New Videos!!

We have 2 new videos. Miss Grace at school has been wonderful teaching Rhea to sing songs in both English and Spanish. Here is an example.

We also have a short clip of Morhea skiing up at Winter Park. She is skiing by herself!! This will be a big month as she turns 3 in a few weeks. All of the relatives are coming out.

Enjoy!!!

Todd

Easter!

Not much new around here these days. Easter weekend was nuts!! It was party central around here. Friday night we had guys night over at Dano's for the NCAA men's basketball tournament followed by beer and poker. We had fun and I won so it all worked out!

Saturday Morhéa had dance followed up with an easter egg hunt and painting with her friends Jahayra and Morgan. They had a blast!! Me and Brian were at the end of our ropes. They play like sisters and they fight like sisters is how it was put to me. Every toy in the house was out and then some. Every time I would say "I've got you where I want you and now I'm going to eat you!!" All of the girls would scream at the top of their lungs and go running into Rhea's room. Too funny.

On Easter Sunday we were lucky enough to go to Easter Brunch with Morgan and her family at the Deer Creak Country Club. I love playing golf there and their brunch was great as well. We even got a 2nd Easter Egg hunt in.

That afternoon the Camann's came over for Easter dinner. We had our 3rd easter egg hunt!! Morhéa loves her cousins!!! Indy and Isabelle are the best! They made Rhea sooooo happy. She loves when they come over and play. When they come over I usually don't see Rhea for 4 hours or so! I made a simple dinner and we caught up. It is nice to see family.

I hope everyone had a good Easter. We are looking forward to our warmer weather and the spring. We are in this cycle of 70 degrees then snow then 60 then snow. Soon it will be 110 and I will be complaining about that. Spring is the best for me though!

Love,

The Hoefen's

A new niece/nephew in the future, Oakhurst, new baby friends

Well, it has been a while since I updated the blog. It looks like I missed a month! I guess we have been pretty low key for a while. The biggest news lately is that there will be a new addition to the Hoefen family! Heather is pregnant! We are so happy for Jeff and Heather. I am looking forward to having a niece/nephew in the family. Heather is moving along in the pregnancy nicely and they are both getting very excited about having a child!

Parties and Princesses have been the theme for the past month. Morhéa can’t get enough of the Princesses! It seems like there is always a Princess play in town and Kim finds them all. They have gone from the big stage to the local theatres to catch them. It is classic though! Morhéa and her friends like to dress up like their favorite Princess and go to the show! They have a blast. I didn’t make it to the smaller events but Kim says they are unbelievable. Apparently, for being a small act they do a VERY good job with the production.

Morhéa is still doing her skiing. The mountains this year are getting record snowfalls so the skiing has been great. She might have more powder days then me at this point. Some of Morhéa’s friends from her 6 month old music class have joined them 2+ years later for skiing in the mountains. She is even skiing blue runs!

Last weekend we went for a hike at the nearby South Valley Park and had a great time. It is a beautiful open space park close to our house. It had a great trail and nice rock formations.

Summer is getting closer and that means summer sports! Morhéa has started swim lessons and “Little Kickers” soccer class. Mom and Morhéa have been very active swimmers for a long time but now she is “officially” taking lessons. Today she told me she swam to the bottom of the pool to get a stick at the bottom!!! She is a natural! Last week she started Little Kickers soccer class and was also impressive. Rhéa and her friend Morgan are taking the class and they had a blast. Again, she has the soccer gene from both me and Kim. I was sick last week and couldn’t make it but am excited to see her in action. She has shin guards, soccer socks, Puma’s and even a David Beckham soccer uniform (go Chelsea!).

We have had parties almost every weekend. We have had birthday parties for kids and adults. Cousin Isabelle’s birthday was last week so we got together with them which was nice since we haven’t seen them in a little while. Isabelle is great with Morhéa and the two of them always have the best time. We walk in the house and usually don’t see them again until dinner. Lots of friend’s birthdays as well. Last weekend there was a gymnastics party where Morhéa showed her stuff.

