Merry Christmas!!

Had to add some more kid pics. in here. Michelle made it with her girls (up top) and then there is Tyler, Emily and Julie playing with the people Nativity set. What a handful, but they're fun!

Here's how the Skousens's pics turned out, and there is a new addition compared to the old pics!! Happy Day, but Christmas is over.. It was a great vacation in AZ and out of CO. Ben flew out Friday morning and all was well. Jen flew out in the afternoon (had to work) and it was SNOWING so had to sit in the plane for an extra hour while the plane got de-iced. Never had to go through that before. It was great to see clear skies and brown ground in AZ. (Isn't that a first) Attended a GREAT Party at Anna's- Thanks for putting that on, it was a lot of fun! Took some family pictures, did a lot of driving back and forth between parents. It was crazy but great. We have some great family in AZ and love them tons. We always appreciate parents willing to drive us everywhere and letting us borrow cars, and rearranging the house so we can crash there.

Gracyee turns 1 !!! Isn't she just a little princess?? And she sure went to town with her pink cake!

Christmas morning with the McDowells. (even Grandma made it)

And Happy 27th B-Day to Ben

End of Story!

So I loved reading everyone's comments and figure I should finish the story. The luggage did show up when the boys went to the airport- and had only gone to Kansas...And snowboarding was a BLAST!! Seriously though, still don't understand why there isn't a better system out there for SW so luggage doesn't get lost. Ben flew home on the 27th at night- it was miserable in CO, but he sat at the airport for over an hour, and his clothes bag came but no golf clubs, and it was 1 am and I needed to go to bed. So he kept calling and calling the next day- when come to find out it was just sitting in the office. You'd think they would read the tag and call a person, or look when the person has been calling.... but they delivered it the nest afternoon. I agree.. Do the best you can when flying with SW, try to carry EVERYTHING on!!

End of School.....

Ben and the Fighting Rams....


(Can't really see it, but it is a sleeping Rhino)
Nothing TOO exciting happened this week, just Ben is done with school for a two weeks. So we celebrated by going out to eat at Bennigan's friday night. Not really celebrated, but that is what we did. Also went to the Denver Zoo Lights Saturday night for a GI/Hepatology UCH work party- so free admission and free food. Can't complain about that too much. Then today the bothers flew in... Jim,Scott and Brent.. Sorry no Dan, Matt or Mark, You guys sure will miss out. The boys will do some snowboarding Mon-Thurs while Jen slaves aways short handed at the hospital. (a co-worker just quit..) Bad news.. The snowboard equipment still hasn't arrived- Southwest lost the luggage and doesn't know where to find it. First it will catch the next flight out of PHX (the guy took a break and forgot to add a cart of bags, that is our guess because a lot of people got hosed) then they were in Nashville, and now they don't know where they are. They just made stories up before. So the Brothers are on their way to the airport hoping to have luck with something, otherwise that makes for a miserable snowboard trip with no Gear... We'll see, I guess you'll have to check next week.......

Let it Snow!!!

Here we snow again!! It snowed all day on Saturday, so it made for an exciting weekend. Too cold to go outside or do anything, so we watched a movie or two, made a home depot run for some Christmas light hooks, taught the Caffal's how to play Pinochle (Ben was excited he had a chance to learn and teach someone!!) Saturday night was our ward Christmas party, Turkey Dinner...Yumm... and Sunday was Aunt Linda's 60th B-day party at Michael and Lindsay's so it was a fulfilled weekend.Oh and Friday was the Dental school "Prom" Some girls really go all out, so we had a cookless weekend. Those are seriously the best ever!

Here's the car after maybe 4 hrs.
And the next day, it looks pretty when it is sunny
And Ben putting up lights for FHE, and before the storm

Tonight we are supposed to get another 4 inches or so- so everyone in Arizona please enjoy for us!

