Here's What We've Been Up To The Last Month...

It's been a busy month as usual! Here are a bunch of pictures from our goings on! (in no particular order because I messed up the upload!)

This was taken at the NASCAR race at PIR in November. We had lots of Redneck fun like always!

DVB turned 3 last week! This was his 2nd cake! Pictures of his 1st cake to follow!

DVB really wanted a "Buzz Quad" for his birthday! Since the Buzz Quad he had his eye on at Walmart was too small for him, Bobo and Grandpa bought him a bigger one with Buzz stickers to put on it! He loves to ride it up and down the side walk! Although it looks real, it is actually a 12v battery operated deal. It goes 5 mph which DVB has already mastered! It'll be fun to take it out to the desert next month when camping season gets rolling again!

He wore this hat for 3 days before his birthday! We really didn't have an official party for him, just a normal Friday night gathering with our neighbors! The poor 3rd child always gets the shaft!

He also really wanted a Buzz scooter but we couldn't find one. He was happy with the McQueen one his brothers did find for him!

This was DVB's first cake! Toni, aka Old Iron Guts, decided to make sure it tasted ok! Frickin dog! She ate about 8 cupcakes right after I brought it in the door!

Now we are backtracking to Thanksgiving! This is my new Vikings hat a friend had made for me! What a cool surprise and it really came in handy because camping in the desert in November was freezing! I know I'm a wimp!

Here are the cousins making a teeter totter out of a dead tree which later became firewood!

Here's a pretty sunrise on Thanksgiving morn!

DVB playing with nature!

Mr. Deputy made a stop at camp once again! And it was the same one who stopped us this spring. I was more than happy to welcome him into our compliant camp this time! I thanked him for the warnings he gave us earlier this year! His response, "I think I am giving out too many warnings!" I think his new name should be The Grinch!

Here's DJB geared up for a spin! He's such a nice, calm, slow, cautious rider! Just how I like it and very unlike his older brother! *sigh*

DVB is ready to go too! He likes to ride with Momma because Papa goes too fast! What a good little boy he is!

Check out this huge bone I found on one of our rides. I think it's a cow femur.

And now for some random pics...

GOB has the boys taking part in a family tradition he did as a little boy~nut cracking at Christmastime! The boys love it!

This was from my bday. LOB was so proud to have a cake for me! This was also the day the Vikings beat the Cardinals!

Mr Naughty Kitty tipped the Christmas tree over twice before he figured out it wasn't so great to have a tree land on himself!

This is just a goofy picture of a silly Bikinins/Sponge Bob fan!

This was DJB's thanksgiving turkey project for school. He told me what to buy for supplies and he dreamt up this creation himself! It was a "family" project so all rules were followed!

And the Goofball once again doing what he does best~being cute and goofy!

Our house is almost prepared for the most exciting holiday of the year! We just have some baking to do and a tad bit of shopping! Nissy, the elf, is back as he always appears after Thanksgiving. He's working hard at observing the monkeys and reporting back to Santa every night! So far his presence is working and the boy have been cooperating nicely!

That's it from 3Boysandabrewery until after Christmas, so here's to a Merry and Magical Christmas to your family from ours!

THIS is where I have been....

.....Sitting at my sewing machine for hours, days, and weeks-it seems!



Here are the fruits of my labor. 33 blue jean purses are ready for our first craft show Mom and I have coming up in 2 weeks! Now back to the sewing machine I go to finish the 75 feathered coolie cups and 36 embroidered baby burp rags I have left to make! See Ya!

I'm In A Blog Funk But We Have a Genius Amongst Us!

I'm in a blog funk! I just can't think of anything too creative to write! So instead I'll show you some pictures from....um....the last month!

This was from the first day of school, a month ago! LOB started 3rd grade and DJB started 1st. LOB has the same teacher he had in 2nd grade. DJB has the same teacher LOB had in first grade! Both kids are happy and are doing well. I should do a separate blog post on LOB's Stanford 10 scores from the spring! We may have a genius on our hands. Oh who am I kidding, I'll just brag about him right now, ya know since I'm in this blog funk, it could be another month before I think of something better!

So here it is: LOB scored in the 92% in Reading Comprehension and 99.9% in Math! Is that incredibly amazing or what?!!! These scores are his genius performance compared to students in the same grade across the nation! So proud of him I am! (especially of the math part-he must have gotten GOB's math genes, no doubt!)

Mr. Monster thought he was going to start school too! He packed his backpack for the first few mornings with his lunch, snack, and water. He even tried to jump out of the van on the second day with the boys declaring, "I go to first grade"! I told him he couldn't go to school with diapers on (still working on potty training!) and he said, "OK, I'll just put them in my backpack!"

This is just a silly picture of DJB taking the cat for a little spin using miscellaneous parts like a basket and part of a grocery cart!

I just thought this was funny! I was hoping that he wouldn't decide to jump! He's up on the second floor looking down at me!

Here's a project I probably won't do again! The fruit and vegetable co-op I belong to had a special on sweet corn from Olathe, CO. I paid $20 for 24 dozen ears of corn. So I called in the troops and had them shuck the corn while I cut it off the cob and bagged it for the freezer. Although it's nice to have several bags stored away, it only made 19 bags with 3 cups each. It was a little too much work for too little in return-plus I had to share with all the neighbors! It was a lesson learned, that's for sure!

And would you believe I have no other excitement to report? Let's hope I can snap out of this blogging funk soon!

Part 3: Camping in the Rockies!

