This past week we spent some time with Scott’s family in Michigan.  We spent most of the week at Houghton Lake just hanging out swimming, tubing and catching up.  It is always a great way to spend a week in Michigan.

We started out the week by attending our 20th year class reunion in Flushing.  Scott and I graduated high school together (shoot, we went to second grade together) so it was super fun to see some of our classmates from waaaayyy back:)

 

Scott and I twenty years ago at our high school graduation.  I don’t think we have aged a bit.  Well, maybe a little…….

 

We took the kids roller skating at the same place that we went when we were their ages.  Crazy time warp:) It looked exactly the same…..

The kids thought it was really funny that this was the same place where I celebrated my 10th birthday.

 

Here are some lake pictures, just a few of the many I took.  The kids enjoyed their time with the Michigan cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.  Thank you to Uncle Tom for giving us the opportunity to spend a week at the lake. He sacrificed his time and his home for all of us.  Eleven kids and eight adults take over the cabin for a week and he just smiles:)

 

Now we are getting back to reality! The kids are going back to school in two weeks. We have a lot to accomplish in the next few days; backpacks, school supplies, registrations, well-checks, oh my!!!!!!!

Well, along with all the other stuff we have been doing this summer, we have also been busy with swim team.  The kids have had two meets and are scheduled for a couple more before the end of summer break.  The second meet was this morning up in Fraser (Winter Park).  I didn’t take my camera so these shots are from the first meet back in June.  All the kids are swimming really well.  Alice swam the fly this morning in a medley relay and she was really nervous.  Fly is really hard when you have no upper body muscles:)  She did great and started her team out well.  Sam is always up for a challenge so today he decided to swim the 100 medley  AND the 100 free AND the 50 breaststroke. I was tired just watching him. Paige was pretty nervous too but pushed through.  She was especially worried about swimming the breaststroke.  She has been working on it in practice but didn’t feel confident.  She got about halfway down the 25 yards and started to panic.  She actually looked behind her to see if she should go back but with a lot of cheers and encouragement, she finished and was really proud that she had done it:)  I have to admit that I had tears.  It is so hard to see your kids struggle and so wonderful when they overcome those fears.  So, here are a few shots from the June meet in Eagle/Vail.

 

 

Have a great weekend.  This is the last weekend of the summer that we are completely free of commitments and we are going to enjoy it:)

Jennifer

Just two days late…..

Our last couple of days have been packed full of Independence Day fun so I didn’t get a chance to take updated pictures until today.  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends and tons of fun (oh, and fireworks!!!!).

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a great shot of Sam so we are going to go out later for some better pics of his sweet face.

Love,

Jennifer

 

When you think about the Colorado mountains, you mostly think about skiing, snowboarding, hiking, biking and camping.  In this house, we hear a lot about horses.  Alice has a new love for horses.  She is “going to camp” once a week for the summer at a horse rescue. She is just in love with these animals and really enjoys helping to take care of them each week.  The kids scoop poop, feed, bath and give general care to the animals at the rescue.  They also are given the opportunity to ride the horses as well which is really what Alice loves.   At the beginning of the summer we found her some cowgirl boots and all she was missing was the hat.  For her 10th birthday, Grandma Peggy and Papa Gary sent her this sweet cowgirl hat and she is in heaven.  

Jennifer

My baby is no longer a baby.  Well, he will always be my baby but he is getting to be a big boy, way too quickly.

Happy Birthday to our happy go lucky, very early rising, bigger than life, super duper hugger, Mason.

All he wanted to do this year for his birthday was hang out at the park.  That sounded like a great plan but a bit boring so instead of hanging out at one park for the day, we went on a park tour of Summit County.  Unfortunately, the weather derailed us a bit after lunch but we did end up making it to four parks.

Check out our day….

Park #1 ~Mason opened his first present here and was very happy that we had landed at a play spot with a pond.

 

Park #2 ~ After a quick stop for some veggie sub sandwiches we headed to Silverthorne.  Mason opened his second present at this park.

 

 

Park #3 ~ We haven’t been to this park yet.  It did not disappoint!  We also found a great place to come and fish:)  Mason was thrilled that this park had a huge baseball field where he could play with his present from Grandma Peggy and Papa Gary.  He loves the stomp rockets almost as much as Daddy does.

 

 

Park #4 ~ Luckily this park was right down the street from church where Sam had youth group, so we dropped him off and got our play on.  At this park we had some more stomp rocket fun and even got out the parachute for some family fun.

 

 

Our little man had a great day.  After we got home, we had cupcakes and Mason opened the rest of his presents.  It was an awesome family party.

We love you, Mason!

Momma, Daddy, Sam, Alice and Paige

A decade.

Hard to believe.

Time flies when you are keeping kids alive.

Alice is celebrating her 10th birthday today.  We went canoeing on Lake Dillon and had a picnic on one of the small islands out in Frisco Bay, which is now renamed Wescott Island. The first island we stopped at had a lot of great skipping stones but 100 times more ants and spiders so we left there and deemed that small spot of land, Spider Island.  Not a great place for a picnic.  As we were headed in from our morning of paddling around the lake, Alice sits back, puts her paddle aside, looks at her arms and says…Workin’ on the gun show.  Well, let me tell you, with the amount of paddling she really did, there isn’t going to be much of a show:)

We all enjoyed the morning out on the water.  A beautiful day for a birthday.

