Thanks to everyone for the birthday cards. If you are interested in how the various family history books are coming along, I have been posting on

http://wehnerfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/
http://imlefamilyhistory.blogspot.com/
http://tapscottfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/

Jeff's Award

I know I don't write much on the family blog (only one other time, I think), but I just want to let everyone know about Jeff's national award. It is the National Science Foundation Early Career Award, that goes to young scientists. It comes with a large grant for Jeff's lab as well as a very prestigious honor. I found out he hadn't let many people outside of his professional area know about it. Although Jeff doesn't get too excited about too many things, I could tell over the phone that he was jumping up and down over this. I am, too, as a proud mama :)

Margaret

Thanksgiving Play

Lorelei Marie

Welcome Lorelei Marie Holtzinger
Born: September 8, 2009 2:25 a.m.
5 lbs 6 oz, 17 3/4 inches

Welcome Baby Maddie!!!

Congrats Kirsten and Scott on your new bundle of joy. We can't wait to meet her!

Summertime in Colorado

We had a pretty awesome hail storm about 10:30 last night. It woke me out of a dead sleep. It was still too dark this morning to see how much damage has been done to Josh's car and our house. The hail stones were about quarter sized.

Here is a picture I took at 6:30 this morning of our neighborhood (8 hours after the storm).

We Martins just got back from the Great Sand Dunes. I wish we could have stayed longer. It was a lot of fun! We camped at San Luis State Park with my childhood friend (Tina) and her family (Rob, Brayden-5 and Weston-2). I have great memories of The Great Sand Dunes from when I was 6 or so. What fun I had nearly 30 years later with my kids! Tug and Ty climbed a great big summit at the dunes. Ty is going camping again this coming weekend with Jim and Liz. They are going to a bison ranch! Ty will go camping AGAIN over 4th of July with Jim and Liz, to Chatfield. Ty is one heck of a camper! We are having loads of fun this summer! I hope all of you are also enjoying the summer!

Okay, I give

Okay, I give in. In order to not always be the last family member to know what is going on with all the others, I will join the Blog.

I'm going to little Lyle's 3-year-old birthday party, that will be held on Sun., June 28, four days after his actual birthday. He is really excited about having his two grandmothers and his great grandmother there. He told me over the phone that "Grandma Margaret, Grandma Gai, and Grandma Turner and Lyle will sleep in the grandma bed!" It's going to be a very cozy bed.

The week before, I will be camping for a week with a group from Colorado Trail Assoc. to work on the Co. Trail on Kenosha Pass. It will be fun but lots of work and very cold early in the morning. I think I will get dressed in my sleeping bag. The day after I get back from that trip, I will leave for Houston (Sat., June 27). Then, the Friday after I get back from Houston, Mary Anne and I will be leaving for Washington to ride bikes on the San Juan Islands. That is one of my favorite bike rides, partly because I love riding the ferry each morning to a different island. I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys bicycling and the great outdoors.

I am off work this summer and will start back Aug. 3, so I think the summer is going to go by awfully fast.

I will post more on here once I see that someone has gotten John to start posting (but will still check it regularly so I know what's going on). That is a challenge I give to all of you. Good Luck.

Auntie "M" and Grandma M (Same person--Margaret)

Josh and Sarah are having a.....

Girl!!! She is due September 30th.

early mother's day

On Thursday, Lyle brought home a present he made for me for Mother's Day. I told him we should wait to open it until Sunday, but he said, "It's Sunday! Open it!"

He was very excited to give it to me. The note on it had his handprints, which he kept pointing out. And he loves that it has his picture in the flower pot, although he says, "I was sad in the picture. Not happy. Sad." (This picture is one the teachers took back at the beginning of the year; I think this must have been just after I'd dropped him off one of those mornings, when he was still sad about me leaving.)

It's sitting in my kitchen window now.



Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms and moms-to-be!

