Instant Baby

About a year ago, when baby Erin was 6 or 7 months old, Deborah and I talked about when she would be able to leave her new baby overnight. Having experience with babies (I took care of my niece Sam from age 3 months to 2 years) I offered to be the first person to have Erin overnight. Deborah and Blayne always wanted to do something special for their 10th anniversary, so they took me up on the offer and we made plans to watch Erin for a few nights in August of the following year.
You guessed it, that's this weekend! I didn't think about school starting and having a new job in all this, but it's been great. We got Erin Thursday evening and had fun playing with her in the yard.




She had a lot of fun in the water and sitting in her chair with her own special place for goldfish and apple juice.
After getting soaked and filthy, we gave her a bath. We gave her an Oktoberfest mug to splash around with and she was content. After bath time and pajamas, she started saying, "night night" and rubbing her eyes. It was only 7:30 and Eric and I were in shock. We had heard all the stories of kids fighting bedtime. Not Erin! We put her down and that was it.

Friday Kathy watched Erin while Eric and I went to work.

Ok, don't go call social services on us! Erin LOVED putting herself in our dog kennels and when we asked her to come out she defiantly stated "no, in!" and would go in and out of each kennel. The dogs just sat and watched her with interest.

After another bath we decided to watch a little of her favorite DVD, "Wiggles." I was familiar with Raffi but not the Wiggles. Here is Eric watching the Wiggles sing and dance with Henry the Octopus...


Erin went to my staff party and I told everyone (so I thought) that we were just watching her for the weekend...so when someone asked me how old she was I said, "ah, I think 17 or 18 months, I'm not really sure." I got this look like, "wow, seriously you don't know how old your child is?" I realized this and explained the situation and we had a good laugh. Erin was cute as usual, impressing everyone with her large vocabulary. It started raining and she yelled "raining" and everyone was in disbelief. There were other kids her age there and none of them were naming everything they saw or pointing to name what people were doing. Oh no, they were running around playing! (for those of you who don't know Erin isn't too keen on walking yet).

She loves to be tickled and her laugh is the cutest thing ever.
She's a cutie and I think we are in love with her. I will be sad to give her back, but it will be nice to have a clean house and time to shower.

Eric's New Wheels

Eric and I were debating whether to buy a second car because I have to be at work much earlier than last year and dropping Eric off at work or having me drop him off wasn't going to work. We love just having one car payment and the low insurance cost of just one car, so we started thinking about scooters. Eric could ride one in the winter when the roads were clear (when they aren't he'll just go into work early when I do), and I could take the car. We researched the Honda's and really wanted a Metropolitan (Gothic color scheme) but if any of you have looked into getting a scooter you know that they are back ordered and Honda can't make them fast enough. So we started looking on eBay, but had no luck. The rain last weekend forced us to go shopping in Fort Collins so we stopped at the Honda dealership to put our name on the waiting list for the Metropolitan. When we got there they had a 2007 Honda Elite in stock. After seeing that it seats two and is pretty sharp looking we decided to purchase it. The downfall is that it has a 80cc engine which means we have to register it and get a class M endorsement (for motorcycles) on our drivers licenses. We figured it would be worth it and Eric drove it home on Saturday.

I won't lie, it's really fun! Here's Eric in the parking lot practicing.



Kathy got to go for a ride before we went out to celebrate her birthday.

They are twins...it is scary.

Public Transportation

For those of you who have seen Eric's latest masterpiece, Jingle Balls, How Blayne Got His Christmas Spirit Back, you know that the scenes on the Greeley Bus are classic. Eric brought to our attention that there is public transportation in Greeley, so today Kathy, Yen, and I decided to try it out.
There is a new route called the 34 Express that goes from the Greeley Mall to Centera and during the month of August it is free. So, we headed to the mall and waited. About 4 minutes late, the large, new, quarter of a million dollar new bus rolled up.

We got on and enjoyed a nice ride to Centera. The bus driver was new but she got us there safely, with only one wrong turn which made us go around the round-about a few times. We shopped and then Kathy said she was hungry so we headed to the Mexican restaurant where the bus would pick us up to grab some chips and salsa to go. We were sitting happily munching away (looking rather stupid I'm sure, especially to all those posh, Hummer-driving people who stared at us as they drove by).

Then the dark sky opened. The bus stop wasn't one of those nice plexiglass ones (that we had complained were too stuffy earlier!), but simply a covering. We just stood there in the rain, hoping the bus would be on time. Luckily it was!



So, if you live in Greeley check out this service-especially since it's free until Sept. 1! It's not that scary, really...

Georgia Peach Vacation

It is now August 1 so I am trying to keep the fabulous memories from our Georgia road
trip alive as the school year quickly approaches. Ah, vacation...

