Balloon Festival.

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family, Family day, love, Outdoor Fun, summer, tantrums, weekend and tagged with baby boy, family, grayson, happiness, Love, Our Weekend, outdoor fun, summer, temper tantrum August 18, 2012

We decided to have some fun this morning and headed to the balloon festival after breakfast. I was so excited to see hot air balloons for the first time and I knew Gray would love them. We got there and there were no hot air balloons! Apparently we missed them by a hour or so and they will be back later tonight so we headed to the carnival. And he had FUN.He did NOT want to get off the horsey.Next up, the airplanes.The slide was next. It was a hit. And once again, he was NOT happy the fun was over. And then I got to take my baby boy on the carousel again. We have had a pretty good day so far. I love that we are able to do these things as a family. Making memories is so important to me and even if Gray can’t remember this when he gets older, well at least I will have these memories to share with him. I know it sounds corny but I get this warm, fuzzy feeling in my tummy when I see him laughing and smiling because he is doing something that he enjoys. He is starting to embrace new experiences and it is so exciting to think about all the things we will be able to do with him as he gets older. Now I understand why my parents were always so eager to do things with me and why my dad was the first one to volunteer to go down the big slides with me. They wanted to see that expression of pure, uninhibited joy on my face and now I get to see that on my son’s face. And that is just one of the amazing parts of motherhood.

Our Weekend.

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family, Grandparents, love, marriage, weekend July 30, 2012

This weekend was a busy one for the adults in this family. I was in the wedding of one of my oldest, dearest friends. She made an absolutely stunning bride. My parents came up to stay with Gray all weekend and he kept them busy. I kept them busy on Friday when I recruited them to help me paint the play room. Sunday we did nothing except go to breakfast, take a long nap, and have some quality family time. I missed my monster so much this weekend so it was nice to just spend some time listening to him babble and laugh while running around the house.

What’s been happening.

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family, Home, home decor, iphone, Outdoor Fun, summer, weekend and tagged with baby boy, family, grayson, Home, Love, outdoor fun, summer July 24, 2012

I haven’t posted in awhile and I apologize. I spent the weekend painting our bedroom and hanging out with my boys. I’ve been trying to soak up my time with Gray because I will be enrolling him in daycare part time soon. He is so happy these days and I am loving it.

Our weekend.

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family, Family day, iphone, Outdoor Fun, summer, weekend and tagged with baby boy, family, grayson, Our Weekend, summer July 16, 2012

Our weekend was spent at home for a change. Saturday AND Sunday. Friday night the hubs and I had a little dinner and movie date. Then the rest of the weekend was all about getting stuff done around the house.

Sunday we laid in bed for an hour and watched cartoons with our baby boy. I can’t remember the last time we did that. Then we all took a two hour nap later in the day. Glorious.

We need more weekends like this one. It seems as if we are always playing catch up and always have something to do or somewhere to be. It’s nice to just stay at home once in awhile.

Estes Park, CO Part 3

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family, Outdoor Fun, summer, vacation and tagged with baby boy, Estes Park, family, grayson, outdoor fun, summer, vacation July 14, 2012

We made the most of our last day in Estes. It started out with breakfast at Big Horn of course. I had to have waffles one last time, blueberry this time, sadly I didn’t take a picture of their amazingness. We timed breakfast so that we would finish just about the time that the Rodeo parade started. Grayson’s first parade and he loved it.

I wish I could properly explain to y’all how excited Grayson was when he saw the horses. He was more excited than I have ever seen him. The sounds that were coming out of him were hilarious. The men and women on the horses stopped and said hi to him which got him in more of a frenzy.After naptime we headed up to the park one last time. We ended the day at a cotton candy party. George, the owner of the cabins, made cotton candy for all the kids. Needless to say, Grayson was a fan. After he was finished indulging on his cotton candy, he of course had to do something with that sugar high he was on. And that was our trip. The perfect combination of relaxation and adventure. I’m ready to go back. Like now.

Estes Park, CO Part 2

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, childhood, Family, Outdoor Fun, summer, Uncategorized, vacation and tagged with baby boy, Estes Park, family, grayson, outdoor fun, summer, vacation July 13, 2012

I’m here with more photos of our vacation. These are from the 3rd day of vacation. We started every morning by making coffee and drinking it outside while Gray chased chipmunks. We would give him peanuts to give to the chipmunks and as soon as they were in his hand, they went straight to his mouth. The chipmunks never got a peanut from this guy

Our cabin sat on top of a pretty big hill. Wild Man loved to take off while we were drinking our coffee and head for the bottom, sometimes with a stick in his hand and always yelling.

Daddy taught our son how to stick out his tongue. He said he taught him where his tongue was. I’m pretty sure he taught him because he thought it was funny. And it is. Probably won’t be when he is sticking it out at us to be a butt, but right now we like asking him, “Grayson where’s your tongue?” and getting this face in return.
I went on a hike by myself (Mom was not too happy about that) while Gray was napping and the hubs was getting a little work done. While it was so peaceful to only hear the birds and dragonflies flying around me I was a bit scared that a bear was going to run out of the woods or a snake was going to bite me. I watch too many survival shows. Anyways, I hiked the same trail that we did before but this time it wasn’t raining which was great.

