We visited Boulder and the wonderful farmers’ market there.

We picked tomatoes at our house.

And we visited Rocky Mountain National Park, despite the yucky weather at Bear Lake.

Joel’s brother, wife, and their daughter visited us last weekend, so here are pictures of our niece chowing down on some of the quart of cherry tomatoes we picked.

Since I knew the frost was hitting this week, I spent some time on Monday picking the last tasty treats despite the cold, gusting wind.  The cherry tomatoes are ripening nicely, but I don’t have high hopes for the peppers and tomatoes that weren’t remotely beginning to ripen.

Otherwise, I’m just hoping to keep a few of the herbs going as long as possible.

Joseph and Courtney with baby Noland:

Us with Noland:

Mom with Noland:

The Huffards:

Joel holding sleeping Noland in the sheep they received as a gift…I think it was called something like a Pillow Pal, and apparently they’re fancy?

Us in Huntsville at Monte Sano State Park with Joel’s parents (there wasn’t anyone to take a group shot):

Hiking with my parents at Radnor Lake:

We can’t wait for another visit!

Early celebration of Evie’s 2nd birthday:

Joel and I set up some indoor portraits of the families because it was raining outside.

Due to the rain, we headed to the Hatteras Lighthouse and down to Ocracoke Island:

We rented a tandem bike for the week, and it was super fun! We’d ridden one once before, and this time it was great for getting to the beach (we were across the highway on the sound side of the island).

Evie and I on the porch after dinner one night:

The lovely house we stayed in:

Dark picture of us on the sound near the house:

We went sea kayaking our last day, but we didn’t get any pictures since we were in kayaks. Also, our little camera wasn’t working (surprise), so we didn’t get any beach pictures. Oh well.

That night, we took Dad (and Mom) to a Rockies game since it was Father’s Day weekend.

On Sunday, we headed to church, and then we drove up Mt Evans in the afternoon. Unfortunately the weather was not so great, so it was MUCH colder than we expected up there (quite different from a Tennessee summer!). We braved the cold just the same and enjoyed our time. It did keep us from hiking as we had planned, but that’s ok. I think we had at least a decent break for them from the heat wave and humidity Nashville was experiencing.

On Monday, we got up early and drove to Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove up Trail Ridge Road to visit Jamin at the gift shop where he’s working. We then went down to the Wild Basin area and took a nice hike up to Ouzel Falls, passing other falls along the way.

Overall, we had a really nice long weekend. We wish they could come more often!

Here are a few highlights (starting with a non-highlight) from our trip.

1. We ran into terrible weather on our trip home. What should have been an 18 hour trip plus stops turned into nearly 27 hours, including 2.5 of sleep stops. We won’t make that trip again in the winter!

2. We ate lunch on Christmas Eve at Baja Burrito. Due to their extremely long holiday closure, that was the only meal of our entire visit that they were open. Glad I called ahead. Long live pineapple salsa.

3. We spent a lovely Christmas Eve with my family, eating at Finezza and exchanging gifts. Christmas brunch with my extended family and a somewhat polite game of dirty Santa rounded out the festivities on Christmas day. I can’t number how many failures to take pictures this makes for us.

4. We went to Birmingham and had a couple of nice relaxing days with Joel’s parents. Although better than my family’s event, we only managed to take approximately one picture.

Susan opening her mp3 player

5. We spent most not-previously-committed breakfasts, lunches, and dinners catching up with friends. (Williamses, Harrises, Wrights, Mankins/Smiths/Huffards for Joseph’s birthday, Otts, Joel’s old coworkers, Duty, Baxters, Youngs, Brittney, and Brad. Phew!)

6. We saw even more friends at the nice potluck Duty hosted on New Years’ Eve. We were the old, boring, married people who weren’t feeling the next party (so stereotypical, right?), so we finished the night with a movie since some other plans didn’t work out.

7. A celebration with my mom’s side of the family on New Years’ Day, minus my traveling brother, was the final event.

Dad, Jennie, and Elizabeth about to open gifts

About to open my books from Grandmommy

Breanna, Chad, and Emily

8. We had great weather on the drive home and had a much needed, fun visit with the Mortons in Newton, KS.

The Mortons and us

We are really thankful that Joel got so much time off of work so we could make the trip!

So, what did we do? We had dinner with a couple of friends from Lipscomb who live here, snowshoed (loved it!), damaged our car a bit, got the car fixed, visited REI, toured the Coors factory, went to the Tattered Cover bookstore (which is super cool by the way), got fish tacos at Wahoo’s, saw a sneak preview of Invictus, went to Boulder, stopped by Chautauqua Meadows, went to Red Rocks, and ate at Watercourse. And froze. Phew. Here are some pictures (captions under each picture):

All of us snowshoeing (click to enlarge)

The Flatirons at Chatauqua Meadows; Joel and Adam at Chautauqua (click to enlarge)

Red Rocks Amphitheatre

This was probably the most out of breath I've been in my whole life. I do not recommend jogging then climbing a ton of stairs at 6200 ft when it's -5 degrees!

Adam and me at Red Rocks; Joel and me at Red Rocks (click to enlarge)

Feeding Evie pancakes with Nutella

Joel reading Evie a book

Fixing dinner

Eating!

On Saturday night, we went to a fun Christmas concert at the Fort Worth Symphony.

At the symphony