Addie was baptized this past weekend! We want to thank Kirsten and Scott for coming into town for the ceremony and food filled celebration! We were also visited by Tug's sister, Anne Henley and his mom, Pamela. Also special thanks to grandma Liz for the BEAUTIFUL baptism dress! And just in case you all get the wrong idea from the picture here of Addie and Papa Jim, no, she is not a meek little butterfly...the next picture of Adds shows her true colors!

India Trip

Many of you may know that I should be leaving for India on April 12th. I'm traveling with some friends. We have created a blog for our trip. Will post when and where we can. Be back on May 6th. The blog's URL is www.philraine.blogspot.com

James.................................

20 Week Ultrasound

We just got back from our 20 week ultrasound. We're having a girl! She weighs 12 ounces and her heart rate came in at 145. Kirsten has been downgraded from high risk because everything is going so well. Just 20 or so weeks to go.

Loving the Snow!

Here is a picture of Tug and Ty enjoying some "down time." Down the hill, that is! And with a new dumping of snow every three days here in Denver Metro, I am sure you will see more action packed pictures like this soon!

Is this working?

Hello? Is this working? Hi, family. Took me a while, but here I am. I hope. What's new with the Martins? Ty turned 5 March 19th. He's a big frog now! We had a fun Star Wars party. We had about 14 kids over. I have a few gray hairs now. Addie is going to be baptized April 19th at St. Gregory's in Littleton. This is a somewhat new church for us and we really like it. I'll get some pictures up soon of these two monsters! Tug started with Dish Network last week. He knows all the deals! Unlike the Holtzingers, we are hoping to add some more walls to our first floor. Just kidding! We can't wait to see the results! Special thanks to Josh and Sarah for the oven! Love it! More info later!

grandma visits

Margaret is in town visiting us this week. Jeff and I are getting ready to take our first vacation alone since Lyle was born. This will be my first time ever to be away from Lyle overnight. Margaret is staying here with Lyle while we go to Vegas for 4 days. We're leaving Wednesday. I am excited and a little nervous.

Here are a couple pictures from our week so far.

We'll Catch on to this Blogging Biz

Some of us are a little slow, and still trying to figure out how to use this Blog business, but we do enjoy reading and seeing other postings.
Russ and I returned from our wonderful "annual" Barbados month the 9th of March, and already scheduled for next year. When I figure out how to post pictures, I'll do that.
Keep sending information - we do enjoy reading and seeing what's going on. - Mary Anne

Countdown to cabinets!

Alright, I thought I would give you all what two weeks of kitchen progress looks like. Don't worry we will be painting.

New garage door entry (near the front door)


New stairway under the window in the old living room.

Patched up old door way, and old stairs location.

Not much changed here, except no more walls and no more fireplace stoop.

Looking down new stairs (actually relocated old stairs)

Here is the new framing for the new location for the old stairs.


In the next few days we should have the flooring complete, and then the cabinets will be here on Friday, with installation to start next week. Hopefully by the end of April I will be able to show you all our new kitchen.

NEW ADDITION! (and no it isn't to the house)

We didn't know it but Jack must have asked Santa for a sibling. Although Santa was a few weeks late, we did find out that Jack got his wish. Meet baby Polly (the parasite)....to be added to the Holtzinger household Sept. 30. Hopefully it will also have a new kitchen!

quick trip to boston

Does anyone besides Josh, Sarah, Kirsten, and Scott read this thing?

Last week our little family went up to Boston for a quick trip. Jeff had a conference there, and Lyle and I decided to come along since I hadn't been back there since we moved away back in 2005. We had some airline snafus that delayed our arrival by 2 days, but we finally got there. It was cold (although apparently had been nice and in the 50s the week before and again the day after we left--of course!) and stayed below freezing the whole time we were there. Which is fine with ME but Lyle wasn't really a fan. He did a good job, though, and he didn't complain too much when we were outside.

A couple pictures. Probably Lyle's favorite part was just playing in the hotel room.


And we found this amazing climbing structure at the Children's Museum. It was so cool. Adults could climb on it, too.



Enjoying a cheese burrito on the flight home.

Kitchen remodel Week 1.

