads (my opinion of course...), but finally made it there around midnight on Saturday.  It was a long day...  Good, but long :)

But we made it!

Then Sunday morning, Andrew and I went to Baylor hospital (where I was born too) to visit Gabriel, Carrie & Luke.  He was so little, but very healthy and sleepy :)

Can you tell we walked in from the rain??

While we were there, the hospital discharged Carrie and Gabe.  So we (and Carrie's parents) helped them gather their things and go home! (Home was just a couple blocks away.) 

The Rogers are home at last!  Someone decorated their apartment door :)

After that, we headed back to Cherith & Stephen's to hang out for a bit and then headed on home!

Camping & Canoeing

This past Friday night, Andrew and I went camping with Clay & Lindsey for Andrew's birthday.  On the left you have Clay's vehicle carrying Jeff & Chrissa's canoe that they borrowed.  On the right is Andrew trying to clean out the cast-iron skillet after he cooked us all eggs and bacon for breakfast!

Here are the boys in their river clothes.  Stylish, eh?

I didn't get too many pics of the camping part of our trip because it was dark when we arrived and I was about to puke from carsickness.

This is where we stopped for lunch (ritz crackers with turkey & cheese, doritos, & dr. pepper).  I think this is the only picture of Lindsey, since she kept avoiding the camera.  As if we all didn't look fabulous?? ;)

The water was beautiful!

The boys testing the water and then plunging in.  It was quite entertaining to watch.  We have videos of them doing the redneck infinity pool plug :)

Did I mention it was a really really gorgeous day to be out there?  Good cool breeze, plenty of water flowing, a tad warm in the sun and a tad cool in the shade.  Perfection!

The ground looked like it was crawling!  These little guys were everywhere.

And last but not least our little froggy friend.  Frogs are so cool!!

He was just slightly stunned when Clay put him back down. But he hopped away pretty quick when I took his picture :) 

Can't wait to go next year!!  Although next time I'm using spray on sunscreen or someone is helping me out.  Ouch!

Cherith & Andrew's Birthday 2009

This year for Cherith and Andrew's birthday, since there would be nothing as exciting as skydiving, I decided to take on a project that a friend had shown me a couple of years ago on the internet. A girl had make an entire game board (and all the playing pieces) for "Settlers of Catan" out of vegan cupcakes. Since they both love "Settlers of Catan" it seemed appropriate that I should attempt it for their joint birthday celebration. By the way, mine were not vegan, only vegetarian. And I only made the board, not the playing pieces, since we weren't actually planning to play on it as girl on the internet had done.
After baking for a couple evenings and then decorating for a morning, I had to transport 66 of the 84 cupcakes that I had made to the Whitbeck's house for the birthday party. This proved by far to be the most nerve-racking part of the entire ordeal. This is all 66 cupcakes in the back of my car.

Luckily Mom W. came up with a brilliant idea to fill cupcake tins up slightly with something so that I could just plop the cupcakes into the tins and they would be high enough not to ruin the icing. She had suggested beans, but since I didn't have any I used rice krispies, macaroni noodles, and duplex cookies (I didn't have very many of each). It worked great!

The Ore cupcake: Chocolate cupcake, white icing dyed grey, & ground dark chocolate chips

The Water cupcakes: Chocolate or white cupcake, blue & white icing smooshed together

The Sheep cupcake: White cupcake, white icing dyed green, marshmellows

(btw, do you see a pasture of sheep or just one sheep??)

The Wheat cupcake: Lemon cupcake, lemon icing flipped up with a toothpick

(Couldn't really think of a wheat design that wasn't gonna take a ton of work so that's the best I got)

The Wood cupcake: Pistachio cupcake, chocolate icing, pretzels

The Clay/Brick cupcake: Strawberry cupcake, strawberry icing, twizzlers

All set up on the actually game board. Andrew made the wooden board that we use to set the game in.

The cupcakes turned out well, they actually looked better than I had hoped. One corner that I cut was that I did not make the all the different icings, which is what I had originally planned. Instead I bought all canned icing. I apologize to all the purists out there, but I almost always use cake mixes too, so sorry.... um, actually not really :)

By the time we had dinner eaten and settled, the gnats had discovered the wonders of icing! Apparently they were attracted by the chandelier hanging right over the cupcakes :( However, Stephen kindly removed all of them and if a few of us got a little extra protein, it can't hurt, right?

The birthday siblings :) And one little girl who was very ready to eat some cake!

Andrew & CJ - Hope you enjoyed the cupcakes of catan even with the added protein (oh wait! Does that mean they weren't really vegetarian??). I thoroughly enjoyed making them for you :) Love you both, happy birthday!!

Ski Trip Cont'd

Some more photos:

This view is from Montezuma Bowl, looking out to the south from one of the Blue runs that Luke and I liked.

This is a picture of the trail map of Montezuma Bowl.  The blue run is right down the middle of this map.  I have some other pictures below this that correspond to the double blacks on the left side of this map.

This is a picture of the ridge of Montezuma Bowl looking down at some of the double blacks.  This is the first time in my career of skiing that I have ever had to take my skies of and hike to the ski slope.  It was exciting! Pretty cool view I thought.

Looking down into the bowl.

The hiking paid off.  I was able to get some views of mountains off in the distance that I couldn't see from anywhere else on the resort.  (The ski resort off in the distance is Breckenridge)

All in all it was a great trip.  Arapahoe Basin was a fabulous resort!

Ski Jump

I tried to work on my jumping ability this week.  I had a good time.  Here is a video Luke was able to get of me going off one of the bigger jumps I did today (I'm surprised I didn't bust it:)

Not quite as good as the professionals on TV, but it's a start.  (I'm looking forward to watching the winter olympics next year already!)

Ski Trip Day 1

This was a sight for sore eyes after we had been on the road for 11 hours or so!  Those of you who have driven through Kansas, know what I mean.

However, Kansas has added some fun scenery.  I like the giant windmills.

So far the trip is going great.  No injuries to speak of, just a lot of sore muscles:)  Here a few of the pictures we taken:  This first one is a view off in the distance from the living room of the Condo.

This next one is taken from one of the lifts going up the mountain.  This is Luke and I's favorite area to ski in because it is all above the tree line.

The ski resort (Arapahoe Basin) has a front and back side you can ski on.  This is a view from the very top of the mountain looking down the back side of the resort (South).  Just spectacular!

This view is also from the top of the mountain, but it is looking to the west.  It is great to be in the Rockies, wonderful creation in every direction.

Thanks for viewing.  Maybe there'll be more to come...

Mom and Dad's House

The gauntlet. Mom and Dad's house is on the right. You can see a bit of the pine tree.

And the view of the basketball court...except no basketball goal. Now what are we going to call it? the concrete slab in the back??

Ice, Ice and more Ice.

Here are some pics of our home... Don't know how long I'll keep the internet, so I'm not gonna type much. Enjoy.
Bradford (sp?) Pear tree in our front yard. View from our front porch.

Neighbors to the north. Their Bradford Pear couldn't decide which way to fall. So it compromised.

View of our corner lot. :( Not quite as pretty as it once was.