Valentine's Day at School

The boys had Valentine's parties at school again this year. Patrick's class moms had fun games set up for them and this cute craft where they made a picture of themselves blowing hearts. So cute!

Blowing q-tips into hearts

 Daniel's class does what they call a Party with a Purpose for Valentine's day each year. This year his class decorated "coins" to give to the Douglas County Sheriff's office. The officers get coins at work as a sign of appreciation from the public. I thought that was a very cute idea and a great way to teach appreciation for other's service.

Happy Valentine's Day!

20 Year Anniversary

Joe and I celebrate 20 years together on February 14, 2018. So, we celebrated early with dinner and a night at a hotel. 

This is a picture from our very first date. It was Joe's high school dance. 

I thought it would be run to replicate the event so I found us similar outfits for our date.

We even went to dinner at 801 Chophouse, which is not where we went for our first date (that was Macaroni Grill) but it is a restaurant that started in Des Moines and recently opened a location in Cherry Creek so I thought a Des Moines restaurant would be a fun way to bring Iowa to Colorado.

It's been a fun 20 years and I wouldn't want to have spent it with anyone else but you, babe. Here's to many more than 20 more!

Denver Nuggets vs Boston Celtics Basketball game

The Iowa State Alumni Club in Denver hosted a night at the Denver Nuggets as they took on the Boston Celtics. There were a few ISU grads playing for both teams (Monte Morris with the Nuggets and Abdel Nader and Georges Niang with the Celtics) so we thought it would be fun to go watch. Joe's cousin Alex came along and was able to get us great seats. 

The alumni club organized a group to be able to sit court-side for the pregame warmups. We were hoping some of the Iowa State players would come out but they never did. We did get some fun pictures though. 

And we saw Kyrie Irving from the Celtics...

and Jamal Murray with the Nuggets.

 We did catch Nader during warmups closer to the game.

It was an exciting game and the Nuggets only lost by one at the buzzer. It was fun to watch. Nader even got to play a little. 

I look forward to next season if the Nuggets can keep Morris and maybe get a few more Cyclone alumni. 

Liberty Bowl

We even managed to sneak away for a few hours to watch the Iowa State/Memphis game at the local Iowa State bar with the Vargas'. Thanks for watching the kids, Mom and Dad!

It was so much fun watching the game with a bar full of Iowa State fans. It was even better when they won!

We even made the local online newspaper. I love how the reporter made sure to get each or our ages but never bothered to ask where we were from. Apparently, we looked local.

Go State!

Christmas with the Strutt's, part 2

And then came Christmas with the Strutt siblings, part 2. We went over a day early to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa and have a sleep over with just the boys. 

Grandpa taught the boys poker

The next day we had more visitors. We got to celebrate some of the birthdays that are close to Christmas including Colin's 1st birthday. Which meant cupcakes for everyone!

We also celebrated Cora and Esther's birthdays. 

Then everyone got to open presents. 

The dads even took most of the kids sledding for a while. The kids loved it. I don't know about the dads though. 😉

I always love getting in as many auntie snuggles as I can when we get to see the little ones. I think Uncle Joe enjoys it too. 

It's a rowdy bunch of kids but so fun to get together. It's amazing how much fun these cousins have each time they see each other. 

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas with the Weldons

With all the traveling, we were able to schedule a day with the Weldons on the 28th. It started with our traditional Casey's breakfast pizza (amazing!) and lots of other food for breakfast, then right on to presents. 

He's excited folks!

After all the presents were opened, we opened the presents, so we could play all the games. 

Thanks for the fun day, Weldons. 

Merry Christmas!