A Year in Review

It's that time of year again when we have the wonderful opportunity to play "catch up" with family & friends that we don't get to socialize with regularly. This year's Christmas newsletter was more of a thoughtful piece on my part, but I know how many of you love the "year in review" format of past newsletters... so here you go! Enjoy the slideshow, then read on for the details.



MILESTONES REACHED THIS YEAR:

• Audrey & Claire complete their first season of Snowburners Ski School & act like they own the mountain now! They also began dance lessons for the first time: Thanks to a gift from Grandpa Ralph, both took ballet this fall.
  
• Claire graduated from preschool at St. Columba & officially became an elementary school student this fall. She also learned to ride her bike "two wheels" and races with all the neighborhood kids now.
  
• Elise turned 1 in May after starting to walk about a month earlier and hasn't stopped moving since.
• We moved AGAIN, but this time just across town to a beautiful place in the McKinnises neighborhood, so now we're a snowball's throw away from our best buds.
• My Mary Kay team and I earned our THIRD company car, and this time Kenny & I decided to take the actual car instead of monthly cash compensation. We received our new black Saturn Vue in November & we love it! I also became a Senior Sales Director this year thanks to my new offspring Sales Director, the lovely Layla Bauder of Portland, OR.
• Kenny trained for the Iron Horse Classic with biking bud Darren McKinnis, but it was snowed out for the first time ever! Maybe next year... When he wasn't busy riding his bike, fly fishing, or cooking a fabulous dinner for us, he was on road for Toray -- having his busiest travel year ever!

TRAVELS TO TELL ABOUT:

• We visited my sister Carol in Vail in March on a roadtrip that included a stop in Denver for my Mary Kay regional conference. We had perfect ski weather while in Vail & despite the odds, we had clear skies on the drive to and from Denver -- phew! Kenny & the girls visited the Denver Zoo while I attended the conference, and we did some much-needed shopping at Cherry Creek Mall while we had the chance.
• Grandpa Ralph (my Dad) gave us the wonderful summer surprise of renting us a van to drive to California in late July. While there, we stayed with my Grandma Marel in her new Long Beach condo and visited with family & friends -- including my life-long friends Melodee & Bliss. We spent a day at Disneyland -- a must for a family with three girls -- as well as enjoying the Long Beach Aquarium, swimming at Grandpa Ralph & family friend Gloria's houses, and stopping at the Grand Canyon on the way home!
• This Thanksgiving, we were blessed with the opportunity to drive to Oklahoma in the new Saturn Vue to visit with Kenny's immediate family. We stayed just outside Tulsa in Sand Springs at Kenny's sister Rosanna's brand new home, which became "cousin central" for the weekend. Between Kenny & his two sisters, there are nine granddaughters and one grandson for his parents Dean & Karen, and they went into non-stop play mode: enjoying the trampoline, the huge grassy yard, and the entertainment room! It was also nice to see his sister Elizabeth's newest addition -- six-month old Cadence Grace -- while she's still crawing around like a baby.
• As previously mentioned, Kenny had a busy year traveling for Toray. Most were to his usual stops of San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver B.C., Salt Lake City, Denver (& the mountain towns of Aspen & Steamboat Springs), Montana, Wyoming, & Wisconsin to visit Land's End. But he did get to go to New York a couple of times too & work with his home office team, which he doesn't always get to do.
• I traveled a bit this year as well for my Mary Kay business, flying out to Portland twice to debut my new Sales Director Layla in May & to work with new Star Recruiter Carie Green in November, and flying to Kalispel, Montana to work with on-target Star Recruiter Svetlana Sheifer & her growing team. It was my first time in Montana and I was really impressed with Kalispel's natural beauty. I also flew to Dallas for our yearly Seminar, which is such a fabulous event that it makes up for the unbearable heat!
• On the agenda: Another trip to Cali for Christmas! We look forward to spending the holidays with family & friends this year now that we have a reliable & roomy car to get us there. Let's hope the snow holds off for a bit longer!
  

WELCOMING VISITORS:

• Our first houseguest of the year was Grandpa Ralph, who flew in to celebrate Elise's first birthday with us in May. Because he's such a history buff, we visited the Animas Museum while he was in town and learned a lot of cool facts about Durango's century-plus history. We also enjoyed swimming in the hotel pool a few times!
• Kicking off summer vacation with the Gotcher Sr's & the Eklunds was a blast. Kenny's parents came to visit just a week after we moved into our new place in Edgemont Ranch, joined soon after by my sister Cristina & her family (husband Jeremy, 2 1/2 year old son Elijah, and new baby girl Ariel, born in April). We had a great time making home-made pizzas with Grandpa Dean, watching the Durango Railroad come into town, and enjoying summer activities up at Durango Mountain Resort such as the Alpine Slide, scenic view chairlift, and bungee bouncing in the Village.
• My sister Carol & her fiance Chris came to visit us at the end of the summer, and we made our last trip up to DMR for summer fun before the season ended. They will be getting married in Vail next June!
• My mom (Grandma Yolanda) came to visit us in November & got to spend over a week hanging out with the girls & helping us get organized in our new house.
  

This year was eventful and memorable! We feel extremely blessed to be living in Durango and enjoying quality time with the girls & the outdoors while we both work from home. We are so thankful for the family who came to visit us this year, as well as those who hosted us on our travels. Keep in touch and know that our door is always open if you'd like to visit us next year! And my New Year's resolution is to keep up with this blog much better next year so that you can always find out what's new by stopping in for a virtual visit.

