Colorado Visit

After the rodeo, we stopped at Elry & Carol's for supper.

Sarah just had surgery on her foot, so she was teaching Anna how to be an invalid! ;)

I packed a little backpack for Isaac on this trip and he thinks it's the coolest thing ever! He kept it on during church and looked so cute sitting there, I couldn't resist taking a picture. 

One afternoon we went up to the Baldpate Inn for pie. It's an old, historic (is that redundant?) inn on the top of a cliff. Their pie is delicious. President Roosevelt stayed there once, as well as other famous people. The kids enjoyed watching the humming birds and chipmunks. 

It's a gorgeous setting!

Monday we took the kids to the miniature golf course. They had so much fun!

This kid...he would hit it once from the start and then he would pick up his ball and put it inches from the hole. He had such a wonderful time!

Mr. Len & Miss Kathy gave Anna some lessons. 

She caught on pretty quickly to the whole concept. 

They're convinced she'll be on the LPGA before long. ;)

On the way back from golfing, we saw a herd of elk just grazing and lounging next to the road. 

We had to make a special detour and stop at the Anders Farm we discovered last year! Such delicious produce!! We loaded up today with corn, potatoes, onions, green beans, peppers, honey, salsa, pickles......mmmmmmm!

Summer is Almost Here!

The weather has been gorgeous this week! We've taken a lot of bike rides and spent as much time as we can outside. 

Anna is flying through the Rose series (about Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter Rose) so we make several trips to the library. Our library is awesome. You don't have to whisper, they don't mind Isaac wandering around. But I do love it when I peek around the corner and see the boys sitting on the bean bags reading books!

This week, for 3 days, the college put on a soccer clinic! Anna and Jacob both has so much fun!! Their good friends Elli and Zachary were there, too. Stacy and I decided this officially made us soccer moms! ;) I told her I only wanted to be one if she was one with me...she makes it enjoyable because we can laugh at our kids together. Ha!!

Anna the goalkeeper

They surprisingly did a decent job of playing a game on the last day. Jacob even scored 3 goals! He also spent a lot of time giving hugs and tackling (mostly Zachary and the college kids)! 

Isaac is *loving* speech! Miss Karen is phenomenal. She even lets the big kids join in on the fun. 

I finally got my tomatoes in the ground!!! And thanks to my Uncle Randall, I have these incredible cages! And, these are all ones we started from seed!! I really didn't think they would survive, but they did. 

We bought a few tomato plants to give us a little earlier harvest, so Jacob used his tractor to deliver them to Stacy down the alley. He's a farmer! ;)

Papa made Anna her very own flower box to put on her little red stuga. It says "Anna's Rose" and she thinks it's pretty special!

Last weekend, since we found out Anna didn't have chicken pox after all, we went to Colorado to celebrate Aunt Carol's graduation from the Doctorate in Nursing program. Isaac tackled Uncle Elry and wouldn't let him up! :)

Now we have to call her Dr. Aunt Carol! ;)

Being silly in the big bathtub. 

Having fun in the hammock with Sarah. 

Hottest Trip Ever

We took our 3rd trip to Colorado last month to see Erick's family.

 Thanks to Pintrest, I found a great idea for road trip snacks. I just picked up some cheap tackle boxes, added some stickers I already had, and voila! The kids love them and it cuts down on the mess :) So the kids are allowed food in the van again, but only from their snack boxes!

 Poor Isaac. We got a couple hours into the trip and all the sudden we all smelled something quite yucky. I asked Isaac if he was stinky and this is what he did! I looked a little closer and realized we had a massive blow-out on our hands! We were in the middle of nowhere with miles to go before we would get to any sort of a place with water. So we pulled off at the next exit and made do with what we had in the van. It was a MESS!! Poor Isaac. His car seat cover had to come off and with no water to rinse it out, we had to leave it off...it wasn't a very comfortable trip for him!

 Our plans changed a little for when we were going to be out there. Anyway, long story short, the rest of the family already had plans to go to a Rockies game so Grandpa got us tickets to the rodeo at Cheyenne Frontier Days! The kids loved it! It was so much fun. Aaron said we should make that our anniversary trip from now on! :) Isaac was enthralled for over an hour and then he wanted to just run around.

 I think it goes without saying that Anna thoroughly enjoyed it!

 Isaac made it onto the big screen with this shot. Such a big boy!

 These two old cowboys needed a nap I guess! 

 So many people!!

 After the rodeo, we stopped by Aaron's aunt & uncle's and relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful view (and a delicious supper!) while the cousins kept our kids entertained! It was so nice.

