Beautiful Colorado

Well, since I've been gone for so long I thought I would post some of my favorite scenic photography pictures of 2012!

Sunsets from our back door

beautiful fall colors of Colorado

Clear Creek in the fall

Great red rocks

Where has the time gone?

Oh my gosh....I cant believe it's been over a year since I've visited my own blog.  How horrible!

Well not only do I need to play catch up with Sanity Check, I need to play catch up with everyone else's blog.

What have I been up to you ask?  Where do I begin?????????

Life in general! I went back to school and graduated this Dec. with a certificate in medical billing and coding.  Yea me!  The 3 boys are growing like weeds and I suddenly have a teenager.  Yikes, I know.  So far he's keeping us on our toes, but not in a bad way.  Just new challenges :) 

All of the boys are now in baseball, so even if I wanted to blog I would have had to find the time.  Thank goodness dad was around to coach the little guys.  If not I would have had to find a way to clone myself.

I started working at a "real" job and I love it.  Well let me put it this way, I have a love/hate relationship with it.  I love the work and the people, but I hate the hours!  I'm now a graveyard shift worker.  Yup, 5am to 5pm, 2 nights a week.  It worked out perfectly as that was the only time I was able to get my homework done!  'But now that I'm done I find myself surfing in Internet for hours at a time trying to keep myself awake.  Soooo, I guess that means I better start coming up with some good blogging material :)

We did manage to take a family trip to California in Oct and it was an awesome week with the kids.  For the most part it was stress free and fun.  We cant wait to go back but this time in the summer.  Road trip? Maybe!  Now that would be something to blog about.

Anyway, If anyone still reads Sanity Check......I hope you have had a wonderful year!!!

I will try my hardest to come back on a weekly basis now that life has slowed down (only a little though)!  I may even decide to make some changes to the name and the way it looks, so check back often!

Hope to see you soon,

Nicole

Merry Christmas Eve!

Well it's here! Are you ready? The shopping, wrapping, cleaning and cooking all took weeks to get done and now the big moment is upon us. Santa will be arriving to fill the tree with gifts and goodies. Then the frenzy begins....all of that work over within just a few minutes! It always amazes me how fast Christmas morning comes and goes. LOL

The Sanity check family wants to wish you and yours a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year!

We will be spending the holidays at home this year. The hustle of going from home to home is exhausting! So we decided to make it a really low key day. Only one stop and dinner. Just the way I like it :)

Soooo Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!

lately.....

Obviously blogging has not been part of lately......but summer was just to fun to even think about it. Seriously, for awhile there I totally forgot that about my blog. We have just been so incredibly busy that I just gave up on it. So today you can glimpse all that we have been up to in the past 10 months.

Let see. Pools, baseball for 2 kids, birthdays, Iowa road trips. The kids started school in August. I started college in August. I started a new job and the hubby is working double the hours that he used to! did I mention breathing in there...? No? Oh well, I dont have time for that, or sleep!

So here are some photos of our year up unti now!

Finally.........the review!

CSN Online stores asked me to do a review and I said yes. Again! I thought I would take advantage of it and kill two birds with one stone.

I ordered a Foosball table for my son for Christmas. He has been asking for one for the longest time but I never did say yes, because we don't have the room for it. Seriously....we're bursting out of our house!

Anyway, I found a table top Foosball table that is more manageable.

It took less than a week to be delivered and about a half hour to set up. No problems with the delivery, but the set up was a little difficult. The screws that came with it were stripped, and the bottom of the table is pretty flimsy. Other than that, I think it was worth the money!

Eclipse From Colorado

So I managed to stay up with the moon and I got a few really good shots. I was FREEZING so I didn't get that many and I was struggling with finding the right setting on my camera. So this is the best 2 that I got. Enjoy!

And....I promise I will do my review, but it has to wait till Christmas day ;)

Merry Christmas everyone, may all of your wishes come true!!!

I NEED TO GET AWAY. NOW.

Man, I just cannot believe it is the middle of November already! This year has just flown by. Maybe it's because we are all so darn busy and can't keep track of time. I got to thinking the other day that we need a vacation. soon! I really dont think it's going to happen, with 2 major holidays coming up, but it's nice to dream isn't it? Then when I got to thinking about it, I flash back to our last trip and remember the packing issues we had. It's sad to say but we only own 1 suitcase! Yep, for a family of five we only own 1. Maybe it's time to buy a new one (or two) and plan a real trip and not just a make believe/in my dreams one.