Love & hugs,
Renee & the Gotcher Family

A Fabulous Fall

Yes, the blog is back! Just so you don't think I'm getting lazy about keeping up, I will explain that we bought a new digital camera this summer that I was unable to download to my laptop because of lack of hard drive space... big bummer! So I finally got around to getting CDs made of all 900+ pics on our new camera taken since July and can upload them to our blog... phew! Dealing with my hard drive space issue is now shelved for the moment.

We just returned from a great family road trip to visit Kenny's family in Oklahoma (Sand Springs to be exact) for a memorable Thanksgiving with his parents, two sisters & their families -- a total of nine girls & just one boy make up the Gotcher cousins roster! We had an amazing time and I will be posting more details on that soon. In the meantime, here's an album of Fall's favorite photos so far -- enjoy!

We're unpacked: Unveiling the new house

With family due to arrive just a week after we moved in, we got right down to the business of unpacking boxes and even trying to do a little decorating at our new house in the scenic mountain neighborhood of Edgemont Ranch in Durango. Here is our own "virtual tour" of our new place.

Stay tuned for more tales of the fun adventures we had with the Gotchers (Kenny's parents Dean & Karen) and the Eklunds (Renee's sister Cristina & her family) when they arrived soon after our move!

We're moving... across town!

Yes, we're a little crazy -- I prefer to call it adventurous -- to move again just six months after making the cross-country trek from Portland to Durango. However, as tough as moving again will be, we are very excited to be moving to a new rental home across town that's just around the block from our pals the McKinnises and in a beautiful, tucked-away mountain neighborhood. This move will make carpooling to school & activities a snap & allow us to be more comfortable when Kenny travels, not to mention that it's a beautiful place in a beautiful part of Durango! Stay tuned for photos -- we move this weekend!

New address as of 6/14:
48 El Diente Dr.
Durango, CO 81301
Phone & e-mail the same.

Spring Soccer Fun with the Gotcher Girls

Is it Spring or is it snow?

March surprised us with a few wonderfully warm days -- Easter being one of them! We celebrated with the McKinnis family and enjoyed a gorgeous sunny Sunday with a scenic Easter egg hunt and fabulous family dinner. It was starting to feel a lot like Spring...



The next day we hit the road and headed up north to Vail to visit my sister Carol, who's in her fourth season working as a spa supervisor & lead massage therapist at the Marriott Resort & Spa. The drive was surprisingly clear & sunny, and we enjoyed driving past many snowy "Fourteeners" along the way. Though we didn't encounter any new snow during our stay in Vail, we did enjoy the groomed powdery soft slopes of Vail with mostly sunny skies.

After a few days in Vail, we headed east to Denver so I could attend Mary Kay's regional Career Conference with my Denver-based consultant friends and re-visit where it all began. While I was in conference sessions, the girls enjoyed seeing the fun city sites with Daddy, such as the Denver Zoo and the "food park" in the Cherry Creek Mall. Oh, to shop in urban luxury again! We ended our trip with a scenic drive through southern Colorado and back West along more peak-lined highways with just a few clouds rolling in. A Colorado road trip in March with no snow -- it was a miracle!

Of course, the very next day we arrived home we were hit by a few snow flurries off and on, and I learned that up in Vail it proceeded to snow another 3 FEET over the next few days -- so much for Spring! We were glad to have missed it with all the driving our trip involved, although I have to admit I am a sucker for big powder days and was slightly sad to hear we missed winter's last reprise in Vail.

It's April now and Spring is definitely in full swing here in Durango, with sunny days reaching the high 70s and Spring sports in session. More from the Gotchers soon...

Favorite Snapshots of February 08

Here are some highlights of our favorite moments in February: We received several more feet of powder-perfect snow in Durango, keeping us busy on the shoveling front and giving us epic conditions at Durango Mountain Resort every weekend. Audrey & Claire have become confident skiers on the mountain slopes, making lots of progress each Saturday in the Snowburners program, and Elise reached a few milestones of her own -- like standing, crawling, and breaking in a total of five teeth! When we weren't fighting off sickness -- the colds & flus made their rounds a few times this month -- we made the most of the unusually deep powder both at home and on the ski slopes with lots of winter fun!

Celebrating Audrey's 7th at Ice Skate Rink

So we're a month or so behind on keeping you up to date with the Gotchers, but life with three kids is busy, busy, busy to say the least! Here is a slideshow of Audrey's 7th Birthday Party, which we celebrated at Chapman Hill Ice Skating Rink. It was Audrey & Claire's first time on ice skates and they did surprisingly well, with the help of their athletic Dad. Friends from Audrey's class at St. Columba joined us, as well as best buds Kate & Abby McKinnis.

New Year, New Snow!

I'm sure by now you've been hearing the "Great 2008" sayings being thrown around, however I have to say that so far, 2008 has indeed been "great" for the Gotchers in Durango! We have had a few big snow storms that have left us in with a heavenly white, billowing sea of snow in our yard that provides endless fun for the girls and serene stress relief for the busy parents!

What was predicted to be a dry "La Nina" winter has proved to be anything but -- Durango Mountain Resort is already boasting a deeper base than many of the hotspots in the northern Rockies, including Vail & Aspen! We have been able to enjoy a few epic days on the slopes, making the stress of our move well worth it!

The girls have started the "Snowburners" program, which is a weekly ski school for local kids. So far they are loving it and already riding runs at the top of the mountain!

This post will have to be short and sweet -- I hear Elise up again and for the moms out there, you know that computer time is scarce. So here are a few of our favorite photos from this year so far!