 

 

Happy Birthday to our little ladybug. She is sweet, thoughtful and has beauty beyond measure inside and out.  We love you Alice!

Jennifer, Scott, Sam, Paige and Mason

Today we took a break from chores around the house and got out for a hike in McCullough Gulch.  The hike was about 3 miles round trip so not too long for the kids but super strenuous. The trail went up:)  We hiked up to the falls, had a quick lunch and then hiked up a bit further until we needed to turn around (Paige had dance camp).  There is a glacier lake further up the trail so we have to go back and find it.  Definitely one of our most favorite hikes. This hike is absolutely gorgeous, views in every direction.  We were all sad to head back to the car, for sure.

I really wanted a group shot of Scott and the kids but that was easier said than done.  As you can see below, they couldn’t stand still without squirting someone and then the craziness would ensue.

 

I hope you all had a very nice Father’s Day.  As you can see, we are having a blast:)

Happy Father’s Day to Scott, my dad, Scott’s dad and our brothers and brothers in-laws……

Jennifer

Right now, I have three of them; Running buddies that is….

Today was the Frisco Bacon Burner 6K.  It was a gorgeous morning for a run by the lake. The kids love this race because a slice of bacon is served at the halfway aid station.  Since we don’t normally eat bacon, or any meat for that matter, it is a huge treat and an even bigger reason to get up early and run a race.  This race is part of the BBQ Challenge weekend in Frisco.  All weekend the streets are closed off and filled with bbqers of all kinds.  Bands are playing continuously throughout the weekend and it really is a fun kickoff to summer.  The pig races might be our favorite event of the weekend.

Sam and I headed out in the first wave and Alice and Paige ran in the third wave of the race.  Everyone ran really well today.  Sam was still hurting a bit from a fall on his mountain bike a week ago (scrapes, bruises, sore ankle) and he was pretty disappointed with his finish.  He really wanted to be the first kid to finish and another little boy passed him near the end and Sam was really mad (and tired) so he walked in to the finish.  Alice has been running with me early every morning so she was really ready.  Don’t tell her I told you but she finished first in her wave. Not just first out of all the kids but first out of all the women she was running with.  Can you say crazy proud parents.  I don’t think I will be wiping this grin off my face for quite some time:)  Paige ran well too.  She ran and walked a bit and had a boost from Daddy right at the end.  She is a fast little thing and with a bit of training she will be on the heels of her sister in no time.

It was a super fun day.  I love my little running buddies.  I am pretty sure that they are all going to pass me up really soon!

Jennifer

Every summer the kids and I create a family bucket list of things that we want to accomplish or places to visit before school starts in the fall.  This summer when I asked the kids where they wanted to go, they decided that Mt. Rushmore was at the top of the list.  Sam’s dream vacation is to visit the Redwoods but that wasn’t in the cards this summer.   We are headed to Michigan at the end of July for a class reunion so we couldn’t add another super long road trip to our summer plans.  Unfortunately, Scott was unable to join us so the kids and I packed up the car last Wednesday and hit the road very early on Thursday morning.  Almost exactly seven hours later we pulled into the campground which sits just six miles down the road from the Mt. Rushmore National Monument.

 

Normally I would have prefered to stay in a public campground but since this was our one vacation for the summer (and I had left my backup at home) I decided to splurge and take the kids to the KOA where the facilities would be a bit more predictable and there would be plenty of activities for the kids. We stayed in a camping cabin which is basically a shelter with a locking door and bunk beds.   We hit the kid jackpot. There were two pools, a water slide, a climbing wall, bounce houses, playground, miniature golf, paddle boats and horses.  I know.  Serious kid fun zone.  

Apart from a trip to the Custer Hospital and a nifty set of stitches for Alice, our trip was a blast.  We were sad that Scott wasn’t there to enjoy it all with us but we know that we will go back someday.

Mt. Rushmore was so awesome that we actually made two trips to the monument.  It was pretty cool because Sam and Alice had both studied government in school so they were pretty familiar with the history and information on Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln.  If you get a chance to visit, the nightly lighting ceremony of the faces is totally worth it.

We also checked out Rushmore Caves while we were in the area.  We were all super excited for the tour but about 25 feet into the cave, Sam realized that he had a bit of claustrophobia and needed to leave the cave. I encouraged him to stick with it but after about 200 feet of a very thin route through the cave, he was in full panic mode. Alice and Paige continued on for the hour-long tour but Mason, Sam and I headed up and out as quickly as Sam’s little legs could go:)  I am pretty sure that mining won’t be in his future!

The Black Hills area is so cool and we had a ton of fun just exploring the areas around our campground.  One day we pulled off the road and had a picnic and a quick hike to check out the views.  Gorgeous.

 

And this is what Sam did, every time we stopped.  He loves to read.  He has read this book 5 times.  Oh well:)

 

The trip was so much fun and we will definitely be taking more road trips.  The kids traveled really well and we only stopped a couple of times each way.  I was really proud of all of them. We have officially become road warriors:)  Here are few more shots from the trip, mostly of our fun at the campground.

 

The view from our campsite.  Beautiful.  This is actually the back side of Mt. Rushmore.

 

 

 

We arrived home yesterday just in time for a neighborhood bbq.  We have really wonderful neighbors and it was exactly what I needed after a long drive…..someone else to cook.  

Jennifer

P.S. Check back for a post written by Alice.  She is going to give you the nitty-gritty on how she ended up with five stitches in her chin:)