Playhouses on the Plaza...

This one seemed more like a playground then a playhouse. It has ladders inside and a roof Deck, a climbing wall outside, and a trapeze bar... what more could a kid want. This one is my favorite.

I believe they called this on the Chia house. There's grass growing on the roof and it looks like a green house or a shed for your garden more than a playhouse if you ask me, but still very cool.

The Fire house was by fare the best of the tradition playhouse styles. Complete with a Dalmatian painted on the inside of the back door. It was adorable and definitely one of the kids favorites to play on.

The space station has a cool rotating door and is also kind of scary. The solar panels on the top add to the space age look. Calling all astronauts.

Local Produce market. Kids are supposed to grow a hanging tomato garden off the side and then play farmers market with their family. Adorable.

Explore one of a kind playhouses on the museum's plaza!

Each one was thoughtfully created with reusable and sustainable materials by local designers and architects.

The playhouse exhibition is part of the Rocky Mountain Communities' annual fundraiser with the 2009 theme: Work & Play. Their mission is to develop, own and manage, affordable housing and provide support services to help individuals succeed in life.

The playhouses will be displayed on the plaza for kids to play on until the gala fundraiser on July 25th where they will be auctioned off to profit the affordable housing project for Colorado's low income families. It's a pretty cool project and I'm so glad I work for a place that is willing to support it. If I had kids, enough money, and a house I would definitely get one of these for my backyard.

Baby Time...

Proud mama Shana holding the little guy.

Me with my cheesy grin holding baby Everett. He was very relaxed in my arms. He fell asleep as I rocked him and slept peacefully the whole time we were visiting.

Today Peter, the other education supervisor @ the museum, and I spent the day off site at an all day seminar about management. Afterwords we decided to pick up dinner and dessert for Miss Shana, she used to be one of the employees we supervised. Shana left the museum when she gave birth to her beautiful little boy Everett James. If you all remember back to late May the Children's Museum celebrated their 36th birthday bash and that was the last time any of us would see Shana. After leaving her shift she went into early labor and little Everett was born a day or so later which was a whole month early. He had a small heart condition, so they kept him in the NICU and he had to heart surgery when he was 1 week old. He's a tough little guy and he recovered amazingly well. He's been home with them for several weeks now and is starting to fatten right up. He still has his oxygen tubes for when he's feeding or sleeping. The poor guy was born with 3 strikes against him in that area. A premie, with a heart problem, and being born in Denver. The drs say if he were at sea level he probably wouldn't need the oxygen anymore, so things are looking good. Thanks so much for having us over Shana it was great to see you and the little love bug. Congratulations again to you and Scott!

New things & Celebrations...

Our new IKEA magnetic spice wrack. I wish I would have bought more containers. I guess we'll have to wait until our next trip to Utah. What an ingenious way to store your spices, especially when you live in an apartment with a minimal counter and cupboard space. I highly recommend them.

Finally the end table of our dreams, a square, black, simple, inexpensive, table that's at least 20" tall. We knew you were out there and we hunted for you for almost a year. Good things really do come to those who wait. *Note- we actually bought 2 tables in hopes that someday we will move to a bigger place and actually be able to use both of them.

On Monday our new end tables arrived. Hurray! No more tv tray as an end table in our living room. While in Utah we stopped at the IKEA store and bought amazing new spice containers that magnetize to our fridge & 2 black end tables. The exact ones we have been looking for, for a year now. Who knew it was so hard to find an inexpensive simple black night stand that's at least 20" tall. The spice containers fit in our luggage, but the tables not so much. Thankfully Jesse's amazing grandparents shipped them to us. IKEA was an interesting experience to say the least. I have never been to one before, but I would definitely go back again. The only problem is the closest one to us is 8hrs away in Draper, Utah. Bummer! Rumors have been swirling that IKEA is coming to the Denver suburbs, but I've been hearing that for over a year and still no concrete proof. We shall see. My fingers are crossed.

Speaking of new things... The museum just launched our new and improved website today. It's pretty awesome. I highly recommend checking it out. Especially to all your Wilsons & Wilders that are planning a trip out her next month. If you look under the contacts section my name and info are listed under donation request. I feel so important. Seriously though it has lots of great information and adorable pictures. It's a great resource if you're ever planning a trip to Denver with little ones.

