The Paladinos

Colorado

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 13:00:53 -1100

We just got back from our October break vacation to Colorado. It was our first time there and we loved it. Such a beautiful state! Or at least it is once you get to the mountains. The area close to Kansas, not so much. Sorry Kanorado folks!

Much like last year I waited till the last minute to plan this trip. Like the Tuesday before we left last minute. For some reason I have an aversion to vacation planning. We started out in Grand Lake which is a sleepy little picturesque mountain town. We soon discovered that fall is not really the season for Colorado, specifically Grand Lake. Summer and Winter are their seasons and they kind of shut down in the fall. But we wanted a relaxing trip away from everything so that suited us just fine!

We rented a small cabin/house with a view over Grand Lake. During the day we hiked and explored the Rocky Mountain National Park or hung out in town. At night we would drive around looking for elk which Michael and I never got tired of. The kids got a little bored with it though. And yes, I know that we have elk available about 2 hours from here but it’s way more interesting in Colorado for some reason.

After 3 days there we drove across the mountains to Estes Park. Like literally across the top of the Rocky Mountains. I could barely stand to look out the window sometimes we were so high. Estes Park was a welcome sight after crossing the “frozen tundra.” Yikes! It was much more populated than Grand Lake and more tourist oriented I would say. Elk were everywhere! We saw a huge bull right outside someone’s condo. All over the golf course. Everywhere! As we were watching them on the golf course we met an interesting character. Gary August, who is a famous “artist to the stars” and Johnny Depp’s uncle. He had all kinds of interesting stories about his life. In addition to being an artist he helped design sets for Pirates of the Caribbean, was on a PBS show for years about people with disabilities because he had polio, and was an orphan in China. Very nice and very interesting guy!

From there we went to Colorado Springs. We visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and Garden of the Gods. The kids loved the zoo which was very interactive and let you feed and pet giraffes, as well as birds and lizards. Garden of the Gods was beautiful! Who knew huge orange rock formations could be so interesting.

Grand Lake

Our fox friend who welcomed us to the cabin and came to say goodbye the last day.

My favorite place and one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It was just a quick walk from one of the local waterfalls. You walked out of the trees to this amazing landscape.

Darn camera focused on the mountains instead of us (but I guess who can blame it).

Buddy the Elk. He was the first elk that we saw and we had been driving around for a while looking. We pulled up to a park entrance to sit for a minute and no sooner than the words “I guess we’re not going to see any elk” were out of our mouth we looked over to see this guy standing a few feet from our car. Oops! We found him the second night we went looking too. He was easy to spot because of his missing antlers.
We tried to get another family pic here with no better luck on the focus. Oh well!

Can you spot Michael?

These two are views from the top of one of the mountains on our scary drive. Doesn’t even come close to capturing it.

Estes Park

Colorado Springs

Real or not?

Love the look on his face! He had just gotten the bird to land on his stick for the first time.

Double fisting some parakeets. This small, confining, claustrophobic room was terrifying for me. I DON’T LIKE BIRDS! I didn’t last long in here and had to keep yelling at the kids “don’t come close to mommy, don’t come close to mommy.”

This bear was so funny to watch. Peter captured this pic of him underwater.

Here chicky chicky!

Garden of the Gods

This captures the size of the rocks well. The little dot in the middle is a rock climber. Ummm, no thank you!

And that concludes our trip to Colorado. Well, not quite actually. On our way back across the wastelands of Kansas, after dark, in the middle of nowhere, we hit a deer. Thankfully it was a relatively small deer and the car was still drivable. But it definitely left it’s mark and we’ll have to have some front end work done but we were very thankful no one was hurt (other than Bambi of course). From now on, I think we’ll fly to Colorado instead.

October Break!!

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 12:45:13 -1100

It’s that time of year again. Time for our year round school October break. Yay!!! This is my favorite time of the year, break included. We’re definitely ready for a relaxed schedule, cooler temps and a VACATION! Last year we visited Gatlinburg, TN and loved it! We had so much fun stopping along the way and the mountains were amazing. They made our mountains seem like bumps. This year we’re heading to Colorado for the first time. I know, I know! We’re the only people left in the world who haven’t been there before. We’re starting off in Grand Lakes and possibly ending up in Colorado Springs. But that’s still up for debate. We literally just put things together this week so we’re a little fly by the seat of our pants for this trip. Aaaand we leave on Saturday. Nothing like procrastination!

I never took the time to blog about our trip last year so I thought I would do that now before we leave for our next trip. Don’t worry, that makes total sense. Prepare for picture overload.

