The face says it all

I love this kid!

First Snow!

Today was Colorado's first snow of the season and Kyle's first ever snow storm! He's not a huge fan of the white flakes just yet, but we couldn't resist bundling him up in his snow suit to let him experience it. Of course the girls had a different opinion. They are huskies after all! Enjoy the few shots from today's storm:

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy 31st Birthday Daddy!

Love, Kyle

Kyle's first go at solids!

Kyle is 6 months and 1 week old today. Ped says he is GO for solids. Buckle in, life is about to change!

Probably the last time we'll see his high chair in this great of shape.

I made a sweet potato for Kyle's first meal. It's in season, it's sweet, and it's a great starter vegi. Boiled it, put it through the ricer, and then through the baby food masher/grinder. Added some of my milk and viola, you have a recipe for a mess! (One potato cost $1 and will make probably 8 meals worth. Compare that to one jar of baby food at $1 that has to be tossed after a single use).

Kyle stole the spoon from daddy after he figured out that sweet potatoes weren't so bad.

After taking down several spoonfuls, Kyle enjoyed "playtime."

You knew it would eventually end up all over his face and even up his nose!

But he sure is a cutie all covered in orange goo!

I rewarded his bravery and effort with a game of peekaboo. He LOVES when I pop out from under the chair to BOO him.

Quite the mess, but totally a success! Yay Kyle!

Sliding

I'm pretty sure that I currently enjoy the park slides more than Kyle, but I am sure it's only a matter of time before that shifts:

Pumpkins!

We took Kyle to the Fall Festival at Clement Park today to pick out our free pumpkins. We had record highs (low 80s) with beautiful blue Colorado skies; it was the perfect day!

Kyle really enjoyed touching the pumpkins and naturally, he immediately tried to put his mouth on one. He's quite the problem solver-- knowing he couldn't lift one to his mouth, he brought his mouth to one instead!

Here are a few pictures from our morning with our punkin enjoying pumpkins:

Oregon Part II

(Continued from previous post)

We were pressed for time to make it to Ecola State Park in time for sunset, but with a little pouring rain sprinting on slippery trails, we made it. This part of the coast reminded us a lot of the Great Ocean Road in Australia and the west coast of New Zealand's south island. Of course, on a much much smaller scale.

After enjoying the sunset completely to ourselves, we made it to Cannon Beach where we checked in to the Surfsand Hotel. Hands down the nicest hotel of our trip, we had a oceanview room complete with fireplace, TV and phone in the bathroom, and all kinds of modern upgrades.

After enjoying a nice seafood dinner, we had a private bonfire on the beach in front of Haystack Rock where we roasted smores. It was definitely the highlight of our trip!

The next morning, we drove north to Seaside to enjoy a yummy breakfast before making the trek inland to Portland. We only had a few hours to spend in Portland, but we made the most of them. We drove to the Pittock Mansion for a nice view of downtown Portland with Mt. Hood peaking through in the background. We also made a stop at Powell's city of books-- the largest bookstore in the 'states. Quite impressive!

We ended the trip by bringing over a gallon of pumped milk through airport security. That's right-- I pumped (mostly in the car!) over 128 ounces of milk during the trip. It was quite impressive and I think the poor TSA agent was a bit overwhelmed, but any BF'ing mom can sympathize with me on not wanting to have to pump and dump all that!

We had a great time in Oregon and were glad we could spend some alone time strengthening our marriage. Thanks again Grandma and Grandpa for watching the little dude while we were out!

Oregon!

Warning: This is a picture-heavy post about our trip to Oregon.

For our 5 year wedding anniversary, Dave and I made the trek to Oregon for 4 days. Dave's parents gladly (thanks!) babysat Kyle for the long weekend so we could have some much-needed alone time. We had a great trip despite all the cold rain. Here's a summary of our trip:

We flew into Portland and immediately hit the road for Multnomah Falls and the Mt. Hood scenic byway. We stopped to see various waterfalls, the dam, a scenic lake and a couple of (what could've been) rather pretty views of Mt. Hood.

After completing the majority of this loop, we headed on down to Bend. We half expected this town to be like Boulder based on all we had read. It was anything but. It was a ghost town that had definitely felt the effects of the recession. Actually, we would later come to realize much of Oregon had been hit pretty hard by the economy (at least by our Colorado standards!). While it was our nicest weather of the trip, it was still pretty dreary. We questioned our waiter at a seafood restaurant about the 300+ days of sunshine fact for this town and he just about laughed into tears. He said they had snow until August and expected to begin winter in a couple weeks. A ten month winter? Yikes!

The next morning, we hit the road for Crater Lake NP. On our way, we had fun playing around with the Ford Fusion's SYNC feature. We had some pretty serious giggles with the voice recognition software.

We had our best weather of the trip at Crater Lake. It was a bit chilly and overcast, but it wasn't raining! Ironically, they closed the park for the winter two days after we visited, so we had great timing because they often have the roads closed through June!

Crater Lake was probably the most scenic stop during our trip-- we were quite amazed by the size and depth of the lake. I believe it's the deepest lake in the US at 2000 feet. Formed from a volcano, the caldera lake has a magical blue hue to it that's hard to capture in picture.

Our favorite stop at Crater Lake (which required a bit of a detour) were the Pinnacle rocks. These volcanic layered towers of rock were really neat!

On our way to the coast from Crater Lake, we did a whirl-wind tour of all the many waterfalls along the way. Because we were running (pun intended) short on time, Dave had to run a few of them to get his cotton-candy shots.

We spent the night on the coast in Florence, Oregon at a casino. I won $10 playing slots and Dave won $50 playing poker. It was along the waterfront here that we enjoyed our most favorite meal of the trip. We couldn't recommend the Crab-encrusted Halibut with Chili creme sauce at the Waterfront Depot more. Seriously. best. seafood. ever! At only $12, I could've eaten every meal of the trip here! In fact, we joked about this fact at every meal thereafter!

Our drive up the coast started with a stop at the Sea Lion caves. Sadly, there were no sea lions present, but we enjoyed the world's largest sea cave anyway.

We took our time driving the coast stopping at all of the major turnouts (the mile-by-mile guidebook was great!). It was gloomy and rainy but it gave the coast this mystique feeling!

As we made our way up further north, we made a stop at the must-visit Tilamook Cheese factory. It was great because the "tour" wasn't long and there were tons of samples. I think I made 3 trips through the sample line (shhhh!). We also had some of their famous ice cream. It was really delish!

Continued in next post....