Colorado 2010 - Part 2

Now our cabin is about as remote as you can get in the Lower 48. It is at 11,000 feet, no electricity and running water comes form a stream. Paradise. It has a mountain view on three sides and no matter what window you look out of, there is not another sign of human life out there. The closest grocery store is 36 miles away and the nearest cell phone signal is 8 miles away, on a good day. Now I understand this is not for everyone, but it is for us Aicheles’.

Now if I am going to keep on bragging, Clint, Doug and the Blomquist crew did the most incredible job building the place. It is more beautiful than I could ever imagine. All the logs came from the surrounding forest. Clint cut them down and peeled them all himself (with some help of course). Clint and I got to plan everything out. It is also important to remember that every bit of supplies has to be carried up a 2 mile, precarious, four wheel drive road (if you can even call it a road).

Here are some pictures of the cabin. We have a lot of work to do. It is a lifelong project.

This is the view from the upstairs loft (master bedroom). It is a shot of the continental divide.

Sawyer is sitting on the future home of the outhouse. I will get a toilet inside, but Clint has warned me it is for nighttime use only.

Clint is pointing to the back side of the mountain that our cabin is on.

Colorado 2010 - Part 1

At the end of June we packed up our gear and household necessities and headed to Colorado for ten days. We decided to travel light this year.

This year was our first year to stay at “our” cabin. We arrived to the cabin with 2 inches of sawdust covering everything. This place was still 100% a construction site. We immediately got to work to get it livable. With the help of our friend Ty, Clint got a lot of trash loaded up and taken to the dump.

My first requirement of Clint was that every princess needs a throne. This is what I got.

Next year I should have a flusher though. Hallelujah!

Sawyer and Clint wasted no time getting running water to the cabin. Our water will come from a fresh water mountain spring. We just had a hose outside for the week we were there, but when it first started spraying, it was a site for sore eyes.

I spent most of my week sweeping up sawdust . I did a lot of dishes and dirty clothes the old fashion way. I don’t know how women do it without their “handmaidens” (dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer).

Clint worked really hard and got all the plumbing done. Next summer we hope to be able to install the sinks, bathtub and toilet.

The Aichele family motto is to work hard so you can play hard. We had a lot of fun too with family, friends, and enjoying the outdoors. Sawyer was pretty simple. His favorite thing to do was to throw rocks.

Clint took me on a date to Crested Butte for my birthday. We returned from our little adventure with more birthday celebrations. Sawyer also loved the fireworks show that Clint put on for Fourth of July. We had a big mountain party.

We did get in one pretty good hike. It is one of my favorites and it takes through wild flowers to a beautiful, isolated mountain lake. It was pretty tough on this pregnant lady though.

Our week of “roughing it” wasn’t too tough though because we were able to use Clint’s parents cabin as much as possible. Sawyer played in the dirt so much is was a life saver to be able to give him a bath.

We had a great week and the sad part is we don’t get to spend more time up there. Unfortunately we will have to wait until next year.

Father's Day 2010

This was our house on Father's Day.






These guys are two peas in a pod. I am so fortunate for my boys to have such an amazing father. When I found out that I was going to be outnumbered 3 to 1, I declared myself "the princess". I plan to incorporate a lot more pink into everyone's life.

This week was a busy week for me. Clint's birthday was Wednesday and Father's Day was Sunday. Clint loves to celebrate himself. I know that sounds bad, but my wonderful husband is really a selfless guy, except this one week a year and my life becomes very challenging. Let say this week involved homemade macaroni and cheese, corndogs, stuffed crust pizza, bass pro shop, Mexican food, guy movies, beer, mixed drinks, fishing, and many things per request. If I every hear "but it's my birthday week" again I don't know what I am going to do.

If you haven’t already heard . . .

We are having a BOY!!!!

I am sure it is not a big surprise to anyone. It wasn’t to Clint and me. We have been calling this baby “little bub” for a while now. But we are thrilled. We really want our kids to be best friends and I think it helps to have siblings of the same sex. I have been blessed with my sisters and I know Clint feels the same way about his brother, well most of the time. : ) Still nothing to really show on the belly. I am 18 weeks now and baby K.B. has been on the move. I will let you imagine what that stands for. Ok, so I will tell you. Kenny Bear. Sawyer’s favorite character from his favorite book. When we don’t call #2 “little bub” we call him “Kenny Bear”. We read this particular book a lot.

And no blog post would be complete without a picture. Here is one of Sawyer. I got a new camera, a Canon EOS 50D so I probably will be posting more pictures. Sorry.

More exciting news!