Somehow Kim keeps winning these free happy hour parties and the Denver Aquarium. It is pretty fun with cheap beer, free admission, free parking and free food! Her last party was great. We had a ton of friends and all of the kids had a great time. I think we took over the place. Kim said last week she went there and there were all these adults only at the same happy hour. We had sooooo many kids when we were there it was pretty funny. They all seem to love it though. The bar area has windows to see into the aquarium where there are sharks and divers and tons of fish.

There are a couple of babies in the mix this past week. Last week our friends Brian, Theresa and Ella welcomed Sylvia into the world. All are home safe and sound.

Then TODAY at 8:41 AM Cole Hogan O’Reilly was born. Scott, Danielle and Jack are still recovering but everything went well. Scott says he is a big boy! Many long nights and early mornings for those crews. Congrats to all! I have added a picture of Cole to the site.

Congrats to Oakhurst as well! It has been a few years since I have left the band but the boys keep on truckin’! They spent the month of January in the Caribbean playing alongside the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Barenaked Ladies, Lyle Lovett and many, many others! I got to sleep on floors, couches, and pillows and now they are VIPS on cruise ships in the Caribbean. I got to live my rock star moments as well though. Oakhurst just released a new cd called “Jump in the Get Down” and had their cd release party this past weekend at the Bluebird Theatre. For all intensive purposes they sold out the place. It was great! I haven’t seen them in a while so I am glad I got out of the house and caught a show. The first ¾ was all bluegrass. They had the opening band up on stage for an allstar 10 person jam. Then the last ¼ they put away the banjo, upright bass and mandolin for electric guitars. All I can say is WOW!!! I was impressed with the talent of everyone. Let’s just say they don’t have day jobs anymore (for the most part) and play 200+ shows a year for good reason. Check them out at:

http://www.porchmusic.com/
http://www.myspace.com/oakhurst

Their myspace page has some of their music from the new cd to listen to. Their tour dates are listed there as well. Another month on the road in the U.S. and then off to Europe.

That is all for now. I will send an update again as soon as I can.

Todd

Half way to 70!

Another few weeks have come and gone. I don’t know where the time goes. We have had a lot of fun over the past few weeks. It seems like Morhéa has been having a nonstop weekend party with her friends the past few weeks. Morgan and family came over to try out my cooking one night. She partied with Tyler and Sierra this past weekend and then she got to hang out with Ella at the National Western Stock Show. She gets so excited to see her friends!! As we got closer to each party date she would often say “It is so hard to wait for Ella!” or “It is so hard to wait for Morgan” and so on for all of her friends. She is so cute when she says that.

On Monday Morhéa and I had Daddy day. It was Martin Luther King Day and I had off from work but Kim had to work so it was me and Morhéa all day. We called up Ella and asked if she wanted to go to the National Western Stock Show with us. Brian and Ella had no plans so off we went. I just looked up the history of the show and it all started in 1906!! It is one of the bigger stock shows in the country if not the biggest. I grew up on a farm so the whole concept doesn’t faze me. When I was younger we would go to cattle auctions all the time. It is a pretty amazing site. If you need a cowboy hat, boots, Ford F150, John Deere tractor or a cow you should go to the stock show. They have it all. We saw cows, pigs, horses, brahman, dogs, sheep, ducks, llamas and various other critters. The girls had a great time. We had lunch there and everything. We even got a ride in Brian’s new family mobile (the mini-van). It was decked out pretty good.

I turned 35 last week. Half way to 70! Morhéa and Kim secretly made me cards and cup cakes. Morhéa was so excited for me to get home from work. As soon as I got home we opened presents and she gave me her card. We got Carmine’s on Penn to go (a local Italian restaurant that I love). Then I got my cup cakes which were decorated with chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles and candy stars!! Just what every Dad would ever want!

