Colorado/Utah (Week #3)

Sunday: Church and all the family for desert.
Monday: Family pictures, lunch at Red Robin, and the movies to see Monsters University

Tuesday: A trip to Denver to the water park with Uncle Pat and his family.  Then a stop at the outlets to buy a whole lot of shoes!  And then a great night for a baseball (watching the Colorado Springs Sky Soxes) with Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Curtis' family.

Wednesday: Zoo day!  And last night dinner together.

Drew "saw a man about a wallaby."  If you have seen Nemo, you get my attempt at humor.

Dallin and Drew got to help with giving water to the opossum.

My sister-in-laws are amazing!

Caught in the act!

 Thursday:  A day in the car from Colorado Springs to Linden Utah.  We drove right to a ball park to watch a cousin play a baseball game.   We went to dinner afterwards with Mark's brother Doug and his family (which is where we stayed for three nights).
Friday:  The intent was to hike the Y, but rain came our way.  So instead we went over to the bookstore, where we always have way too much fun.  Then we had lunch, and a little more shopping.  Then we got to spend the afternoon and evening with Doug's family.
Saturday:  The morning was spent with good friends (which I am going to do a separate post for. Then we did a little more shopping.  Then dinner and a movie with Doug's family.

Colorado - Week #2

Sunday activities.

We headed out on Monday for a two night camp out, which quickly became a one night camp out as the highway up to the campsite was closed due to mudslides.  The side effects of wildfires one summer, is mudslides for many summers to come.  So we made our way to the ice cream place, kept the car packed, and then headed up to camp on Tuesday morning.  We stayed at a wonderful place with amazing views and lots of fun.  We had one medical emergency in the middle of the night, just to keep things lively, but for the most part it was a success.  The funny thing about this camp out was it was the third year in a row a camp out had been attempted, and it was almost thwarted, but we did get one night in.  The first year, it rained and I mean buckets, the second year there were wildfires, so this the, third year was a charm.
Mason got a whole bunch done for his Scout advancement by planning, buying, preparing, cooking and cleaning up three meals.  He also helped set up three tents and take them down.  He did a great job and learned a lot, I think.  All the boys were a lot of help, actually.  We had a great camp out (finally).  And lots of pics to prove it.

Cousins checking out the entrance to an old gold mine.

Helping keep little Z occupied.  Drew looks bored, but he volunteered to do this with smiles.

That is not our camper, we were in tents.  Doing some real camping.

The kids played on this death trap for a long time.  The big kids, then the littles, then the big, then the littles. 

Mason helped put up almost all the tents and helped to take them down as well. 

Checking out the wildlife

Hiking

A few other highlights of the week:

-For some reason, I don't have one picture of the 4th of July.  But the kids and I went out on our own for lunch and ice cream.  Then we had a family BBQ and we watched some fireworks on a side walk up in the mountains overlooking the fireworks.  It was a good ending to a wonderful day.
-Drew and Mason went golfing with Grandpa, while Dallin and I went on the Santa Fe trail together.  Dallin biked while I jogged (and Easton sat enjoying the view in the jogging stroller, that's the life).
-Uncle Pat had a Star Wars extreme sleepover.  All the boy cousins that were in town (so six boys in ages from 4 to 13) and Uncle Pat watched episodes of Star Wars the Clone Wars, played Star Wars Kinect, had pizza, did more star wars, and more star wars.  Then I picked up Easton so the olders could continue far into the night, have a sleepover, eat pancakes, and then when I picked them up in the morning they were using light sabers and such things to re-inact said star wars stuff.
-Picked up Mark from the airport!!!  So good to be reunited.

Cousin Fun

Candy Car

So 4 days after we arrived to Colorado, Easton asked if he could build a "candy car."  He had watched the Disney movie Wreck-It Ralph on the plane from Dallas to Colorado Springs.  If you have seen the movie, then you know that all the race cars in the movie are made out of candy.  So we went to the pantry and found what we needed (well mostly).  So with our Nutella glue this is what Easton created!

Off the plane and running (Week 1)

All the moments count when you are with the family and friends you love and miss so much.  So we hit the ground running, literally.  We went straight from the airport on a drive up north for lunch with the Jespy's then came back, cleaned up and made our way to a birthday celebration for my cute little niece.

The first week we had family dinners and outings, a lot of shopping, and a lot of restaurants to fulfill those cravings we had while in Chile.

Family Dinners

Hiking with Grandpa.  While the older boys went hiking, my sister-in-law, two nieces, Easton, and I hit the walking trails and nature center.

For our memories, I have to mention some of the things we did that first week which I didn't have my camera for...

- Watching Grandpa play softball
- Going to America the Beautiful Park to play in the huge fountain
- FHE and Swimming at Uncle Pat and Aunt Andrea's
- Grandma and Mom's lunch out
- Family dinner at Uncle Pat's for Aunt Andrea's amazing Peruvian cooking
- Helping Grandpa build the cover for the window well and cleaning out branches, logs, and leaves of the backyard area to keep things safer in case of forest fires.
- All the playing with cousins