So we have more changes going on in out lives. Namely, I quit my job. There are several reasons I quit my job. We have been talking, thinking, praying about this a long time. See the list below:

1. Sawyer was really struggling in daycare. He is so sensitive and calm.
2. I did not enjoy my job enough to consider hiring a nanny.
3. As Clint says everyday “Our child is too brilliant to chew on plastic all day.”
4. Clint needs the opportunity to really get his career jump started by working more than just 8.5 hours/day (which was all he could with the 2 parent working daycare scenario).
5. We have always lived off of one salary (thanks grad school) so we wouldn’t have to make any living adjustments for me to quit.
6. I loved my old job and want to be an engineer and it didn’t seem like an option in Bartlesville. Eventually I will start looking for an engineering job in Tulsa part-time.
7. My VP doesn’t allow personal leave or part-time so I would have to put baby #2 in daycare or with a nanny way too early. (We were able to keep Sawyer out of daycare until he was a year old).
8. So if I was going to have to quit in November why not enjoy some time with Sawyer (and work on my tan). – Here’s where the reasons start getting shallow.
9. I would like to get my house remodeled before I get too fat with baby #2.
10. I don’t want to get too fat so I want more time to work out.
11. Clint would like to find time to go to the gym and get in better shape, but as with reason #4 he hasn’t had time. (I have been going to the gym over lunch. It will be sad to give that up.)
12. We really do feel like Sawyer is bright and want to provide him with a good foundation.
13. I love summer and want to play outside.
14. I want to make friends.
15. I don’t want my weekends to be stressed running errands getting ready for the week.
16. I want more quality time with my husband.
17. I want to have more time to spend in prayer. I am afraid I am going to really need it with my new career choice.
18. And lastly I have always dreamed of being a trophy wife. But that takes a lot of work.

Now there are some challenges. I am not the stay-at-home-mom type. I know for a fact that working is easier than staying at home. I need large quantities of social interaction. I do plan on finding part time work ASAP. I can’t drink because I am pregnant. My husband expects me to make his breakfast now. Ha! Speaking of husband he has no idea of how much attention he will now have to give me. We don’t have TV (and don’t plan on getting it) so I will be at home with a toddler without TV. I really do plan on completely remodeling the house, while pregnant, with a toddler running around (we have only gotten one room done in the past year – but we are close to finishing two more). I might qualify for an HGTV show. So there you have it. My blog may go downhill as I will be probably posting more about my super exciting life.

But since most people don't read this, but look at the pictures so here you go. Sawyer wants to be just like Daddy, in everything. If he hears Daddy mowing the lawn he has to break out his mini lawn mower. So cute.

Miracle Baby

Do you remember this miracle baby. Emergency C-section, two blood transfusions, a week in the NICU, now perfection.

Well we have exciting news. We have another miracle baby on the way. Coming Novmeber 20th, our anniversary!

This baby is a survivor because of its rocky start. Clint and I started trying this fall. Immediately we got pregnant in November, miscarried in December, pregnant again in January, miscarried in February and pregnant again at the end of February. I was convinced I was losing this baby as I started spotting and my pregnancy test went from positive to negative. I immediately called my doctor who put me on progesterone. When I got my bloodwork done at 5 weeks pregnant my HCG level was only 37. I know that doesn’t mean much to most people, but at 5 weeks it should have been closer to 1500! But somehow or another this baby made it. God definitely had a hand in it.

I am 17 weeks along now and feeling great! I have hardly any symptoms and practically no weight gain so I wouldn’t know I was pregnant without the ultrasound at every appointment. But speaking of ultrasounds we do know what it is. But that will have to wait for another post!

Spring 2010

I am little late updating once again, but I have not forgotten all two of my readers. I will just give a quick summary of the rest of our spring. We started by building raised flower beds. Sawyer was a great help. He got out all his tools and never left Clint’s side, for about 7 hours straight. If Clint picked up his drill and started drilling, Sawyer picked up his and started drilling. I was left on manure duty. The life of a mom -- poop patrol.

You can see out garden now. Isn’t that crazy? We overplanted just a little. Clint and I have been looking for “new” hobbies together since we moved to a new town and have a child. The things we used to do don’t really fly in Bartlesville (eating at fantastic restaurants, boozing, concerts, road trips, camping year round . . .) but we have really enjoyed gardening together.


We also have been working on laying down wood floors. It has been a tedious job and Clint has been doing great. I would like to confirm that his profanity count is dropping with every board laid. We plan to do pretty much the entire house. It will take us a long time to get it all done.


We took Sawyer on his first camping trip. He loved sleeping in the tent. I could hardly get him out. He also enjoyed eating a S’more. Our one and a half man tent is not conducive to three people, a dog, and blankies and pacies.



We enjoyed a birthday party for Sawyer’s cousin. Sawyer LOVES his cousins. He gets so excited when he gets to be with them.

We also did some fishing and canoeing. Sawyer loved both. Clint has been fishing a lot this spring and has been a good sport to take Sawyer and me along. Unfortunately Sawyer’s attention span for fishing is much longer than mine. He fishes like a pro. He will hold his rod as long as Clint sits there (for like over an hour!) Also he walks around looking for just the right spot. It is adorable.



We also had a great Memorial Day weekend. We went to the lake, to Arkansas, and to Stillwater. As you can tell we had a busy spring, but we also had a lot of fun. This Aichele crew isn’t happy unless we are outside playing. We definitely have been happy this spring.