It's been a year.

Last April was the beginning of a series of life changing events that took place over the past year. (And the changes are still rolling in!)
It was the month we closed our second Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store. The first one, we closed in February, shortly after Valentine's Day.
Many of you know the story, so I won't go into details again.
But those stores were such a huge part

Our Wonderful Parents

Happy 21st Anniversary!

Happy 16th, Little Brother!

(I don't care if you're taller now..)

Abigail turned 8!

March 16

Gift Baskets..

Last Friday and Saturday our church put on an "Economics Conference." About 170 families (800 people) came from about 25 states and as far as England and Canada to be encouraged and see things from a Biblical point of view.

Our family was commisioned to put together some gift baskets for the speakers. I think we made 10 small and 2 large. It was a nice project to have. I think they turned out pretty well!
This is a small:

A Very Overdue and Very Merry Christmas Post

I know, I know, it's been forever(ish) since I last posted on here.
And now that I finally do post, it's a late post, to boot!

But it's better late than never, right?

Anyway, we had a wonderful time celebrating Christ's birth.

I can't believe Christmas was 2 whole months ago! At that point, we were mostly unpacked and were able to decorate our house. We were so happy about that. The tree got moved around a few times until we figured out the perfect spot for it in our living room. Sadly, it wasn't until after Christmas that it was placed there.

We spent our Christmas Eve in our favorite, usual way; with our grandparents at their home.

These are a few pictures I took near their house on our way over, from inside our moving car.

Eggs, Eggs, Eggs

Abigail, Anna, A.T (I should just refer to him as @ to save time) and I hardboiled some eggs and drew faces on them with Sharpie markers. They turned out pretty funny.

First Walk

These are the promised photos of the first walk in our new house.

That is not a giant multicolored turtle on the far left. It's Avery with one of their cardboard shields strapped to his back.

Snapshots

These are some pictures I got of the last walk we took when we were at our old house. The five little ones and I used to go down to the coffeeshop and get ice cream. There was a little park on the way, and the little ones loved it. Sometimes, on birthdays, we'd take sandwiches, sit up in the big oak tree, and have a picnic.

Our new home!

On our sidebar there is a little blurb about us. Part of it says:

Currently, we live in the suburbs in Northern Colorado. That will be
changing soon. Lord willing, we will be building a log cabin on some land,
debt-free, and closer to our church family in the very near future.
Meanwhile, we have to be out of our house in a matter of months, so we are
looking for a place to rent.

Well, we have found the place to rent and moved completely! We are now in Elizabeth, Colorado. It is a beautiful part of the state; half prairie, half trees. Where we are it is mostly prairie. We love the openness and still being able to see some of the mountains.

Fun at the Corn Maze

The month of October has been fairly busy for us. I don’t really even know why…
Anyway, I thought I’d update the blog with atleast one highlight.
Last weekend we invited the church all the way up to the corn maze, where we are selling apples, for a potluck. Even though "only" three families were able to come, there were over 30 kids in our group. =) We had a GREAT time. The weather was perfect, and there were so many fun things to do there.
As usual, the pictures tell the story:

I took these ones...

Some of the handsome boys.

Abby!

They have this box full of dried corn. Waaayyy more fun than a sand box!

However, as Becca Storrie and I learned the hard way a few weeks ago, you still get dirty. =)

Avery emerging.. and Mr. Searcy telling him he looks better under corn.

Luke, burried. Hahahaha.

Goin under.. these boys are way too much fun.

Cutie Aidan A. She reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Someone else getting burried...

Anna! and Abby! The pedal carts. The boys (and men...) loved these.


Elijah hanging out in our booth, and rating our products. =)

Andrea manning the booth.

Yummmmm.

Hahaha Mr. Adams and Mr. Searcy racing. Mr. Searcy took the inside corner and won. Click on this picture to enlarge it and look at their faces...

__________________

And Andrea took these...

Abigail and Emma!

Awww.

Pumping the water for the rubber duck race.
Abigail and Emma really got into that one!

Friends.

Avery, A.T, Sawyer

Sisters.

I love those girls!

This one, too.

And her, too.

My Aidan!


I guess the pictures don't tell the whole story- about all the fun, the memories, and the fellowship- but they do an okay job. =)

Here We Go, Rockies!

We went to two Rockies games in the past couple weeks. We LOVE the Rockies. The reason we even got dish tv was to watch Rocktober 2007. We're cancelling dish, and it turned out it's just in time to miss the postseason. *Sigh* I do really love listening to them on the radio though. Daddy has always had the radio on listening to them for as long as I can remember.

