We survived the Colorado flood 2013

You may have heard about the massive flooding in Colorado back in September?  Well we just so happened to be vacationing smack dab in the middle of it all!  Excuse me for the long and delayed blog post but I definitely don't want to forget this adventure of a trip!

What little boy does not love watching airplanes take off?!

We usually head up to Colorado early Fall to escape the hot San Antonio temperatures with Brian's family.  This year it was just Brian's parents, us and the kiddos. We headed out on a Tuesday afternoon after picking Brayden up early from school.  We figured both kids would sleep most of the plane ride and we were mistaken!  Brayden did not sleep at all and Sterling slept a little off and on.  Brayden was just so excited and pretty much talked and played with Daddy the whole way.  We flew into Denver Tuesday evening and got to meet Uncle Keithy for dinner.  We got to our hotel way past bedtime and both kids were still in good spirits.  Got everyone to bed and about midnight Brayden (in the bed next to us) woke up crying hysterically.  Well since Sterling was also in our room we did not want him to wake her up!  Brian and I took him in the bathroom to try and figure out what in the world was wrong and the moment I picked him up I knew he had a fever.  He was burning up and we could not get him to stop crying!  Luckily I did pack medicine and it was even a battle to try and get him to take some.  Brain finally took him out of the room and went and walked around with him (both shirtless, shoeless, and walking around a hotel lobby after midnight...) He got Brayden to calm down a little, brought him back to the room and laid in his bed with him and luckily Brayden finally fell back asleep.  Brayden slept until 10:00 the next morning, later than he has ever slept before.  When he woke up, his fever seemed to be gone and thankfully he was in a great mood.
 We stayed at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs once a couple of years ago and it was absolutely gorgeous.  This Fall the Broadmoor opened up a new section way up the mountain called The Ranch at Emerald Valley.  The area has several cabins and a lodge all secluded in the mountains.  We were so excited to try out this new area and all of the fun activities they had to offer.  Guests are not able to drive their own cars up the mountain and must take the Broadmoor shuttle back and forth when they want to come and go.  It is about a six mile drive up a steep windy dirt road that takes about 30 minutes.  We got up to our cabin and it was absolutely gorgeous, beautiful inside and out with spectacular views of the mountains.  I didn't get to take as many pictures of our cabin as I would have liked, you'll hear why if you keep reading!

Our gorgeous room!

Brayden's bed tucked away up there!  Close those little curtains and it was perfect for him...except when he fell out just that one time in the middle of the night! :)

View from the porch of our cabin

Our cabin "the hill house"

Me and my girl enjoying a break from the rain

Luckily the guys were able to get a  quick round of golf in before the rain started

                                               

  It started raining not long after we got there and continued to rain, and rain, and rain.  We had seriously some of the best food I have ever had at the lodge "bbq" that night.   We had such a great time and also enjoyed getting to know the other guests. There are several chefs working there that really outdid themselves and we all walked away very full and very happy, the food was AMAZING!!!  Here are some pics of our first night:

Meals were served in the lodge, very cozy and quaint and just large enough for the guests to occupy

Brayden and daddy enjoying their dinner

This girl! :)  Sweetheart rocked herself happily in her carseat while we ate

Oh these two!  They sure have fun when they are together!  Here they  are showing off some of their dance moves and apparently some pretty funny facial expressions too!  Brayden sure does love his PaPa :)

And she rocked herself to sleep, such a good girl!

And apparently Brayden really liked the ice-cream too!

It rained through the night and we woke in the morning to find the area with rivers where there were not rivers before.  The damn at the lake broke and the whole area began flooding.  I wish these pictures did the damage justice, I have never seen anything like it in my life.

 As the day went on and we were pretty much holed up in our cabin, the situation began to get worse and a little bit more serious.  They had been trying to work on the road but every time they dropped rocks and started getting it drivable it began raining again and washed out all of their progress.  At about 3:30 in the afternoon a woman from the Broadmoor knocked on our door and told me that we should start packing our bags, they were working on the road and they were going to get us all out of there that afternoon.  At this point they had the water and electricity turned off as well.  This is when I officially started freaking out...I couldn't imagine driving down that mountain in these conditions with my two sweet babies who were currently upstairs sleeping peacefully.  So, we packed up our stuff and brought it down to the lodge to wait for our rides down the hill.  As we sat at the lodge we watched mother nature at work as huge hundreds of year old trees fell to the ground and the flooding continued. Finally they came and told me that we would be the first to go so I went to find Brian and Brayden.  As I walked up poor Brayden began throwing up...Poor buddy, just what he needed was to get on an incredibly bumpy car ride!  With no time to waste they loaded us and our luggage up in a four wheel drive jeep and since there were no car seats Brian held vomit soaked Brayden and I clung to my sweet Sterling for dear life.  I promise I am not being dramatic here, it was a seriously scary ride.  They drove over rivers and heavily flooded areas that could have washed our jeep down stream in a heart beat.  I literally prayed the entire way but am proud to say I was only brought to tears at one point during the trip.  Finally we got through the worst stretch of road and were met (very happily) with a suburban equipped with car seats that would take us the remainder of the way down the hill.  After about five minutes of this we were stopped by a dump truck filled with gravel who had slid down and was now stuck in the middle of the street blocking our way out.  We waited here for about 45 minutes while tractors pulled the dump truck out of the way.  Anyone that knows Brayden knows that he loves tractors and trucks so was definitely having a great time watching this show!

