family - The Random Adventure That Is Life (RATIL)

The Random Adventure That Is Life (RATIL)

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A collection of 24 posts

Toniebox Tonies Duration Python Script

Toniebox Tonies Duration Python Script

Maximize your value on Tonie figurines with this sorted list of Tonie durations.

Bulk Download Photos From Procare

Bulk Download Photos From Procare

Our son's daycare/preschool uses Procare to track attendance and send info about the school including pictures of the kids during the day. As he moved to a new school for Kindergarten, we wanted to make sure that we had all his photos from the app. Too bad the app

Kids' and Wife's First Backpacking Trip

Kids' and Wife's First Backpacking Trip

If you know me or have read this blog, then you know that I like backpacking. Last year I tried to plan a backpacking trip for the kids into Rocky Mountain National Park but we got rained out by a storm that ended up being a Derecho Storm [https://en.

Family Road Trip 2021

Family Road Trip 2021

I had to be in Las Vegas for work for a few weeks. Since I was planning to drive anyways, we decided to make a road trip out of it and visit several National Parks along the way and finishing the trip off with a couple of nights in Vegas.

Skiing With a 2-Year-Old

Skiing With a 2-Year-Old

We took our son skiing for what could be the last time this season. As such, I thought it would be appropriate to recount the trials, tribulations, and celebrations of a season of skiing with a 2YO. Patience and Expectation Management The key to every ski trip with kids is

Squaw Mountain Fire Lookout

Squaw Mountain Fire Lookout

I am not sure where I first heard about them (probably some click-baity Facebook ad), but for the last few months I have been obsessing over renting a US Forest Service fire lookout tower. In their heyday, there were a couple thousand lookout towers. With the advent of modern technology,

10 Years, 10 Things I Have Learned

10 Years, 10 Things I Have Learned

My wife and I have been married for 10 YEARS TODAY!!!! It is insane how quickly time flies and how many life events have happened in that time. I love her more than anything in the world but as they say "marriage is work". I think we would both agree

Olive Ridge Campground - With A 2-Year-Old

Olive Ridge Campground - With A 2-Year-Old

With the weather being so outstanding, we decided to pack up the fam and head up into the mountains to get a weekend camping trip under our belts. We had previously taken the little guy camping [https://ratil.life/camping-with-a-1-year-old/] back in Texas for one night. This trip was a

Mount Falcon Park

Mount Falcon Park

We were looking for a hike on the west side of Denver so that we could meet up with friends in the area afterwards.Mount Falcon Park [https://www.jeffco.us/1332/Mount-Falcon-Park] was in the perfect spot for the time we had between nap time ending for the little

Saint Mary's Glacier

Saint Mary's Glacier

Being in Colorado, I felt the itch to get up into the mountains before our first month in our new home was up. On a suggestion from my brother-in-law, we decided to head up to Saint Mary's Glacier. The glacier is just past Idaho Springs on I-70 so we decided

Flying To Dallas With A Toddler

Flying To Dallas With A Toddler

I have been wanting to fly to Dallas for a while and 3 opportunities in a row have resulted in the weather not cooperating. Well, we finally had the weather we needed to make the trip. I generally prefer to fly the Flight School's Cessna 172, but after a recent

Sump Pump Replacement

Sump Pump Replacement

Over the holidays I went over to my mom's house to visit and as I walk in the door, she is pulling everything out of the closet under the stairs and I could hear a high-pitched alarm going off. Her sump alarm was going off. My mom really is not

Camping With A 1-Year-Old

Camping With A 1-Year-Old

The Wifey was working on a Sunday so I decided to spring into manly action and plan a camping trip for Saturday night with the kiddo. I really wanted two things out of the trip: 1) to take the little guy on his first camping trip and 2) to use

Friedrich Wilderness Park

Friedrich Wilderness Park

We had an uncharacteristically nice day this week after months of the Summer's oppressive heat and then a month of monsoon season. With a little bit of cabin fever from not having been able to go hiking for months, this was a perfect day to hit the trail. On a

Pikler Triangle

Pikler Triangle

First off, I am no wood worker, I just found this Instructable and followed it pretty closely. In the areas where I did the same thing, I will just gloss over it, but if I did something different or needed additional information, I will add that in. Follow this guide

Family Trip To The Big Apple

Family Trip To The Big Apple

So we decided that taking a 1-year-old on a family vacation to New York City would be a marvelous idea. Being late in the year, we had to decide what to do with my remaining days off and we settled on New York City because I had never been and

Family Vacation: Maui

Family Vacation: Maui

Lahain Pali Trail Haleakala Sunrise Flying - Maui County Road To Hana Deep Sea Fishing Koko Head and Diamond Head Traveling With The LO Our family vacation this year was to Maui, HI so that we could visit family that recently moved to Honolulu. The trip was an amazing opportunity

Hiking With My Baby

Hiking With My Baby

I love hiking. The idea of getting to trek to a place tat few people have been or getting to see a vista that requires some work and planning are rewards that are hard to rival. Unfortunately, in Texas, there are only a few hikes in the local area that

Flying To The Coast

Flying To The Coast

The last opportunity we had to fly the family to the coast was back in November and the plane had a leaky fuel sump and kept us on the ground, so being able to finally make the trip in January was a treat. We originally had plans to be in

November Is (was) National Adoption Awareness Month

November Is (was) National Adoption Awareness Month

(Collection of posts from my Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/brianasteen] so some of the formatting and emojis may look a little funny) November is National Adoption Awareness Month! 🎉 So this month I will be sharing a little bit about our adoption journey but I would encourage everyone to also

Baby Wearing

I had thought I would be posting more when Trevor started this blog, then baby, then life, and so here we are with the first guest post!!!! If you follow my Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/brianasteen/] at all, you might have guessed that I like carrying my baby, like

Colorado Vacation - Lake Como

Colorado Vacation - Lake Como

We recently got back from a good week long vacation to Colorado to visit our brothers and my nephew. Aside from the great breweries and awesome beer, my brother and I also got to do some back country camping. We chose Lake Como, nestled in the middle of the Blanca,

WOD On The Lake

WOD On The Lake

We recently moved CrossFit gyms to Crossfit Born Ready [https://www.crossfitbornready.com/] so that we could work out together and take the baby with us instead of working out separately. Lucky for us, they were doing a lake workout and BBQ the weekend after we started so we got

Baby's First Flight

Baby's First Flight

I was finally able to realize one of my life dreams...taking my family on a cross-country flight. When I got my Private Pilot's License, my goal had always been to fly my family somewhere. Mrs. Steen and I had certainly flown before but being able to do so with