Snowshoe to Brainard Lake

On March 3rd, Don and I went snowshoeing at Brainard Lake. We did a babysitting swap with Laurie-Anne and Russell. We watched Josh and William in the morning while they went up to Eldora to ski. An hour after they left, I got a phone call from L-A saying that it was so ridiculously windy, there was no way they could ski. So, they drove home and picked up their boys and decided to go swimming. Don and Sam went with them while I stayed home and took a glorious nap. 

A week before, I found out I was miscarrying. I was about 10 weeks along in my pregnancy and we were so excited to be bringing another baby to our family. In response to some severe cramping, I went in for an ultrasound and found out the baby had died around 8 weeks. I wasn't miscarrying on my own, so I had to have a D&C surgery under full anesthesia. The surgery went fine and besides being weak, tired, and sore, the physical portion of the miscarriage was pretty manageable. Despite that, it was one of the more difficult experiences I've had in my life. I was amazed by the love and care that my friends and family showed me. We received so many meals, bouquets of flowers, and treats. I even got a package of chocolates from my friend in Germany. 

I am so grateful for the wonderful people in my life and especially for Don and Sam. If I didn't already have Sam, I can't imagine how devastating this would have been. It was my third miscarriage since January 2011. The others were very, very early on, so they weren't nearly as difficult. We know good things are coming, though, so we haven't lost hope. We are enjoying the beautiful spring weather while we wait for my body to heal. I am excited to play in my tennis ladder and league this spring and to run the Bolder Boulder! Don is in crazy training mode now. He is going to be so fast this year. 

Anyway, back to our Saturday and the snowshoeing trip. After Don and Sam came back from swimming, Don and I left Sam with Laurie-Anne and drove up to the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area to snowshoe to Brainard Lake. We knew it was going to be windy but we had no idea that it would be as crazy as it was. 

I was nervous as we got nearer to our destination because the wind was wicked! Don said that once we got in the trees we'd be fine. We got out of the car and nearly got blown across the parking lot. It was extremely cold and the wind was wailing. Any part of our faces that were exposed were feeling dangerously close to frostbite so we ran to the trailhead and the protection of the trees. Once we got in to the trees, the wind did calm down, though it was pretty noisy with the wind whipping around. We had a wonderful hike through the winter wonderland...

Hiking across a frozen lake. Once we were out in the open, the windchill was amazing! It bit through our clothes right to the bone. In this picture, it looks like the sky is cloudy but actually, it was perfectly clear and sunny. The wind was just blowing so hard, snow from a storm miles and miles away over the divide was being blown around making everything hazy and dream-like.

We went through one portion of the trees where huge pines had been blown down in droves. We guessed that there must have been some 200 mph wind gusts that brought the trees down. I was so grateful for my dog ear hat! My face was so cold!

Once we made it to the lake, the wind really started to pick up. We could hardly walk against the wind and the wind was blowing the ice crystals into our faces and eyes so furiously, we could hardly stand to be exposed. We ran back to the trees only minutes after getting to the lake.

Here is a video of what the wind was like at the lake. Watch the snow blowing by the see how fast the wind was really moving:

Leaning against the wind.

We ran back to the trees because Don really was getting frostbitten on his face. His skin was grayish and yellow. It scared me so much, I gave him my scarf to try to help warm up his skin. 

Even when we got back into the trees, the wind was wild. It had picked up significantly. We could hear the trees creaking and I was seriously concerned about trees coming down on us. We ran in certain places because we felt at risk. 

As we made it back to the parking lot, we guessed the wind was a sustained 70 mph with gusts of maybe up to 100 mph. As we ran to the car, I was getting pushed so hard, I was worried I'd get slammed into a car. There were chunks of ice getting blown off the pavement and one hit Don in the calf. He said it hurt a lot! 

This is what my mascara looked like by the time we got back to the car.

It was such an adventure. We loved every minute of it! Sam had a great time with Josh, too. Hurray for a fabulous Saturday!

Random Winter Happenings

A few things that happened during January and February that I forgot to mention:

I organized a sewing activity for my Miamaid girls. It was Madison's birthday so I made her lemon cupcakes. Her mom was the master seamstress who put together everything for the project and helped the girls. It was a really fun time and the girls really enjoyed it. Man, I love these girls!

Madison, pretending she didn't like all the fuss and attention on her birthday. I know the truth, though; she loved it!

Kerry helping Rebekah and Rachel.

Cam helping Maddie and Madison. Maddie was the only one to finish her project. Since she was the one who really wanted to have a sewing activity, it made sense she was the most focused.

