Sunny Days and Visitors

So little Jake is becoming not so little anymore. I've officially decided he can make mess as quick as I can clean it :) Thankfully he's so darn cute it's hard to get too frustrated with him. He's passed the walking stage and is now running and climbing everywhere. Still not too many words but he manages to express himself quite clearly! As for Erich and I, we've had some time these past few weekends to explore and enjoy the winter. More cross-country skiing of course. Our new thing this year is to pack a backcountry stove and to throw a tarp out midway through our ski for a little brisk picnic! It's chilly but fun. It's a good break for Jake to get out of the backpack. our other highlight was having Erich's parents and sister make a surprise visit. We went and explored some hot springs and headed up to Sun Valley. I have to say that McCall is the true treasure of Idaho not Sun Valley. I think my favorite part of Twin Falls is being closer to Family--we just love having company.

Happy New Year

Can't believe it is 2010! To bring in the new year Kara was sick so we stayed home and had a movie marathon. After sleeping and gorging ourselves with TV for hours Kara felt better and we were ready to celebrate the new year a more typical Gleckler way. We went on two fun cross-country ski trips. One to the South hills and one to the Sun Valley area. We were really worried there wouldn't be enough snow to ski. Boy were we surprised when the road was closed for a half hour while they cleared off an avalanche and when the powder was 2-3 feet deep. Poor Libby got the workout of the season swimming through all the snow. The South Hills was quite the adventure. We found an old road to follow which took us up and up and up. When we started cresting the top I thought I saw a ski lift. Sure enough we had cross-country skiied up to the top of Magic Valley Downhill Ski Hill. I always wondered what it would be like to down hill ski with cross-country skis. YEAH, not such a good combo. We started down a green run (I typically do blacks no problem) and biffed it within the first 15 feet...total face plant :) We looked like the misfits with a dog on the ski hill and a kid in a backpack! Don't judge us please. Anyhow we quickly found a road off the main ski routes and pludged ourselves through the powder back to the car. Our trip to Sun Valley was one of the most spectacular trips ever. The sun was brilliant and with all the fresh snow glistening it truly was a gorgeous day of skiing (And yes the sparkling snow was more beautiful than Edward's skin for all you Twilight fans!) Anyhow it felt great to be out skiing again, and Jake was a relatively great sport throughout it all.

Happy Holidays

The bum part of working is only having a few days off for the holidays. Although our holiday break was short this year we still managed to have a great time sneaking in a last minute trip up to Montana. It was lots of fun. Kara's mom spoiled us and babysat Jake each day we were there so we could go out downhill skiing, cross-country skiing and sledding. It was a nice to have a little get away during the day and then a family gathering at night.
Jake was a whole lot of fun for Christmas. He couldn;t quite unwrap the gifts on his own but he helped out a lot and got real excited to see what was inside. Christmas is much more special when you have a little one to share it with! (Note the fourth picture up is the view out of Kara's parents' window, which is just one of the many reasons to love MONTANA!) It felt great to be back in the trees and the mountains for a little bit before returning to Twin Falls)

Thanksgiving

I feel like we have so much to be greatful for. It has been a year of many blessings for our family so this Thanksgiving was particularly meaningful.
To celebrate this year we were fortunate to have Erich's parents, sister, neice & nephew (from BYU) come up for the Thanksgiving weekend. Although we didn't have the snow we were wanting for sledding and skiing, we managed to have a great time. Erich's family was so kind and helped us decorate Jake's nursery, put up Christmas lights, build a dog kennel, and cut down/decorate a Christmas tree. Don't you all want to come to our house now? Despite all the work, it was a blast hanging out with family. And a bit thrilling at time (those of you who watched the BYU v. Utah game will understand what I mean!) I have to say Thanksgiving is one of my fav holidays...good food, good family, good shopping, good football,...can't complain about that!
While I am very sad that the holiday weekedn is over and all our company is gone, our dishwasher isn't. Finally a day without three or four loads :)

Gotta Love Visitors

This weekend was lots of fun, we were ultra spoiled because my sister and her kids and my parents came to spend the weekend. We only had a few days together but we got in a lot of shopping, good eating and game playing. We even got to watch a bunch of base jumpers. (For those of you who don't know base jumping is jumping off a super high bridge and parachuting to the bottom. We have a very tall bridge over the river canyon and it is one of the only places in the US where bridge jumping is legal without a special permit so we get people from all of the world here. We usually see novices but this weekend there were some pretty experienced jumpers who were doing flips, jumping doubles and other cool stuffs. I got enough of a rush just watching them. Unfortunately I forgot to whip out my camera while all the fun was here.
The weather has been so gorgeous here so we snuck out to take a hike around the falls and little lake. It was awesome to get out and enjoy a sunny, crisp autumn day. Jake liked the slide quite a bit, but I am not sure who was having more fun, dad or Jake :)

lil' stinker

My brother's son was a skunk last year and it was the cutest costume I had ever seen. Thankfully they were nice enough to pass it on down to Jake. So we had a lot of fun this Halloween with our lil' Stinker. I wasn't anticipating how entertaining Halloween is with a kid. We took Jake trick or treating to a few of our neighbor's houses. At the first one Jake just smiled at the guy, the guy would try to give Jake candy but Jake just kept smiling back. BUT then he caught on. One of our neigbhbors gave him a sucker, which Jake immediately dug into. For the next few minutes he alternated between sucking the sucker and saying yummmmmmmm, yummmmmmm. The funnest was visiting the grandmas and grandpas. One adorable elderly couple oohed and ahhed over Jake and then asked if they could carry Jake over to their friend's house next door so they could see Jake too :) Needless to say Jake loved that attention! In contract of course there was the teenage boy dressed up as Kiss that didn't know quite what to do when he saw a one-year-old skunk on his doorstep. I think his response was something like dude here's some candy, which he handed to us. After a lot of fun trick or treating we brough Jake home to eat some candy. I am not sure how, considering how much of a sweet tooth his mom and dad have, but Jake really isn't much of a chocolate fan. He would take a bite of chocolate then stick out his tongue. He does, however, very much enjoy painting with melted chocolate.
So Anyhow there is a play by play of our Halloween. Lots of fun!

FINALLY IN!

Sorry for the long time with no posts but life has been crazy moving in to our new house. We are so excited to finally be in...now we just have to get all the pesky boxes unpacked and walls decorated. Erich's mom and sister came up and spoiled us the first week and helped us get settled in so that gave us a good start, but with both of us working full time and playing with Jake at night it is one slow process. The place is not really put together and decorated yet but here are a few pics of the main floor and part of the outside. I'll try to post some better ones later.