Eliza's Two-Two

If you ask Eliza how old she is, she will say, "Two-Two" as she points both index fingers and fires (like a gun) in sync with each "Two." It's something she picked up from her MDO teacher, Ms. Aurora.

"Helpful" sister and brother.

Birthday Diva

Happy Birthday Wise!

Lemonade!

At the beginning of the summer, Tim & I sat down with our kids and made a list of things they wanted to do through out the summer months. Included were things like...
Library
Pool
Berry Picking
Bowling
Splash Pads
Lemonade Stand...
so we planned a date (which was tricky considering vacation schedules), went to the store, made a poster,

waited for some thirsty folks...
waited...
& waited some more...

made sure to flag down anyone driving by...

and bless one sweet, older gentleman who paid extra for his lemonade and was the only customer. Lesson I learned-always have spare change in my car and never drive by one again without stopping!

Fun with Grandma

We love when Grandma comes to visit!
My kids know that means Grandma traditions like blackberries, bowling, and movies.

One of our favorite things to do if she is here in late June/early July is visit Toomey's Black and Blue Farm and pick blackberries. The bushes are thornless and they encourage you to eat as you pick. Yum!

We also went to the "Days of Summer" celebration put on by Blue Bell Creameries-all you can eat ice cream and bounce houses. (Sounds like a potentially scary combination but the only person who's tummy turned was poor Eliza who came down with a bug that put her out for the rest of Grandma's visit.)

Getting ready to tour the factory.

Belated Birthday Party for Grandma

Madilyn and Andrew are going to be passing my usual, "Oh so high" bowling score of 100 pretty quickly here.

Andrew waiting to see how he did.

Love the lips!

Swim Lessons

We have three fish this summer. It was great having all three kids in lessons this summer-especially since the only thing I had to worry about from the bleachers was getting pictures. :)

Madilyn's been confident in the water for a year or two now but her technique has improved a lot this summer. She's also our daredevil. She conquered the high dive!

Andrew learned to swim on his own this summer!
He also tried the high dive a few times with his teachers.

This summer Eliza went from clinging and crying in the pool to Miss Independent.
She's good to go in her life vest.
(A few scary times, she thought she was good to go without one.)

Family Vacation to Colorado

Friends of ours introduced us to an amazing little town in Southeast Colorado named, Cuchara. We played hard and then relaxed a ton this trip, making it a wonderful experience.

CUCHARA, COLORADO

Mr. Napkin Face

Tickle wars on the monkey bars-last one hanging on wins!
(Andrew won the most because he is such a monkey.)

That's me cheating.

Deer walking across Main St. in the neighboring town, La Veta.

Tim and kiddos at the stream down the hill from the cabin.

I ended up chasing Tim's flip flop down the stream and successfully retrieved it.

The water was "so-so cold."

Smores!!!

I'm thinking I should send this in to Ellen
for a Cindi Lauper look alike photo.


BLUE LAKE

Gorgeous! Started at Blue Lake, found another lake and then headed back.
So fun and all of our kids were good little hikers, even Eliza.

BISHOP'S CASTLE

This is one man's work in progress that he opens to the public. The kids loved it! What little kid doesn't love a dragon, towers, and making mom nervous by getting too close to the edge?

GARDEN OF THE GODS
("God's Rocks" in Andrew's dialect.)

OLD SPAGHETTI FACTORY

Denver's only one more hour in the car from Colorado Springs-why not keep going and end our day with some yummy food? It will only be a 3.5 hour trip back to the cabin. Yippee!
Actually, the ride back wasn't bad and we even saw a BEAR from the safety of our car.


SAND DUNES

Who knew there was a "beach" in Colorado?