More Pics from our CO Trip

We decided to head down from the mountains and spend New Years Eve at Randy's home in Denver. We told him to go out and just pretend we weren't there but he decided to spend the evening with us. We wanted to get a head start on our drive the next day which would be a long 12 hours in the car from his house to Wichita Falls, and it was. If we had left from the mountains it would have been closer to 14 and you just never know what the weather conditions are going to be in the mountains.

Here is Houston, we spend New Year's Eve outside with our neighbors lighting fireworks and firepits. In Denver, or at least in Highlands Ranch where Randy lives, I didn't here a single firework. I guess the snow and really low temps kind of put a damper on that.

Here are a few more pics from our trip:

Shane and Jacob going up the gondola lift at Keystone....must be really cold to cover every inch of your body!

Jacob in the trees....his favorite place to ski

Jacob bundled up and ready to go

Bryce and Jacob hamming it up for the camera at Randy's on New Year's Eve

My boys

There are some more pics for me to share that are on my mom's camera. I believe I may be in one or two and will post those asap.

We made it home safely on Saturday. Jacob returns to school on Wednesday. I am trying to get Bryce back to some sort of schedule. He is very mobile now so baby proofing is high on my priority list. He started pulling up to his feet just this last week.

We realized that it may be a while before we get to go back to Summit County. Since our condo is sold, I told shane it would be better for him and Jacob to do some sort of package ski deal and check out some other ski areas as Bryce won't be skiing for a few years. Then, we can make it a family trip. We will really miss our home away from home :(

In 3 weeks, believe it or not, we are getting in the car and driving to Guthrie, OK, just north of Oklahoma City for the Sooner BMX Nationals. UGH, a 10 hour drive!!! I am tired of driving trips but looking forward to watching Shane and Jacob race.

Hugs to all,
The Cauley's

Christmas in Colorado

We left on Wednesday, the 23rd, and drove to Amarillo with my parents, where we spent the night. A major cold front blew through on the way there and we woke up to snow and ice on the ground. On Thursday, we drove to Denver to spend Christmas Eve with my brother Randy. On the way there, Shane was dodging big tumbleweeds flying across the interstate and watching out for ice patches on the road. We ate out at a mexican restaurant that night and had breakfast Christmas day out too. Then we headed up to the mountains.


You may remember how hard a time Bryce had with altitude sickness last summer. That is one of the reasons we drove and then spent a night in Denver, giving him even more time to acclimate. He did great with the exception of a head cold. I took him to the doctor once while we were there to make sure he didn't have a sinus infection or ear infection and his oxygen levels were great so what we did worked.


You may also remember that we sold our condo. This trip we rented a house through http://www.vrbo.com/. It was a beautiful home. Randy came up and spent time with us too. Shane and Jacob ski'd lots and my parents, Bryce and I hung out a lot at the house. Shane and I both came down with sinus infections, as did my dad, and got on abx on Saturday. I felt lots better after a couple of days and was able to enjoy the rest of the trip.

We ate at our favorite restaurants and just enjoyed the snow and the mountains. During the day the temp was usually in the teens or 20's. At night, it would get to around zero degrees or less. I was worried Jacob wouldn't be able to handle the cold temps on the mountain, but he did great. His skiing has improved a lot and he just about has paralleling down. The boys ski'd at Keystone all but one day, when they went to Breck to meet up with some friends of ours.

Here are some pics of our trip:

Randy and Jacob on the ski lift

Shane and Jacob eating lunch at the mountain house

Shane and Jacob's miniature snowman

Shane and Jacob on top of Keystone mountain...you can see Lake Dillon in the back ground

Mimi and Bryce...isn't he precious in his puppy dog hat????

One day, Shane and Jacob went to Breckenridge to ski with our friends, the Shui's. They spend 2 weeks every Christmas at Breck. I drove up with Bryce to meet them for dinner. We ate at a restaurant called Kenosha. It took me 1 hour 20 minutes to get there due to 2 car accidents and
just plain ole' traffic. It should have taken me just 20 minutes. I was a little frazzled when I got there to say the least.

