6 Angels, an old man, and a hot chick: The Housers

Costa RIca

2009-05-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a few pictures from our Costa Rica trip. We stayed a few days at the Arenal Volcano, which is behind us in one of the pictures. WE went with Chris and Kris, Brian and Buffy Kraft, and our friends here from the "ward" Darin and Lisa Rentz. We never actually saw the top of the vocano due to those clouds, but it was pretty awesome anyways....
Here is the house we rented during our time at Arenal. It was 5 bedrooms and cook/host/butler included. He made us some fabulous meals, including blueberry tilapia, some Italian feast, and ham stuffed chicken. I'm sure there are exotic names for all that, but I'm not that cultured.
Heres us all on the deck at the house. The views overlooked Lake Arenal, which was beautiful.
Mi esposa y yo. OK, my Spanish is junky, but you know who we are.
After a few days at the volcano doing hot springs, zip lines, and relaxing, we went to Jaco, a beach town famous for it's surfing.
We went to Manuel Antonio National Park, which is where Jurassic Park was filmed Here we are on a beach there.
Another beach at the national park. pretty crowded, eh?
SPider monkey!
3 toed sloth. and baby.
Lawson girls at the smoothie shop on the beach
The smoothie shop. We amicably re-named it McRoberts smoothies because Chris' dream is to own the place and live on the beach.

This is us at the Marriott in Los Suenos. It was such a beautiful resort.
So there you go. a few of the thousand pictures I have yet to go through and make look better...

Spring Break!!

2009-04-12T20:12:00.001-07:00

For spring break this year some friends invited us to go to Cancun, so Stacie, Dani, Shawnie, Rylan and I went for four days and stayed in their condon on the beach. We had a nice relaxing time. The only thing we really did besides playing on the beach was some cave diving. It was a lot of fun. When we got back, Stacie, Dani and Bowen went to Utah for carious events and stuff, while I took the other kids and met up with Javan's great family in Moab. we hiked and biked. It was a lot of fun. I have no idea how to turn underline off on this thing.....

Rylan's first match 09

2009-02-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

This is the correct way to start the season. Rylan's first 8th grade match. Feb 2, 2009

Los Cabos

2009-01-01T22:49:00.000-08:00

Out of order, but I'm a computer idiot. Here's the kids doing our Christmas aid project. They gave out over a hundred gift bags to the kids, filled with candy, trinkets and love.

Well, our family Christmas trip to Los Cabos was a blast. We spent hours on the beach, ate tons of food, spent a lot of time together, and had the following adventures... Here is Rylan with some whale bones in Cabo Pulmo.

Here is my family at Todos Santos. We shopped and then went to a terrific beach near there.

My woman and me by Las Palmas
Miklane is just excited to not be in the freezing Colorado winter

A few of us on Christmas eve. Check out those sweet jammies
The kids on the beach on Christmas. Miklane livin' large.

Bowen eating some of his favorite food-----shrimp.
Bo, Regs and Trevor in San Jose in the town square on Christmas. ho ho ho
Shawnie and Jess. All smiles
It didn't end like it looks like it will. The python chose to wait till we left to strike. He was about 12' long. Poor bunny, I hear they taste like chicken tho
Me, Mom, and Javan.
Rylan trying to get lucky at the airport. I think he got her phone #..
Reg and Duncan.
Merry Christmas doggy
Amanda and Dani with a few surf boards at Cerritos.
snorkeling with the fish. La Playa de Santa Maria
Reg and Maddie at Santa Maria
Bowen going for a snorkeling adventure

A quick peek into one of our scuba dives. It was amazing.

Pueblo Adventures

2008-10-28T22:08:00.000-07:00

So we cruised down to Pueblo last Saturday, about 85 miles. We brought the quads and had a blast cruising around on the trails. No major injuries. Reagan rolled the little yellow quad, had a helmet on so was fine. Bowen spilled on a friend's dirt bike, a few scrapes and what not, but fine as well. We also discovered a drag race track, where we watched some high octane drag races. Lot's of fun, we'll go there again...

