Easter! Hallelujah! Courtland is 14!

EASTER... He is Risen! And Courtland turns 14!


So even if you don't want to read this, scan the photos and watch the videos. They will have you giggling for sure!

Courtland was very excited for his 14th birthday, but not so excited to rise early for the 7:00 a.m. sunrise service at the Barker Reservoir! So different, folks in jeans, fleece and hiking boots... a couple of dogs there too... standing in a circle with an acoustic guitar for music. To the east the sun rising over the reservoir, and to the west the majestic mountains towering over us. Really beautiful. 

Livingston took during the service

After the short service they encouraged folks to go to the Sundance Cafe for breakfast, part of where we are staying. We told Pastor Doug and his wife Pat that we were delighted everyone was coming to our house for breakfast! 

Bruce and I took the dogs on a walk across from the lodge behind their stables. We love going off onto trails because the dogs can run loose. Amazingly, the chihuahuas have become mountain dogs... staying right with us on rocky trails, over bits of snow and ice, as we cross over logs (and they go under), and marking their territory to ward off fox and mountain lions! Don't let the little sweaters fool you! Moo, our mini Aussie, is the trail blazer. We can hardly get her back inside the hotel!

a man and his dogs

Tillie and Bruce resting after our hike

After the hike we went to the 11:00 service at Calvary Chapel to celebrate Easter with the choir singing. We were in for a treat as they called Chad (Courtland) up to the front and had the whole church sing Happy Birthday to him!

Later in the afternoon we headed over to the lovely mountain home of our new church friends, Suzy, Jerry and their family. They live on over 40 acres with 5 horses and 5 dogs that are as big as horses! Mama mastiff and Papa Irish Wolfhound had pups, and they kept three. The largest is 250 pounds!

view from their front porch

Sterling sitting with the dogs, or should we say the dogs sitting on Sterling

for perspective, Sterling is over 6' tall

After a yummy dinner, we walked over to the horses. Now the Crain family did not grow up around horses, much to the amusement of those who own them. We are silly and totally entertained by everything about them!

Birthday Boy! Courtland hangin' out

Sebastian took this of himself and Enoch!

We ended the evening with birthday cake and ice cream! Fun night!

Good Friday

Good Friday, April 6, 2012


Oddly enough, Good Friday was Courtland and Livingston's first day of school. Livingston is living the dream, with three academic classes, PE, Health and two free periods. It was hard to put him into classes since the class sequence is different than in Florida. This enables him to have an hour and a half lunch, and he is allowed to check himself out for lunch and also to leave early since he has a free 7th period. Somehow Colorado isn't looking quite as bad! Courtland enjoys two periods of cooking/sewing, which enables him to meet most of the girls in 8th grade.  :)


The evening brought a church potluck at Calvary Chapel followed by a short service. Singles and couples brought any kind of salad and families brought an entree. Worked out great... food was awesome. Except for the grocery store fried chicken the Crain family who lives in a hotel brought. 


Met some really nice folks, and there are a lot of young adults in the group... early college aged. One family we met invited us for Easter dinner. Honestly this is one of the friendliest churches I have ever been to. We feel very blessed to be here!


Yesterday the boys decided to hit the skate park again, this time with a video camera.
They had never been to a skate park before moving here. They have longboards which are for cruising on sidewalks, so you will see in Livingston's video their new-found expertise! Actually, if you look carefully, you can see another skater doing a really cool move.  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnJ1fEtNn1U&context=C48cf452ADvjVQa1PpcFMTkt-ixKiXpqyaAgbo2gPc9FjO65qJEMQ=

Sterling showing some wicked moves (not really)

Sterling and Rody resting... twins

April 2-4, 2012

Monday, April 2


Sebastian hoped to start the morning with a ride at the skatepark, instead we awoke to SNOW!
So odd... shorts yesterday and snow today! But it wasn't windy, so was relatively warm. Luckily roads weren't too bad so we were able to go to town to pick up PT Cruiser convertible from transport truck. 




