New Belgium-Part 2

These bottles of Fat Tire were only 20 minutes old.  They came straight off of the bottling line.  How cool is that?!

Bottling area (we were looking down through a second floor window)

This was our awesome tour guide.  I can't remember his name but he was fabulous.  He made the tour a lot of fun. :)

Planet Box

I have an addiction to lunch boxes.  Don't ask me why but I love to buy them.  The Planet Box is something that I have been watching for years on the internet but I just never could pay such a steep price for them.  Well, this year I just had to.  And guess what?  I LOVE them!!  I was so afraid that I would spend all that money and feel like I wasted it.  They are sturdy metal and clasp shut with a clip that even a toddler can undo.  I always worry about my kids opening plastic containers and spilling their lunch all over themselves in the process.  With these, I never have to worry about that.  They are dishwasher safe (which is a MUST for me-I refuse to hand wash anything, lol).  The lunch bag is designed to hold the metal box perfectly.  It allows everything to fold out flat which would be great for car trips since they could hold it on their laps easily. If you are interested in learning more, you can check them out at Planet Box.  You can only buy them directly from their website or from Pottery Barn (which you can't customize as much there).  I am in no way affiliated with Planet Box nor am I being compensated to blog about them.  I just really love this product!

Your kids can choose from a variety of magnets to personalize their boxes.  Emerson chose the space theme and Hayden chose the modern art theme.  

I wish I had a couple more of these for myself and Clayton or so that I could pack up another day's worth of their lunches in advance but Clayton has already put the kabosh on that. :P

Wildcat Night at the Local Skating Rink

The boys' school had a skate night last Tuesday.  I was bummed because I couldn't skate.  A little known fact about me is that I am quite good at it.  I am one of those geeks that can turn around and I skate better backwards than forward.  Anyway, I have apparently busted my knees from running so skating was out of the question.  I was sad but the kiddos had a fun time.  Emerson started off slow and got better by the end of the night.  Hayden started off fast without caring how many times he fell.  By the end of the night, he was whiny from hurting himself so much, lol.  I can't wait for next month's skate night as I plan to be rehabilitated enough to participate, dang it!

These Floors---*Swoon*

This is not our house.  This is a spec home we toured that had beautiful dark hardwood floors.  We fell in love with them and I have to say that this pic does them no justice.  They are deep java brown and have no shine. There is lots of distressing (which isn't visible in the pic) and the planks are 5" wide (which is hard to distinguish in this pics also).  They look like something straight out of a Pottery Barn catalog.  We would have bought this small house that didn't fit our needs just to get that gorgeous flooring.  Thank the Lord that our builder offers it as a upgrade in the house that we are likely going to build.  We visited the design center yesterday just to see what options they had.  After seeing this flooring, we knew we had to have them.  I would give up all the other upgrades for these floors.  They are that fabulous.  Luckily, the upgrade to them wasn't too bad so we are planning to roll with it. :) 

So far...

Model Home-"Dorsey Hall"

We have decided to go with building this house. I don't love this elevation though so it will likely have a fully bricked front and a cool roof line rather than this one. I don't know. The inside of this home is amazing and we haven't been able to find anything to rival it at its price point. We did find homes better but they were a lot more money and less square footage. What made it a pain to choose was because the more expensive homes are districted for the best schools in the county. I hope that the school in this development's district will be okay. We currently have the kiddos there now to try it out ahead of time (the apartment we are in is actually districted for the really amazing schools, sigh...).

Progress, maybe...

We may or may not have sold our house last night.  Considering the way things went back in July (our house sold but then had to return to the market 2 weeks later because the buyer's loan fell through), we aren't jumping up and down just yet.  We have our guards up.  Last time, we jumped for joy and immediately joined the country club here in Concord.  Big mistake.  We won't do that again.  We will wait and see that everything is going to work out before we get excited.  The good news is that these buyers put down more earnest money than necessary and they have a rather large down payment.  It looks great but I am still very cautious.  If our house does indeed sell this time, the closing date is currently set for 9/14.  I have said many prayers and crossed all my fingers/toes that this time it's for real.

Chimney Rock, NC

Tracy and Addison

Last month, the boys and I headed up to the mountains to spend some time with Tracy.  Tracy was my best friend when I lived up in Hendersonville (near Asheville).  Hayden and her boy Austin are close in age and spent most of their early childhood together before we moved out to Colorado.  We had a blast revisiting.  I got to meet her cute daughter Addison for the first time.  She was born one month after we moved so I never got to see her.  She's now 4 years old.  Time sure does fly!  Anyway, it was like old times.  We ate lots of good food (Papa's & Beer and The Fireside are 2 of my faves) and goofed off a lot.  One day we headed out to Chimney Rock to mine for gems and to wade in the river.  I wish I had my regular camera with me but all I had was the iPhone.      