 After what seemed like the longest day in history we finally made it down to the bottom and it had started pouring down rain again.  At this time the Broadmoor was at 100% occupancy so they had a hard time finding rooms for all of us to stay.  They first took us to this three story brownstone which was very beautiful but definitely not conducive for staying with small children.  So we waited there while they found us somewhere else to stay.  Meanwhile our poor sweet Brayden starts throwing up again!  He was SUCH a trooper!  We got extremely lucky and they ended up getting us one of the grand cottages where we stayed before which are absolutely gorgeous and comfortable and perfect for our family.

Since Brayden is pretty into trains, we were really excited to take him on a "real" train ride.  We took the royal gorge route train which was about an hour from where we were staying and got to go on a train ride and have breakfast. It was a beautiful ride down by the river and he had a great time but mostly just liked climbing all over the train floor, seats, and tables...

On the deck:

The Broadmoor had a new restaurant since we were there last called "Play" which had all kinds of video games and a bowling alley!  We were excited to take Brayden bowling for the first time!

GaGa is an old bowling pro!

I almost forgot to mention that Brayden was starting to act more like himself (no more fever or throwing up) but had at this point had broken out into an unidentifiable full body rash...uugh!  Sterling had also just started coming down with a fever.  Both kiddos are such troopers though and were great with a little advil!

We headed on to the next leg of our trip to Breckenridge for our last two nights.  On the way out we stopped at an amusement park called Santa's Workshop.  Debbie and Eddie stayed in the car with Sterling while she took her nap while Brian and I took Brayden to the park.  The three of us had such a blast riding all the rides and I definitely enjoyed all of the Christmas music and decor!  

#nofilter
Look at that gorgeous Colorado sky!  Beautiful, perfect day!

Brayden has no fear and wanted to ride every.single.jerky and spinning  ride...Which resulted in a very nauseous mom and dad!  So glad we were able to get out and enjoy this beautiful day after all the rain we had experienced!  It was so much fun spending some time with just Brayden and giving him all of our attention :)

After getting into Breckenridge we found our house for the next two nights.  We had a great house right in town and walking distance to the Gondola.  During the off season they have a "fun park" at the top of the mountain with all kinds of activities so we headed up and checked it out!  Brayden had a blast going down the bobsled slide and playing in the bounce house.  I headed down early with my S girl because she was still not feeling good and I wanted her to get a good nap.  Sweet baby fell asleep on the short Gondola ride down and even slept in my arms as I walked back to the house.

I have got to give my amazing children some serious CREDIT!  They both got sick, slept in unfamiliar places, and spent quite a bit of time in the car...which resulted in lots of carseat naps!  Precious sleeping babies...

After a great family vacation we were all tired and ready to get back home!  Just a couple from the plane ride home:

As always thanks to my wonderful inlaws for another fun trip!

Until next year Colorado,

Sweet Sterling girl is 7 months old

I seriously thought I had a good baby when I had Brayden but oh man is Sterling the best baby!!!  She is so easy, so predictable, and seriously so happy :)  She is flying through all of her milestones in leaps and bounds and is so proud of herself.    Here is what my GF was up to this month:

*Sterling is still eating five times a day, she is getting about 3/4 pumped breastmilk and about 1/4 formula.  She is also getting solids twice a day, after her 11:00 feeding and after her 5:00 feeding.  She gets rice cereal or oatmeal along with a fruit or vegetable.  So far Sterling has tried sweet potatoes, avacodo, bananas, apples, butternut squash, and carrots.  The day she tried carrots for the first time she threw up so I think it will be a long time before we try that again!  

*Sterling continues to be an awesome sleeper.  We dropped her little evening nap and are now giving her a bath and bottle earlier and putting her down between 7:30 and 8:00 for the night.  She still sleeps till about 8:00-8:30 which is amazing!!!  She has two scheduled naps during the day, her first is usually from about 12-2/2:30 and her second nap is from about 4-5:00.  She is super easy to put down, we lay her in her crib (completely unswaddled now) and she sticks those sweet little fingers in her mouth, turns over on her tummy and is out!

