Happy Birthday Zoeyanne! Zoeyanne’s birthday consisted of chocolate cake, opening presents and a fun game of Candy Land with the whole family. The next day she had her celebration at school.

For each year of life, I read about her biggest accomplishments, she walked around and showed all the kids the pictures and then she held the little globe and walked around the candle (the sun) while the kids sang “The earth goes around the sun the sun, the earth goes around the sun the sun.”

Zoeyanne’s birthday party was her first real party ever! It was a princess tea party. We had 7 girls and 3 boys including Zoeyanne and Riley. Party guests made bracelets out of pipe cleaners, beads and bells while waiting for everyone to arrive. The first game was pin the lips on the frog. Everyone won a magic wand. The boys won sharks that grow 600% in water. The next game was sort of a cake walk, but more of a princess dance. I found a princess calendar and cut it up and taped 12 pictures of princesses on the floor. The kids danced around in a circle and when the music stopped everyone had to find a princess on which to stand. I then pulled from a hat the winning princess picture. Everyone won a cute pen, the boys won snake painting kits. We then all had tea and tea sandwiches, followed by cupcake decorating. Princess Zoeyanne had a fantastic time. Knight Riley had fun as well.

and a HUGE thank you to Gena Gregory for all her help!!!

Princess Maddie

Princess Lilly

Princess Hannah

Princess Olivia

Princess Ava

Monkey Roan, Knight Riley & Knight Kaden

Princess Annalouisa

The Royal Court

Jonathan, Elizabeth, Robin and Melody came to visit for a couple nights at the end of December. We had a great day of Skiing, Bikram, and all you can eat Sushi! The kids had a great visit playing and never getting out of jammies. Robin came skiing with the adults and then babysat the kids that night. It was a fun visit!

What a wonderful white Christmas we had!

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The kids did a great job this year at Mountain View Montessori for the annual Holiday Performance. If I was any more tech savvy there would be a link to view the performance. But you’ll have to settle for pictures.

With Baby Grandma not feeling well, we decided to pick up and drive to Arkansas on the Friday morning before Thanksgiving. 4000 miles in a week with three kids is quite an excursion. We were limited on our stops due to a time crunch but viewed the Bonneville Salt Flats, drove around the Mormon Temple, checked out the old Russellville Train Depot, swam at an indoor pool in Shamrock, Texas, explored the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum in Tucumcari, New Mexico, and had Thanksgiving dinner at New York, New York in Las Vegas. We arrived home at one in the morning the day after Thanksgiving. Baby Grandma passed away the following Tuesday and we are so blessed to have had the opportunity to say good-bye.

We spent the day preparing our costumes, playing games at the Galena High School Fall Festival, carving a pumpkin, trick or treating at our neighbor’s houses, and attending a fun Halloween Party. The kids had free access to their candy all day and we were visited by the Great Pumpkin Saturday night who took our remaining candy and left four dollars each.





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Took a weekend trip to San Jose October 9 – 11. We did a lot of visiting with family and friends in a short amount of time. The Durrer cousins had great fun playing. Ashley and Zoeyanne played play dough and a bunch of board games. Riley played in the backyard with Jake and RJ and still talks about the game Mouse trap which I had to pull out from the depths of our game closet once we got home. Fun to see Grandma both nights, and hang out with Andy and Rob, (Kristy was on a business trip). We had breakfast with Liz Almeida Saturday morning and lunch with Chris and Erin Lopez before heading out of town on Sunday.



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Besides keeping Riley and Zoeyanne from killing each other, we spent much of our time at Sand Harbor, Lake Tahoe swimming and playing in the sand. Biking and home art projects were followed by slip in slides in the backyard and fun times with family and friends.


We had a wonderful 8 days straight of Echo Lake this year. Our time overlapped with the Scott and Leeann and Elizabeth and Jonathan. We did a little hiking, a little water skiing, celebrated Thaniel’s first birthday, and even had another ER visit for a broken limb. Traditions traditions. Our hike with the Adams and Linda was a lot of fun. We could have done with out the last couple hours down the mountain through the bushes and no pathway, but hey, it was an adventure. What an awesome first birthday for Thaniel to have so many cousins and Aunts and Uncles. We made ice-cream with the “camper’s dream” ball that the kids rolled back and forth and Laura’s award winning triple chocolate cake.

Laura and the kids spent a night with friends Bryce, Hannah and Ella at their cute cabin at Buck’s Lake. Although Riley’s arm was in a cast, we all had a blast.

The Schleichers came for a visit in August and we had a great time. Laura and Jen have been friends for nearly 32 years now and they are very much family. Jen is a very talented photographer and snapped some great family photos and awesome shots of just the kids.

After a week of orientation, both kids started school at the end of August. Zoeyanne has the same teacher Riley had for the past two years, Kate. Laura is room mom this year because she just had too much free time. Dan’s parents came in September to help with some projects around the house and we all got up early and went to the Reno’s Great Balloon Race.

For more of our family pictures and the shots from Jen click here

Zoeyanne and Riley are the best of friends. Zoeyanne looks forward to picking up Riley from school and from there they spend the afternoon in a land of make believe. It’s as if they are making up scenes for a play, they dress up in costume and run around the house. They both spend much of their time doing art. Riley calls this “arting.” The longer the days together, the more hysterical fits and blood curdling screams you may hear coming from our house. Summer should be interesting.

Nathaniel received his first haircut on Easter. Yes his long locks are adorable but he could no longer see and we were mistaking him for my mom’s shaggy dog old english sheep dog. He is still adorable.

In May Laura, Zoeyanne and Nathaniel flew to Vegas to visit with Laura’s parents and to attend friends Avery and Steve’s wedding. Laura’s mom and Dad spent a whole special day with just Zoeyanne

Dan participated in Reno’s Run-a-muck, running a 2 mile relay race through the mud carrying a bar of soap passed to him by team mate Kurt von dem Bussche.

The next day he ran the Moms on the Run 5k along side Laura while pushing the kids in strollers.

We recently got a new tag-along for Riley and a bike trailer for Zoeyanne and Nathaniel. We’re hoping to spend much of our summer out biking. We’ve already done the Truckee River up by North Shore and had a blast!

Nicole, Laura’s 15 year old niece came to visit with a friend in June. What an educational experience it is to have two teenagers in the house for a week!

for more of our April May and June pictures please click here.

A little late but better then never! … Zoeyanne turned 3 on January 5. We celebrated with a family evening at *gasp* Chuck E Cheese. Andy and friend Kamal came up for a snow boarding weekend in January, even though we were a little low on snow. We hosted a huge birthday party weekend at the end of January and had a great time visiting with Tylan, Kristy & Dylan, Liz and Joe, and Ian with a total of eight kids. Vegas friends Avery and Steve with Tyler and Nick came up for a weekend of skiing and playing in the snow. In March we headed south for a week in Newport where we visited Laura’s old neighborhood, the Tully’s house, Disneyland, a Russian submarine, the Queen Mary and biked in a 9 person surrey with Lisa Tully and boyfriend Ray. Zoey is in gymnastics and swim, and Riley takes art after school. We pulled Zoey from preschool because she continued to bring home illnesses and has been on and off the nebulizer for wheezing. Nathaniel was sick off and on all winter, but even with sleepless nights of coughing he’s still a big lovable teddy bear of a baby. We didn’t get as much snow as last year but more then our first year. It’ll be interesting when we get 100% of our snow pack for the season.

To view the rest of our pictures from January, February and March, CLICK HERE