First they go up the hill.

and then Mason rides down….

Today we spent most of our day at church.  Twice a year we have a community block party at our church.  All is free, open to anyone, lots of good fun.  The kids had a blast, running around like crazy between bounce houses, crafts, balloon animals, games, food and events.  It was a gorgeous Colorado day and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Again this year Scott had his bike repair tent and had tons of bikes stacked up for sizing, tuning and fixin’ up.  He did step out of his tent to participate in the pie eating contest.  And….he won.  Now he is belly-aching about eating soooo much pie. 

I have been cleaning out closets this week in an effort to get rid of lots of #$%@ simplify our life.  Deep, I know.  Because I couldn’t see the floor of my sewing room/spare bathroom/closet, I set my sights on that space last night and didn’t give up until it was organized and “simplified”.  I threw a lot of stuff away.  Under a pile of fabric, I found a picture disk, labeled Paige’s birth.  Really?!?!?  I can honestly say that I did not know this disk existed.  Obviously, at some point, I must have had knowledge of it, because it was my handwriting on this mystery disk.  But I have no recollection of it.  Seriously.  My only excuse is that Paige was my third birth in less than 4 years. I had a toddler, baby and newborn. I was crazy.  Out of my mind in mommydom.  I could have made that picture disk, put it up on a shelf and never thought about it again.  Sooo, after finishing up my simplification (is that a word?) of the spare bedroom closet, I popped that disk into my computer and here is what I found.  I will admit to you that I did tear up a bit.  I had sweet, sweet babies.

I admit it…I have been absent.  Absent from this stinking blog.  Really not here.  People are noticing.  Really noticing.

Just out of curiosity, I checked back to my posts from this time last year.  I was a bit absent last year too.  If you are a parent, you know why.  Life is crazy at this time of the year.  Driving here. Running there.  You know how it is…. Crazy.

Now that I have given my excuses and my apology.

Sorry.

Okay, now that I have really given my excuses and apology, I will update you on the end of our summer.  We traveled to Michigan at the end of the summer and arrived home 2 days before school started.  It seemed like there was no time between washing swim suits and towels and getting back to school shopping finished.  Now the kids have been back to school for three weeks.  Sports practices started this week and my head has begun to spin once again.  Sam and Paige are playing soccer, practicing on the same two nights, same time, different locations.  Go figure.  Alice is still playing piano and just started volleyball. Her practices are on a different day, thank goodness.  All three big kids are running cross country after school and will have weekly meets around town.  Mason started preschool today and loves it. Loves it. His favorite part of school is lunch 🙂

Scott and I are good.  We are working on some changes around here.  More to follow.  It is so awesome to have Scott working from home.  Today we ran errands and had breakfast together.  Love it, again.  He is starting to run again.  If you weren’t around at the beginning of the summer, you might not have known that he ran a 50 miler and then realized that something was wrong with his leg. Oh yeah, it was a stress fracture in his fibula.  Yep, he did run a 50 miler on a fractured leg.  He is a little bit crazy in the head.  Anyhoo, he was on rest for 3 months and just started lacing up his shoes last week.  I thoroughly loved my summer with the kids.  We had a ton of fun and stayed super busy with field trips, art projects, cooking, etc. 

My pictures are a bit random but a recap of the end of summer and beginning of a busy fall. 

I was looking back at my summer pictures last night, while searching for a pic that Alice needed, and I came across these shots.  It might have been one of the best days of our summer.  You know those moments, when you look around at your family and everyone is happy, not a care in the world and everything is right, just for those few precious moments.  Kids are laughing and having pure fun.  This was one of those afternoons when we didn’t need a Wii or an ipod or even a book to entertain us.  We had  tree stumps, wide open spaces, wild flowers and even one big pile of snow on a hot summer day in the mountains.

I am never ready.

Never.

My three biggest went off to school today. 

For another year.

Our last ten days have been filled with lots of family time. 

Two long days together traveling in the car.

Two adventurous days at Grandma and Grandpa’s MI house.

Five fun filled days with Scott’s family at Houghton Lake.

One day visiting with Scott’s Grandma and Aunt Betty in Birmingham. 

We were also blessed to get to spend time with some family and friends that we don’t see very often.  My aunt Judy and cousin Amy visited us while we were at the cabin.  Friday night we had dinner with one of my college roomies. We lived with or near each other pretty much all the years I was at CMU.   Love you Summer! It was also great to visit with high school friends Mark and Nikki,  and watch Mark’s band play. 

As usual, I took an obscene amount of pics.  Enjoy!

Today, with great friends, we headed southwest into the San Isabel Forest to Bishop’s Castle.  This place is a hoot. It is a castle on the side of the mountain being built by one man. He started this project in 1969. When I say a castle, I mean a huge, massive place with towers and a dragon.  My description is not doing it any justice.  Check out the pics.  Thanks to Kristin for taking three of my kids, along with her three kids, up to the tippy top of two towers.  This was no easy job because the spiral staircases were made of metal and had no handrails. 

After the trip to the castle we headed back down the mountain to the San Isabel Rec Area.  We had a picnic on the beach and the kids spent the afternoon swimming wading in the lake, throwing rocks and enjoying our time together.