Cassie's 26th Birthday!

The cane is coming out, the glasses are on and the hearing aids are turned up.  Yep, Cassie is getting old!  I knew the day would come but it just really feels like it snuck up on me.  I mean one day I was 25 years old, feeling youthful and joyful but then January 7th changed everything....It is all down  hill as they say.

Ok, so maybe a exaggerated a little bit, ok ALOT!

I had a fabulous birthday.  My amazing husband bought me the BEST present.  I Quickutz Silhouette SD machine.   This machine is a scrapbookers dream come true.  You can design, manipulate, download thousands of amazing pictures.  Here is the beauty!!!

Christmas 2009

Our trip began with a rough start.  We left on December 23rd when CO was under winter precautions, SD was under a winter storm warning and WY was in between with a winter storm advisory.  Great combination!  The usual drive time is about 7 1/2 hours, it took us almost 10 hours...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?  It was a slow drive with icy roads, blowing wind and a continuous stream of snow fall.  I could not be more grateful to make it safe and sound to the Stewart's.

December 24th we enjoyed a lunch with the Benson side at Colonial House and dinner at the Stewarts.  For our Christmas Eve dinner we stuffed ourselves with great Prime Rib and amazing side dishes (my mouth is watering all over again).  Thanks Stewarts!

Ryan, Cassie, Nick and Ben building a gingerbread house:

December 25th was filled with opening presents in the morning with the Stewarts:

And then enjoyed lunch with delicious lefsa, turkey and mashed potatoes.  All the classics!  We opened up presents and spent the rest of the time playing some games and enjoying being together.

Callan (Keila's Boyfriend) brought over his RockBand and XBox so we all, surprisingly including my parents, "rocked out."

 December 26th.  We wake up, the wind is still blowing but no snow is falling, and it is still really, really cold!  The family eats some lunch and then Ben and I start to head to Rapid City from my parents house about 20 minutes away.  We hit the road and 2 minutes later, 0.5 miles from the house, we get stuck.  So stuck my dad has to tow us out.  The poor Subaru was trying but just wasn't strong enough.  Needless to say we turned back around and spent the rest of Saturday at the Benson's.

December 27th.  The drive home wasn't too bad.  The snow wasn't blowing as hard but the roads remained icy.  Slow and steady as Ben would say.  We made it safe and sound.  It was an amazing holiday weekend that I am grateful to spend with our amazing family.  Thank you again family for being wonderful!

Western States Fire Protection Holiday Party

Who: Western States Fire Protection Holiday Party to include White Elephant Gift Exchange
When: Decemeber 12th, 2009
Where: Radisson Hotel

Our white elephant gift was a Playboy Dart Board and a Poker Chip Set (two things we DO NOT need)

The gift we went home with was an M&M dispenser and a Juicer (Yes, I agree, weird combination)

A few of our friends:

Halloween

For Halloween Ben and I decided we would carve some pumpkins.  Stenciling on the pumpkin is my new favorite!  I had always done it free hand and it would never turn out like I wanted so we "invested" in some stencils.  To NO ONES surprise, Ben went about and beyond just the Level 1 stenciling and proceeded to the "Advanced" section.  It turned out great and we had alot of fun!

My Pumpkin:

Ben's First Pumpkin:

Ben's Second Pumpkin:

Out masterpieces:

Thanksgiving

On-Call for a Radiology Nurse can mean one of two things:
     1. Never getting called in and relaxing all weekend
     2. Being called in for the entire weekend, never having a chance to relax

I was on-call for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving.  I told all the family to not come to CO Springs cause I was just not sure how often I was going to get called in.

I am not complaining, I am actually rejoicing..I DIDN'T get called in ONCE for the whole weekend!  That has never happened to me, nor do I forsee it happening again for a very long time.  Now I wish I would have had family out!

We enjoyed Thanksgiving day with friends, watched some movies and relaxed.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

I know, I know.

