El Dorado State Park adventure!

Last Saturday we decided to get out and enjoy the mountains! We drove only 35 minutes to this fabulous state park. It's known for its rock climbing, so we we were able to watch many rock climbers on their treks to the top of these boulders - truly amazing to watch! The kids loved running up the trail, which at times put their mom into a panic as I could picture them falling off the side of the trail into the rocks! Everyone survived, enjoyed the fresh air, and had a wonderful time in the great outdoors!

We packed a picnic lunch and ate it half way (only about .5 miles each way) - we tried to teach the kids trail and hiking etiquette - don't know how much they'll retain, but it was fun to try. We saw some prickly pear cactus and a large variety of wildflowers - very beautiful country. We're excited to get out more to explore Colorado!

Waiting to start our hike - so much fun to climb and sit on rocks!

Climbing up to the trailhead - Drew was in the backpack for a total of about 10 minutes!

There are 2 rock climbers in this picture - the one in the lower right-hand corner is just above the white part of the rock and the other is in the middle left-hand section straight below the trees. Crazy!! Both are wearing white shirts - hopefully you can spot them!

Mamma Mia!

This week I went with a group of 10 incredibly fun and fabulous women to see the musical, Mamma Mia! It was so much fun - a great musical production. We went to a delicious Italian restaurant before the show, walked downtown to the theater (my first time in the city) and then enjoyed the show together - laughing, singing along and dancing to ABBA! If you have a chance, go see it! I took the place of a friend who came down with strep that morning, so I was lucky enough to have a good husband and neighbor to take care of the kids so I could go last minute :)

Tagged, I'm it!

Since I'm new to the blogging world, I have not yet been "it", so here is my response to Loni's tag!

1) What was I doing 10 years ago? 10 years ago found me living in Seattle with my 2 favorite "E" people of all time - Ericka & Erin! :) It was the summer before my senior year at the Univ. of WA, so I was enjoying my summer working with Ericka in the billing dept. of an orthopedic surgeon's office. We "worked" on the Eastside of Lake Washington and thoroughly enjoyed our commutes rocking out to the Indigo Girls & Pat Benatar. We spent our evenings & weekends at the Ranch house, in parks, kayaking, shopping, BBQs on the beach and all of the other incredibly fun things to do during the summer in Seattle. Okay, enough remembering or I may start to tear up wishing for just a few of those "golden" days to return :)

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order): Buy foundation, buy baby gift for Adyson's teacher, find a babysitter so I can go to Mamma Mia (last minute) with some girlfriends, figure out what to wear tonight :), find the library books that are due tomorrow (wherever they may be?)

3) Snacks I enjoy: Peanut M&Ms, Cherry Pepsi, cookies - any kind!, cheese & crackers, ice cream - Rocky Road being my current favorite!

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Pay off debt, save for future, donate, donate, donate, take my entire family on an awesome trip, take my girlfriends on an awesome trip, donate some more :)

5) Places I have lived: Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado

6) 6 peeps I wanna know more about: Even if you're not a blogger and you're reading this you can always return the tag in an e-mail to me :) I thought this was a fun way to get to know a little more about people without too many questions to answer - really, you don't have to think THAT hard :) Okay, so the 6 people are: Ashley, Katy, Celeste, Margaret, Ericka & Melanie - Oh wait, only one of you has a blog, so that means you either have to e-mail me or START A BLOG!!!! :) Tag, you're it!

Fun personality test

A friend had this link on her blog and I decided it would be a fun way to spend a few minutes of my day. Amazingly enough, after reading the results of my test, I was surprised at how accurate the test is. I am an Encouraging Architect...what are you? Click here to find out!!

Come see for yourself!

Many of you have asked to see some pictures of our home. Last night as I was out watering my flowers, I remembered that I hadn't yet taken outside pictures (or inside pictures), so I grabbed my camera to take a few shots. Here is your own personal tour of the Bruggeman home...(minus the upstairs and basement which were messy and not really decorated yet - those pictures will just have to come later!)

Here is the backyard pation/deck area. We spend lots of time reading and swinging in these skychairs (http://www.skychairs.com/ - made in Denver). There is a deck above which opens from our dining/family room, so it's nice to have shade downstairs. My flowers are still alive since it's only been 2 weeks that I've been taking care of them - let's hope they make it through the summer!

We love all of the mature trees and plants - after having lived in a new construction home, we appreciate all of the landscaping the previous owners did - it's fun to see things bloom and discover what is growing in our yard.



Here are our horse shoe pits - they line the back of our yard where Blake often plays Star Wars over the fence with the neighbor boy! I thought it was a very creative use of space too small for much else! They even left us the horse shoes.

Here are the living and dining room areas - we don't use them much, but they're nice to have for special occassions (I guess?) :) This is the view from the front door - these stairs go up to the bedrooms.

This is looking into our kitchen from the family room - I'm standing right next to the sliding door that opens to the upstairs deck with stairs leading to the backyard - someday we'll have a BBQ and patio furniture, but for now it's just going to be our card table and chairs :)

A fun feature of this floorplan is the double staircase. These stairs go from our family room up to the bedrooms - there is a landing which meets with the front staircase...very handy since I'm constantly making trips up and down between floors.