We've always gone to atleast a couple games almost every season. This year since things are tight, we all pooled some cash together for Daddy's birthday (... I just found out that it was for his birthday... haha. Even better!) so we were able to go.

Andrew T. and Abigail baptized!

Two Sundays ago..

Abigail's friend, Katrina, was baptized the same day!

There's a New Photographer in Town

who is certainly not nearly as skilled as the old one, and considerably less fanatical (just kidding). However, I do have the desire to take pictures (however regrettable that desire may be), and I propose to burden our longsuffering public with some of my efforts. Enjoy!

We've had lovely rainy weather a few days lately, and the sky is a most comforting and attractive shade of grey, absolutely perfect for pictures. So I clap boots on some of my young brothers and sisters, drag them to all sorts of places (bless their cooperative little souls) and snap away. They like being models.

Caramel Apple Business at the Corn Maze

Videos and Pictures included...

Quick OverviewA few months ago, we started up a new family business selling caramel apples. Our first event was the 4th of July Festival in Thornton, where we've gone every year as a family anyway. That didn't go too great, but we learned a LOT. Since then, we've mainly been going to farmers' markets while we try to find better venues. We know that the best places for us to be are at things like carnivals and fairs. They're hard for vendors to get into, though. We weren't sure what we were going to do this fall, but a few weeks ago a big door was opened for us. At one of the farmers' markets, our booth is next to a man who owns and operates a corn maze and was there selling his corn. He invited us to come operate there this fall. We are so excited! I think that may be the perfect place for us to be, and means for God to provide in big ways. This weekend was the first weekend (after it was rained out the previous week), and business for the maze was a little slow, but we still did okay in our sales. Not as well as we had hoped, but Septembers are much slower than Octobers for places like that. So we're still very optimistic. It's been a rocky start for the business, but we're just riding it out. (If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, right?)

The Product

Oreo!

Cinnamon

Caramel Pretzels

We make them with all kinds of toppings.

Marshallows dipped in caramel-
yum.

Making the Apples
We make the caramel from scratch and dip them all ourselves. It takes over two hours just to make the caramel alone. It is an art that we take pride in. =) We take turns going with Daddy to a commercial kitchen in Loveland to do all the work. A BIG thank you goes to Mr. Searcy who did all the electric work to get our stove up and running there!

Here's a few videos of Aidan helping make the caramel. (Please don't report us to the health department. As you can see, he wasn't wearing a hair net...)





At the Corn MazeAt the farmers' markets, we setup a portable canopy and that is our space. At the corn maze, Mr. Langridge built us a small booth. He just put up a box frame, and we covered it with some tarps. Simple; but it looks great, and it's so nice to have something more permanent. (Thanks again, Mr. Langridge!)
Here's Daddy, Allen, and Mr. Langridge working hard to built the box.



The time of building wasn't all sweat and tears, though. There were some fun and games involved.
Mr. Langridge (at Allen's suggestion) checking how far he could shoot a nail from his nail gun... :



Here's a video documentary of the almost finished product:
(Allen bumped my elbow...)


Open for business!

As always, we really appreciate your prayers in this endeavor!

S'mores

For me, the highlight of our mountain vacation was the nightly marshmallow roasts. Allen and the boys would build a fire, and the whole family would find suitable sticks and sit down to roast marshmallows. I loved it,, not only for the time our family had together, but for the absolute hilarity of watching everyone else's s'more-making methods. (Needless to say, none but mine achieved perfect results.)
Here are all the Fountain ways to cook (or in some cases incinerate) a marshmallow.

Mr. Nardin's Cabin

We spent this past week at Mr. Nardin’s cabin in Winter Park. Mr. Nardin is a very dear friend of ours who is an elder at our former church and was my English teacher at H.O.P.E. He is a really great man.
Anyway, we stayed at his cabin last year and had a wonderful time, and we were very grateful when he offered us use of his cabin again this year.
We had a lot of fun hiking, swimming, exploring, enjoying the scenery, making s'mores every night, and just spending time together.

Anna and Aidan setting off.

Just for fun

Picture Time!

Cuties!
Giggles

Some girls

^The Boys ^
< Andrea & Aidan me & Anna

me & Abby

The 3 troublemakers youngest!

4 oldest.
We tried to line up tallest to shortest.. Allison insists she's taller than I am. But she's not!

Typical Allen...