Tuesday, April 3


Snow was beautiful today! Not too cold, though chihuahuas were running around in their little sweaters tip-toeing through the snow. Moo was in her glory... sitting in the snow, not wanting to come in. Occasionally other dogs come when their owners visit the cafe, so she gets to romp with a friend!


Drove into Boulder with Bruce this morning since we needed to sign real estate papers for Thursday's closing on our Florida house today, but roads too icy to drive a "Florida car." Sterling decided later in the morning to join us, so he hitched a ride to the bus pick-up in downtown Ned and rode bus down to Boulder where Bruce and I picked him up. Checked out Jeeps today. Pretty practical ride for the mountains. Especially felt that way today on icy roads. This evening Travis' Subaru slipped and got stuck, and we couldn't get him out with the 2 wheel drive Suburban because we would have become stuck up on the hill. We tried man-power, but no go. A jeep could have pulled him out!


Went to Pioneer Inn in Ned for open mic night that was suppose to start at 8. We finished up dinner about 9:30 and they were rolling in to start around 10. Oh well, maybe next week! 




Wednesday, April 4


Lots of little errands... got our PO Box since they don't deliver mail to the house here. Stopped at police station and met Larry and J., officers here, and got the dogs their free dog tags. Got some good advice on vets, doctors, trails, etc. 


FYI, our new mailing address:
Crain
PO Box 2075

Nederland, CO    80466-2075

Snow is melting and Sterling drove into Boulder in the PT Cruiser convertible with the top down. At one point put on shorts and tee again. Drove around Ned checking out the ice skating rink that transforms with the help of volunteers into tennis courts every spring. Sebastian went for a run, then he and Livingston hit the skate park since most of the snow had melted. ChiChis were happy again to have grass under their feet, and Sebastian's snowman slowly became a clump of snow.

Bruce got home and since the snow melted, he was able to try to pull Travis out with the Suburban. After a broken rope, he ran down to Ace and got a tow rope and finally had success!

More boxes of goodies from Florida keep arriving, via UPS, all junk that we didn't want to bring with us in the car but felt we might need during the weeks before our household goods arrive. Finally, Sterling has underwear. Luckily Bruce got a storage locker in Boulder or we would be totally over-run with all these "necessities."

evening view above Ned

PT convertible has never seen snow before!

outside of lodge

From the lodge we can see the Eldora ski resort slopes.
Kids have a great view of slopes from their jr/sr high school.

A day in Boulder

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Yummmm, breakfast in Sundance Cafe... delish!

Went to Boulder in shorts, so beautiful today! Took dogs down Boulder Creek walkway while boys skateboarded path. Chilled in Nederland and took dogs along creek in Ned and around Barker Reservoir. Sebastian and Sterling found the Nederland skate park, really cool and free. 

It's so awesome that dogs are everywhere here... just a whole different culture. Woof!

Made it to Colorado!

March 31, 2012


YAY! It is one year and a day since dad interviewed for the job!
We make it in to Boulder around noon, and head to see dad who is at the Dude's house finishing up his packing to move with us up to Nederland. It was fantastic to see him, and we were really psyched to continue our trip up the canyon spread out over TWO cars!


We checked into the Sundance Lodge, a quaint little lodge with 12 rooms and a cafe. Travis and Brittany run the lodge, and they are great. Looking forward to tennis lessons with Travis who teaches in Boulder, once the weather gets warmer. We have two rooms so Courtland is stuck with mom and dad and the other boys have their bachelor pad (read: clothes all over floor and toilet seat left up).


The weather is gorgeous, shorts, tees and flip flops! We do some hiking around with the dogs and continually look up from town to spot our new house up on the mountain. Sebastian is right on it and has already applied for a job by the end of the first day here!

Sterling and Lord Hamsterston

Courtland and Tille

Sebastian and Tille

Tillie checking out Lord Hamsterston

Livingston took this... it's the dogs' official band photo

Barker Reservoir at the base of Nederland

Mountain view from Sundance Lodge

The trusty Suburban

The Car Ride...

