Costa Rica Day One!

Kent and I flew out of Salt Lake on the red-eye on Tues March 3rd. After traveling through a time warp (and getting a wee bit of sleep!), we arrived in San Jose airport in the San Jose province of Costa Rica. We were excited to be there, and our fatigue quickly faded once we arrived in Costa Rica! We were met by our driver Diego, and hopped into his luxurious taxi for our 3 hour drive to the Nayara Hotel and Gardens, in the Arenal Region. Then the lack of sleep hit me. You'd think I would be prepared since I work nights, but I suppose I must be accustomed to sleeping after I stay up all night! I crashed in the van. Kent, however, made it there without a blink! He really enjoyed watching the Costa Rican scenery passing by.
When we checked in at the Nayara, they provided us refreshing wet towels... Sounds lovely, right? Well, it wasn't. It was totally awkward, sponge bathing in front of the concierge. But, we survived this luxury. :) While we waited for our room to be prepared, we took a little tour of the property. It was everything we expected Costa Rica to be! The grounds were lush and green, and we got lucky with sunshine! 

A bridge on the hotel grounds. And a jet lagged traveler. :)

Our beautiful Cabana

The luxurious bathroom, closets, and minibar in our room.

The view from the on-site open air restaurant. In the background you can spot the Arenal Volcano.

The pathway into our little hideaway

Outside the spa... Bliss

After checking into our room we hopped into a taxi headed for the La Fortuna Waterfall. When we arrived we sat down for a quick lunch just outside the waterfall, at a darling little cafe set up on a balcony in the middle of the rain forest. Pure Perfection!!!

Lunch at the Rio Lounge

The La Fortuna waterfall was impressive! It fell from a great height, and hit the pool below with such force that the spray flew several feet into the air. Some people were swimming in the pool around the waterfall, but Kent and I opted out since we didn't have swimming suits.

La Fortuna Waterfall

Kent lookin cool on a little rest during our hike to the waterfall

Valentine's for Three!

 In a strange turn of events, Taylee highjacked our Valentine's Day this year. Luckily for us, we were happy to share with her! In the couple of weeks prior to Valentine's, Kent and I each toted her around with us putting together a couple small gifts and surprises for each other. Apparently she caught on to the excitement and decided Valentine's Day was awesome!! I didn't realize how excited she was until Valentine's morning... You might have thought it was Christmas. Funny Girl. This meant that Kent and I had to do some secret errand running to grab her a couple of small presents. In hindsight, it's obvious... of course she would expect to get presents when she had helped shop for and pick out gifts for both Kent and I! Apparently Valentine's gifts are one of the perks of being "half an only child." 

Presents aside, we had a wonderful day as a family. We went to the movie "Paddington," had dinner out together at Wingers (where we only had to wait 30 min!), and had fondue for dessert at home. It was a day filled with LoVe! I sure am one lucky mama!

This isn't the best picture of either of my two lovey's, but it was just so cute! Taylee was sooo proud of the Valentine's she made for Kent and I. This was Kent's. :0)

Kent and Taylee made me this darling chocolate flower bouquet! And it's an "Original" Kent proudly told me.  It appears he has caught on to the fact that most of my ideas come from Pinterest. Bummer.

Despicable Me 2 made for a double movie day. :0)

A new little bear named "Julie"

Fondue!

How lucky am I?!

Skyler's 19th Birthday

Can you believe our son is NINETEEN already?! I know, me either! Now that he's all growed up, we decided to have a birthday dinner at the restaurant of his choice, instead of hosting a family party. He picked Olive Garden, and clearly, I wasn't going to argue! We had dinner as a family, with nana and poppi, and grandma and grandpa. It was a nice dinner, and we followed it up with some cake and ice cream. Happy Birthday Skyler! We sure Love You!

I can't get this picture to rotate!!!! But it's cute anyways, right?! Skyler is taking a Snowboarding class this semester, so we thought this would be a perfect cake.

The "free" birthday drink, that wasn't exactly free...

Taylee's decadent drink for Skyler's birthday. After she finished the whipped cream, it turned out the hot chocolate wasn't so great. Bummer.

Money, Money, MONEY!

More hoodies!

