Camping Out!

After having busy weeks, Kyle and I wanted to get away from society for a little bit and go camping! However, neither of us felt like hiking or packing light... SO we got a camping site and Red Top Mountain State Park about 30 minutes North of our house.
We drove there Friday night after work, and found a perfect spot for us with a ton of room for Tyson to run around without bothering the neighbors. There were some really cool sites down by the water that were taken, so we're going to try to get those next time! We had just enough daylight to set up our tent, get everything ready for the fire, and take Tyson on a walk.

Our new tent! The 3 of us fit perfectly!

Let Tyson swim in Lake Allatoona:

After our walk, Kyle started the fire!

OF COURSE we had smores:

Our site was only a short walk away from the water & bathrooms. But our headlamps came in very handy walking to both!

Goofing off:

We stayed up and talked & played cards for a while, finally getting a chance to tell each other about our weeks and just relax. I was in heaven having Kyle all to myself and getting away from all the distractions that we have at home! It was so nice to not know what time it was, or have a schedule to follow. We went to bed around 12 and woke up around 6 to rain dropping on our tent! Thank heavens we had our rain fly, BUT we did forget a tarp to put underneath the tent so we just used a comforter that we had brought. It did the trick and we stayed dry no problem! We both got up around 7, went for another walk then sat by the fire some more. I actually went back to sleep for a little while (still fighting off this cold), so Kyle & Tyson had a photoshoot:
We wanted to stay the whole weekend, but unfortunately rain was in the forecast for all day Saturday. So around 11 we packed up our stuff and drove through the park to see all they had to offer, since we'll definitely be going back there. We found a dock that Tyson thoroughly enjoyed jumping off of:
During the summer, every Saturday night they have bluegrass bands come into the park and play, so both of us are really excited about that. It was a perfect way to spend a weekend, and we both are really looking forward to camping again. It brought back so many memories of my childhood.... we both loved it! If anyone ever wants to join us just let us know!

When we got home we got cleaned up and went for lunch on the square. We sat outside & walked around for a while.... I'm so glad spring is finally here!
What a wonderful weekend we have had! Hope you all get to relax and find time to take in the beauty of spring too!

Natalie & Nathan at 11 months!

Tara sent us the cutest video of all the things the twins are doing now! Natalie just spoke her first word, "DUCK"! I also love her backwards wave and Nathan's adorable babbling!
I can't wait to see them in less than a month!

Nick on TV!

Nick's in Charlotte right now with all of his friends to watch UNC play in March Madness... and of course he made it on tv! Watch!

http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/2641838/

This was his response to seeing himself on tv: hahahahahaha this is great. we were laughing so hard after this because i pretty much had the worst interview ever. kevins was much better than mine but he got cut because I must have a face for TV hahahahaaaaaaaaaaa... she asked like 10 questions but all my other answers were even worse!
(yes my hair and unshaven face looked great i know, and the sun was really shining in my eyes bad)

Happy 22nd Birthday to Nick!

Nick turned 22 yesterday, so I thought it was only right that I announce it to the world on our blog! He celebrated his birthday last weekend with the whole family (minus Kyle & I), but we'll get to see him in a couple weeks and give him our present then! Love you Nick!

Twins First Easter!

I had to post this picture b/c they just can't get any cuter! Natalie & Nathan turn one, April 11th-- I can't believe how fast this year has gone by! Nathan now has 6 teeth! Natalie still has no teeth and no hair... taking after her famous Aunt Leah :) They are SOOO adorable Tara!

Easter Weekend with the Turners

We had a wonderful Easter weekend, spent here in Georgia with my best friend, Sara, and her husband Joe. (Sara & I met at age 5 and grew up dancing together!) Since Kyle and I had just gotten back from traveling to Colorado, it would have been too much to turn around and drive up to North Carolina to spend with our families. Sara & Joe both had Good Friday off, so they arrived in Marietta around 1:00! We took them to the battlefield and walked up Kennesaw Mountain together. The trail was steeper than we thought, but it was beautiful weather and pretty views from the top.

Here are the guys with Tyson & Tucker:

Pretty butterfly on the dogwood tree:

We came home and walked to La Parilla, our favorite Mexican restaurant on the Marietta Square. Then we watched "Dan in Real Life" with Steve Carell, our favorite actor from The Office, which all 4 of us are hooked on.