Wednesday, March 28, 2012:
We load up the 1996 Suburban with 190,000 miles on it, and head to St. Petersburg to say goodbye to Mooka, Emerson, Laura, Haydn and little Emerson. We realize that we are WAY overloaded for a cross-country trip, so quickly fill up whatever box we can and head to the UPS store.


Thursday, March 29, 2012: 
Head to Gainesville to pick up Sterling. Of course, he has a partial mannequin with him because that is the type of thing that is important to have with us at all times... instead, he UPS'd his underwear. Priorities.
We now have Kate, Sterling, Sebastian, Livingston and Courtland, along with 3 dogs (mini Aussie Moo, chihuahuas Tillie and Rody) and of course, Lord Hamsterston (shouldn't be too hard to figure out what he is). We also have a couple of guitars and skateboards, just to ensure that we can only see bits out the back window. We land in Tennessee after a full day of driving.


Friday, March 30, 2012:
Up and at 'em, we make it to Kansas. Thankful for Sterling for downing the 5-hour energy drink and getting us through those last exciting hours.


So far our trip has taken us through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Kansas.

In the beginning...

In the beginning there were six Crains. Papa Crain (Bruce), Mama Crain (Kate) and four man cubs, (Sterling, Sebastian, Livingston and Chad - formally known as Courtland).  They all lived happily in Melbourne Beach Florida, even though Kate dreamed of moving west. Her dear friend Tree dreamed of the family moving Southwest to Texas, but that is another story.

As the engineering world in Melbourne became more in flux, Bruce thought it might be a good idea to look elsewhere for a more secure job. Kate was ecstatic... maybe, just maybe, we could move west. Bruce interviewed March 30, 2011 at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, and looked like a shoe-in until they announced a hiring freeze the very next week. "At least we go to take three of the kids to Colorado for spring break" we thought, as we enjoyed snowy weather and skiing with Sterling, Livingston and Chad (Sebastian couldn't leave with his college schedule).

October rolled around and we had all but given up on our Colorado move. Then out of the blue Ball calls Bruce to come work! He takes off in November, eventually living in a townhouse with some great guys (hereafter referred to as "the dudes"), while Kate was in Florida trying to sell the house.

Sterling took a job in NYC with Lacoste Footwear after graduating with an advertising degree from Univ. of Florida. Sebastian was a sophomore at the Univ. of Central Florida and loved living in Melbourne Beach, commuting, working and surfing. Livingston's band, The Ellers, had broken up, but he had begun dating the lovely Darien (a senior, he a junior). Chad was in eight grade and had found that tennis is a great sport! Kate loved the kids' school, West Shore Jr/Sr High... certainly the best school anywhere... they really felt like family!

Chad's excitement about tennis was equally exciting to Kate, who found that even though she thought of herself as a racquetball player, tennis was pretty stinkin' fun! The team she joined, The South Beach Slammers, turned out to be a tight group of crazy women who played hard, ate much, drank a bit and truly looked out for one another. Kate also loved her wonderful Rivers Edge neighborhood ladies, and cherished her friendship with her "sister" Sheila and the best neighbor in the whole world, Barb. Yes, it would be hard to move, but knowing the kind of crazy friends they were leaving behind, they knew they would not be rid of them so quickly. Surely they would all come visit!

Ah, how life changes! Sterling decided NYC is not for him, quits his job, comes home with ideas of going back to school. He heads to Gainesville with the hopes of figuring out his next plan of academic attack. Kate goes back and forth to Colorado visiting Bruce who was only home for Christmas. Sebastian flies out in January to visit Boulder for first time, but he and Kate have to fly home early because Kate's grandmother, Moo Moo is dying. February 1st she passes, with loved ones by her side. A blessing. 


After one contract falling apart, a new buyer puts a contract on the house and off we go to find our new dream home in Nederland, Colorado. And we do! Days before we leave to drive west, Sterling decides to join us... SURPRISE! 

So now... the rest of the story!