We started our stay at this beautiful cabin. It opened up to the most amazing views from the back. And it had a cool loft or “death trap” as I began to call it where the kids stayed. The ladder was super steep and Peter was in a sleep walk stage when we went. Not a good combo. So every night we would pile things in front of the entrance to block him.

Panoramic sunrise from our deck. The sunrise’s were amazing. It took so long for the sun to finally come up over those huge mountains.

Time lapse video of a sunrise.

It’s hard to tell what’s going on here but I had to capture how Michael got the time lapse video. It’s a cell phone on top of a shoe on top of a table on top of a stool on top of another shoe. But it worked! This cracks me up!!

Literally smokey mountains.

Before we left we found the cabin and a very cool old schoolhouse that was over 100 years old and had been renovated into a house. We couldn’t decide which one to stay at so we booked a few nights at both and moved half way through the trip.

Very cute, right? Adorable even. Unless you have to stay there!! It was the creepiest place EVER! It felt like we were staying at our grandmas house but didn’t know our grandma. And it didn’t help that the first night there we were woken up at 3:00 am by a rolling sound outside on the deck. Back and forth rolling sound right behind where Peter was sleeping. What in the world!? Let’s just say I didn’t get much sleeping done on this trip. Michael at least waited until we were pulling out of the driveway to tell me that there were 2 people buried behind the house somewhere in an old cemetery. Yikes!

Still cute, but wait for it.

Wait for it…

There it is. Creepy hat wall!

Creepy hole in the ceiling.

Creepy ribbon mannequin. I don’t even know!?

Creepy clock!

Ok, back to cute.

So this year, we’re keeping it mainstream and steering clear of any creepy or even slightly outdated places.

Time lapse video of the fog at the base of the mountains in the morning at the schoolhouse.

The aquarium in Gatlinburg was great! One of the kids favorite things.

This was just a place off the side of the road on the way up the mountain but was beautiful! The landscape in TN is just so different and one of the things we loved.

That’s North Carolina in the background.

This was at the highest peak of the mountain. The landscape there was totally different. Very sparse and the trees were all evergreens.

On our way back down the mountain we saw our first bear. It’s that vague black shape in the middle of the pic. You could always tell there was a bear sighting because there would be a line of cars pulled to the side of the road.

Deer were definitely plentiful and we saw 4 bucks walking just off the side of the road in one of the parks. They paid no attention to us and got within a few feet of us. Beautiful!

Gabby’s first time on a big horse. She loved it!

Peter of course wanted nothing to do with it so we took a carriage ride.
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Our second bear sighting. A momma and baby were romping through the forest just off the road.

We pulled off the side of the road just down the hill from the bears and were throwing rocks in this river when we noticed 2 otters swimming upstream. They played and swam for the longest time. So neat to watch them just out in the wild!

This was our last hike of the trip and one of our favorite places. It was so beautiful and just unbelievable.

Wild turkeys off the side of the road.

We’re looking forward to new adventures this year!

Back to School!

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 11:49:13 -1100

Next up, Back to School! The kids started back 2 weeks ago since they’re in year round school. We start earlier and stay later but we like the schedule with the 2 week Oct and May breaks. Gabby is a big time 3rd grader now and my baby Peter is a 1st grader. And I still want to scream NOOOO every time I say that.

Gabby girl is doing great in 3rd grade. Or at least the portion that she’s been there after that pesky little walking pneumonia episode. Her teacher is Mrs. Clark and we LOVE her so far. She’s very upbeat and fun but also structured and organized. Just right for our little perfectionist (what can I say, she get’s it honest!). And this girl is so ready to be a big girl. She’s outgrown silly things like princesses, backpacks and children’s menus. It’s all about Disney Descendants (if you haven’t heard of it, Gabby can tell you ALL about it), non cartoon tween shows, messenger bags, and ordering $8 adult food. Where did my little girl go?

Peter on the other hand is not loving 1st grade so far. He has Mrs. Brazzeal and she also seems very organized and structured which is what Peter needs to help him stay on track. But he gets very nervous and stressed every morning and even the night before and always asks not to go. He just told me at the end of last week that he has been crying “a little” every day at school when he starts his work. He thinks that it’s too hard and I think that he is afraid to ask his teacher questions. But he came home last Thursday and Friday and said that they were the best days yet and he didn’t cry at all. It breaks my heart to know that he’s going to school anxious and upset but we’re working through it with him slowly and surely and trying to encourage him as much as possible. I think that he’ll outgrow it as he gets more confident with what he can do and everything isn’t so new.