VEGAS BABY!!

2008-10-28T22:02:00.001-07:00

That's right! Vegas isn't all about ladies, whiskey and dice. Case in point: A couple of studly nascar rednecks. oh yeah, they exist. Only in Vegas, but.... A go cart track was conquered, we littered off the Hoover Dam, disrupted store window displays, thrashed on a rental suburban and just raised heck in general. No regrets, my friend, no regrets.

Guys trip to Powell

2008-10-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

So, we all (with two) exceptions, met up in the desert for a few days of fun. Highlights included Mike's singlet, Todd's cliff jumping bravery, Judah's new mastery of the Sky Ski, Dave's ghoulish wakeboarding, Javan's glassy water wakeboarding, Con's excursion planning and my barely passable boat captianship. Enjoy a few pictures...

Hopefully this is just the first of many such adventures.

out of order senior pix...

2008-09-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

2008-09-06T20:37:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to the Judah and Keslie team for getting some terrific pictures of Dani. Not that we didn't think it could be done, but nice work! Not only that, we ha a very nice time with them, the zoo, the lake, sushi, just to mention a few highlights...

my video

2008-07-27T21:20:00.001-07:00

This was sort of (obviously) impromptu. It is graphic, due to the nature and content, so parental permission or whatever is recommended. Oh, and sorry mom. I am still a good person.

2008-07-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

LAKE POWELL 2008

well, the lake was the highest it has been in about six years, so it almost like discovering a whole new place. Here are some pictures. No injuries, accidents or attitudes.

2008-07-27T20:58:00.000-07:00

Our almost month long trip to Utah (at least it seemed that way) finally ended We got home from Lake Powell last Saturday. Here are some pictures from the trip...

2008-07-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

So Miklane broke his arm while we were in Utah. He was a tough dude, had to have it set and all that stuff He fell off of a bar stool and reached back to "break" his fall. He has a cast on up past his elbow. He was an amazing patient in the emergency room, actually fell asleep while they were working on him. (they just used local sedation, the Bier technique)

Next day at the family reunion at Capitol Reef National Park he was unaffected by his ailment: climbing on rocks, playing in the mud etc. He took about 3 doses of his pain meds and said it didn't hurt anymore. So for those of you who remembered him in your prayers, I am sure they helped. I will post more pics when the girls get home from Utah (EFY, sports camp). Dani has some photos of the gruesomeness.

Our trip to Europe

2008-06-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

So we went to Europe last month. Special thanks to mom for taking her time to watch our kids and keep them safe. We had such a great time that it is impossible to put it all into words, but I think Stacie and I would agree that our favorite place was Kefalonia. This little known Greek Island is AmAzInG! We rented mopeds and scooted across the island to get away from the cruiser crowd. I guess it is rare for a cruise ship to stop in Argostopoli, so the town and island weren't ruined by that. We toured a cave, but unfortunately didn't have time to visit the "best beaches" in the world. Had a great lunch in the town of Sami, right in the harbor next to the sea. The island is fairly mountainous (is that even a word?) and Stacie and I's moped barely made it up the mountains to cross the island. I was doing a little Fred Flintstone action with my leg to help push 'er along. It was a fairly inexpensive place to visit, Stacie got some Croc sandles for about $12 and I got a nice laminated map of the island for about $4. Apparently you can scuba dive here as well, completing the checklist of requirements for future vacation destinations. I'd love to spend a week and see everything. Sort of a laid back environment. Nice people. Modern, but still old-world.

ello

2008-06-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

no, i didn't forget the h. it was intentionally left out.
so...blog, day one. I thought long and hard about the blog title. This one seemed not only accurate, but also a small window into the truth of our family. The kids all have potential. Notice I didn't specify which type of angel? Stacie remains age-defiant, and the truth is, I don't.
So there you have it. The CastleRockHOUSERS blog.