We are looking forward to this weekend. Scott comes into town tomorrow for the night. Then Friday the girls and I are headed to Winter Park for the Mary Jane Birthday Bash weekend. Morhéa is very excited to see the ice sculptures, fireworks and bands. She we also be skiing, AGAIN! I think this is her 3 or 4^th time? She is almost a pro! Got to run!

Todd

Happy New Year!!!

Happy 2008 everyone!!! Another quick update. The Buytaert’s came out for the holidays this year. We had a great week with them. I had hernia surgery (with food poisoning or the flu) right before they arrived so the helped out immensely with taking care of Morhéa. While I spent the week in bed and stuck at home they got to run around the city and play. In true Colorado Christmas fashion we got our usual snow storm. Everyone got to go to some Christmas parade or something in Golden. Morhéa got to see her cousins which was great. Uncle Bill and Aunt JoAnne stopped by the house to see how I was doing. The family got to go to the zoo and with all of the new snow Morhéa got to try out sledding. Today Kim and Morhéa headed to the mountains and Morhéa is going to get her first ski lesson!!! I can’t believe that one!!

Morhéa really got to enjoy Christmas this year. It took us 2 days to open her presents. There were lots of great highlights. She got a set of Princess outfits that she wears every day. She got a new bike! Lot of games, Barbie’s and tons of Princess gear.

My big Christmas present from my father and Carolyn is a new GE dual-fuel range!! It took a while but I got it in. My house wasn’t setup for gas so I had to have a gas line installed. If anyone needs a plumber I’ve got your guy! Ricky ran the gas lines. He have me a line on an electrician and I got that wired up and then one of my old bandmates is a handyman and cut my countertops and cabinets. Sears was supposed to deliver it on the 22^nd but they didn’t get it here until the 29^th. Either way it is now in and I am a cooking machine. The 1^st night I made Dominic’s Beef A La Dutch. Basically, it is filet mignon with onions and peppers in a veal demiglace all over pasta with a side of green beans sautéed with shallots and butter. The second night I made Dover Sole Meuniere with a side of mushrooms. Last night I made New England Clam Chowder. It has been great!!

T

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone!! I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas. We got a late start today. I was up around 7:30 AM waiting for the action to start and then Kim woke up around 8:00 AM and then we sat there for an hour and a half waiting for Morhéa to wake up!! The most exciting day of the year and we had to wake her up at 9:30AM! She has been enjoying herself opening presents this morning. In fact we are currently taking a break from opening presents to have some lunch. I think it might be an all day thing. Highlights from the morning session include some rollerskates, a Tinkerbell outfit, a trampoline and lots of Barbie and Princess gear. Have a great Holiday!

Todd

Our Tiny Dancer!

I will keep it short for this entry. Today was Morhéa’s 1^st dance recital. Kim and I are so proud of her. It is hard to believe my little girl is growing so fast. It seems like yesterday I would have never believed that she could get up on-stage in front of 100+ people and perform a ballet and tap dance. Her class started with the tap dance routine to The Beatles, “Love Me Do.” That was followed by the ballet section to Elton John’s, “Tiny Dancer.” I don’t know how they did it. They had ~20 performances of dancers from the age of 2-20. Each class performed 2 songs. The entire time we were wondering what Morhéa was doing backstage during her down time. She told us she had a lollipop, snacks and played and danced with her girlfriends. Cherry Creek Dance did a great job. The entire recital went smoothly and 99.9% of the kids looked like they were having a blast! Next week Morhéa's teacher is performing in the Nutcracker with the Moscow Ballet here in Denver.

With all of that said I am trying out a new service on my blog page. VIDEO!! This video is in a WMV (Windows Media Audio/Video) format. The videos are ~15 and 19 MB. I am not sure if they will stream or you need to download them. If you have a problem with them let me know and I can either get you a different video or try a different format. In fact, let me know you opinion either way because next time I might choose a different format. It only took a few minutes to upload so hopefully it won't be too bad for anyone.