Early 2026

During January we made a visit to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I bought their annual pass largely for the ASTC reciprocal travel benefits, but I wanted to make sure we got a chance to see the temporary elephant and Lego exhibits at DMNS before they get replaced.

The Lego caterpillar, butterfly, and peacock were very large and very impressive.

We also really liked the penguin dad with the penguin chick on top of a mound of clear bricks to look like ice. 

And the polar bear mama with her cubs was lovely too. 

These animals were at least as impressive as anything we saw at Legoland. 

All of the details were taken into account. You can tell just by looking at this Zebra's butt and tail. How many bricks went into just its rear end!?

We saw a few more mind blowing structures then walked out to see the rest of the permanent exhibits.

We saw a show in the planetarium, toured the minerals wing, saw the animal exhibits, saw the prehistoric exhibits, let the kids play in swivel chairs in the Health wing, and took them up to the children's play area. 

We were astonished by this giant prehistoric dragonfly. It said they could grow as big as seagulls!

Before we left the kids wanted to jump to see how high they could get up the T-Rex on the wall.

In early February Oscar took a work trip to Philadelphia.

He also spent most of the month renovating our bathrooms.

Home Depot brought the vanities upstairs, but the one for the master bedroom was too big to get through the door. Oscar had to break the wood above the door, get some friends to help bring the vanity in, then repair the door.

Tyler helped break the old tile and install the new tiles for the master bathroom. Tyler is officially a Tiler!

It looks great! We even got a new smart toilet!

He also replaced the tile in the laundry room and ripped out the shelf. We rarely used the shelf, and it prevented the dryer door from opening fully. 

Here's the kids' bathroom before and after the paint, vanity, and flooring changes. The kids voted to have a "Fry" bathroom with their shower curtain and rugs.

Here's Tyler at a band concert, getting a haircut, and being carried up to bed after falling asleep during scripture study.

This glue has some hilarious instructions! "Do not use except for use," and "prevent children from playingPlay!" At least it worked.

On Valentine's Day I made a table of goodies for the kids and celebrated Gallentine's with several friends at Kristen's house.  

For our 20th anniversary, Oscar and I went to lunch, had pedicures, picked up dinner, and had a nice day to ourselves. We did include the kids a few days earlier when we took our first flights at IFly. 

The kids had Monday the 23rd off of school, and Great Wolf Lodge had off season pricing, so we planned a trip and took Tyler's friend Mylo for a day pass. We started off with mini golf, 10 paw bowling, and meeting one of the wolf characters.

Here are the kids on the climbing wall

And on the ropes course. After that we grabbed some lunch at the nearby pizza and pasta place before hitting up the water park.

Once in the water park we had a great time and spent several fun hours there. All the kids tried wolf tail this time, and Tyler even did it twice (both my kids refused to do it on our last visit).

In March we celebrated my 44th birthday with coconut cake, peanut butter brownies and other fun treats I found on clearance at the store.

A couple of neighborhood dogs broke through their fence and were running around near our house. Oscar corralled them into our yard and followed their tracks back to their home. Their owners came to get them, but they sure had a great time in our yard running around and playing in the snow. It was lucky it had snowed since that allowed Oscar to follow their tracks more easily (apparently they'd been chasing a bunny). 

Oscar installed a giant light for our family room. This picture of him installing it looks like he's worshiping it. 

Now that the bathrooms were renovated and sealant applied to prevent leaks, Oscar repaired the huge hole in the ceiling that'd been there for nearly a year. It was an intense, messy, full day project for him, and he did a great job!