Tuesday, December 23, 2008


Ski Trip 2008

Keystone, CO



A family picture

Juston and I on the slopes one afternoon.
Hudson and I got to see Santa and his reindeer that were in the village square of our condo!
Nan, Papa J, and the boys
Me, mom, and Hamilton
Hamilton all bundled up in his warm winter bodysuit!
Mommy and Hamilton
Nan, Papa J, and the boys all in their PJ's after a long day on the slopes!
Hudson and Juston
Uncle Luke and Hudson

Hudson and Aunt Gracie playing with Play-dough. Gracie got Hudson some play-dough for christmas, and he sured loved to play with it all week!
Uncle Joseph and Hamilton
Me and Abbra- Abbra came up to the slopes with us one day! Me, Abbra, and Juston had a blast getting to ski/snowboard together! Wish you had been there Cameron! :)
Hudson and Juston going down their first ski slope- in this picture they had just sat down to take a rest!
Here is a picture of Hudson skiing down to Juston. 
Aunt Abby and Hudson
Hudson with his skis on in the condo! 
Hudson getting his boots fit for the skis.
Papa J and Hudson at the ski shop.
The boys chillin in their pajamas.
Hamilton loves Abbra!
For 2 days of our trip, we got to spend some time with Cameron and Abbra who live in Denver right now. On Saturday night, we went to the Denver Zoo Light show and had a blast! Hudson and I were posing as tigers!
The Gates family with Cameron and Abbra
Still at the zoo!
Eating breakfast at this wonderful place called Snooze!
Hudson with Cam and Abbra
The boys on the plane ride out to Denver- which was soooo hot! Can you tell their cheeks are flushed?

We had such a great vacation! We enjoyed so much getting to spend time with Cameron and Abbra and my family! And we had a GREAT time getting to ski! I hope this is a family tradition we can carry out for many more years! 
Thanks mom and dad for a wonderful Christmas present!

Monday, December 22, 2008


Pictures with Santa...



Tuesday, December 16, 2008


Ski Trip 2008
Just wanted to post that we just took Hudson down his first ski run! He did really well for about 3/4 of it and then he got a little cranky on us. Juston did a great job skiing with Hudson in between his legs (Hudson had his own skis on as well). Hudson has been talking for weeks about "getting to ski" and I think overall he loved it. He is taking a nap right now, but has asked several times to go ski again after his nap. So as long as he seems to enjoy it, I think we will take him once or twice a day while we are here in Colorado!
Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!
I'll post pictures when we get back to Michigan!

Friday, December 5, 2008

A week of many "firsts"......


This week the snow has seriously arrived! Monday it snowed a ton, and Juston and Hudson built their first snowman, Juston shoveled his first driveway, our car has read in the 20's for the first time, and we saw a "snow-blower" in full action (which is pretty cool!) for the first time. I shoveled my first driveway yesterday, and today when I came out of the gym- I had to use my snow brush to brush off the snow from my car and yes it had snowed that much in the 1 1/2 hrs I was in the gym! And over the last 16 hrs. we have experienced our first "lake effect snow" which has been a MAJOR downpour of snow. Juston has shoveled the driveway twice since we got up this morning to stay ahead of the game! Here are a few pictures from this week so maybe you all can get an idea of what we are experiencing for the first time. I have to say though, the pictures don't quite due justus to the magnitude of how much snow is falling or how pretty it really is!
Our house- and if you look in the middle of the picture you should see a yellow flag- that is the marker for the snow-plowing service to use to be able to plow our driveway in the middle of the night if we have more than 2 inches of snow. You can see the outline of the driveway and sideway using that flag as a reference! CRAZY!!!
Our sidewalk walking up to our front door!

You can kinda see the ridge of the driveway and the yard- it is getting bigger each time we shovel the driveway because that is where we throw all the snow from the driveway.
I am standing in the street taking this picture. If you look closely at the top left- you can see our neighbor (he is pretty tiny in the picture) using his snow-plow and the snow blowing out from the plow!
This is what I see when I look out the front door!
Justons car is in the street- look at the snow piled up beside it!
Our mailbox post is half covered!
Our deck!
All of these pictures above are from the last 16 hrs. when the snow has been the heaviest!

Hudson helping Juston shovel the driveway on Monday!
Daddy and Hudson
Hudson and the neighbors- who have fallen in love with him! He played outside with the neighbors for almost 3.5 hrs! He had a blast!
And just a new sweet picture of Hamilton! He won't have many snow pictures so I had to add him in here for the post! :)
Hope you enjoyed a taste of our adventure at the moment!