Hayden

Emerson

Chimney Rock, NC-continued

Austin and Hayden

The guy in the corner would never move.  He insisted on being in my pics, lol.

Random pics from the end of April

Hayden's last day of 2nd grade with Mrs. Nelson (this was the last day we spent in Colorado)

Road trip to NC (Topeka, Kansas)

Awesome brewery in Topeka that we stopped at

Finally Back Online!

We are still sitting in an apartment while we wait for our house in Colorado to sell.  It has been a nightmare.  Our house supposedly sold back on 7/29 but then the buyer's loan fell through 2 weeks later.  As a result, we have been stuck in limbo land.  We can't buy or build until that house is sold.  Money is becoming an issue since we have to still pay the mortgage and utilities for CO while paying rent and utilities for our apartment here in NC.  On top of that, we have paid some money out to reserve our lot to build (if we end up going that route).  I have tried to get a job to help pay some bills but nothing has worked out.  Everything seems to be a big halt at the moment.  So that's what has been going on.  Sorry for my absence here on the ole blog.  We didn't want to shell out the money for cable internet until we got a house but we broke down this past week.  I just couldn't deal with watching Netflix and Facebooking via my iPhone any longer.  3G isn't good enough for all my techie entertainment, lol.  BTW, all of our stuff is still in CO so we didn't even have a tv to run movies on (I used my laptop or my iPhone).  Suffice it to say, it has been rather dull around here.

Anyway, I plan to return to blogging now that I have glorious wifi once again!  Hope everyone hasn't left me.

Father's Day Weekend-2011

Clayton with the doggies, Duey and Basil

We spent Father's Day weekend in Raleigh with our besties, the Barnes'.  I let Clayton open his gift early on Saturday in case he got to go golfing that evening.  The boys and I got him an awesome pair of golf shoes.  Unfortunately, they were too nice.  He ended up exchanging them at an Ecco store in Myrtle Beach for a pair that looked more like street shoes.  The best part of that transaction was that I got a pair too.  The store was having a buy one, get one pair 1/2 off sale.  So for the price of the pair he originally had, we both got a pair. :)

Jason and Natascha have a boat so we spent that Saturday out on Lake Jordan.  It was a blast!  The sun was hot so we all got in the water to cool down.

Big E and Hayden

Jasmine and Hayden

Hayden

Emerson and Clayton

Clayton

Jason

Walking home after school (Colorado)

I sure will miss living so close to their school.

Pictures for my kids' sake

The view of the Rockies from the main entrance into Pioneer Ridge

Before we left Colorado, I drove around our neighborhood and took pics so that my kids wouldn't forget their former surroundings.  I took pics from the entry to our neighborhood, past the school and the turn onto our street.  It was the same path that I took on a daily basis for the past 4 years.  It may have felt routine at the time but eventually I know it will be forgotten, thus the photos.  I have a lot more photos than this but here are a few.

The view just before you get to the school

My kiddos' elementary school

Our street sign as you round the curve

Bad Blogger

While I am sorry I haven't posted anything on here in a long time, I am glad that I have been too busy to do so.  We have been everywhere since arriving in NC.  Life has been moving way too fast.  Many weeks have been spent with our besties the Barnes', my aunt and uncle, my parents, and my cousin Christine and her family.  It's been such a blessing.  The boys love being here and so do we.  From backyard barbecues and swimming in pools to boating on the lake and playing at the beach, we are so happy to be back. I have too many photos to update my blog appropriately, so I am just going to upload random things from my camera and my iPhone for you all to see.  It will likely be out of order but I don't have the time to sort it all out.

Even though I haven't been blogging lately, I still Facebook like a pro.  If you want to keep up with little ole me and my family, FB is where you will find us most of the time.  Feel free to friend request me if you haven't already done so. :)

Myrtle Beach 6/25-7/2/11

Clayton's company told us to take vacation early on since they would likely need him throughout the rest of the year (since they are starting up a new machine in Concord and they haven't hired hardly anyone to run it yet). The Barnes' and us decided to head to Myrtle Beach, SC for a week.  We got a condo in Barefoot Landing, thanks to Natascha.  Jason's twin sister, Mandy, and her husband Mark, joined us for the second half of the trip and we had a fabulous time.  We played on the beach, swam in the pool, ate lots of good food, and shopped quite a bit.

Mark teaching Hayden to play the tuba

Hayden

Broadway at the Beach

Captain Sullenberger's Plane-Flight 1549

As my cousins and I were heading up to Boone last Friday, we saw tons of people standing all around highway 77. We couldn't figure out what the heck was going on so we stopped on an overpass and asked one of the spectators. He explained that the plane that went down into the Hudson River in NY would be going through there soon. We drove on and eventually passed it. How cool is that?! It was on the way to an aviation museum in Charlotte. Here is an interesting article in the Charlotte Observer about it: link