A Case of Mistaken Bedentity
2/25/2011 - Posted by Nicole - 1 comments
This story starts quite a while back... back to the summer of 2009 when Michael and I first moved to Colorado. That summer we packed up all of our belongings and hauled them to Breckenridge where we promptly unpacked them ourselves. 


Fast forward to two nights ago in February of 2011. I had stripped the bed during the day and washed the sheets, but had yet to put them back on at 10 p.m. After having guests for a few weeks, we were really tired so we opted to sleep on the guest bed, which had nice clean sheets on it thanks to Michael's sister, Suzanne. 


The next morning we arose rested, refreshed and (practically) hearing little birdies chirp outside the window. We both remarked how astonished we were to have slept so well in our guest bed, especially in light of the fact that we'd both recently noticed a decline in our slumber on our mattress. 


After much discussion and wrinkling of eyebrows, we decided to switch out the mattresses. We'd rather sleep on the other, more comfortable mattress, even if it was meant for guests.


And that's when it hit us!!


As we stripped the guest bed, including it's mattress pad, we realized that it was in fact the original mattress which we'd purchased when we lived in Texas!!!!


WHAT?!?!?


How could this colossal mix up have occurred? Not that we desire to give our guests a poor sleeping experience, but most people save their awesome mattress for the bed they sleep in every night, right?


All we can figure is that when we first moved in, we were a little frazzled and must have put the wrong mattress in each room. As you can see below there's quite a difference between the two, but apparently we missed it...




Thankfully our mattress has been returned to its rightful place and will be waiting for us this evening!! YAY!!



Visitors, visitors, visitors...
2/24/2011 - Posted by Nicole - 0 comments
Hey world... I promise that we have not fallen off the face of the planet. On the contrary, we've been very busy hosting wonderful guests for the past month- hence my absence from our blog. Here's a short recap of the friends and family we've been hosting since January.


In January, Ben, Bekah, Averie, and Hailey Cairns loaded up their sweet mini van back and came to Cod-er-ah-do for a whole week! Bekah had never been skiing before, but after one lesson she was a natural (not that I was at all surprised). Averie also got to learn "skaping" with Uncle Mike, although she wasn't a huge fan. 




The third day the Cairns were here, we got to spend an entire day sans kiddos skiing with Ben and Bekah thanks to the awesome Belly Button Bakery staff (that's the weirdo name of the childcare center at Copper). That evening we took further advantage of the Bakery by dropping the girls off at Kids' Night Out and then had a lovely dinner at CB Grill. It was great to have such wonderful life long friends come visit. 





A couple weeks later, Michael's parents came to visit and packed in 5 full days of skiing. We were able to ski with them all but one of those days, which was a real treat. We didn't get many pictures, probably because we were concentrating so much on skiing, but here's a classic one of Doug in his sleek new helmet and goggles.

The day after Doug and Priscilla left, we traveled to Steamboat with new couple friends from Michael's Reserve Unit, Mike and Quincy. Qunicy's aunt had a sweet condo that she let us borrow for the weekend. It was a blast to go on an actual ski vacation and get to ski for fun all over the mountain. 


Also, Mike works for Naked Juice, so we had an unending supply of the stuff! 

Our final visitors of the month, were both of Michael's sisters and our brother-in-law, Richard. We didn't get to ski with them much, but we had a blast chatting and eating Girl Scout cookies every night. Again, there weren't many pictures taken, but here's one I sniped from Leslie's Facebook page of her and Suzanne. 


We're visitor-free for a few weeks until my sister comes for Spring Break, but it sure was fun having so many awesome guests. Hurray for winter!!! 


Good Bye Christmas Tree...
1/06/2011 - Posted by Nicole - 1 comments
Today I began the process of taking the Christmas decorations down at our house and I remembered that I'd wanted to blog about some of my favorite Christmas ornaments. I realize it's January already, but I basically didn't blog the entire month of December, so here is my belated blog. 


In my family, we had a really fun tradition of giving/getting Hallmark ornaments every year as the first gift of Christmas. We would also purchase ornaments wherever we went on our family vacation each year. Both Courtney and I had a huge collection of ornaments by the time we left the house.


Our small house only accommodates a little 4 foot tree, so we don't have all of our ornaments on display, but here are a few:


This is a Hallmark ornament from 2007 which Michael and I both purchased for each other since we'd adopted Pepper at the beginning of that year. 


These cute bears were purchased this year at Copper as a tribute to our time teaching little ones at ski school. 

These snowpeople were given to us by my mom in 2005 when we got married. They hang at the top and are the last two ornaments we hang. 

Mom bought this Hallmark Pooh Bear for Michael because he loves honey!!


 This ornament was from 2004, the year we got engaged! I just love the little fly on the leaf! So cute!


 This is one of my childhood ornaments- a sweet little Precious moments figurine that's pretty heavy, but so pretty. 


 I bought a series of these ornaments in Russia this summer. I just love the shape of the little churches. 


This gorgeous panda came to us from Michael's parents straight from China. There's also a bell and a ball that have the same intricate detail.


So there's a little insight into our family tree... and here's what the whole little package looks like:




Merry (Belated) Christmas!!!


The Saga Continues...
11/29/2010 - Posted by Nicole - 0 comments
We called the Chevy dealership this morning and they reported that Ruby is in paint and the Silver Fox was ready for pick up! So our wonderful friend Doug took Mike to pick up the Silver Fox this afternoon around 3.


Then at 4:45 I received this text: "Funny thing... I'm back at Hudson (the body shop) because the breaks went out. Thankfully I was at Enterprise Rental (changing over our rental contract) which is 2 blocks from Hudson. Ronnie's (the repair guy) is about to take a look."


UGG!!! Basically, the brake line got bumped, for lack of a better term, during the accident and the Jeep was leaking brake fluid. Therefore, even though the repairman had test driven it on the highway at 70 miles per hour, once Michael got in, the brakes went out. Praise the Lord he wasn't on the highway or slippery roads and that he was easily able to get back to the repair shop and have them check it out. This is what they found: 


The good brake line

The bad brake line


So, the Fox is back in the shop getting the brake line repaired and refilled with fluid. Hopefully we'll be back to our whole fleet by the end of this week... hopefully.


dear indoor plumbing, water in a glass, and a roof over my head rather than a tent
11/27/2010 - Posted by Nicole - 0 comments
dear indoor plumbing, water in a glass, and a roof over my head,


i am so very thankful for each of you and how your presence in my life makes everything so much easier. this time last year i was sitting among brambles making thanksgiving dinner out of cheese, hashbrowns, and very little water. i am thrilled to have slept indoors this thanksgiving and not have to search for water (but also glad to have had the chance at nols to experience "roughing it"). 


love, nicole


dear my awesome family
11/27/2010 - Posted by Nicole - 0 comments
dear my awesome family (all of you!),


you are the loves of my life!! i couldn't make it through life's ups and downs without you. i absolutely adore you. thank you for such a wonderful weekend back in dallas. it was a blast- from running in the Turkey Trot with our own turkey, to making Mamaw's dressing, to watching hilarious episodes of the SNL Lawrence Welk show spoof! i can't wait to see all of yall again soon. you are more than i could ever have asked for and much more than i deserve. 


love, nicole/co bear


dear frontier airlines
11/27/2010 - Posted by Nicole - 0 comments




dear frontier airlines,


thank you for safely transporting us to dallas on tuesday. i also really loved the awesome chocolate chip cookie you served on board and the "extra leg room" area that we got to ride in. 


love, nicole