Easton's Visit

This past weekend Avery's friend came to visit.  Before they came we told Avery that Mary, Jimmy, and Easton were coming to visit.  Laura asked if she remembered them, and Avery said "The beach."  How she connected something that happened a couple months ago was amazing.  When we asked who Jimmy was, she said "Easton's daddy."

Anyways, here is a couple pictures from their visit.

The mommies and their babies.

We decided to take the kids to Discovery Place to learn about science.  Avery mostly just wanted to run around like a crazy person and meet people.  We could have had the same success in Wal-Mart and not had to pay.

Enjoying the aquariums...

 They had a machine where you fed in shredded phone books and it blew them up a pipe and they came down like snow...  Avery of course loved this and we played for quite a while on that machine.

 They also had a water table where she could splash and play with new bath toys.  This is her making her thinking face and/or sucking snot out of her nose.

 Having a good time making a mess and getting soaked.  I am glad we stopped here to begin with rather than saving it to the end...

Denver

Last weekend Laura's company flew us out to Denver for a end of year party.  Luckily Laura's mom and my parents were more than happy to watch Avery for a few days while we were gone.  We spent a few extra days in Denver to eat, drink, and be merry.  The weather was amazing...high 50's in January.  With the dry air it meant that during the day and in the sun jackets were not needed.  Which made it a lot more fun to get out an explore.  These are pictorial representations of those activities.

First up was the Bona party.  They fed us, plied us with booze, and setup a photo booth to black mail employees at a later date.  This is our trip through the booth.

Denver was an interesting city.  They had a ton of outdoor art because 1% of every large project's budget must go to community art.  This a 40 foot blue bear looking into the convention center right beside our hotel.

The day after the party we rented a car and headed out to Red Rocks Amphitheater   There wasn't a show going on, but they open it up as a park for people to explore.  

 This is the view from the top row of the amphitheater   On a clear gorgeous day like it was when we went out there, you can clearly see downtown Denver in the background.

 A picture of mountains.  They seemed pretty big I guess.

 This is overlooking the town of Golden, Colorado.  That big building is the Coors Brewery, aka our next stop.

Most of the pictures after entering the brewery were blurry and off center for some reason.  I guess the free tasting didn't help.

This is the view from outside the brewery.

 We went on a museum trip on Saturday.  This was the highlight.

This is the art museum we should have gone to, but the Van Gogh exhibit had been sold out for weeks.

Also on Saturday we went on a tour of Coors field, probably my favorite tourist thing that we did.  Very much behind the scenes and we got to go on the field.  

Playground Time

This past sunday we took advantage of the nice weather to take Avery to the park.  We weren't the only ones as the park was slammed with other parents letting their kids let off steam from being cooped up in the house too much.

Happy to be outside on the slide...that she went down a 100 times.

 How can you not be happy riding a purple dinosaur?

 She kept on petting the dinosaur, giving it hugs, and crying "Purple Dinosaur" when other kids would get on it.

Everytime at the bottom of the slide she would prance over to the stairs to climb back up saying "more slide...more slide."  This picture is enhanced with the bright 1980's colors.

 To get to one of the slides she had to walk across a "swinging" bridge.  This is her jumping up and down on it smiling.

 Despite loving slides, she doesn't want to lift up her feet and go too fast.  She keeps her feet down and skids slowly down the slide.

Bucket Full of Toddler

The creative mind of a toddler.  She brought the bucket over to me and I asked her if she wanted to get in it...  She said "Yeah!".  I put her in it and I said to Laura, "I got a bucket full of toddler."  Of course Avery the parrot said "Bucket Full Toddler."

After Christmas at my parents, Avery wanted to go see the beaver dam down behind their house.  She didn't ask for it specifically but is always interested to go see some sort of animal  whether it is cows at our house, horses at the Gibsons, or Sara's dogs.

Off on a nature walk with Charger.

 Uncle Mark helping her walk over some sticks.

 Avery dragging mommy back up the hill.

 My two girls.

Gigi's Slide

My parent's have an indoor slide in their basement.  As a frequent reader of this blog, you can imagine how much Avery enjoys it.  Actually, you don't have to imagine any more...  Because I have pictures!

5 minutes after we walk in the door to my parents, she is on that slide.  It doesn't matter if it is noon or midnight.  

 Stretching her limits....

 She will even sit up on it to read her books.

Christmas #7

Christmas #7 was at my parents house this past weekend.  Once again she was spoiled rotten, given large toys, but luckily nothing loud.  She got to hang out with her aunt, 2 uncles, and her dog cousins.  More pictures of playing with dogs later.

Avery finally got good at opening presents... Or we got good at giving them to her, letting her open them, and getting her to open the next one rather than playing with it straight away.  

 Avery did enjoy being "Santa Claus."  As the youngest member of the family it was her job to pass out the gifts to everyone.

 Giving her daddy a present with a big smile on her face.

Avery got some gray pants from my parents....big surprise... We even got her to recreate probably one of my favorite pictures ever...

This is the picture of Avery last year getting gray pants from my parents...  In my mind, I am asking her "what did you get?" and she says "I GOT PANTS!!!"  

Based on Avery's cleaning habits, Sara got her a play vacuum cleaner.  I dread the day when Avery figures out that it will not clean up an actual mess...

Christmas #6

Christmas number 6 was at Avery's Great-Grandmother Marshall's house.  This was the end of a very long day of entertaining everyone, opening presents, and smiling.  

She got uncle David to read her most recent favorite book "Goodnight Moon" half a dozen times or so.

Big smiles for having control of Grandma's chair for most of the evening.

Her Aunt Kristina also got to read Avery some of her favorite books.

 Avery enjoying the attention of all of her loyal subjects.