Skyler's Fave! Chocolate covered Peanut Butter Pretzels from Trader Joe's

Taylee getting in on the Bday Action. Skyler is a sweet and patient big brother. :0)

Dreamy Dance Recital

This year's winter Dance Recital was all about Dreams. Taylee and her fellow kindergarteners did a fabulous job with their two dances. One was to "I've Got a Dream" from Tangled, and the other was to the song "All I have to Do is Dream." Did I mention the theme was dreams?

I was thrilled to see that Taylee is actually becoming a lovely little dancer (when she remembers her steps!), now that she has outgrown the adorable toddler dancing phase. This is quite a surprise given that I am her mom, and I don't have a graceful bone in my body! 

35 pictures, and this was the only decent one!

Kindergarten Speech Evaluation

We met with Taylee's speech therapist at her elementary school a couple of weeks ago. Although I have always assumed she would require speech therapy, I was interested in hearing what a professional had to say about Taylee's speech quality. Sure enough, the nasal tones I was hearing are for real. She has nasal emission with 95% of her sounds. Wow. That's even more than I would have expected. Alas, she is now attending speech therapy once per week for 30 minutes during school. Fortunately, she seems to enjoy it. That makes me happy. :0) If we are unable to help her remedy this issue with speech therapy, she will eventually be a candidate for a palate repair. That depends, of course, on how much the speech issues bother her as she gets older. But, really, it doesn't matter all that much in the winter, as she has a cold every other week, and you can't hear it anyhow! See, how's that for a silver lining?? ;)

Playoff FAIL

This last weekend took us to Denver for what we would like to think of as our "annual" Playoff trip in January. Although, after the changes, and rumors of change that are circulating within the Broncos, I am not so sure this is a trip we will get to make next year. Bummer.

We flew in very early on Saturday morning (because we bought our airfare on sale, long before we knew the date and time of the actual game). Our goal was to entertain ourselves, and more importantly, Taylee, for a few hours and not pester our extended family ALL day long. We found ourselves in downtown by 11:00, so we went for any early lunch at the Paramount Cafe. It was yummy, as all of our meals there have been!

We ran into "RoboBronco" outside of the Paramount Cafe! Taylee wasn't too sure about him, but I have taken photos with him during past visits, and was excited for the opportunity to get a family photo-op

After lunch we took Taylee to the Denver Children's Museum. She was in heaven! We thought she might be disappointed, as it is not as "cool" as Discovery Gateway or the Museum of Natural Curiosity, but she loved it! The activites were simple, but fun, engaging, and messy!

Our little Fire Girl!

Practicing her pet grooming skills. :)

And working on her future veterinary skills, giving this pup his shots...

Even Mommy and Daddy got in on the action in the bubble zone. Kent made some enormous bubbles!!

 

We stepped into the Jungle!

And Taylee and daddy built a rocket ship together!!

We easily wasted away several hours before it was time to head to Aunt Ginger's house to see Grandpa Gene, Garrett, Michelle, and Aden.  We got to enjoy watching some football with them, but were bummed that the Patriots won the playoff game, and are now headed to their 5th AFC Championship Game in a row. Well, if we only knew then that things on the playoff forecast were about to get a lot worse.

After the game we went to Hacienda Colorado to celebrate Grandpa Gene's 80th Birthday! We had a party of 15, including (for posterity's sake) me, Kent, Taylee, mom, dad, Ginger, Garrett, Aden, Michelle, Xavier, Grandpa, Denise, Damion, Zach, and Danny. It was also Denise's birthday, and a nice time to celebrate the recent engagement of Garrett and Michelle! After our dinner we took the whole party back to our hotel to annoy our fellow guests, and we were definitely successful! But, no worries, we stopped the fun by 9:30. With so much to celebrate it was a Happy Everything kind of night!

 

Game day arrived overcast and gloomy. A fitting kind of a day. After dropping Taylee at Garrett's to play with the kids, we headed to the stadium. I was pretty thrilled at the beginning of the game, because they had an F16 Flyover! I always loved the flyover, and it has been years since they have done one! Turns out that was just about the best part of the game. The game speaks for itself, and it wasn't all that fun, with so little to cheer for. :/ I was pretty bummed though, that the crowd booed Peyton Manning. Seriously?! It's no wonder he is considering not returning next year...

Before the game! When we were still happy and excited.

We woke to snow on Monday morning, but had no issues getting to the airport and getting out of town on our early afternoon flight. All in all, we had a nice weekend with our family, a bummer of a game, and can't wait to do it again next year! 

Kindergarten Milestone!

