Build A Bear Fun

We had our first visit to Build A Bear! Ben wanted to make a dog and give to his baby brother. He named him Fluffy (after much debate).

Santa Came to My House!

We returned from Iowa just in time to enjoy a nice, relaxing Christmas at home!!

Iowa Christmas 2008

We spent a week in Iowa to celebrate Christmas with family!

It was a COLD and busy trip - we decorated cookies, played games (Ben's favorites are tag and hide-and-seek), cooked and ate lots of yummy food, went to a movie, visited with Santa and of course opened presents!

Our cookies had lots of sprinkles

Ben licked the frosting bowl!

Ben helped Great Grandma with her presents

We played lots of Rhino Rampage!

Cozying up with Grandpa on the farm

After going to see Madagascar 2, we visited with Santa. Ben told him he wanted Batman legos - and Santa delivered some on Christmas morning!!

Bouncing Birthday Party

Ben (and Daddy) had fun at his friends birthday party, Aubrey and Cabot.

Mommy wasn't allowed to bounce :( but enjoyed taking pictures!

Christmas Fun

We decorated the tree and then got dressed up and took some photos of each other for our Christmas cards!

Giving Thanks

We decided to make cookies and deliver to a couple of nearby fire stations - to say Thanks and Happy Holidays. Ben even colored pictures of fire trucks to give them!

Snow ... Finally!

We finally got enough snow to make a snowman and have a snowball fight. Ben loved throwing snowballs at Mommy!!

The Cousins!!

Aunt Kim and her family visited for a couple days and everyone enjoyed being together. We even celebrated an early Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2008

Brad, Ben and I made a huge Thanksgiving meal with all of the fixins! We were eating leftovers for a week!! Later, we visited with neighbors and yes, ate even more.


Then, I created a treasure hunt for Brad and Ben - and at the end was a Nintendo Wii. We have lots of fun playing, especially Mario Kart!!

Floating the Platte

This fall a co-worker and I had a meeting in Casper, WY and decided to fish the North Platte while we were up there. Never having fished the Platte before, I had no idea what I was in for. The Grey's Reef section of the North Platte was a trip to remember.

The scenery was nothing spectacular and the City of Casper was okay. The river was bigger than I had pictured. We checked it out the day before and the water level was low, clear and the river had just turned a week or two before and a lot of moss was pulling free. The temps were in the 60's in the afternoon and near 30 in the morning.

We decided our best bet for the notoriously hugh North Platte rainbows was to float. We headed out early the next day and drove about 30 minutes west (upstream) of town and dropped in on BLM land. We were told the lower section was fishing better than just below the dam.

Shortly after starting out and around the first bend my buddy and I both hooked into two nice 22 inch rainbows. Playing them on smaller 5 wt. rods was fun and got our hearts racing in the cold morning air. We were rigged with 5 wt. rods and 3x leaders and 5x tippet. We were using a size 20 baetis nymph dropped from a size 18 bead head baetis nymph dropped from a large San Juan Red Worm. The other standby setup on the North Platte is a large white streamer (http://www.wyomingflyfishing.com/vanilla_bugger.aspx).

In the morning, the rainbows were all over the red worms and we easliy took around 15 good size rainbows each in about 2 hours. Around 11am the fishing slowed and we had lunch and watched two golden eagles pick off ducks on a sand bar.

Around 2pm the fishing started getting hot again. We got into several decent sized Blue Wing Olive hatches and the fish started slamming the baetis nymphs. No surface action was visible and the fish were probably taking the emergering nymphs as they pulled off the bottom and headed for the surface. The hatches were so thick at times that it was like being in a mosquito swam in Minnesota.

We ended the trip on a good note and landed more +20 inchers. We each netted around 25 fish with the sizes ranging from 16 inches to 22 inches. No big pigs but consistently good size rainbow trout, no browns. My buddy foul hooked a huge 24 inch sucker.

Overall the trip was great and I would highly recommend the North Platte to anyone looking for an opportunity to land big fish. The nice thing about the Platte is that it's only a 4.5 hour drive from Denver. I can't wait to do it again.

ZOO Time

Ben and Brad had gorgeous weather for their November birthdays...70 degrees!! We went to the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa - saw lots of neat animals!

My Birthday Boys!!

Recently, Ben turned 4 and Brad turned 34. We celebrated with a Superhero party at a local gym. Brad dressed up as the Riddler and the kids chased him. Then we played games, ate cake and opened presents. It was a crazy party for Mommy but Ben had tons of fun!

Playing in the gym:



The kids trying to stop Brad (aka the Riddler) from stealing the cupcakes:


Playing "pin the symbols on the superheros":


Eating cake:

First Snow of Winter 2008!

My little guy is growing...

Some days, I just can't believe how big Ben is getting. Here are a couple of recent pictures before we leave for school!