If you could plan a family trip, where would you go? Or if you have taken one recently where did you go and what did you do?

I'm up for some suggestions people!

In the mean time I'll be slaving away in the kitchen, cleaning, shopping, working and getting no sleep. If I have the time I will get my latest review up for you all to see!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

This and That

I'm trying ok? I just cant come up with ANYTHING to blog about.....I'm sorry!

It's been a fun fall and I sure with it would stick around for awhile. I'm not looking forward to getting any snow. We have had a dose of cold and it chilled me to the bone. I hate being cold and having to go out in it. If I could just stay inside all day then fine, be cold, snow, hail, rain. Whatever. But the fact is I can't stay inside. I have to drag the kids out and get them to school, I have to go to work and the grocery store and god knows where else. So please, Mother nature, can you just leave Colorado right where it is? 65 degrees and perfect!

Anyway, we have been up to a lot lately. My photography has taken off and I've been busy every weekend taking family photos. The kids are in full swing of school and I feel like I am so behind on keeping up with them and thier homework, not to mention the oldest and all of his activities.......band, football and now rock climbing team. I need a clone!!!

So here are some pics of just a few things that we have done in the recent weeks, trip to the mountains for pictures of our family, the corn maze, fall holidays at school, glow in the dark rock climbing competition in Boulder, a trip to the cemetery for fun pictures, Halloween (and a ton of baking for the school parties) and a ton of other stuff that I cant think of at the moment!

So that is it for now, happy fall and I will see you all again soon, I hope.

Wordful Wednesday - Busy, busy, busy

I have just been so busy lately that I just don't have the time for blogging and I hate it! But, I will give you a week or should I say month in review as my wordful Wednesday post......cuz who knows how long it will be before you see me again! So, the kids are back to school (5th, kinder, and preschool), I'm back to work at a new job (working at the school). We had an end of the summer tubing trip down clear creek, the hubby and I made it to TWO baseball games for date nights!

Royal Gorge day trip

Yes, I'll admit it, I've been gone a lot and haven't even thought about blogging over summer break. I'm sorry!

I just thought I would stop in and say hi to everyone! I then noticed that I'm LOSING followers. Ooohh dear, I had better get myself back into the blogging world, and quick. Easier said than done, because now the "summer feeling" is fading with the kids back in school and I'm working two jobs, meaning I don't have much time for leisurely stuff!

The summer flew by so fast and we did a lot of stuff with the kids. It really was a lot of fun and I was way bummed when the last week of summer break came to an end. As our end of vacation "mini vacation" we decided to go to the Royal Gorge with great grandpa. It took us 2 hours to drive there but it was well worth it. It was beautiful! We took the train that went thru the canyon alongside the Arkansas river. I had never been (on a train or to the Gorge) so it was even an adventure for me. Actually, I think the hubby and I enjoyed it the most! Here are some picture to share with you!

Colorado Renaissance Festival

So this post is a little late. We went to the Renaissance festival about 2 weeks ago.

It had been ages since going and I thought it would be fun to take the kids,now that they're older and more manageable!

We ate....like kings and queens, turkey legs and sausage on a stick. There was so much more but the prices are a little ridiculous.We did have a lot of fun walking around, playing some games and people watching but the best part (according to the kids) was watching the jousting tournament. Jax couldnt understand that it was only pretend, he thought that the poor knight was really dead after having his throat slit! This is the perfect place to people watch, LOL, every walk of life shows up there.

You have the die hard mid evil lovers who dress up in ancient clothes. You have the ones that have this weird thing with Pirates (I dont think these were in the same era? Were they?) and then you had the gothic/Conan the barbarian ones......she was actually really pretty and I had to have a picture of her, but the guys that were with her.....wow.

We shopped, even though I had no money to buy and even if I did....I dont think I would spend the money on half of the stuff!

This is the Kings horse, he had a mustache! Not the king....the horse. Look closely!!
Entertainment galore! This weird guy was the bell player. As strange as he was, he played some beautiful music!
This duo did awesome juggling and acrobatic tricks. The kids were amazed, so that's all that counts.
The belly dancer was amazing. If I could only move my body like that!










All in all it was a fun day! We will go again next year but take a lot more money with us. It definitely wasnt a "take $25 and that should be good" type of trip :)