Our Colorado Vacation-Pictures at Last!

Our Colorado vacation began when Ellary and I flew to Salt Lake City just in time for my oldest niece, Ashley, to have her first baby, a daughter named Ylena. Kris, Alyson and Kourtney arrived in Grand Junction 5 days later on the 16th of June via car. It was so good to see them again.

Ashley did an amazing job especially considering her long labor (32 hours). What a trooper! Ylena is beautiful, and I am very happy I could be there for the special occasion. My mom and dad, great grandparents for the 3rd time, were present at the hospital too.

Ylena was a beautiful baby from the very beginning.


Here is Ylena with her proud daddy, Mark, shortly after her birth and bath.

June 17th, 2009-Our 10th Anniversary!

Kris and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary on June 17th. Wow! So, we celebrated it in style by taking a trip to Vail, Colorado...And of course, we left the kids behind. They had a great time with their grandparents while Kris and I had a great time together...Alone! Funny though, so frequently we saw things the girls would have liked to see or do that we couldn't forget about the little princesses we left at home. Here's to 10 more and many more wonderful years!

Here is a card I made Kris for our anniversary. We ate most of the candy while we were in Vail.


Vail Village

This is where we had our anniversary dinner. Surf and Turf...Yum!

Handsome husband + beautiful Colorado Columbines= Very Memorable Picture We took a hike up a waterfall along East Vail. It was beautiful.

We celebrated Father's Day when Kris and I got back from our Anniversary trip to Vail. The girls made a special card with Oma and Kris and I returned from our trip with a pillow shaped like a bear for "Papa Bear". Kris got some clothes, including a much needed MSU polo shirt and a neck tie with a picture of the girls on it.

Kris' mom, Eleonore, went to the temple for the very first time on June 27th. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful experience for her and everyone who joined her for the session. She left the temple saying,"I don't know what took me so long." Congratulations, Mutti!

Alyson, Kourtney and Ellary spent the whole day with Papa Bear playing with chalk and riding their bikes on the driveway while we attended the temple with Mutti. He also painted their fingernails. Here are a few chalk pics drawn by Alyson.

Alyson's Rendition of "Oma"at the Temple

Alyson's Rendition of Papa holding Ellary

Here Alyson and Kourtney are displaying their newly painted fingernails compliments of Papa.

Kris and his nephew Leighton took an all day trip down the Colorado River in a raft. They had a blast!


Mom and I took the girls to story time at the Mesa County Public Library one time as well. Here they are with their t-shirts to promote the summer reading program.

Alyson, Kourtney and I had lunch with my friend Angela. Here is a picture of our girls...Tyra (5), Kourtney (4), Anna (3), and Alyson (6).
We went fishing two times while in Colorado. The first time was spent at Corn Lake (no pictures), and the second was spent on the Grand Mesa. Let's just say we caught our limit and had a great big fish fry a few days later. We also caught a few rays, a few mosquito bites and had a wonderful time!

We spent several Thursday evenings on Main Street at the Farmer's Market. We had so much fun seeing the vender's products, eating and dancing. Kris' nephew Leighton, his mom and brother and sister went to the market with us once too.

Mom (Nana) also took Alyson and Kourtney on hikes. Here is a picture of Mom with Koco at Connected Lakes and a picture of Mom and Alyson on Serpents Trail.

As with tradition, we spent the 4th of July at Lincoln Park. Kris and the kids swam most of the day while the rest of us held down the fort (a spot on the lawn to view the fireworks from), and just enjoyed some time together. My sister Renee and her husband, Rod and kids Jordann, Aubrey, Eli and Josh came for a visit from Utah (also keeping with tradition), and Mutti's sister, Uta and her husband Jim, pleasantly surprised us at the park. We had a great time!

Here Kris is doing acrobatics off the high dive.

Alyson jumped off the high dive with no reservation whatsoever. And she kept doing it over and over again!

We stopped in Nauvoo, Illinois on our way back to Michigan so we could visit some friends we made when we were living in Bloomington. We had a fun time with the McConnel family and hope to get together with the again soon. The first two pictures were taken at a stop along our drive to Nauvoo.

The Beautiful Nauvoo Temple

Here are our kids and the McConnel kids at the Cultural Hall in Nauvoo (Eva, Kourtney, Alyson, Ellary, Eli, Ellary and Ezra). We got Ellary's name from the McConnel's family...obviously!

Here is a friendly cat outside the hotel. Ellary couldn't get enough of it.

Our sleeping beauties! They wore themselves out playing with the McConnel kids. We drove home later that morning, about an 8 hour drive. After such a great trip to Utah and Colorado, we were happy to be home. Many thanks to everyone who helped us make many special memories!

Our Western Adventure

We spent most of last month visiting family in Colorado and Utah. What a great time! We are so glad to have made the trip so we could see the ones we love. Now we are back home in Michigan enjoying the cooler weather and getting back on schedule.

Our family laptop is out of order currently due to a battery cord problem, so I will have to wait to post pictures until we get a new one. Hope that is soon! Will look into it today.