Yesterday at school, I got a fabulous update from her Kindergarten teacher. Taylee is ready to start the Reading For All Learners Program! This means that during testing she was able to recognize all her upper and lower case letters, identify the sounds they make, and successfully combine sounds to read words. She will now bring home simple books from school designed for beginning readers, to practice reading. She has reached this milestone on track with her classmates, even ahead of some! This is significant to us because just a few short months ago we were heavily debating whether or not to send her to Kindergarten this year or hold her back until next year. Her Preschool teacher felt that she should wait another year before attending. Needless to say, I have been following her progress closely. We are just thrilled to see her meeting these educational milestones on time! Way to go Taylee!

In other news, we will be meeting with the Elementary school Speech Therapist on Friday for the results of the speech evaluation they performed last month. This is the first speech therapy she has received since she was 18 months. I am excited to hear what they have to say! Here's hoping that there is no Palate Revision in her future....

Christmas 2014

We are extraordinarily blessed, and it seems as though every year we have an amazing, over the top Christmas. What I will remember the most about this Christmas was the relaxing break it served to be for our family, after a very busy few months leading up to it. Kent has been working tons and tons of overtime at work in an attempt to get "caught up," which seems to be an impossible task lately. We were able to spend almost 2 weeks together around the holiday, and it was heaven!

We went to Grandma and Grandpa Judson's for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, and the cousins gift exchange. As usual, the kids were pretty excited and spent much of the evening wrestling and expending all that Christmas Eve excitement. It is such a joy to watch them play and enjoy each other's company. Even Skyler gets in on the action!

At home that evening, our kids got to open their Christmas jammies.

 

Broncos Jammies -- imagine that!

Christmas morning came bright and early, but not as early as we expected! Kent and I were awakened by Nana and Poppi texting me repeatedly at 6:30 in the morning -- "Are you guys up yet?" "Text me when Taylee wakes up!" "The roads are snowy, we are going to head over now..." LOL, they were on our doorstep before Taylee was even awake.



Everything came together nicely, when Taylee woke up at 7:15 and Skyler rolled out of bed without us even waking him. Taylee was excited to see that Santa had brought her a new 2 wheel Scooter, and a Sofia Royal Prep Academy! What a generous fellow! And he ate almost all the cookies we left out, as well as drinking most of his milk. Taylee was just tickled pink!

We like to take our time opening gifts, and each person takes turns. This extends our Christmas morning out over several hours. We love it!

Sofia the First Slumber Party Playset

Skyler's new Broncos Hoodie

New Snowboarding Pants for Skyler's Snowboarding Class this Semester.

Nana and Poppi got Taylee a Sleeping Beauty Castle! When you consider that Santa brought a Sofia Royal Prep Academy, Kent and I gave Taylee a Tinkerbell Pixie Cottage, and this Sleeping Beauty Castle from Nana and poppi, I think she has all the living accomodations a girl could dream of!

A surprise from Nana for our family. A Minky Blanket. It is so luxurious and cozy! I am snuggled up in it as I type this post. :0)

One bad-A HillBilly! Rockin his new hoodie, and his awesome new teeth thanks to Poppi and his creative gifting!

Just one of the FIVE new Hurley shirts Kent got for Christmas. LOL. We've got his style pinned! 

One of the new Broncos Shirts Kent got me. I love all 3 of them! And note Taylee tap dancing in her new Rapunzel Princess shoes.

Pretty Princess in her Pretty Picture Pose

Kent was pretty pumped about our new Cheese Slicer!

After our morning at home, we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Judson's for some leftover's for Christmas lunch and our gift exchange with them. We extended a tradition of the last several years, and got tickets to a Jazz game for Grandma and Grandpa, as well as Kent and Skyler. 

My cuties!

We topped off our day with Christmas dinner at Nana and Poppi's - Filet Mignon, and it was sooo delicious! Even Taylee is now a fan of filet mignon.... Oh Boy! Expensive tastes!  We also had a few more gifts to exchange as well. The infamous stocking extravaganza that nana puts on every year, as well as a few more presents for us all.

Kent's New Broncos Hoodie!

My new jacket. So cozy!

Poppi, giving the camera a normal look...for once. A real Christmas Miracle!

At the end of the day, despite being so immensely spoiled, I feel like we close this holiday season with a feeling of great joy at our immaterial blessings. Our loved ones and the time we are able to spend together... What joy!