Nana on duty!

Debbie has been and continues to be a HUGE help as we adjust to life with an infant.  The third pair of helpful hands is awesome!

Introducing Reid Connelly

The First Photo


















The First Bath

















His First Hat

















The First Car Ride

Inducing Labor!

Hey Everyone... the hospital is blocking facebook so here's a labor induction update. Mindy is 2 cm dilated (that's progress) and contracting regularly. She is feeling flushed but rates teh contractions at a 4 on the pain scale. Not too bad...

Mountain Train

I see a train almost everyday. Usually it's when I'm driving to or from work. I love the sound of the train.... the whistles, the rumbling tracks, the gentle hum. I don't even mind waiting for it to pass (yes, i still count the box cars from time to time!). We saw this train while we were geocaching. With the alpenglow on the mountains, it doesn't get much better!

Geocaching with friends

In January, we enjoyed spending our saturday afternoons geocaching with friends. One weekend, we completed a multi-site geocache with Lisa & Justin. It started at the Bozeman pond and at each site, we had to find various landmarks (for example, how many bouncing animals are in the park) and then insert that number into a math problem. The answers gave us the coordinates for our next site. Finally, we found the treasure at the ninth site and, it was just in time, since strong winds and snow started coming our direction.

Another weekend, we introduced our friends, Mike & Kate to the world of geocaching. Mike was really excited to use his new GPS and after downloading a few local cache's we were well on our way to finding hidden treasures. This was our personal best for finding tons of geocache coins and bugs. We picked up a few and will send them to another location soon.

It is amazing that we have the opportunity to play in such a beautiful place. We wish we could be skiing in deep powder, but until the snow starts to fly, geocaching is quickly becoming the next best thing. I don't think it will ever replace skiing but it's sure fun.

Back country skiing in the dark

On Christmas day, we had the strange opportunity to be completely alone. No family, no events at Lions Ridge, and no work. After calling our family and wishing them a Merry Christmas, we decided to go on a back country ski adventure. The weather was perfect (mid 20's), the sky was blue and it had recently snowed approximately 24 inches in the past few days. Perfect conditions, however it was also perfect for avalanches. After a long skin up to the ridge, we enjoyed a picture perfect sunset looking at the Bridger Mtn's, Tobacco Mtn's, Hyalite Mtn's and Spanish Peak Mtn's. Red, pink, orange, purple were a few of the colors that we saw. It was beautiful. At dusk, we started our approach down the mountain taking avalanche precautions. Although we had fresh powder, the snow was unstable and we had to carefully work our way through the trees. Skiing through the trees in the dark with unstable snow was not the best experience but it was a learning adventure. We learned that we should always ski in the light, take plenty of snacks and keep a good sense of humor along the way. We would have taken photos, but we forgot the camera. This photo isn't from our Christmas day adventure but it does capture a glimpse of what we experienced....at least when it was light outside.

Backcountry skiing in Idaho

Christmas is just around the corner! Instead of buying each other gifts, we decided to take a mini-vacation! We started this tradition last year but we didn't travel anywhere (we stayed home and enjoyed our little cabin in the woods.) This year, however, we ventured to the Teton Mountains near Driggs, Idaho. We spent a few days back country skiing and playing in the snow. This was our first time skiing for the winter and the powder was deep, fluffy and fun.


Mindy is getting used to skiing in the back country! Ryan still encourages her to overcome the fear of "Snow suffocation" and to be aggressive.

Ryan is looking good tele style. I think he's having fun in the powder.

Overall we had a great trip and just touched the surface of the back country potential outside of Driggs. We'll be back.