I threw a baby shower for my wonderful friend, Candee. I absolutely loved how this shower turned out. I came up with a new game that I thought was absolutely hilarious. I'm not sure if anyone else loved it as much as I did but I think everyone laughed a lot. 

I made baby/birth related charade clues and put them in balloons. Everyone paired up and had to act out as many clues as they possibly could in a set period of time. The best part was that whoever was acting out the clues had to pop a balloon to be able to get the next clue to act out. That was super funny. There were several failed attempt at getting the balloon to pop, all of which were most entertaining. The person with the most clues guessed at the end won (Candee won. She was wicked fast and accurate with her guessing).  Oh! I love dumb baby shower games!

Candee and Staci (both seriously pregnant at this point) acting out a clue. There was just something so hilarious about these pregnant women running around doing ridiculous things and jumping on balloons. Staci is going to kill me for posting these. :) I love you, Stace!

Candee driving to the hospital. Not sure what Staci is doing but whatever it is, it makes me laugh out loud.

Kelli and Janene popping balloons. 

Laurie-Anne, once again, did the most amazing job with the decorations. 

And the food! It was fantastic! We had two gorgeous cakes and Kelli made three different hummus-like dips. They were ridiculously tasty. The edamame frijole-moly was my favorite. Yum!!

And this cake! Kelli made this super gourmet cake with mango whipped cream. Oh my heavens! 

The cute penant banner said "Congrats". Cute, cute! Best shower ever!

Sam has gotten really excited about his "buffalo pack-pack" and absolutely loves the little co-op preschool we do once a week. Considering that I almost stopped doing it because he hated it so much at first, this is quite the change. We are now looking in to preschools and it is ridiculous! I feel so stressed about it. It feels more like picking a college than picking a preschool. Anyway, he is looking forward to starting preschool in September at either Friends' School or Our School.

Such a cute picture of Sam smiling while wearing his "pack-pack".

The music class that I teach in Family Housing has a great turnout and I got asked to do a class at another birthday party (I did one for a sweet Chinese family a few months back - they just made my usual class the party and brought cake and treats for everyone). A Brazilian family from our ward and from Family Housing had me teach a class at their one year old's birthday party. The birthday girl really could have cared less about the music, but the other kids and the parents especially (you should have seen the chicken dance. The parents were totally in to it!) loved it. 

It was a good lesson for me culturally, too. I learned a lot about how laid back Brazilians seem to be and about their usual birthday fare. They always have a sweet cake and a savory cake.

Giovanna, the birthday girl, with Andre, her daddy, Giselle, her mom, and Julianna, her sister.

Here is the savory cake. Beautiful, right? It was made by layering bread, cream cheese, cottage cheese, seasoned chicken and was frosted/surrounded with mashed potatoes and decorated with various veggies. I thought it was tasty.  

For Valentine's Day, Sam and I heartattacked Don. We spent all afternoon cutting and coloring hearts and writing Don notes. Then, Sam helped me put it all on the door and around the bedroom. He was so excited! 

Sam making sure the hearts and chocolates were placed to his liking.

Putting chocolates on the bed for daddy.

Don gave me some beautiful roses, a pair of beautiful kyanite (a stone from Brazil) earrings, and some dark chocolate - one peppermint dark chocolate and the other with cherries and chilies (so hot!). I gave him a foam roller which sounds totally boring but he has wanted one for a long time so he was excited. I also got him a 90 minute massage gift certificate. I really love Valentine's Day despite the commercialization of love. I think it is a great opportunity to celebrate relationships. My mom always sends us holiday packages so that also added to the special feeling of the holiday. I just love Don and I love holidays! 

Don and I went out for dinner to celebrate V-day while we were in Colorado Springs with Don's parents the weekend before. We stopped to get some gas on our way home from dinner and the gas cap was frozen shut; it was so, so cold! We tried all kinds of things to get it open. Eventually, as Don was trying to tap the cap to break the ice inside, the cap kind of shattered because the plastic was so cold. Don was able to get a key inside one of the cracks and pry the door open. We've since been going to get gas together in case we can't get the door open. I think it opens ok now that the weather has warmed up. Oh, good times with our ghetto mobile. Holler really is a fitting name for him now. The hanger for an antenna certainly does add a touch of classiness. That's how we Conkeys roll!

