Quick trip to Virginia...

Well, bad news hit the Otten Family when David's Grandma on his mom's side passed away on Wednesday. We booked a flight out to Virginia and left on Friday and stayed until Monday afternoon. The funeral was on Saturday and David's dad gave the eulogy for his mother in law. It was a wonderful speech and and he focused mainly on the fun, humorous side of Grandma Finney. Visiting with the extended family was nice since we do not go out there very often.

One of the best things we were able to do was visit the USS George H. W. Bush Aircraft Carrier. It is at the Navel Base in Norfolk. Dave's cousin's husband was in the Navy and is stationed on the ship. He was able to give us an amazing tour of the huge ship! Tip to tip it is as tall as the Empire State Building.

The Ship!


This is where Kyle Sleeps! Yikes!


Very Patriotic! On the flight deck.


Giant Anchor Chains...


The Captains Chair...




Amazing....

Brewery Tours, Fort Collins, CO

We took our friend Gina to the breweries in Fort Collins. She is from Oklahoma, so she had never been to New Belgium (home of Fat Tire), Fort Collins Brewery, or O'Dells (home of Easy Street). We had a great time. Kailey and Bryan came with us, so it was a cute "Otten" affair. I also added a few pictures of Dave and his friends at karaoke. We dressed up one night and had a great time making fools of ourselves a the bar.









Oh and here is a super cute picture that is totally unrelated. Asher has been Dave's study partner as he has been preparing for his boards. Apparently she is getting tired and can't keep her eyes open on all the paper :)

Italy here we come....

Big news: we leave for Italy in about 5 weeks..... Yes Italy.



Dave and I were planning a trip to Mexico before he starts work in the hospital, but thanks to mom and dad, they warned us about the growing violence with our neighbors to the south. I guess I have not been watching the news closely enough because we had no clue about the drug cartel and other violence that has been happening. Thanks Mom and Dad for keeping us in the loop:) Well, Dave and I threw around quite a few ideas about what else we should do with that week, but we kept coming back to Italy. It will be a short trip since we will be there for one week, but we may never have much more time than that to travel. We are VERY excited to visit Carrie, Joe and CARLIE!!! I laugh at our decision because it seems that Dave and I like make big decisions in short amounts of time... we have been procrastinating on making a decision about Mexico (which I am glad we did), but now we are leaving for Italy in 5 weeks:) Oh well, we are very excited and got a good deal on airfare to Europe. Also, we are excited because we are flying on Lufthansa Airlines which is known for great service, little TV's in the head rests and free alcohol.

Also, a reminder that Dave takes his boards exam on April 10th, so keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he prepares for this major test!!

Ice Fishing

Gwen and I went ice fishing today after church in Evergreen. It was a beautiful day, about 55 degrees, but the ice was solid. We had a fun time, and caught four fish.


Here I am attempting to use the agar to drill the hole, but it turns out we just used holes that were already drilled since it was such a wonderful day. Not to mention it saved us a lot of work:)



Gwen just relaxing with her pole.


Look at that bad boy!



Our feast!!!