Now on to the Celebrations... Jesse and I just celebrated our 2yr anniversary. Who am I kidding celebrated, honestly we both forgot. Last year I remembered, but we didn't really do much. This year we talked about it fast approaching and then we've both been so busy lately that we completey spaced it. We talked about it today and we decided that maybe we should slow down for a minute and go out on a date this weekend. We're thinking dinner and a movie. I'm actually really excited about this, because honestly we haven't been to the movies in about a year or on anything resemebling a date in ages. We got free movie passes for Jesse's birthday last year and we have yet to use them. Ok so I know 2yrs isn't that long, but I still think it's impressive and as far as I know Jesse's never had such a long term relationship before. We have a ways to go before we catch up to my parents, who just celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary or my grandparents, who just celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary, but honestly we're in no rush.We're happy the way we are and we'll celebrate each milestone as they come or at least when we remember them.

Westword Music Awards...

Jesse talking with Corey (a writer for Westword & Ideal Father's 1st big time fan).

After the show we headed out to Adam's car to listen to DJ Soup's newest remix of an Ideal Father's song. Check out their myspace to give it a listen. While we were there we saw an amazing display of fireworks off in the distance, so we hung out listeing to music and watching the display for a while. Picture above Jesse, Soup hiding behind Adam, Adam posing with his non-existant trophy, and Amber Adam's girlfriend.

The 2 Mikes enjoying themselves before the awards started.

Adam enjoying a free drink and Soup getting down on the free bbq buffet they served us @ the VIP party.

The big awards show was last night. Unfortunately the guys and our good friend Soup didn't win, but we all had a great night. I picked up Mike P (the drummer) around 5:30pm and we headed down to Red Book to pick up Jesse . We arrived @ the Gothic Theater a little after 6pm for the VIP party. They guys loved it! Free food, free drinks, good music, and lots of networking opportunities. This was pretty much their dream come true. As Jesse said "Wow, I sort of feel like a real rock star" and one of the Mikes said "We have arrived, this is awesome!" We passed out some EPs to other bands to spread the word. Hopefully Ideal Fathers will get some more fans out of last night. Their show on Friday brought in some new fans for sure. I saw several people asking Jesse if they could buy an EP. The guys are getting ever closer to recording a full length album with all new songs. They're hoping to record towards the end of this year and have the EP produced and printed for sales by next Spring/early Summer. Keep your eyes open for that. They weren't too bummed that they didn't win, because the competition was stiff in the Post Punk category... plus this was the 1st year the Post Punk was even considered a category, so they were pretty thrilled to be among the 6 bands nominated. They've come a long way in the last year. Keep your fingers crossed for next year.

Busy week back...

Ryan made a new friend in Denver and his parents are worried he's lonely.

Michon & I @ brunch. If you didn't know already Michon is my friend and former roommate, Monique's identical twin sister. She just moved to town which has been nice since Moe moved away.

Jesse, Ryan, & Michon @ brunch. We were celebrating Ryan's big job and move to Denver. Michon moved here the same week and we figured the more the merrier. We had a great time and afterwords we headed over to Hamburger Mary's for mimosas & bloody marys. The best 3hr brunch I've ever had.

At the mile High Chapter of Red Cross they have walls of old posters and uniforms that are really cool. There's so much history there and I love it. This is one of the old posters they have framed in their hallway.

Jesse and the guys playing a really great show @ the Larimer Lounge on Friday.

Our trip to Ogden was a nice getaway, but getting home was a different story. We were nearly 4hours late getting home because of weather delays and such. Luckily we had 2 more days off to relax at home before heading back to work, except we didn't really relax. We had grocery shopping, cleaning, present shopping, and a whole list of things to do. The 2 days flew by and we were back to work by Wednesday. Wednesday is always a long day for both of us, I work 2 jobs and he works then heads to practice for 2hrs. The week seemed busy but it flew by. Friday night Ideal Father's had a show. Saturday I had to co-teach Red Cross Classes all day and then today we had brunch with friends.