He was excited to get a desk this year instead of being at a table.

Country Stanley Paladino

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 07:36:35 -1100

I’m a little behind on the last couple of weeks but better late than never. I think just about everyone knows about our most recent family addition but I’ll still document it here for memories sake.

We’ve been talking about getting another dog for a couple of years but I keep putting the brakes on it because I just wasn’t ready for that responsibility again. But I finally gave in and told a very happy family that I was ready. Around 2 years ago we saw a greyhound at a neighborhood block party and loved it. Michael started researching them and convinced me that was the dog for us. They’re beautiful, well mannered, don’t bark, are crate trained, usually house trained, not a lot of health problems and they only have energy in short spurts. Otherwise they just lay around for the most part. That’s our kind of dog!

We started researching where to adopt greyhounds and found a shelter in Springfield. We’ve been looking at the adoptable dogs for years but again, mommy just wasn’t ready. So when I finally gave the all clear we had to fill out an application, have a home inspection/interview process (including personal references) and FINALLY pick out our new dog. Not a quick process but our boy was so worth the wait.

The weekend before school started we drove to Silver Dollar City for one more hoorah and stayed over in Springfield so we could visit the dogs the next day. We were going to see 3 dogs, Judy, Petals and Cher. She also told me that she was getting another dog that week but didn’t know the details yet. We had looked at each of the dogs pictures, read their descriptions over and over as well as talked to the shelter director about them. We met Cher on Friday morning before SDC because she was staying in a different home and fell in love. She was very shy and hesitant but so sweet. She had not been a racer so she hadn’t been been given the best care. And then we saw our Stan man on Saturday and fell in love with him too. He was so beautiful and easy going and HUGE. She had 10 greyhounds there and he was the biggest one. We talked it over and decided that Stanley would just be a better fit for us and might have an easier transition than Cher. So we loaded him up in the back which was no easy feat for an 80 lb dog that doesn’t know how to ride in a car. It was very odd leaving with a dog that we didn’t know anything about when we had spent so much time dreaming about the other dogs. But it didn’t take us long to fall in love with our big boy. He spent most of the first day in his kennel, wary of us and our crazy kids. But by the second day he was comfortable in his bed sleeping most of the day.

He’s raced in 75 races and won 13 of those. His racing name was Country Stanley and his brother, Country Sammy is still racing. The foster home we went through, www.gpamo.com, also adopted out his mom a few years ago and remembered her as a sweet lovable girl. We couldn’t find pictures of his mom but he looks exactly like his maternal grandpa and great grandpa. Right down to the white patch on his chest.

Stanley is adjusting to being a house dog quite nicely. He gets up a little early for us and is ready to go at 6:00 every morning. And he’s definitely a morning dog. He goes outside then comes in ready to play. So far that’s included playing with my bedroom curtains, pillows off the bed and a pair of pants I left out. Not to mention his other favorite pastime of raiding the kids rooms of stuffed animals and pillows. But after he’s had his breakfast he retires to his bed for most of the day. He LOVES to eat! He has playful spurts with us outside where he can run. We still need to take him to the dog park to really let him run but it’s been a little too warm. He gets hot and gives out very easily. He loves attention and is so gentle with everyone. We took him to the square Friday night and he did so good. He never showed his stress and met lots of new people. The only problems we’re having is getting him to walk on tile/wood floors. He does NOT like those and slips and slides everywhere. And he is just about impossible to get in the car. It’s a 2 person job so no quick rides to school for this boy. And it’s been an interesting adjustment to go from a 3 lb Chihuahua to an 80 lb small horse. Everything is just so big! But that’s what we wanted and Michael is so proud to have such a manly dog after having our little girly girl Ellie. Stanley has been a gentle, sweet, loving addition to our family!

One of Stanley’s races before he retired. He’s the one in front!

Look at those muscles!

This is his “I hear you but I’m not worried about it” look.

Just watching a plane go by.

Peter was doing a little morning “fishing” and caught more than he bargained for.

Happy 6th Birthday Peter!

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 11:50:03 -1100

How in the world did my sweet baby boy turn 6 today?! He completed our little family 6 years ago and still lights up our world with his smile and sweet spirit. He’s loving, thoughtful of others, smart, funny, loves Chick-fil-a, watermelon, his mama and Hot Wheels. Happy Birthday Peter Michael Paladino!

Birthday lunch at Chick-Fil-A today.