Saturday morning, while Sara & I were getting ready the guys went on a 2 mile run together! I think Kyle successfully got Joe hooked on triathlons & training, as he now knows all the websites and is looking to enter into one! We all drove downtown, where they dropped Sara & I off at Ikea. (The guys were driving around waiting and ended up stopping to help multiple people with cars broken down on the side of the road... great citizens :) We all picked up Jersey Mikes and brought a picnic lunch to Piedmont Park. It was a beautiful day again, so it was fun to let the dogs run around and people watch.

Sara & Joe:

Kyle & I:

Other views of Piedmont Park:

We came back and baked a home-made pizza (my first time!) for dinner... we were proud of ourselves:
SO NOW THE FUN BEGINS. We decided to go on a GHOST TOUR Saturday night! As most of you know, Kyle is deathly scared of ghosts, but for some reason he really wanted to go. It was held on the square and this lady took us around and basically just told us ghost stories and showed us the buildings that they are in. Marietta has a lot of history in it, so it was interesting to learn more and spook each other.

Our crazy story teller:

The four of us:

Joe & Kyle scared:

Sara & I scared:

Sara & Joe cracking us up:

Some of the sites ghosts are in!

We came back home, had some icecream and played cards.

Sunday we woke up and went to church at North Metro. The praise & worship was amazing, and it was fun to show Sara & Joe where we go to church. We ate Atlanta Bread Company afterwards and then headed home to dye easter eggs! Unfortunately I was a clutz all day, burning my hand on the stove and spilling over 2 of our cups of dye! We still had fun though and made some pretty ugly designs! ha

Our gorgeous eggs:

The rest of the day was spent lounging around the house and making dinner. We had twice-baked potatoes, flank steak, salad, french loaf, and puffed corn (okay so just Sara had puffed corn b/c she doesn't like potatoes).
Sara & Joe actually were able to stay Sunday night and leave this morning (monday) to head home to Raleigh. It was such a long weekend, and we had a great time getting to spend quality time with them! Thank you guys for making the drive and coming all the way down to visit! Hopefully we'll get to do it again soon! FUN WEEKEND!

Cabin time in Grande Mesa, Colorado

After snowboarding in Telluride, Wednesday morning we packed up our stuff and headed on our way to the Guenther's cabin in Grande Mesa, Colorado. Unfortunately, Kerry & Brad didn't get to come with us, as they flew down to the carribean for another vacation that Brad won at work! As most of you saw the pictures I had posted before, the cabin was covered with snow! We parked about 3/4 of a mile away from the house as the roads are so bad, and then took snowmobiles in. The guys made several trips getting our luggage in... here's a video of how we did it:

We spent Wednesday night through Saturday night at the cabin, playing tons of card games, shoveling snow off the deck, making tunnels through the snow, going on long walks in our snow shoes, making jumps for kyle to snowboard off of, ice fishing, and eating a lot! The cabin is very homey and warm inside, no matter if there were blizzards outside or not. Dave, one of Cuzzie's good friends, came before we did and dug a tunnel on the 2nd level so we could get into the cabin!

The living room:

Rach & Mike let Kyle and I have the big bed, since we slept on the floor in Telluride:
Rach & Mike's bunk beds:

There is a creek located right across the "road" from their cabin, and a lake right down the road. Here is the creek:
We actually rode the snowmobiles on all the lakes, as they are completely frozen over with snow on top. Here is the road, and over to the right a lake. The lakes are much smoother so most snowmobilers choose the lakes to travel on.

On Tuesday, our last day of snowboarding, the weather was GORGEOUS, but in turn our faces got fried! As you can see in this picture, Kyle looks like a raccoon and my face had a hard time stretching even to smile!
Us on one of our walks:

Kyle built a jump off of the 2nd story of the deck with all the excess snow.
Here he goes:

This is my favorite picture that I took of Kyle snowboarding off his jump... looks straight out of a magazine huh??
Here is the tunnel that Mike & Kyle dug from the garage door out the front:

The only scare we had was on Friday afternoon, when Mike & Mr. G went out for a snowmobile ride. We looked and it had been over 2 hours since they left. After worrying and going on a walk to find them, Mr. G comes across the lake on his snowmobile... Mike no where in sight. Turns out Mike's snowmobile died and they had spent over an hour towing it back towards the cabin, then when they got close enough Mr. G came to tell us they were okay. It was a little frightening b/c no one is surrounding you and cell signals don't work up there.