Sam now knows that his name is Sam Conkey. It makes me so happy when he says his name. He has also recently learned that Don and I both have names besides mommy and daddy. He likes to say "Donald" (who doesn't? My nieces and nephews still think Don's name is hilarious!) and one night as I was talking to him while he was laying in bed, he said, "Your name is Emily." One night while Don and I were out on a date, Cam was watching Sam. He told her he wanted to call and say goodnight to us. So, she called us and I talked to him. After we hung up, I guess he told Cam, "I want to talk to Don!" It is so fascinating watching his language development skyrocket. He speaks so well.

He has become quite the chatterbox lately. When we're driving or eating lunch together, Sam says, "Mom! Talk with me!" He then talks to me about all the various kinds of tractors (he's an expert - that's all he wants to read about). Every night when Don or I take him to bed and lay him down after our usual routine, he says, "I want to talk. I want to talk about tractors! Tractors do jobs, mom (dad)!" He then goes into great detail about various tractors. He has started correcting his friends when they mislabel various kind of tractors. He is absolutely obsessed. 

Sam has also just discovered super heroes. He knows nothing about them except their names but he likes to imitate the poses he sees them making on the one coloring page he has with super heroes on it. 

Oh, good times with Sammy!

Visit from Utah G&G and My First Solo Recording

February 17-19th, my parents and Grandma came to visit us. They arrived on Friday evening and we got some delicious take-out from the Med. 

Saturday morning, my mom and grandma and I went to our Stake Women's Conference in Louisville and saw Barbara Thompson, second counselor in the general Relief Society Presidency, speak. Also, the head of seminary for the area spoke (Bro. Rollins? Can't remember for sure) and I really enjoyed his talk.   The music at the conference was beautiful. 

Then, we headed home. I wasn't feeling very good so we had lunch and decided not to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science like originally planned. We went to the Carousel of Happiness in Nederland instead and it was the perfect outing. Sam loved riding on the carousel and we went over to the little cafe (built inside of some old train cars) next door for some doughnuts and hot chocolate afterwards. Delicious!

Sam having his first ride of the day with me and Mr. Gorilla. Despite his face in this picture, he loved every minute of it.

The carousel operator. I really liked him and the gong he'd ring before starting each ride.

Don enjoying his ride on the dolphin.

Mom and Dad having a good time. Mom is wearing the scarf I knitted for her for Christmas.

After the first ride on the gorilla chair with me, Sam ventured out on his own in the dragon ship. He loved it and still talks about it.

Here we all are. This old carousel used to be at Saltair, the resort on the Great Salt Lake that my grandma would frequent as a young woman. My parents both went there as kids, too, before it was closed down. They remember riding on this very carousel. The carousel was moved to various locations and eventually ended up here where it was refurbished and a local artist carved the beautiful new animals.

Off to the train cafe. A carousel and a train full of treats? Best day of Sam's life!

"Caboose, mom!!"

Sam sure loves his Poppy!

We polished off one plate of donuts and decided we needed another. Yum!

Sam is still suspicious of new food items so he refused to eat a donut. I don't mind this lack of interest in sweets at all. He has decided that chocolate is wonderful, though, so he no longer ignores my afternoon chocolate eating. Now he always asks for some. Darn. :) 

The cafe was such a cute little place.

Grammy brought Sammy two special presents - a pillow dog which he has named "Tractor" (no surprise there - tractors are Sam's obsession right now) and a purple race care. Purple is Sam's favorite color so the purple race car is his favorite. He tells me all the time how much he loves anything purple. He usually tries to get me to wear my purple shirts. Too bad purple is my least favorite color.

Sam is also completely obsessed with money and his dump truck that my parents gave him for Christmas. He is always collecting random cards and toys and putting them all in his dump truck. Then, he drives them around and dumps them out and starts again. The only problem is, he gets really upset when he loses any of his "moneys." He is always asking me where his other penny is and asks me to help him find it. I spend a lot of time trying to find lost money. Usually, I just dig him out a penny from the change bucket and give it to him. I can imagine that by the end of this "money" obsession, we'll have coins jammed in every crevice around the house. I guess we'll just have to have a treasure hunt before we move.

Sam also loves to paint with watercolors. He usually paints for about 3 minutes and then spends the rest of the time swishing the brush in the various colors and making the water jar a lovely shade of brown. I like watching his little mind work things out. I can tell he really enjoys the process of how things happen and what makes things work. He is a scientist, just like his daddy.

Grammy bought Sam a new passenger train car. He was pretty excited about it and kept telling everyone on the ride home from Nederland that it was a "diesel car". 

On Sunday, the 17th, a friend of mine from church, Rebecca McDonald, quickly taught me a song she had written and then we went to a house of a friend of hers to record it. Since my mom was in town and had come to a youth fireside with me, she came to watch the recording session. It was fun having her there. She took all the random pictures below.