Here is our family room where we spend 85% of our time. Our home felt like "home" from the minute we walked in the door - we love being together here and look forward to hosting visitors!

Adyson's Field Day!

So I learned from a few experienced moms that in Colorado "Field Days" are a big deal. If you don't show up to watch the games, you're a pretty lame mom. The day (entire day) consists of all sorts of relay events and races - competitive enough to motivate the kids to run fast, play hard, do their best, but not so competitive anyone goes home feeling like a loser.



I was so impressed by the number of different stations, how many parents were there to help and cheer, and the overall excitement and enthusiasm of the day. I made my 1-hour appearance and caught a few cute photos of Adyson at her best. She was having a great time and seemed to have many friends in her class. 1st Grade is such a fun age to watch!

Here's Adyson "serving" up a tray of balls that keep wanting to roll off!

This one is called "Chuck the Chicken" - some of the older kids got this rubber chicken some good air!

My little "hopper" hopped herself right out of my picture - I love her happy expression :)

Batter up!!! She ran right for the blue ball and bat - her favorite color!

One Field Day down, with many, many more to come in the future. It will be fun to have our other kids out there someday running wild and free (with teachers in charge of keeping track of them, instead of me!)

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Sphinx Moth?????

Okay, so pulling up to our house this morning, I thought I spotted a hummingbird, but it didn't quite look big enough or bird enough, so I had to do some researching on the internet.

It seems that Blake & I have witnessed a very special, unique daytime appearance by the White-lined Sphinx Moth. Here's a little about them: Most fly at night and are rarely seen. A few species, however, fly during cloudy afternoons and at dusk when they feed at flowers in a manner similar to that of a hummingbird.

WOW! I feel special and a little creeped out all at the same time - I mean, a tiny hummingbird seems much more adorable than an over-sized moth, don't you think?

Scott's Opening Day!

Scott's first day at work as a Colorado dentist is complete! At the beginning of the day they were at a 48 patient count - by the end of the day, they were up to 60. We hope this trend continues. He is doing his own hygiene to start but they are already in the process of hiring a hygenist. He's happy to be back at work after a 6-week break. Here are a few pictures of his waiting/reception area and an operatory. He's especially excited about the digital x-rays and the "newness" of the equipment and office.

"Hi, Tara!"

"Hey Tara, is that you again?" :)

Happy Birthday, Blake!

Yesterday Blake turned 4 years old! We had lots of fun celebrating throughout the day. He woke up to find his room decorated with streamers and a Happy Birthday banner - compliments of the birthday fairy. After opening a few presents, he dressed in his new Darth Vader t-shirt and camo croc sandals and we headed off to pick-up two of his new friends, Hailey and Walker.

We took a trip downtown to the Children' Museum and spent time at each station. I think they had the most fun popping the ENORMOUS bubbles in the bubble room, shooting some hoops on the mini basketball court, and playing grocery store. Watching 4-year olds interact is so entertaining - not many words are shared, but they seem to figure out how to play and get along. All three kids are really easy going and were easy to have out and about! After the museum, the kids played a bit on the outdoor playground and then we loaded back up in the mini - gotta love it - a seat for everyone! :) Never thought I'd say that, but I've been converted!

During the drive, we were all entertained by Blake's new Leap Frog DVD - the Letter Factory!!! "The A says 'a', the A says 'a', every letter makes a sound, the A says 'a'!" I figure if he watches this DVD once a day for the next 18 months, he'll have no problem in kindergarten!!!! HA! (I'd be lying if I said there isn't an ounce of truth in that last statement.)

We dined at Chic-Fil-A where Blake was enthusiastically serrenaded by 5 Chic-Fil-A personnel. They brought him a birthday balloon and an ice cream sundae - he was loving every minute of it....of course, I had to go purchase ice cream for the other party guests - wouldn't be too polite to let them watch the birthday boy, who was ALREADY getting the presents, eat ice cream alone. (Pretty good business plan if you ask me!)

Blake's dinner of choice was homemade macaroni & cheese (into which I snuck some butternut squash puree) and applesauce muffins (which also contained the squash). They were both a hit and the kids didn't suspect anything. It's my newest kick - "Deceptively Delicious" cookbook by Jennifer Seinfeld...so far very yummy!

Presents & a Star Wars cake followed dinner! He spent the rest of the night trying on his new costumes (Darth Vader, green monster, gorilla). He's really into dressing up and we were in need of some new big boy costumes.

Blake is truly a joy to have around. Just this evening as we were putting the kids to bed, I thought to myself, "This is why I'm a mom - so I can give them lots of kisses and receive so much love in return!" I think the Lord knows how much love a mom needs sometimes, and that's why we're blessed to have children who are so innocent and forgiving and full of selfless love - that's Blake in a nutshell. Oh, and he's so much fun to watch - he makes me laugh every day!

I just couldn't resist this picture! From the looks of it she doesn't make a very convincing villain, does she? But you should see her throw a fit - that would convince you! :)