Saturday morning we found some ice fisherman! They were very friendly and let us try it! They were catching fish (lake is stocked) every minute it seemed like, then just throwing them back in! One man even had a $10 sponge bob toy fishing rod, and it was the one that worked the best!

Kyle caught 4 fish!

They all pressured me into fishing, and I caught one too! I didn't want to touch it, so this nice man held it for my picture!
After that experience, we packed up all of our stuff, and snowmobiled out to the car. Rach, Mike, Kyle, and I all headed to Cuzzie & Betty's house (30 min down the mountain) to hang out with them for the night so we could make it to the airport in the morning no problem. We went out to a nice dinner with all of their friends, and laughed and laughed and laughed! They are from a VERY small town, so some of the stories they told were so funny trying to figure out how to keep themselves occupied. We all came back and watched "Good Shepherd" with Matt Damon in it, and then headed to bed.

Cuz & Betty have 4 horses:

Cuzzie, Betty, Rach, Mike, & Ky:

Sunday we flew all day, finally made it to Charlotte where Cory, Mada & Tyson were waiting for us. It was so nice of them to watch Tyson for us, and we know that Tyson had a great time! Cory lives on Lake Norman, so Tyson got to swim in the lake everyday, run in a race on St. Patrick's day (the first dog to cross the finish line... go tyson!) and do much more! Here are some pictures that Cory gave us:

Cory, Mada, & Tyson:

A Running Dog he is! (yes they put a shirt on him haha)

Thanks so much guys for watching Tyson... he had a great time!! If you want to see more pictures from our vacation, here is the web address:
http://picasaweb.google.com/leah.guenther/Telluride2008

Our Telluride Snowboarding Trip 2008

*WARNING: This is going to be a very long post... so get ready!*

As most of you know, Kyle and I just returned from our week long vacation to Telluride, Colorado! We drove up to Charlotte, NC on Friday night to drop off Tyson with his "uncle Cory" for the week. We flew out early Saturday morning from Charlotte, on the same flight as Rach & Mike and arrived in Colorado around lunch time. We drove straight to Cuzzie's house in Telluride, where Kerry & Brad, Mr. & Mrs. G, and Cuzzie were. Over the next 3 days we all went snowboarding/skiing, coming home each night with tons of stories and even more sore muscles. Going snowboarding out west is such a different experience, as not only do the resorts cover several mountains filled with over 100 runs, but they allow back country skiing as well (hiking off of the main trails to "extreme" terrain). It snowed around 6 inches on the mountain each day we were there, so we were able to ride through fresh powder everyday -- such a treat!
Nick's friend Lucy from school has a brother who works in Telluride, and he was actually able to hook us up with half price lift tickets for all 3 days.... which helped us out a ton!

Downtown Telluride: (cool blue haze that day)

The town of Telluride sits at the bottom of a box canyon:
Us in our cute matching helmets :)

Kyle & I giving each other high-fives... because I went down 3 black diamonds that day... woo hoo!

Mr. Guenther, Mrs. Guenther & Cuzzie one night when we all went out to dinner wearing the Rockin' G Support Team Shirts--- how great does Cuz look?

All of the homes off of the lifts in Telluride are gorgeous! Here is one example... beautiful views right off the slopes. Oprah used to own one, but b/c of the altitude she couldn't breathe and sold it. (Speaking of altitude.... we were at 13,000 ft elevation and it is extremely hard to breathe... I feel you Oprah!).
We celebrated Mr. Guenther's 57th birthday one night. Kyle & I bought him a flat-black helmet, which he got a lot of use out of during the trip, skiing and snowmobiling. (I forgot a bow so I made one out of tape!)
It was so nice of Cuzzie to let us use his house in Telluride from Saturday until Wednesday morning. We had a great time snowboarding, spending time in the hot tub, and relaxing.

Here are a couple videos!
Kyle filming me snowboarding down a blue (my favorite type of run):


Kyle filming his journey through the back country:


Kyle explaining what he just did in the back country:

Kyle going down "Holy Cow" with moguls.. it was a lot steeper than it looks...


I couldn't even come close to posting all the pictures we took in Colorado... here is the link to all of our pictures taken:
http://picasaweb.google.com/leah.guenther/Telluride2008
Hope you all enjoy! I will post a blog about the cabin tomorrow!