I went to pick her up from the kids club at the gym the other day and this is what I found :) Poor girl was so tired!

 *Sterling just cut her first tooth (bottom left)!  This makes me kind of sad because I know that her little smile is about to change forever!  And...I forgot how much fun teething is, not!  She was a hot mess for a couple of days before the tooth finally came through!

*Sterling finally graduated from her kitchen sink bathtub!  She and Brayden now get their baths together in Brayden's bathtub.

*Sterling began crawling before she could even sit up but now can sit independently, but not for long before she is on the go again.  She is crawling faster and faster and now we never know where we will find her!

*Sterling is pulling up to standing....which means a lot of falling and a lot of head bumps!  She spends much of her time pulling up and often gets to her knees and just stays in that position for a while.

*Her favorite toys seem to be anything she can put in her mouth, or anything Brayden is playing with at that moment! She really likes to play with a little ball, she tries to put it in her mouth, it rolls away and she crawls after it over and over again. She has also been pretty entertained by the jumperoo lately but never spends more than about 15 minutes jumping before she is ready to get out.

*Sterling LOVES Brayden and Brayden kind of just tolerates Sterling...She always watches him smiling and crawls over to see what he is doing.  He definitely does not like her to touch him or his toys though so we have to redirect Sterling often.

*Sweet girl just has the best disposition, she is seriously always smiling.  She is very easy to console if she cries, simply picking her up usually makes her stop right away.  We are so blessed to have such a good, sweet baby :)

And we have found the tupperware cabinet

LEGOS are endless fun!

Daddy are you in there?!

Quit working Dad!!!

We took care of our friend's dog and Sterling LOVED him!  He was so sweet to let her grab and pull at his hair!

Brayden's first ever week of school!

Last Spring we very hesitantly registered Brayden for "school" this year. We visited several schools and found one we really liked very close to our house. We thought he would benefit from being around kids more in a structured setting where he could practice his social skills.  He is also so curious and is a little sponge just soaking up every thing he learns.  The thought also was that I would have a little bit of one-on-one time with my girl a couple days a week while he was at school.  The summer passed and I was second guessing our decision and DREADING his first day of school!!!  However, I will admit I had fun picking out and ordering all of his cute little school supplies.  We "talked up" school for weeks, showed Brayden where it is, and tried to build excitement.  When Brayden's nap mat was delivered we couldn't get him off of the thing!  He loved it right away and asked for it everyday.  

We had Brayden's meet the teacher night and supply drop off the week before he started.  I felt relief immediately knowing he was in good hands and knowing for sure he was going to LOVE it.  The minute we walked into his classroom he was running around playing with all of the toys and other kids in his class.  He was also definitely "that kid" who streaked through the room pushing a shopping cart as the teacher was trying to make her little speech to the parents.  I was now excited for him to experience school and all that goes along with it :) 

On his first morning of school I went in his room when he woke up and asked him if he knew what day it was and he answered "School!" with a huge smile on his face!  He was excited to finally get a chance to use his backpack and lunchbox and after a few pictures we headed to school.

Since Brayden has only been potty trained for a couple of months I was very nervous as to how he would do at school.  Well my fears were confirmed when we picked him up that afternoon and he was wearing his "extra change of clothes".  The teacher said that it just happened in the midst of all the excitement and it hasn't happened again since that first day. After school we took Brayden to get his favorite treat Orange Leaf!  He always chooses pineapple flavor for some reason!  

This boy has always been a good napper, he still takes about a three hour nap every afternoon so you can imagine how tired he was after his first day of school and no nap!  We let him lay on the couch and watch tv for about an hour and he just laid there watching Dora (his choice) in a trance.  He still has not napped at school but I have hope that he will soon!  We have just been putting him down early on school nights because he is usually full of meltdowns the rest of the afternoon.

Brayden has two teachers and there are twelve kids in his class.  He is in the "young two's class" so they all have birthdays within about six months of Brayden.  His teachers both seem incredibly sweet and we realized what a small world it is when his teacher told us she lives on our street!!!  He loves them both and seems to be having a great time.  He walks right in every morning, hangs up his backpack and lunchbox, and after we take him for a quick potty break he is off to play!  We are so relieved and happy that Brayden is doing so well and school and liking it so much.  Brian and I are always fighting over who gets to drop him off and pick him up because it is so much fun watching him interact with his teachers and friends.  I will say it is VERY quiet around our house on Tuesday's and Thursday's and I definitely miss my buddy all day until he comes home at 3:00.  We are excited for Brayden to have a fun filled year at school and hopefully he will learn a lot and make some new friends!