Back in Colorado

We have been living back in Colorado for 8 months now. It's puts into perspective how lazy I have been at blogging. When we left off, Jason had been accepted into a Navy commissioning program and could go to any college in the United States. We debated staying in Hawaii or moving back to Colorado for the 3 years it took him to get through the program. The beautiful mountains of Colorado and being close to our family won out. We have been living in the cutest house on the United States Air Force academy. It's surrounded by woods with hiking trails and an over abundance of wildlife. We just love it here.

We finally had to break down and buy a ski rack for my car because our good friend, Liz is no longer here to schlep our gear around for us.

My new Mountain Smith organizer. I keep our food, gloves, goggles, hats and extra stuff in it. I love organization.

Joseph, Sydney and Sierra.

Joseph on his first day of skiing without "The rope". Him and I are riding the chairlift up on the bunny slope. I skied with him the first half of the day while Jason took the girl's up the mountain. Then we switched. After a day of Joseph telling us that snowplowing wasn't real skiing and basically not wanting to listen, we decided next time we would fork over the money and put him in lessons.

Me and Joseph riding up on the chairlift.

Sydney

Me, Jason, Sierra and Sydney and the top of Lift 6 at Loveland Basin.

Sierra trying snowboarding. She did pretty good.

Jason has little tolerance for the cold since living in Hawaii. He's wearing his Balaclava even though it isn't that cold.

After a full day of lessons, Joseph showed us how he can now ski in a controlled manner.

Family Portrait

We were so happy with the pictures we had taken on the U.S.S. Missouri, that we had the same photographer take our pictures again when Lacey and Tristen came. This time we decided on a more "Hawaiian" looking theme of Bellow's Beach. Bellow's is a military beach on the Air Force Base, but where the Marines from K-Bay do their amphibious landings. It's our favorite place to swim because the sand is so fine and soft and the water so clear. To everything good, there is a bad and that is the numerous man-of-war jelly fish that get washed onto the beach there. Our first time there I swam right into one and had it wrapped three times around my arm. It felt like I had just put my left arm into a furnace. Every time we have gone since, we see numerous jelly fish. One of our great entertainments is to sit on the beach watching the people who get stung run out of the water screaming and crying.





No crab is safe around my son.

Me with my three kids. (God, I love them so much).
Jason with his three kids.






We spent most of our time trying to keep our son clean. You can see it didn't work. Half way through the session, he was soaked from head to toe.

Lacey and Tristen feeling the Aloha Spirit!!

My stepchildren, Lacey and Tristen arrived June 10th. We have had a blast with them!!! For Lacey's 17th Birthday, we rented a boat and went out to the sandbar in Kaneohe Bay.

On our way out we saw a couple sea turtles.

The first thing we did after throwing out the anchor was eat lunch.

Singing Happy Birthday to Lacey.

The water was very warm and beautiful!!! During the summer months, the water gets warm and the waves go down. It makes for perfect swimming and ocean fun!!!

Me floating in the water totally content.

Here we are playing on Bellow's Beach.

Joseph caught a crab.

A man of war like the one that wrapped itself around my arm last summer. Bellow's is full of these. I'm always on the alert when swimming there. Once you've been stung by one of these bad boys, you never forget.