Rebecca needed to have a recording to send to a violinist who was writing a violin obligatto for the song. Considering that I had only sung through the whole song a total of 3 times before the recording, the recording turned out pretty well. I was often hesitant to begin singing because I really had no idea what the note was supposed to be (and sometimes neither did Rebecca - she kept changing the melody because she wasn't quite sure how she liked it).  Despite all that, though, it turned out well and Rebecca got what she needed. It was my first time in a recording studio type setting and I enjoyed it very much. 

Listening to the piano recording which we eventually scrapped. We ended up recording together since it was too difficult to gauge when the piano was coming in on the recording without following physical cues. Singing along with Rebecca worked much better though the entrances were still always a bit tricky. 

Singing for the recording.

Another of Sammy's favorite things to do is to watch daddy draw tractors (or me if daddy isn't around. Don is a far better artist so it is with good reason that Sam picks him first).

A usual dump truck full of Sam's random toys, freshly dumped on the carpet.

We had a great visit with my parents. They were hoping to leave early Monday morning but because of the snow, they got delayed several hours. They made it home safely and we enjoyed our time together. 

Sam's Snowman Snowhouse

We had record snowfall in February. On February 2-4, we had a huge snowstorm that made for a fun Saturday with daddy. 

Here is a picture of Don on Friday night measuring the depth of the snow...

And here is what things looked like on Saturday morning. There was about 17 inches of light fluffy snow - not so good for snowman (I made three before I finally got one to stay together enough to resemble a snowman) but lots of fun despite.

Sam was thrilled to be heading out into our winter wonderland.

Snow falling off the heavily laden pine trees.

We built a snow cave. Well, Don built a snowcave. Sam and I kind of helped. I helped by sledding down the snow that Don would shovel on the top with a small plastic sled. I had a couple violent endings to my one second long sled trips and ended up rolling out of the sled several times. Sam liked the stair steps we carved into the side of the cave so we could climb up to the top. Lots of fun!

Sam spent a good 20 minutes packing snow onto this tree trunk. The snow he packed on the tree stayed there for about a week. It was cold for a long time and the snow just didn't melt. I haven't seen snow stay around that long in all the time we've lived here.

The piling of snow stage was complete so Don began digging...

Sam helped Daddy dig...

and checked his work. 

I love these pictures of me and Sammy. He is just so happy! 

The snow was up to Sammy's waist here. So fun!

Sam and I worked and worked on trying to get a snowman to stay together with the light, dry, fluffy snow. We finally got this snowman's head to stay on (it fell off several times before I got this final head precariously balanced on top of the torso) and gave him a carrot nose.

I never got a picture of the inside of the tunnel when it was completed but it was about 3 feet tall and 6 feet long and 6 feet wide. Don and I could both lay inside of it. It took about 2 hours to complete and by the time Don was done, Sam was overtired and didn't want anything to do with the snowcave. He did, however, want to ride his trike. 

Soon, the cave shrunk and neighbor kids poked holes in it. It took about a week to collapse and was the last pile of snow to melt... 

Here is a picture of me with the car before I pushed off all the snow. 

Don's mom came to visit during the week following the storm and it snowed while she was here, too. We had a pajama day and Sammy, Grammy, and I made a hut in the living room and read books and played in the "nest" Sam made on the couch. 

He decided that he was a purple bird and would take care of his two imaginary baby birds. He told me he had to go to the store to get them food. When I asked him what the birds ate, he said, "Cow's milk." Because Don and I drink mostly soy and almond milk, he is very specific about what kind of milk he is talking about.

After playing in the nest one night, I asked him what he wanted for dinner and he said he wanted an egg (very unusual- he usually won't eat eggs). When I asked him whether he wanted it scrambled or fried, he said "I want a good old egg. I'm a purple bird." So, I cooked him a good old egg. Should I be concerned that my purple bird is a cannibal? Eating his own kind?

He was really in to making nest for several weeks and still occasionally likes to pull all the pillows and couch cushions on the floor and wrap himself up in blankets. He's also decided he likes to snuggle and asks me to snuggle with him (usually after we've put him to bed, unfortunately. He'll yell down the stairs "I want to snuggle with you!") I do love that he is more snuggly lately, despite the bedtime disruptions. 

Bedtime stories with Grammy. 

Me and Sammy hiding from Grammy in our "nest". He insisted on covering our heads with pillows, which makes me crazy claustrophobic. Fun winter days!