My Photos

Madeline’s First Day of Preschool

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:07:11 -0600

Yes, she’s getting to be a big girl now! Madeline was really psyched to get to her new school.

I’ve uploaded a new gallery and a short movie. Enjoy!

Love,
The Brewers

Our New Obsession

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 22:48:31 -0600

We’ve picked up a new hobby for the family in the past week. Its called geocaching and its some of the greatest family fun we’ve had since moving to Colorado.

The idea behind geocaching is akin to hunting treasure. Using a GPS receiver with a preset bunch of coordinates, we find caches. Now, this may sound a bit weird, but trust us, its fun! Each cache is different - it can be anything from a film canister (you remember those, right?) to an ammo container. The one the kids are holding above looks like a pipe bomb, but really isn’t. Inside the cache there are either lots of goodies and/or a log book. The kids know that whatever they take out they have to put something new in. Today we traded a Hello Kitty doll and Matchbox car for a bendable figure and a dinosaur.

There are many benefits to caching. First and foremost, we spend a good deal of family time together. Second, we walk. A lot. We’ve probably logged 10+ miles in the first week. (Keep in mind this is all of us, including the dog, Stella.)

Most of the caches are easily accessible, meaning they are usually a few to a hundred feet off a well-trodden trail. So far we’ve found 6 caches, most of them within a mile of our house! In fact, there are over 400 within an 8 mile radius of our house. We plan on going out tonight to find a couple more.

Speaking of, pray for us. Sarah has gone back to Columbus to help with her Mom, Pat, who had a major stroke last week. This means that the kids are home with Dad all week.

Pray for Pat and Rob, also. Thank God Pat made it to the hospital early enough that they could reverse most of the effects of the stroke. So far she is responding very well.

Other things happening... Well, we are now part of an orginization called Gold Ribbon Families. We, along with another family, the Hayes family, decided to put together a support organization to support families who have also been hit with pediatric cancer. Check out our website here. We are just starting, so keep tuned. If you have been, or know anyone, who is dealing with pediatric cancer in there immediate family, send them to our site.

That’s all we have for now.

Love to all,
The Brewers

Meet Stella...

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:59:55 -0600

Well, we finally did it... We added a new member to our family this past weekend. After some consideration and much discussion we decided to take a trip to the Aurora Animal Shelter and ‘look’ at the dogs that needed homes. We initially thought it would be an information only trip, but after meeting with Stella (and her cage-partner) we were enchanted. Stella is a boxer-mix and is approximately two years old. She and Gandalf, a german-shepherd mix, were caught running the streets together, hence the reason they were caged together. Gandalf was a not well-trained but Stella, we could tell, had already been trained. She had even been spayed and chipped, though the chip was registered to a chihuahua in Arizona.

The kids love her and that may be an understatement. We took a trip to Ben’s school tonight to review the curriculum for first grade and all he’s written about the first two weeks is Stella!

So, next time you visit with us, be prepared to meet the new member of our family...

Love to all,
The Brewers

All clear and six years...

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 05:39:56 -0600

For those of you who didn’t know it, Ben had scans last week. Many thanks to all of you for your prayers. We know God is doing his work with Ben and keeping him healthy. Now, if only He could do something about that attitude...

Speaking of attitude, Ben turns 6 this month. That means he’s reached two years NED! We met with Dr. Greffe on Friday and he said everything is good. He also said that for Ben’s next set of scans he’d be able to skip the bone scan, since the MIBG picks up the disease just as well.

We celebrated his 6th birthday a bit early. Ben wanted a pirate-theme party this year so we tried our best to make it so. He had about 10 friends over from school and they enjoyed the party a lot! (Especially Pie the Pirate!) Take a look at the new gallery we put up.

We also had Aunt Patty and Uncle Darrell, a.k.a. Unkie, in town this weekend! We all took a day trip up to Breckenridge to explore the area again. They had their annual Kingdom days so we were able to partake in the festivities. Once again, take a look at the new gallery.

Until next time, love to all.

The Brewers

Summer is here...

Sun, 3 Jun 2007 19:49:55 -0600

Well, sort of. The weather has been just about perfect the last couple of weekends and we’ve taken advantage of it as much as possible. Last week we took the canoe out for the first time to Aurora Reservoir. This is a nice lake-sized reservoir about 5 miles east of our house and it was picture perfect. (We even took some pictures, so check out the new gallery.) There was no wind and they don’t allow gas-powered boats on the water, so we were able to paddle across and back with ease.

This weekend we took the time to go up to visit some dear friends of ours, Gil and Susan Smith, aka Papa Gil and Mama Susan. Along the way we stopped in Idaho Springs for our favorite pizza, Beau Jo’s. For those that haven’t had a chance to experience this pizza, you’re missing out on something good. For those of you who plan to visit us or other friends out here in Colorado, its worth the trip. Unfortunately, we had too much cheesy garlic bread to start the meal so we had to take some of the pizza out in a box... Fortunately, it didn’t last until we got home. Ben and Madeline both scarfed it up before we even got back to Denver!

We also got to see a herd of male mountain goats. This was pretty cool because, as I’ve been told, the males usually don’t come near human areas. We got some good pics of them, too.

Ben’s scan are next week. This is, as most of you know, a time of anxiety around our household. Please keep us all, especially Ben, in your prayers. I know he’s going to come through this with negative results, at least I pray he does, but it still trying...

One more thing: We’re finishing our basement so we have a place for future guests to sleep in peace. This is a slow process since we have taken on the most of the building ourselves. We did break down and hire a framer, which made the job go much quicker. One word to the wise: Always make sure the wire you’re cutting is really the dead wire and not the live one to the garage... Thank God for rubber handled pliers!

Thats all the news I have for now. Sarah will no doubt have more to post during scan-week.

Love to all,
The Brewers