Tuesday, July 28th, 2015

Today was my first day back to work after a fun four-day weekend vacation to Estes Park, Colorado.  My family held a X-mas in July reunion out there, and it was a beautiful place for a family gathering.
Elizabeth, Nolan, and I left Ames last Thursday afternoon after I was done with work, and we met up with Amy & Brandon in North Platte, Nebraska for the night to break the long drive up some.  That was a good idea, because it was a heck of a drive for little Nolan to make... and driving through Nebraska is just awful anyways.

Some of the highlights of our trip while we were out there were hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park, eating breakfast on Saturday morning at the famous Stanley Hotel (where Stephen King wrote The Shining), and I stopped by the Estes Park Brewery Saturday night with Amy, Brandon, Lyndon, and Missy for a couple of drinks.

The scenery of the entire place was just beautiful.  I wish that I would have taken more pictures, but here are a few from my phone...

Here I am with Nolan by a waterfall outside of the Stanley Hotel.  

Here I am with Bear Lake in the background.  Elizabeth, Eben, Nolan, and myself went on a short, half-mile hike around the lake on Saturday.

Me again... with mountains and water and stuff...

Eben.  It's nice to see him smiling after suffering that dislocated shoulder recently.

Nolan passed out around the time we arrived at Bear Lake, and he slept through the whole hike.  Elizabeth had to haul him around the whole time!

Here is a panoramic photo I took of Bear Lake when we were about halfway done with our hike.

Bear Lake info

Wednesday, July 15th, 2015

It's hard to believe, but yesterday Nolan turned two years old!

Elizabeth and I took the day off from work, Amy and Brandon came over from Omaha, and grandpa Eben came down to help us celebrate.  Nolan opened presents all by his self in the morning (grandpa Eben gave him a neat little tractor piggy bank and a grain wagon that it can pull).  Then after Nolan's nap we all went over to Reiman Gardens to check out the butterflies and walk around.  We had Hickory Park for supper, and after that we had birthday cake back home.  The birthday cake had a picture of Elmo on it, and Nolan even blew the candle out himself!!

Maybe if I lay down nobody will see me open this present...

I grilled brats and hot dogs for lunch.

Nolan looks at an orange butterfly at Reiman Gardens

A butterfly at Reiman Gardens.

Another butterfly

This is an atlas moth.  It's huge!

Look at how big that moth is in the background.

Nolan points at a butterfly

Nolan and daddy on his birthday :)

Nolan with frosting from his birthday cake all over his cheeks.

Thursday, July 9th, 2015

Happy 4th anniversary to my wonderful wife Elizabeth!!  It doesn't seem like it's been four years since we threw the greatest wedding and reception the world has ever seen...

We hadn't really planned to do much for our anniversary this year, as most of our attention has been focused on Nolan's SECOND birthday which is coming up soon.  He is getting so big!  This Tuesday we took him around campus to have his two-year photo shoot.  Here are just a few of the many photos we have...

Family photo on central campus

As you can tell, Nolan loves to climb!

Mommy and Nolan on the steps of  Beardshear hall.  We had to hold him, otherwise he just wanted to crawl up and down the steps!

Nolan running along the sidewalk at Lagomarcino hall.

Another good way to keep him still was to give him rides in a wagon...

Nolan poses with the wagon

Nolan and daddy at Beardshear

He's just too stinking cute.

Ok, so back to our anniversary today.  I did manage to swing by Hy-Vee over my lunch break today and pick out a bouquet of  purple and white flowers for Elizabeth, and then I dropped them off at her work.  I chose purple and white because that was the flower colors that she had for her wedding bouquet when we were married.  Then, later on today I found out that the traditional wedding gift for a fourth anniversary was flowers or fruit.  It sounds like I picked the right gift!

We were planning to go out to the Cafe for supper tonight, but we had a last minute change of plans and went to West Street Deli instead.  That was a little easier place to take Nolan out for supper anyways.  After that, we swung by Orange Leaf for some frozen yogurt.