Gratitude

This week I'm thankful for weekend visitors, Valentine's Day cards from home, cuddling on a Saturday morning, and the cooler full of SD beef that KC brought us. 

Here's a glimpse of our weekend:

KC and Derreck at Wynkoop Brewery. 

Derreck's Mountain Oyster Beer. It was terrible!

Nothing like a little Gorilla Pride.

Elk and Pheasant Dog from Biker Jim's

Deep fried mac and cheese-tastes so good, but so bad for you!

KC's flight of samples at the Breckinridge Brewery.

On the way to Keystone.

Peyton Manning hitting the slopes. Bless him for his patience with me.

Lloyd and Harry were at Keystone. They were very obnoxious. Does anybody notice something wrong with the picture? Derreck and KC noticed right away.

View from the top of Keystone. That's Breckenridge in the distance. 

Our group on the slopes. We met up with Nick Hansen and his friend. 

Well my brother talked me into giving skiing another try. I had so much fun! Except for the one time that I went down the mountain with him. I can sum it up for you in a few words--blue slope, ski patrol, and lots of swear words. Derreck and I both agreed that we will probably go again, but it's not time to buy a season pass. 

This weekend will be spent getting paper work organized. I need to gather a 100 pages for our mortgage loan, get our taxes sent off to Momma Bear, and work on my teaching portfolio. Jobs will be opening up this month and I want to be ready to rock and roll.

Hope everyone has a safe, warm weekend!

Snow, Valentine's Day, and Brothers!

It's been awhile since I've posted. It's been a busy few weeks here. 

Last weekend, the weather cancelled our weekend plans. We were planning on traveling to Valentine to watch Dillon auctioneer in the Greater Midwest Auctioneering Contest and to surprise the family. We were really looking forward to it, but I'm glad we didn't get stuck in the bad weather. 

I'm starting to get a little homesick. I really wanted to go home this weekend since we don't have school tomorrow or Monday, but Derek and KC are venturing out to Colorado to hit the slopes. (How lucky are we to have more company?!) I'm still up in the air about skiing this weekend. Derreck is convinced that I will break a leg or die, and since neither of those sound fun, I will just hang out in the lodge and people watch.

We are staying in to celebrate Valentine's Day tonight. We figured we would be going out to eat this weekend and the snow is starting come down quickly. And I'm all Valentine'd out from school anyway. My students spoiled me! But Derreck and I got the best gift this year..we bought a house!! Well we are in the process of buying a house. Our offer was accepted on Monday and we will close at the end of March. We are super excited and Derreck already has all these ideas about what he wants to do inside. 

My favorite Valentine's memories are of my mom surprising us with fresh donuts from the bakery and spending the weekend with my Grandma Flo while my parents were at State Darts (I swear it was always on Valentine's Day weekend). 

My brother knows just how to make my day! He's learned not to text me at 5:30 am, but to email instead. 

Not everyday that you see a cow at your school. Blue Heron was the Chick-Fil-A School of the Week so our staff got free breakfast this week, and the kids got some goodies from the cow. 

Derreck bought new ice fishing poles. He got the Green Hornet so he could be like the guys on Grumpier Old Men. 

These are the rockets that I made for my students. Rollos, Hershey's Kisses, tape, and some construction paper is all you need!

Look at all these goodies! Hope Derek and KC will eat most of it this weekend. 

And here is our house! I can't wait to put my landscaping skills to work, plant a garden, and park my car in the garage. Derreck is most excited about grilling on the back deck.