 Saturday, it was off to the farm for a family reunion of sorts. Ivan reminds me of Jacob in so many ways, but I think he might even have Jacob beat in the size category! Ivan is close to Isaac's age but nowhere near Isaac's size! :) It took me back a few years when I picked him up! He makes Isaac seem like a newborn.

 And of course we had take a tour and visit all the animals!

 Feeding the goats. 

 Tow-headed cousins! :)

And the trip home is where it started getting hot...

 The AC started going out a bit. It would just get not-so-cold for a bit, then it would come back just fine. It had done it a couple times in the past month or so, but not very often. 

 We stopped for lunch and found a school playground to picnic.

 And after that, the AC never came back. Just blew out hot air. We tried a few "tricks" Dad suggested but none of them worked. And of course, again, we were in the middle of nowhere! We found the next gas station and loaded up on ice and bottled water. I rinsed out Isaac's "wipes spray bottle" (filled with water and baby oil to get his wipes wet) and used that to spray the kids and keep them cool. And handed out his wipes (baby wash cloths) dipped in ice water for them to use. It was absolutely miserable!!!!!

 We finally made it to Goodland and stopped at Walmart to get some freon. I wasn't in any hurry to leave and get back in the heat. Of course the farther east we went, the hotter it was getting. By this time it was almost 100* outside. So the kids played in the automotive isle while Dad helped Aaron figure out what to get and how to put it in. That didn't work. We spent I don't know how long in the HOT parking lot, talking to Dad on the phone, trying to figure out what else it could be and if it could be fixed. Of course, it was Sunday so no auto shop was open. After much discussion (okay, there might have been some heat-induced arguing!), we decided to head up to the Swiharts' and hang out in the AC for a while!!!

 It sprinkled just a little bit...the kids had forgotten what rain was like! ;) We ended up staying there for a few hours until it "cooled" off. We left around 9:30pm, loaded up with pillows and a blanket for the kids (we had forgotten our pillows at home on this trip!) and plenty of ice and water. The kids, thankfully, fell asleep pretty quickly and slept the rest of the way home. We got home at 2am and, praise the Lord, all the kids stayed asleep!!! It was a miserable trip, but at least it was below 90* outside!

And this is my garden haul after being gone for 4 days!!! Whew. I was busy in the kitchen for a few days!

It's Baaack!

 Dad fixed my camera!!! So I have a LOT of pictures! :) We went to Colorado over Memorial weekend (and took a few extra days) for Aaron's cousin's graduation. Aaron calls it a vacation, I call it same routine, different location! ha! It was fun to see family and spend time together (except for Isaac deciding to stay on Central time and wake up at 5am every morning!!!).

 Cloth diapering in the Rocky Mountains :)

 He's still ornery...

 Kissable cheeks!

 I wish I had a better editing program because her blue eyes are so stunning.

 I told him to smile and this is what I got. :)

 Grandpa taught the kids a new song, which they love because they get to "sing" really loudly on one part that goes "my, my oh MAMA!!" :)

 Ketchup face.

 Anna had fun exploring in the backyard.

 You can take the girl outta the country, but you can't take the country outta the girl. :)

 Anna's "Colorado Creation". She and Grandma gathered and created!

A big highlight of the trip was a first for my kids....the CIRCUS!!! It was 2 hours long, with a short 15 minute intermission. Isaac was enthralled the entire 1st hour and I honestly think he would have sat the whole 2 hours if he hadn't tasted "freedom" during intermission. Anna and Jacob absolutely loved it.

 

 Anna telling Daddy all about what he missed.

 See? Enthralled!

 He was even clapping. He really loved it!

 The hula hoop girl...she's got 47 hula hoops going at once!!

 Native American Appaloosa horses...this was Anna's favorite part.

 

 The elephants!

 Jacob's favorite part was the train ride afterward!

 I tried talking them into riding the elephants since they can ride a horse ANYTIME, but they wanted the pony ride.

 Isaac LOVED the pony ride!!

When the guy buckled Isaac in, he told Isaac to hold on. He immediately did. And then when we started going around Daddy, Grandpa, and Grandma were waving at him. The first 2 rounds, he had a hard time deciding if he should hold on or wave! Then he figured out he could wave with one hand and hold on with the other. It was really cute. When it was time to get off, Isaac let everyone in a 5 mile radius that he didn't want to get off!

We also went to a Ranch Sorting competition, but my camera needed new batteries (which I didn't realize until we got there) so I don't have any pictures from that. Even though it was pretty cold, Anna loved it and we stayed for over an hour (The boys didn't last nearly that long!).

Thanks for the good times Grandpa & Grandma!