Memorial Day

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Tue, 26 May 2015 05:18:51 -1100

We decided to spend the last day of our long weekend hiking to a few waterfalls. Along the way we went past Terra Studios, home of the Bluebird of Happiness, and had to stop. It’s definitely an interesting place with little gnomes or dragons, etc popping out of random little places. We got to see one of the artists making bluebirds and of course the kids had to each bring one home.

To get to the waterfalls we were following directions from a Tim Ernst book. We were planning on hitting a few “easy” ones along the road and started with the Kings River Falls outside of Boston, AR. Our first clue that something might be off about this spot should have been all the cars. But it was 4 miles down a dirt road so we figured the falls really must have been worth seeing if that many cars were there. The trail was pretty water logged after all the rain we’ve had but we finally made our way down the river after about an hour of walking. And we found…lots of drunk college kids complete with a pile of jello shot cups and empty beer bottles. Not quite what we expected but we hung out for a while then walked back. By the time we made it back out we were hot, grumpy and Peter went home pantless after walking back straight through the puddles and finally falling in one. So no more waterfalls for us. But still a memorable day!

Making their way through the Labyrinth.

First one out of the maze complete with a winners pose.

Daddy “got lost” in the maze and had to be led out.

Love this little man and his smile!

Kings River Falls and our new friends.

This kid was in his happy place with unlimited rocks to throw in the water.

Prairie Grove Battlefield

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Sat, 23 May 2015 11:01:09 -1100

I won’t even mention how long its been since my last blog post. This week Gabby was assigned an Arkansas diorama project. She decided to go with one of our local battlefields and we settled on Prairie Grove. It’s beautiful and one of the most intact Civil War battlefields in the nation. You can do some walk through and some drive through with a narrative cd. The grounds are so beautiful and well maintained. We need to plan on going back in the fall when the apple orchard is open (which is original to the site) and you can pick apples.

After our tour we made a stop at The Briar Rose in Farmington. It was the cutest bakery/café with a Sleeping Beauty theme. Wood fire pizzas, sandwiches, espresso and amazing baked goodies. That’s my kinda place!!

The ridge where most of the battle was fought.

The house in the background is right behind the ridge with the apple orchard right behind it. Both are original to the site.

Looking for a geo cache that we never found.

My loves!

Briar Rose in Farmington

Complete with working mini cottage door.

Vacation! Roadtrip…

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 09:10:42 -1100

The kids are currently out on their 2 week Fall break for our year round school. To me this is the biggest perk of year round school. It’s my favorite month of the year with beautiful weather, changing trees and fall clothes (aka no more shorts weather!!). And a great time of year to take a vacation. I’ve been telling Michael that we need to go somewhere during the fall break for about a year. BUT I hate planning vacations. I don’t know why but I put it off as long as possible. Which this year was literally the week before we left. We knew we wanted to go somewhere outdoorsy where we could enjoy the fall foliage and see some out of the norm wildlife. So I asked some girlfriends for recommendations and one suggested Gatlinburg. So off we went!

It’s a 12 hour drive which we broke up into 2 days. By far the longest road trip we’ve ever taken. We went the scenic route which again was decided the night before with little research or thought. It ended up working out perfectly though. We stopped when we wanted to or needed to and just took our time.

When we crossed the TN border we saw a sign for Patti’s 1880’s Settlement and thought we would pull off and check it out. It ended up being the cutest/oddest little village and we stayed for a few hours. They had antique stores, a boutique, mini zoo, a few other shops and an amazing restaurant with huge meringue pies. One of my favorite desserts!! It was a great start to our vacation!

A little harbor across the street.

Mmmm!

Happy Halloween!

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 11:41:43 -1100

Elsa from Frozen and Peter the construction worker (complete with a MOM tat!)

And this year we added a third trick or treater with construction worker Daddy! Thanks Papa Mike for letting us borrow the gear.

Gabby’s Baptism

admin.nospam@nospam.duffeysales.com (lespaladino) — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 10:25:38 -1100

I’m a few weeks late on this one but definitely didn’t want to skip an update on it. Our Gabby girl was baptized a few weeks ago on October 12th! She’s been talking about giving her life to Christ for a while. But Michael and I kept encouraging her to wait just to make sure that she understood the decision she was making. We didn’t want her to have any doubt about her salvation later. After church camp this year she asked again and we felt like she understood what she was doing. So she prayed and gave her life to Jesus on June 27th! Such an amazing time as a parent to see our prayers answered for our baby girl. Prayers continue as she grows in her faith and relationship with our Savior.

Gabby’s BFF who was also baptized that day

No celebration would be complete without cake and presents!