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. 

This evening, after spending half the day at a swim meet, we took the kids ice-skating.  I know (in the words of a 3 year old Sam) we are a little crazy in the hair.  Loopy, for sure.

Sooo, last week, on our weekly field trip, I took the kids to the U.S. Figure Skating Museum.  Yep, right here in Colorado Springs.  It might have something to do with that silly Olympic Training Center, I don’t know….Anyway, we saw lots of sequins and trophies. I had no idea that there were so many different kinds of ice-skates.  Seriously.

After visiting the museum, I thought that it might be fun to go ice-skating. After mentioning ice-skating out loud (big, huge mistake) I quickly realized that taking four kids ice-skating was more than I could handle alone.  Well, since these kids never. forget. a. thing, I had to hold true to my promise of skating.  Not just any skating, but ICE-skating.

So, between Scott and I and a whole mess of orange buckets stacked together, we took the four kids ice-skating. We not only lived to tell about it but had an awesome time.  Sam and Alice did pretty well right off the bat, Mason definitely was a bit spazzy without the buckets and some parental help but Paige was the bucket skater extraordinaire.  She held on tight and skated around and around and around…..and did not want to stop. 

These kids had so much fun that they didn’t even realized we had ice-skated right through the dinner hour.  If you know my kids, they don’t like to miss a meal, ever.  This skating thing had to be super good to miss dinner.

Have an awesome start to the week!  We are going to fill in as much as possible in this last week before heading to MI and then starting school.  Hard to believe that our summer break is winding down!

Love to you all,
Jennifer

Sam

and his silly sisters

Okay,  I know it has been a few days since my last post.  We have been pretty busy around these parts.  Life doesn’t really seem to slow down for summer break but is just a different kind of busy.  As the end of summer gets closer, I start to feel the back to school panic.  Do you ever have that feeling or is it just me? We haven’t had quite as many field trips as we would have liked and we are still working on our meadow/mountain mural in the basement but we have had a ton of fun riding bikes, hiking, hanging out at the pool and enjoying our time with Scott home.  I hope to post again soon with pictures of frolicking children but for now you get this.  This is pretty much how I am feeling right now 🙂

Good night. Sleep tight. 

Jennifer

The best money ever spent.  On the clearance rack at the local drug store.  I could not pass it up. 
The kiddos, three of them at least, thought this sprinkler was the best.  (Sam thought he was too big for a sprinkler).

Yurting.  Doesn’t it sound so nice and fancy.  Like a hike could be a mere jaunt in the woods.  Yurting is our version of camping light. Instead of putting up the tent and sleeping on the ground we drive up to our yurt and lay sleeping bags out on bunk beds.  Very comfy and plush compared to, well, the ground.  Don’t get me wrong, we love to tent camp.  It is a great way to vacation around the state on the cheap.  This past weekend we headed southwest to the Ridgeway/Ouray area.  The San Juan mountains tower over this part of Colorado and it could be one of the most beautiful areas we have visited.  So, we reserved a yurt in the Ridgeway campground and got busy checking out the area.  Highlights of the weekend included hot springs, Ridgeway beach, waterfalls, steep cliffs, charades around the campfire and Frosty’s (hey, we gotta keep all these kids quiet somehow!)

and runs….and runs…..
The kid loves to run. 

Sam ran his first 5K race while we were staying in Summit County.  We had been talking about running one together for a while but it is so hard to find a race and a date when we are not busy.  So, as luck would have it, there was a trail race at Copper Mountain the first weekend after we arrived in Breckenridge. 

He did great!  He did get a pretty nasty cramp in his side but with some breathing practice that will get better.  We both enjoyed the sport jelly beans at the aid station, yum!  Way to go Sam!  I am so proud of you!
He ran some killer hills and lived to tell about it 🙂