Fall Updates

The entire Bell family is finally in Denver! The kids and I flew out on October 6th, a few days after Nate and my brother John drove our car out (they made the trip in 18 hours and Nate drove the entire way of course)! We are staying with Nate's Aunt and Uncle here in Centennial, which is a suburb south of Denver. They were kind enough to let us stay here for awhile as we work on getting our home in Portland sold or rented and explore where we want to live here. We can't get enough of the beautiful weather and mountain views!! We decided to leave our home in Portland with everything in it and keep it on the market through the fall rather than move our stuff into storage without anywhere to put it all. Unfortunately its been pretty dead in terms of showings and we're seeing the same homes in our neighborhood still sitting that have been listed for as long, or longer than our home. We plan on renting it out in December or January if we don't get any offers. Prayers for the logistics of this all are much appreciated!! The good news is that we'll be coming back to Oregon for a month or two to get things taken care of there, so at the very least it is making our transition easier knowing that we'll be back there soon!

Before leaving Portland we had an early birthday/costume party for Parker (aka Spider Man) with some of his friends, and he turned four here in Denver on October 15th. We had a family celebration and Parker got some very cool gifts including a Lego Collector book, Spider Man sheets, Batman and Superman pajamas with capes that Gigi made, a Star Wars lego set from Nana and Bubba, a really cool nerf gun and Lego bionicle from Aunt Rae Rae and Uncle Mikey, a sled from Mike and Tig, and a play-mobile pirate play set from the Joyces!! We had Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast, got to go to this cool historic farm/museum with Aunt Bets, went to Chuck-E-Cheese for dinner, got to Skype with both sets of grandparents, had blizzards for dessert, put together his new lego set and had a movie night! It was 85 degrees, which was certainly not something we were used to in mid-October in Oregon! Perfect day for the birthday boy.

We've been able to do quite a bit of Colorado exploring, including a trip to Evergreen, the Red Rocks, a pumpkin patch excursion, a tour of the Broncos stadium, (thanks to Uncle Mikey), and a Broncos game (unfortunately it was a loss to the Raiders).

Halloween was fun. Parker was Batman for a Broncos kids trick-or-treating event and some fall festivals and Spider Man for actual trick-or-treating, while Peyton was the cutest baby superhero ever!! The kids went trick-or-treating with Cousin Peter and his friend Mark. Peyton knew what to do and say within two houses and would shove her way to the front door in front of the big boys to get her treats!! It was adorable to watch and hear her say "trick-or-treat". It was in the 60s on Halloween so thankfully we didn't even have to bundle the kids up to go out.

Hopefully there won't be just a gap between this and our next post. We miss everyone in Oregon but are truly loving Colorado so far!