Happy Day

And the boys played some Plaquita in an open space across the street after eating,
Go Ben!! Well, I know this is a late Thanksgiving shout- so Happy Holidays. Christmas is coming just around the corner and we are so not ready for it. We got our tree up this weekend (no ornaments yet) and some decorations. It is fun to decorate, but a little overwhelming thinking about cleaning up. But for Turkey Day Ben played football with people from the ward.. it snowed the day before and started out at 23 degrees and maybe made it to high 30's, so a little chilly. And Jen took Tyson for a mini jog, she (Tyson) needs to get out more since she has to stay in the garage when it gets cold and Jen just needs to get out. We had a potluck late Lunch with 3 other families- also from AZ and didn't want to go home for the weekend. It was a blast. We had one deep fried Turkey that was injected (marinated) with BBQ sauce and also an oven cooked. And our table doesn't look like much, but there was A LOT of leftover. Yum!!
Janette Hansen, Trevor Caffal, Emily and Brian Kleinman!!

This was a fun weekend for us. We had a fun Saturday morning heading up to the mountains with the some friends. Well, 4 boys and 1 Girl.. what luck!! But here is our fun set-up. We headed to Bear Creek Trail, about 12 miles total. A little chilly, but no snow yet.....Good work out but the first mile and a half was ALL up hill. The two boys on single speeds definitely had a good lead on us, Bummer.... But it was still so fun.

After a ride in the mountains we took a break, then headed down to the Temple for a session and a cleaning. We volunteered to clean the temple after hours. It was a pretty cool experience. We toured the temple with little maps (kinda felt like a mission impossible scenario) and emptied trash cans, then used a leaf blower to dust off the trees insides, even in the celestial room. Yep- you heard right, a LEAF BLOWER!! Even used them in the lockers. It was a pretty neat.....

This is a cool sunset from our front porch, we have the BEST view!!

This has been a good week for Ben and Jen. Ben got to work in clinic a few days, Jen got to check in patients for the best procedure and also decided to chop the hair. What do you think??

November and Perfect

Well, Ben doesn't think there is anything to tell so I guess it is up to me to up date the blog this week. The weather here is PERFECT right now. Has been in the 70's the past couple days, It is Great compared to things this time last year, The only downfall is there isn't a lot happening in the mountains either, but we sure hope there will get to be snow for snowboarding this year!! I made it home on Halloween for my annual Rocky Point trip with the fam. My brother was on the mission that past two years, so it was a mini family reunion for us. Everyone was there but the brother in-laws, (Ben waited to long to try and get school off) and the future in-law. Julie got engaged and came for a little bit, but no Dustin this time. So here are some pics from there. It was PERFECT!! (well, except for Ben not being there) It was a good little getaway from the real life, but too short as always..

Family Fun

So- We got the first snowfall of the year. Fun- but too depressing to take a picture of it. The good news is it didn't stick around and the 2 inches have come and gone. But- this weekend we went to the Birthday party for Uncle John and then to the temple with Josh and Val. It is fun to have some family around and fun cousins to play with. Here is also a picture of Ben and his undefeated flag football team. Go 3rd Yr Dental Students!!

First time fun

Can he pull it off??? In a couple yrs!!
And hopefully none of this, this year...

Our campsite- and pics of the hike!

The House in the Spring

Hello friends and family -

We are finally jumping on the blogging bandwagon. Hopefully this will make it a little easier to share pictures, short stories and updates from the wonderful land of Colorado. It is starting to cool off, but fortunately still no snow.


Ben is in his 3rd year in dental school and enjoying spending less time in the classroom and more time treating patients. Every day is a new experience - so much to remember. Jen is working at the University of Colorado Hospital in the GI clinic (best colon cleansing money can buy) and still does a ton of hair on the side. Fortunately she is just working at the front desk, checking in patients, etc so she doesn't actually see or perform any rectal exams - whew.

We are loving the outdoors and have gone camping several times - most recently going to Rocky Mountain National Park. We hiked a 10 mile loop that took us to almost 11,000 feet, stopping by at several meadows, high mountain lakes, streams and seeing lots of wildlife. The elk are all over and let you get surprisingly close.

We love visitors so any time you are in the area (or would like to be), even if you are just passing through and need a place to sleep, our door is open to you.