Daniel, Valerie (Daniel's girlfriend) holding Bryce, Bingiee, Cara, Nike, Shane, Jacob and me

Christmas with the Cauley's

We celebrate Christmas with Shane's dad's side of the family the Sunday before Christmas. This year, we went to Shane's dad's house. We had great food, opened presents and spent time catching up with family. We look forward to this every year.

Here are some of the pictures that we took:

Nanny (Shane's grandmother) and Thomas (Shane's dad)

Aunt Christy (Shane's sister) and Bryce

Farrah and Tommy (Shane's brother)

Alicia, Dave, Chaz and Lynda....Alicia is Lynda's daughter, they live in Pensacola where Dave flies for the Navy(???).

This is Bryce's favorite position...on his side with his leg up

Shane cutting up the turkeys that he fried

Grandpa holding Chaz and Bryce

Jacob and Bryce with Caden who is 3 years old

Chaz, Jacob and Bryce....Chaz was born in March and is 2 months older than Bryce

Christmas Day...Lunch

For lunch on the 19th, we had a traditional Christmas meal. My parents came, Shane's mom and Rich came, Shane's Uncle Butch and Aunt Dee came and my cousin Elan, her 2 kiddos, Daniel and Joy, and my Aunt Mary came. You might remember that Joy was born just 3 days after Bryce. We love to get them together to see what they do and compare. Mostly they just looked at each other. Bryce likes to grab ears and he did this a few times to Joy.

We enjoyed our huge lunch and then opened some presents. Then we had dessert, of course :)

Here are some pics from that day:

Elan holding Joy, Mom (Mimi), Dad (PawPaw), Aunt Mary with Daniel, me holding Bryce, Shane, Uncle Butch, Aunt Dee with Jacob in front of her, Rich (Pop) and Gail (Nana)

Bryce has figured out that when the red light starts flashing on the camera, he is to smile. We love playing with him and the camera. He almost always smiles for that red light :)

Bryce and Joy....looks like Joy has something funny to tell Bryce

Daniel, Aunt Mary, Elan and Joy

Jacob and Daniel.....this Nerf toy has been a hit.

Bryce and Joy

Christmas Day

We left for CO on the 23rd, so we celebrated Christmas on Saturday, the 19th. We got up that morning and opened presents with the boys. It was just like any other Christmas day except that this Christmas was very special because Bryce was with us. It is so neat to be able to experience all of the baby first's again and opening presents is a big first.

We didn't want to set up our big 9 foot tree since we were going to be gone Christmas day so we borrowed my parents 3 foot tree and set it up on a table. The small tree took some getting used to in our big 2 story living room. The cats were still able to have some fun. and enjoyed taking naps underneath it and playing with the ornaments. UGH! I remember Boo climbing up inside the 9 foot tree last year and breaking many ornaments. It was nice to not have to mess with that this year. It was especially nice to not have to chase Bryce away from the tree constantly.

Jacob's big present from us was a boombox. Now I get to hear loud thumping coming from his room, which is above the kitchen. He loves to play his electronic drum set through the boombox. He also got some video games and movies and some other toys from us. Bryce got a ball popping toy and some stacking cups from us. We didn't spend too much on him as we knew family would and a 7 month old doesn't need too much.

As soon as presents were opened, we started preparing for our Christmas meal. Shane fried 2 turkeys and I cooked some sides.

Here are some pictures from our morning:

Jacob helped Bryce open his presents but all Bryce really cared about were the bows.

I know...we just coudn't resist putting the bow on his head :)

Two bows...he's really having fun now

Bryce and Sadie

Every year, Sadie gets a bone for Christmas. She expects it and will look through gift bags for it. I started hiding it a few years ago. She doesn't even chew on them much anymore but does look forward to her present.

Hurry up and unwrap that bone!