I completely understand if you want to begin throwing tomatoes at me for getting so far behind on the blog. (They won't hit me anyway, haha). I am going to do a few quick ones to get caught up.

Scrapbooking Pages

New Headboard!

Ben and I made this awesome new headboard! You can't tell but our room is light green on top and dark green on the bottom with blue accents all around. I still want some more pillows but I love how the head board turned out!

New Color to the Guest Bathroom

I think our next project will be redoing the guest bathroom but until then I decided to spice it up with a little color. It is called Green Tea from Home Depot (recommended by a friend of mine) and I absolutely love it! My next color find is for our front room so any color recommendations would be great. I am thinking about a chocolate brown but Ben said he doesn't like poop on his walls. What a coincidence but I hate that too!

This shower head represents Ben's struggle with water pressure. You would not believe how much he can't stand having low pressure water. I hate the look of it but if it makes him happy it makes me happy!

The Warm and Cozy Front Room

I have wanted to do this for awhile but just never got time. Now it is my new favorite reading room.

Landscaping Done ~ CHECK!

Rocks, Rocks, Rocks, Trees, Trees, Trees, Edging, Edging, Edging, Paper, Paper, Paper....

This is all I keep hearing after a long, hard weekend working on finally completing all the outdoor landscaping. We placed plastic paper and then clothe paper....We dumped rocks, planted trees, mulched and edged the entire back yard. One more check off the list of stuff to be done. YEAH!!!

Maple

Colorado Blue Spruce

Don't remember what kind...It is done, that is all I care about!

Ben's 27th Birthday!

Ben ALWAYS says...I don't want anything. This year I took a risk and went against the grain. I did get a small lecture about how he didn't want me to spend money. I then informed him to stop ruining my fun and just open the darn present!

It is a Retro Popcorn Machine for the theater. He actually really loved it and the popcorn is great!

He then tallied up the money he got from all you wonderful family members and bought used Klipsch side speakers. They sound great and look amazing! THANK YOU!

Bathroom Renovation Completed

The bathroom is finished! So I say that but truthfully are just waiting for the ordered glass to come in. It has been a much longer process than we expected. Interest in finishing was difficult but it is complete (almost, hehe). Here are the pictures.

Our Colorado Tour ~ Estes Park, Breckenridge & Salida

What a great weekend spent in the great state of Colorado! Ben and I began this journey because I wanted to spend some time in Estes Park. They had a great art festival going on and the summer was just about ending. Why not explore on a three day weekend?!?

Estes Park was great! Elk were walking everywhere. We had left Safeway and were driving down this hill and here come the elk just chilling and eating.

Then we saw this great big one. I tried zooming in a little but man this honker was HUGE!! Ben said, "Call your dad quick....This is a good one."

Right out side Estes Park was a cute little lake called Lily Lake. Just the name got me =) I was hoping to see the Lilly pads but I guess they come out at the end of July and early August. The lake was serene and beautiful.

I love this picture of the Aspen and the mountain behind it. I actually blew it up and had it put in black and white. Very nice!

Rocky Mountain National Park was not our favorite. I had heard the fishing was good in Estes Park and in this National Park but when we started driving there was not one place that we could see to go fishing. Ben was so bummed out, just as much as I was. We later found out that you had to hike a minimum of 2 miles to reach any river in the park...Not what we had planned (We bought a book later that evening that explained all of this, perfect timing, right?!?)

As we are driving just out of the park Ben looks bummed and I am disappointed. What to do? Oh drive around some more and find the river. We end up in Breckenridge, CO and find beautiful rivers and scenery. It is one of my favorite places to go!

The trees were already turning colors! So beautiful!

We went into this fly shop that put there flies in a container shaped like a fish (below) and also in the shape of a fly. I found it so ironic I had to get a picture.

Beautiful Breckenridge.

The big catch in Salida, CO....Ok not really. Ben didn't even know he had caught a fish until he flung the rod back and a fish was flapping in the hook.

At the end of trip, I enjoyed reading by the river and Ben enjoyed some fishing. Great end to a great weekend!