Ogden, Utah...

Uncle Jesse holding his newest niece little Bentlee Mae.

Ally Lou swinging. The last time we saw her she was a tiny preemie baby herself and now she's a very smart, walking, talking, potty trained, two year old big sister. My how time flies.

Nasia & Ally, 2 of Jesse's nieces sliding together.

Uncle Jesse pushing Ally Lou on the swing, higher & faster she would squeal with delight.

My favorite picture of Jesse pushing Ally on the swing.

Nasia and me helping Ally Lou count the change in the piggy bank.

Nasia showing Uncle Jesse how to us the Nintendo DS. They were playing games together. I think Jesse really enjoyed having Kyle & Nasia there to play video games with. He loves them and they really aren't my thing.

Baby Bentlee, Jesse's niece, who was born 9 weeks premature. In this photo she is about 3 months old. She was just released from the hospital almost 2 weeks ago. Had she come on time she would only be 11 days old in this picture. She was 3lbs @ birth and has been growing quite rapidly lately, she now ways almost 8lbs and is doing quite well.

Ally showing off some dance moves for grandma Billie and the rest of us. *Note- we were playing Jesse's band's EP when she decided to start shaking it. I think we might just have the youngest Ideal Father's fan here.

Cousin Kaylee holding baby Bentlee.

Nasia holding her cousin Ally.

Ginger, the adopted dog. 2 days before we got to town Jesse's grandma rescued this puppy from the street. She was obviously lost & all alone. After numerous attempts they have been unsuccessful in finding the owners. The dog does have tags, thus we knew her name was Ginger and she's a pretty good dog just a little chewy since she's still a puppy, but for some reason the owners don't seem to care that she's missing. If the owners don't come to claim her she may be officially adopted by Jesse's grandparents, because I really don't think the kids could stand to give her up, though I am sure grandpa could.

Ally Lou, Jesse's niece & Aunt Kathy, Jesse's mom's sister.

Jesse and his mom posing for a quick picture before she had to leave. We were glad she came up with Lacey & the girls even if it was just for 1 day. It was nice to get to see them.

Lacey, Jesse's sister, Bobbi, his mom, & Jesse.

Jesse & I posing for a picture while the girls used my camera.

Kyle, Jesse's nephew, and Jesse posing together. *Photo by Kaylee, Jesse's 5yr old cousin

Me attempting to hula hoop. I actually kept it going longer than Jesse and he practices more than me.

Jesse showing off his hooping moves that he's been working on for the last month.

Kaylee showing Jesse and I up with her sweet hula hooping moves. She makes it look so easy & she even looks adorable doing it.

Riding bikes with the girls. Jesse made fun of me & said this is the kind of bike I need to get. Mine is too big for me and we're afraid I am going to need a kid bike, because my legs are so short.

Uncle Jesse jumping with the girls. He's a total sucker and would cave every time they came and asked him to jump which was ever 5 minutes. I told him he was a softie and he said he could use the work out. Sure it wasn't their cute faces making you feel guilty for not playing with them. What a sucker.

Uncle Jesse trying to show the girls how to do a back flip on the trampoline.

Marcus in mid-air, showing off what he called his spider man flip.

Marcus showing off his trampoline moves.

The lovely mountain views from the Smith's front yard. Utah is really beautiful.

The elementary school park directly across the street from Jesse's grandparent's house. What a great place to grow up.

Nasia, Uncle Jesse, and I. *Photo by cousin Kaylee

The family, Cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and us having a 4th of July Bar-B-Q.

Uncle Jesse & Nasia napping together on the couch. Grandma Billie insisted I take a picture of them.

Grandpa Orlin & Nasia rocking together in the rocking chair.

Jesse & I the afternoon we left to come home. A very sleepy Kyle in the background, he was woke up to say good bye to us.

Jesse, Grandpa Orlin, Grandma Billie, Kyle, & Nasia. Thanks guys for coming to pick us up, for dropping us off, for feeding us, for letting us borrow the car, and for giving us a place to crash for our mini-vacation. It was so nice getting to see everyone and getting away from work for a mini-vacation. We both had a great time.