Thank you to everyone who made our trip special! We are grateful to you all!

Here is a brief rundown:

• Ellary and I were at the hospital when my oldest niece gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Ylena. She is beautiful!
• Kris and I celebrated our 10th anniversary in Vail while our parents watched the girls for us. Wow-how time flies!
• Kris' mom went through the temple for the first time. It was a very special day!
• We spent several days fishing, once in the valley and another time on the Grand Mesa.
• We celebrated the 4th of July in our usual pattern-a day at Lincoln Park pool then watched the fireworks from the park. My sister Renee and her family came too. Yeah!
• Took a little detour on our drive back to Michigan so we could see some friends in Nauvoo, Illinois. Great time and great company!

There were many other things we did in between that will be illustrated through pictures in a later post. Thanks again to everyone who made our trip special!

Big Baby News

We went in for our mid-pregnancy checkup on Wednesday and guess what? Alyson and Kourtney got their wish...I'm expecting a boy! So, I guess you'll be seeing a little more blue at our house if you visit us after October 31st (my due date).

Kris is excited that he'll have a son to golf with (he wants a golfing buddy badly so hopefully our little gy will be athletic, or if not athletic, smart so he can talk accounting with Kris!). Kourtney and Alyson can't wait until they can play "Princesses" with him because that means they'll have a "prince" to play with. I'm very excited to see the brotherly/sisterly dynamics that I never got to experience. I also hope Ellary and "?" will be good friends and buddies especially because they will be so close in age (about 18 months).

We are still working on choosing a name for this little guy, but hopefully we'll decide on one soon. At least we can call the baby "him" for now. Of course we would have been happy finding out we were expecting a girl if that were the case. We know little girls and had a name picked out already. Boy names have been more difficult for us to choose this time around but we have a few in mind that we like.

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My doctor said that our little guy looks healthy and is measuring about 6 days ahead of schedule (not quite enough to change my due date). We are just very happy and grateful that he is growing well!

As for telling our parents, you know we had to stick with tradition and tell them in a creative way...Kris came up with the idea this time around. We called Peterson Plumbing in Grand Junction and asked them to call our parents and spring the news on them in a creative way (we provided a script for them). This is the gist of what Sonja from Peterson Plumbing told them-

"This is Sonja from Peterson Plumbing calling to confirm your appointment on October 31st for some outdoor plumbing work."

To which Kris' mom replied, "I didn't order any plumbing work."

"Is this not Kris and Jessica Allee's house?"

"They haven't lived here in years!" Then Eleonore hung up. She figured it all out a few minutes later.

Sonja had to leave a message on my parents' voicemail because they were traveling somewhere between Green River and Provo and didn't have cell phone reception when she called. My parents called about 3 hours later wanting to know what we had found out at the doctor's office.

I asked them, "Didn't you get a message?" Apparently mom erased the message from Sonja right away disregarding it as a mistake on Peterson's part (they had some work done by them that ended up causing a huge leak in their house, so they weren't so thrilled to be hearing from them).

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After asking if Peterson Plumbing had called, mom and dad pieced it together on the speaker phone with me. "October 31st...outside plumbing...You're having a boy," they exclaimed.

Our parents and family are very excited that all is well as are we!

Great Weekend

We had a very active but enjoyable weekend. Saturday started off a little chilly and a little wet, but cleared and warmed up by early afternoon. Alyson and Kourtney ran in the Michigan Mile, a race for children sponsored by Kohl's and Sparrow Hospital. Kris accompanied Alyson who finished the mile in 8 minutes and 47 seconds! Kourtney ran the sprint race around Oldsmobile Park where the Lugnuts, a Class A minor league team play. We all had such a great time. Over 2,100 children participated in the race including some church and school friends. The girls can't wait to do it again next year!

Alyson and Kourtney then attended a birthday party which we had to cut short so we could head out to the country to see some chicks at a church friends home. Brother and Sister King treated ward members to a hay ride and hot dog roast, let us hold chicks and see lambs at a neighbor's home. We also visited an Amish store down the street from them and went for an Amish Buggy ride that the King's Amish neighbors offered. What a great and beautiful afternoon in the country! To top it all off we went to an ice cream shop called "Mooville" that serves the biggest ice cream cones I have ever seen! Seriously, 12'' ice cream a top an already extra large cake cone. Even if you aren't a "baby", the baby cone will suit most people just fine! They also have a petting zoo with calves, goats, ducks and pigs. A friend from church took photos of Ellary's cute encounter with a calf that I can't wait to see! It was nearly 10:00pm when we got home.

I'm glad we take advantage of these opportunities to enjoy some quality family time, letting the children explore a new environment, watching their eyes light up and also participating in ward camaraderie because these days are flying by like no body's business! Before we know it, Kris and I will be empty nesters recalling these special moments, having forgotten about Ellary's moments of fussiness due to a lack of sleep that day. We will recall with fondness the opportunities we took while we could, and I know the girls will appreciate it too.