Jacob and Bryce

Jacob and Moose in front of the tree. Now you get the full effect :)

My Family

The last night we were there, we went to a mexican restaurant on the Arkansas River in Tulsa. It was great food and fun. The kids had Christmas themed balloon hats made for them as you can see in the picture below. We are so lucky to have such a great family. If only they lived closer. Love you guys!

Jacob, Zach and Sydni

Debbie and David Lee

Davena and Glenn

Me and Randy

The kids showing off their balloon hats

Everyone enjoyed getting to meet Bryce. He had a great time on the trip too and loved all the attention he got. Here are some pictures of him playing on the floor at Davena and Glenn's house:

More Grands

You might be wandering what I was doing with Bryce while at the Grands. Well, Shane and Jacob were busy most of the time with warming Jacob up to race, racing, etc. Bryce and I had a little area in the stands were we sat. We spent some time in our pit and some time just walking around looking at the vendors and such. Bryce is such a trooper at these events. There are so many people to look at and the races to watch. He never once complained of boredom or just being tired of being there. He was so good. I think he has just grown used to being at these events as he has been going to them since he was a couple of weeks old.

My family also came to watch the races a lot of the time. It was great to have them there and Jacob loved that they came to watch him. I loved having someone else to help me with Bryce and to give my back a break from holding him. When he was tired, he napped great in his stroller. Here are some pics of my family:

Uncle David Lee, Aunt Debbie, my brother Randy, Dad holding Bryce and Mom

Randy, Jacob and me

Here are some pics we took during some down time:

My three boys

Happy baby

Bryce and his daddy

The Grands

On Saturday, the national race started. This is a separate race than what we raced on Friday. This is the final national race of the year. Again, Jacob raced in 2 separate classes...mixed/open and class (see previous post for description). This time we did not miss any moto's:) On Saturday, the first 2 moto's were raced. Unfortunately, he did not qualify that day. On Sunday morning, he raced the third moto in both classes and qualified to move on.

Just to give you a perspective on how long our days were, there were about 350 motos for ROC on Friday and about 450 motos for the grands. It takes close to an hour to do 150 motos as long as they are running more than one moto on the track. Each race takes about 45 seconds. It goes fast but we did have some periods of waiting 2+ hours. Not to mention the fact that our days started very early. Sunday was different in that the races went so fast that Jacob barely had time to eat. After the third moto, there were quarter finals, semi finals and then the mains. Jacob made it to the quarter finals in his mixed/open class...again, a huge accomplishment. He made it to the semi finals in his class race but missed making it into the main by one place.

To tell you that Jacob handled not making it into the main well, well, I would be lying. Shane called me (I was in the stands) and asked me to come see Jacob. He was hysterical with anger, then crying, then anger. He felt like he had been cheated. He hadn't. It's just that racing the best means lots of hard, heavy competition involving elbows, knees and strategy. It took him about 30 minutes to settle down before we could all just take a deep breath and forget racing and enjoy the mains.

On our team, 4 people made it to the mains. Our best winner was a mom who races the 40-45 class and brought in a 2nd and 3rd place finish. I believe our team came in 11th out of 30+ teams. I hadn't expected the grands to be so tiring, so exciting and that they would make me so nervous. I was a wreck waiting for Jacob to qualify. There was one day were I couldn't even eat for 7 hours. I just wanted him to do his best and to be proud of himself, whether he made it into the mains or not. I think, in the end, that is what happened. He had a lot of fun and is proud of himself. Now he knows what he needs to work on to improve for next year. Tulsa, here we come again!!!

During our down time, there were lots of things to keep the kids busy. Below are some pictures of Jacob riding a big wheel and playing Rock Band:



Here are some pictures Shane took while he and Jacob were waiting to race:

Jacob and his friend Bryce waiting in the chute to get to the starting gate.

Jacob with Brad and Bryce Leach

Our teammates, Darren and his boys Blake and Rayne in back

Jacob ready to race