So here's the last part of our Mega Vacation! GOB drove up to Gunnison, CO and joined us for the week with our camper and quads. (I think I may have forgotten to mention that GOB only spent the week in MN with us and he had to fly home to work.) Anyhow, back to the vacation details. We also met up with our friends C & G who live near Grand Junction, CO. They spend a week in the same area of the Rockies every year with several other families. So altogether I think there were about 12-15 other families with their campers. We had a great time riding the quads all over the countryside. I discovered that my quad isn't exactly comfortable to ride in that neck of the woods. I could really use a 4x4 for the next time we go up there! Thankfully, there is always an abundance of quads parked around and people just kinda share them. The boys didn't ride theirs much because "they wouldn't go fast enough"! The elevation we were at combined with the cheap Chinese carburetors in their quads, made for slow riding according to the boys. LOB did mange to flip his quad however so therefore it really could go fast enough! He did not get hurt but it scared the crap out of himself and Grandpa . So below are a few of the pictures I snapped...

The boys are chomping at the bit to leave the campground in Gunnison and head out to the wilderness!

We saw this old gold or silver mine on our first quading trip. There were several in the area. It's amazing to see how good they still look after 100 years.

This was a house near the mine.

The boys are standing in front of the ice box where they must have stored their food.

Here's a pretty picture. I'm pretty sure we were on top of that mountain way up there too at some point.

This one kinda looks like a postcard. Not too bad for a cell phone pic if I do say so myself.

I can't remember what exactly this is but what amazed me was how they could have possibly got it up there! On this quad ride, I made myself sick! I swear we were climbing over boulders and could have flipped a couple times-me and my zero bit of experience! Thankfully our friend G let me ride his 4x4 beast back down the mountain and he rode my made-for-flat-terrain-and-dirt-quad!

DVB didn't get to go on this ride. He stayed at camp and flirted with all the teenage girls!

Im not too sure what Grandpa is thinking about in the picture...maybe that he thinks he needs a 4x4 quad too?

This was the sign that greeted you in a nearby town to our camp. It was a cute, old, little town in the middle of nowhere.

This was another quad adventure. Each day we went on one long ride. This one was to St.Elmo, CO. It was about a 2 hour trip in the rain! Next time, we are bringing proper rain attire with us! I was soaked and cold! But these cute little chipmunks made up for it. It's the main attraction of the town, also in the middle of nowhere. There were about 20-30 of these little guys and they would come right up and eat sunflower seeds right out of our hands.

See that brown creature? It's called a Whistle pig. It kinda looks like a beaver/ground hog/wood chuck.

This was the only deer we saw. I'm surprised we didn't see more wildlife.

This was the last trip we took and this time we took the truck. And thank goodness we did because that would have been a very very long quad ride! And thank goodness Grandpa drove cause it was scary enough to be the passenger on this steep and very twisty road. This was a train station back in the early 1900's. It was a passenger train that wound it's way up the same path we took and then cut through a mountain and ended up in Denver on the other side.

They were checking out the turntable. Mr. DVB is heavily addicted to Thomas the Train so he was in heaven seeing the actual train stuff!

This is what the terrain looked like way up there above the trees!

And this is the last picture I took as we had to go back to reality!

We sure had a great time on this leg of the trip too! The boys had a blast digging, cutting down trees, and being in the great outdoors! I forgot to mention the nice cool weather! I could have done without some of the rain but we didn't let it ruin anything! Thanks to C & G for the hospitality and we hope you'll let us join you again sometime!

Masive Vacation Part 2: Iowa!

Here is part 2 of our very long vacation. We spent a week+ at Great Gram and Gramps house. It was a very eventful stay. From a nasty flu bug that knocked several people down, to an ER visit for unknown bumps on DVB's head, and to Gram needing a little heart tune-up, our week in Iowa went way too fast and we didn't get to visit much as we would have liked to with all our family. It was a memorable stay to say the least!

This was the first night we arrived! We always enjoy the family picnics with all the cousins and aunts and uncles. Almost everyone was there, just missing a few cousins. (boo)

We even got to meet up with Aunt J in Galena, IL. She happened to be visiting her family in IL so we met in the middle for just a couple hours. We had lunch at Culvers and then went shopping in a bunch of cute little shops. We wished we could have spent more time with her.


This picture was taken at my Great Aunt and Uncle's country house. I hadn't been there in many years so it was fun to see it again.

These are the mysterious bumps that showed up all over DVB's head! Every morning he would wake up with more. Finally I kind of got worried and took him to the ER for the lack of an Urgent care. Then come to find out we took him to the ER for mosquito bites/black fly bites! WTH! I haven't gotten the bill yet but I bet it will be a pretty hefty co-pay for bug bites!

And the next day, the extremely contagious flu bug took over our vacation fun! It started with DVB. Then it knocked down, LOB, DJB, Me, Gram, Grandpa, BoBo, and Aunt M. Somehow, 82 year old Great Gramps was spared! I'm still not quite sure how he got so lucky! But after everyone had their day with it, we were almost back to normal. Although, our vacation was coming to end shortly there after.

This was a day DVB felt himself, while I didn't, so I sat with him outside while he played. This is a little potty training lesson. See how hard I work on it, with a book in hand?

These are some funky caterpillars that Great Aunt J captured for the boys. They were supposed to make it back to AZ so we could see them transform into butterflies but......they were forgotten in the back of the truck until about, um, say somewhere in Kansas I believe! Ooops!

Here are the boys are strapped in for the trek to Colorado via Buzz The Bus. Also on this day, we found out that Great Gram needed to have a triple bypass surgery on her heart. We were only 5 hours into our trip so BoBo turned around and went back and stayed a few weeks to help Gram recover. She did amazingly well, her Doctor's say. 20 days post-op, she was back at work! We know your tune-up, Gram, will bring us many more years with you!

So that was our Iowa vacation. Thanks to all our family for your hospitality and we hope next time we can see EVERYONE and spend a lot more fun time with you all!

Next up: Part 3: Camping in the Rockies!