We went into town and walked around after nap. It’s such a cute, quaint little town with ice cream shops about every 10 feet. I remember thinking that the town was so big when I was a child. Yep, my hubs is babywearing. In the words of Paris Hilton, that’s hot.

We went to the Stanley Hotel (think The Shining, Jack Nicholson, Redrum, “Here’s Johnny!”). It’s a gorgeous hotel and the views are amazing.

That evening Graham and I took a ride up to the park on a mission to see some wildlife. I had missed out on the elk sightings and I was determined to see one. The mountains in the evening are gorgeous. It’s crazy how different a place can look once the sun starts setting.

We didn’t see anything until we went “off roading” in our Ford Fusion rental. Then we saw this guy eating away all alone. They have these pull off look out points throughout the park and we found one with a great rock we could climb and watch the sunset. It was breathtaking. I feel like the pictures don’t really do it justice. Maybe if I was a professional photographer I could have captured that feeling for yall. At least when I look at these photos I am able to recall that feeling of awe.

Seeing these photos makes me want to be there right now. It’s so serene.

By the way, I finally did see some elk on the drive out of the park but it was getting dark and all the photos turned out pretty blurry. They are so massive even from a distance!

I’ll be back tomorrow with our last day.

Estes Park, CO

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, childhood, Family, Grandparents, Outdoor Fun, summer, vacation and tagged with baby boy, childhood, family, grayson, Love, outdoor fun, summer, vacation July 12, 2012

We are back from vacation and it was wonderful. I don’t think I ever felt a hint of stress while we were there and that is a great feeling. Grayson did amazingly well. He was in his element, outside all day unless he was sleeping, chasing chipmunks and playing at the playground. We were both pretty anxious about the plane ride to and from Colorado. The last time he flew he was 8 months old and slept the entire time. We expected a few meltdowns and we weren’t sure if he would sleep at all, which he didn’t, but he did play and watch cartoons the entire flight. No meltdowns. It was glorious.

I was really excited to share this place, Estes Park, with Grayson and Graham. We spent almost every summer there while I was growing up. I had not been back in over 10 years so I was eager to see how it had changed but also stayed the same. I have so many amazing memories of feeding chipmunks, hiking and looking for wildlife on the ride in the Rocky Mountain National Park. I was able to share all this with the men I love plus make more memories. I was so glad that Graham loved Estes just as much I as I do. It’s a very special place to me and I hope that it will be a special place to both of them as well.

I took almost 700 pictures while we were there. I know, I know. That’s a bit too many pictures but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to catch every single moment of this vacation. This will be the first of a few posts of our family vacation and will obviously be pretty picture heavy which I don’t think too many people will mind.

These deer were right behind our cabin. We saw them as soon as we pulled up and got out of the cars. We were really happy that Gray slept so well while we were there since there is an hour time difference. He stayed up a little later than he normally does but didn’t get too cranky. Anyone that knows and has seen Grayson when it’s bed time knows that this is a wonderful thing.

Amazing breakfast. I was really looking forward to eating here and kept talking about how I remembered how good the waffles being.And they were just as amazing as I remembered. I restrained myself and only had one instead of a whole stack.This was our little cabin. I know I already posted a photo of it, oh well. This is the little bridge that goes over the river. It comes out in this little wooded area by the playground.This is Fall River which runs right in front of the cabins. It is the most peaceful sound ever. Graham and I would walk down to it after Gray was asleep and just sit and talk. This where Gray was the happiest. He would sit in that swing forever if we let him. These little chipmunks are everywhere and they are not afraid of people, well most of them aren’t. They will come right up to you and take peanuts out of your hand. Gray would get SO excited when he saw them and point while making this hysterical laughing/grunting sound. We had never heard it before this trip but he made it every time he saw an animal. He would chase these little guys around yelling at them. They would go in their holes and he would lean over and look for them like what the heck? How did they just disappear like that?There are all sorts of little hiking trails around the cabin and we went every chance we got and walked them, Grayson included. There is a great hiking trail right behind the cabin we stayed in. This is the view from the top. Amazing. You may think you are in decent shape until you try to climb a mountain. Holy moly. This same day we took a drive up in the Rocky Mountain National Park. The first couple of days we were there it was raining off and on. I still got some neat shots though.Sidenote: Gray did not want anyone but his Daddy the entire trip. When I mentioned before that his attachment to Daddy was crazy I wasn’t lying. He was in his Daddy’s arms or playing with Daddy or crying for Daddy almost the entire trip. Gray wasn’t really into the views like we were. Imagine that. He did surprisingly well during the car ride though. Thanks to the ipad and some Bubble Guppies and Mickey Mouse. See, totally happy on the swing.So that was our first two days in Estes Park. I’ll be back tomorrow with the rest of the trip.