We flew into Nashville since my sister lives there and made this our start and end point of our Georgia tour. We rented a car and headed to north Georgia where Eric's parents have a cabin in Blue Ridge. What a lovely place! Each morning I would sit on the porch and drink strong coffee while listening to the music of the Appalachian woods. I actually enjoyed the humidity and rain knowing they were the cause of the lush green views I soaked in.

After a hike to a waterfall, stocking up on Georgia peaches, and wine tasting, we got up the next morning and headed to Thomasville, GA where Eric's parents live on a bird sanctuary called Birdsong.
Amicolola falls, north Georgia

Peaches, peaches, peaches!

Birdsong was probably my favorite part of the trip.
Their were miles of trails on the sanctuary grounds to explore and a swamp with an alligator. I want to go back, but maybe in the fall when it is a tad cooler. I love nature and there was wildlife wherever I turned. I went to a local bookstore and purchased the book, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray to learn about the local ecology. Spanish moss, crepe myrtles, long-leaf pines, and hundreds of other plants baffled me as I tried to identify them and wondered if they were native. One of my passions is birding, and unfortunately I got out of it after seeing all the birds possible in CO. On the sanctuary there is a bird window where you can watch numerous kinds of birds fly right up to you-all why lying on a couch in cool air conditioning. They were so colorful..finches, tanagers, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, blue birds, jays, cardinals...oh my! Sure, I did feel a bit guilty about marking off my bird list from a couch, but it was 100 degrees and 98% humidity outside, so I justified my actions. Here is Eric and his dad sitting in front of the bird window.
Birdsong bird window

Here is a picture of a very old oak in Thomasville. It was around when our country was founded!


I have been trying hard to overcome my fears, one of which is a severe phobia of germs, by eating sushi, allowing runny nosed babies (Erin) to sit in my lap, and working with prairie dogs. I unknowingly had another "immersion" experience to help get over these fears while on this vacation. While we were in Thomasville we drove down to the gulf. Eric and I hurriedly ran down to the water and started jumping the above average waves from the hurricane that was headed to Texas. I was having a blast and Eric decided to go out pretty deep while I took pictures.
Eric treading the waves

As dinner time approached, we tromped through the sand back to the car and noticed that all the other cars were gone. A sign that had been obscured when we pulled up now caught Eric's eye. He yelled over to me and read, "Advisory, Swimming Not Recommended due to high levels of Bacteria." I ran over and made him read the website listed and whipped out the iPhone to check out what kind of funk we had been swimming in.
Some of you have experienced my germ issues firsthand and know it can be obnoxious. Needless to say I went into panic mode, imagining myself vomiting, scratching myself raw from a rash, and contracting some unknown disease and suffering a painful death. Eric kept murmuring "shouldn't have mentioned the sign, stupid me" under his breath. We quickly changed into our clean clothes and headed to eat. My appetite was gone but I wanted to get to a restroom as soon as possible. I rushed into the restroom before the hostess could even ask how many in the party, and started scrubbing myself like a surgeon-fingernails, arms...and then realized I could probably take a pretty rudimentary washcloth/papertowel bath if I wanted to. So I did-from head to toe. My phobia lifted enough for me to semi-enjoy our seafood plate and when we got back to a shower I used a lot of soap.

After Thomasville we drove to Brusnwick to visit Scott, Lisa, and the kids. I felt better going to a doctors house, just in case my fears came true.
Lisa, Zach, and Abby on the washed down trees on the beach

Abby LOVED Eric

Jekyll Island Beach at low tide

After Brunswick we headed to Savannah and spent an afternoon exploring the coastal city on foot. It was hot but beautiful. Here is the square where the bench scenes of my favorite movie, Forrest Gump, were filmed. The bench is gone but it is a pretty big tourist attraction. Eric whistled the theme to the movie as we walked through...

We made our way back to the cabin for a relaxing evening and a day hike to Springer Mountain, the start of the 2100 mile Appalachian Trail. If anyone is interested in hiking this mammoth of a trail, let me know. Eric's dad has had a dream to do a thru-hike and some of you know that was my plan until I moved to Colorado. So we decided to try hike it at some point. I'm pumped!
Eric on Springer Mountain

We made our way back to Nashville to spend time with our nieces, Sam and Alyssa, and to make a quick trip to Huntsville to visit Eric's grandmother. The nieces adore Eric , and he lived up to his thrift store t-shirt purchase.
Eric and Sam helping Alyssa bowl

Eric and Sam relaxing at REI after bowling and lunch at Cheeseburger Charley's

Eric sharing his passion for cookies with Alyssa

Other highlights of the trip included eating barbecue, eating more barbecue, playing disc golf in Thomasville, seeing kudzu overtake the south, birdwatching on the coast, visiting Eric's mom's lab, and surviving Sam's girl scout troop that camped out one evening when we were there.

One more picture,
Eric and his dad eating in a Thomasville tradition called "All the Way Dog"