I won't inundate everyone with a lot of photos, but I thought you might like to see the destruction that occurred here during this past week, with some before and after photos:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Oh, and we had to take out the tile we worked hard to put in a few years back in order to make the floor flow the best. However, we put the sub-floor down too well, so our contractor had to cut it out, down to the floor joists.

We will post more when things look a little more appealing. Maybe when we have new stairs.

The Kitchen of our Dreams.

After a long courtship, with many false alarms, our contractor called tonight to let us know that he will be coming over tomorrow to start some of the demo for our kitchen restructuring. Yes, you read that word correctly, we have decided to change the layout of our kitchen, and tomorrow the long awaited start day finally arrives. We will keep you updated on the progress, but to give you a little snack, below is a couple of before and after snapshots of the plans...



Current kitchen:
SW VIEW:



NE VIEW:




And the future we hope comes sooner than later:
New SW VIEW

Of course we will keep you informed of all the major developments.

The Rocky says goodbye!

Well, for those of you who still live in Colorado, and for those who have in the past, Friday the 27th of February marked the last publication of the Rocky Mountain News. After 150 years the newspaper couldn't compete anymore, and had to shut it's doors. Obviously the times are changing! I thought I would post a video from the Rocky Mountain News website about their last month in business, and some of the people you may have read in the past.


Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo

PeePee in the Potty

We had quite a milestone happen in the Holtzinger household yesterday. I picked Jack up from daycare and noticed a new notation on his daily report card "PP". Humph, I thought, what in the world does that mean? I went to say hello to his teacher and she said,

"We are going to start putting Jack on the potty before every diaper change."

WHAT???!!!

"My kid can't even say potty", I incredulously exclaimed.

"Well, we put him on the potty today and he went, so he is ready" she said with authority.

"Huh" I said, "I guess I had better buy a potty for home."

And off we went. I am so depressed. This is the end of the baby stage and the beginning of the preschooler. How did this happen so fast?

shabbat

Lyle's preschool (which is Jewish) had a VIP shabbat today. They celebrate shabbat every Friday, but this week parents were invited to join. Here are a few pictures from this morning's shabbat in his class.




We blessed and ate the challah in his classroom, and then did a parent/child art project, drawing on a placemat. Then we went into the hallway with the other two-year-old classes to sing songs.

12 Week Ultrasound

At the risk of TMI we thought we'd post a short video of our 12 week ultrasound. Yup looks like I'll be "that" kind of dad.

cookies!

Here's a short video of Lyle telling me we need to buy more cookies because we're out.

article about Jeff

Here's an article about Jeff published by Rice. Check it out!

Rice article about Jeff and his lab

Stylin'

I *FINALLY* got Jack to wear his sunglasses. It only took almost two years:)

xmas photos

Hi people...thanks to Josh for setting this up. Are people actually reading it? :)

I put these up on Facebook already but for those not over there, I'll post a couple of my xmas photos here.








Hmm...seems to be a limit to how many pics I can post.

Christmas Photo

Photo by Scott LaBlanc

Out of the bunch this one seems to be the best combination of lighting and people smiling. I uploaded the full sized photo, so to get a copy all you need to do is click on the photo, right mouse click and choose 'save image as' . I'm still sorting through all of the other photos from Christmas, about 600 of them, when but as soon as I'm done I'm thinking of putting together a slideshow that I can post here as well. Hope everyone is doing well, talk to you later.

Denver Zoo Visit

Thursday was an absolutely glorious day in Denver. High's in the 60's so Jack and I went for a playdate at the zoo with our friends Brandi and Mikey.

Doesn't he look thrilled!

The Tapscott family blog! I have to admit that this was not my idea. Sarah's family has been doing something similar for the past 9 months or so, and I thought that we could also benefit from having our own family blog. Please fee free to contibute pics, thoughts, videos, statments or rants, and anything else that you may feel the family will find interesting, or that you just want the family to know about. Remember, there is no format for what you would like to contribute. Some may just want to read, while others may publish pics daily (Karen). I hope you all take the time to contribute and comment as often as you like, and thank you for participating.

Josh