Overdue Update

Do you ever just need a week off? Who doesn't? Being in a vocation that doesn't allow for vacation time means stealing moments of restoration from other areas. We had a good week, a much needed quiet week. And now I'm back, feeling rested where I needed rest. Now I can recap Cason's birthday and our camping trip.

We had so much fun celebrating Cason. Josh was able to take the day off. We were expecting Mark and Lorrie and family for dinner, but got a pleasant surprise when they called saying they could come early since Mark had less work than expected for the day. We met them after lunch along the Poudre River for some wading and rock throwing fun. Then back to our house for dinner, presents, games and cake. Then the big highlight was the boys first real sleepover with Ethan and Owen. They were awake until 10 talking and messing around...having fun. The next day I took Cason, Ethan, and Owen to story time at the library while Josh took Jonah to the doctor. One of the ear tubes he had came out during a bath and he had gotten an uncomfortable amount water in his ear, which then became a waxy seeping mess. Thankfully no infection though. We met up with Lorrie just before dinner to return Ethan and Owen and headed back home to start preparing for our camping weekend.

Click to be taken to an album of photos.

Cason's Birthday

Friday morning we quickly packed up our van for a two night camping trip. We had been invited to join Josh's new friend Rob and his two sons and it was great timing for us to so we jumped at the opportunity. All in all we had a great time. We are very much looking forward to the next chance we get to go camping again. The boys did great, especially when it came to sleeping which is always my biggest concern. We mostly just hung out around the campsites. Rocky Mountain National Park is really restrictive when it comes to dogs, so we weren't able to do any hiking in the park but we did drive to one nearby trail just outside of it for a short hike. Cason and I took a drive to the top of Trail Ridge Rd (12,220 feet). He napped for the hour and a half that I drove and woke up when we got to the visitor's center at the top for a pit stop. We saw a yellow bellied marmot, elk (of course), and a fox. It rained a little, but we didn't mind because that just gave us an excuse to go into Estes Park for dinner and ice cream. Sunday morning we woke to gorgeous blue skies. We would've loved to stayed in the park for the day to enjoy the beautiful weather but by then we were feeling more than a little grimy and thought it best to just get home. If it's the only bit of vacation we get this summer, that's fine with me because it was a great memory making trip.

Camping June 2009

Of course there is more to write about, but I'll save that for another post.

Busy Week!

I want to write so much more about Cason's fourth birthday but I'm short on time. We've had a wonderful week celebrating his life. Now we're packing up for a weekend camping trip, so I'll just leave with this...




How I love that kid!

I can't make a cake to save my life...or

to celebrate my son's birthday, evidently.

I followed the recipe perfectly. No it wasn't a box mix. It started to go wrong when I opened the oven as the timer went off and discovered that the cake was overflowing. I let it finish baking in hopes that it could be salvaged.

Cason wanted a chocolate cake with orange frosting.




You might be thinking that's not so bad. Maybe if I just wiped up the crumbs around the bottom a bit.




But then there's this side.




What would you do? Eat this incredibly ugly, but actually yummy cake or run out to the nearest grocery store for a Diego or Transformers cake?

Weekend Fun

We're on our way with this park quest. Saturday was a great day, finally a small break to all the rain we've been having lately. You'd think this was Seattle. Rain practically every day for the last month. Anyhow, this weekend was the Taste of Fort Collins. And while we didn't actually go into the Taste we did go to Old Town to hang out for the afternoon. I really wanted to go to the Taste but there was an entrance fee and then I could just envision us standing in long lines for hardly anything, the kids would get bored, we'd pay outrageous amounts for two minutes in a bounce house and so on. On the other side of town there was a classic car show going on so we went that way. The boys loved the cars. There was live music on the plaza near the fountain so we also stopped there for a bit before going for a late lunch/early dinner. On the way home we were passing by one of the parks on our list so we decided to stop. If you haven't guessed from the picture above, it was Spring Park. It's a nice small park along Spring Creek and the Spring Creek bike path. Lots of open green for lounging and playing. Some baseball diamonds and a basketball court.

Swing Flyer


A classic Cason look.


Sunday was equally as great. We took care of household stuff. The boys got messy painting. We grocery shopped. The big event of the day was a trip to the movies. We've only once before taken Jonah to a movie theater, when he was probably about Cason's age now. This was Cason's first time going to a movie. We choose UP after hearing a lot of good reviews on it. It was so fun! Cason was just so enthralled by it all. The big screen, the huge tub of popcorn, the contraband candy in Mommy's purse. The movie was great, what a wonderful story and Pixar does it again with their amazing animation. We made it through the whole movie without incident, no potty breaks, no melt downs. It was just a delightful experience. There was one point during a scene change that the screen went black and Cason says out loud "I can't see the...oh!" Another quiet point in the movie he empathetically said "The man is sad." and then he got tears in his own eyes. Jonah was on the other side of Josh so I didn't get to experience his reactions as much, but I think he also loved the movie.

This picture doesn't really show how big that tub of popcorn was. Cason was sticking his whole head into it.


I think this is how Jonah was through the whole thing. This was during the pre-movie entertainment and he was already mesmerized.


What a great weekend and a great kick off to Cason's birthday week. We've got lots of fun stuff planned for the week, including more park play dates, puppet shows at the library, a birthday party with Cason's favorites, a Transformers sleepover with Ethan and Owen, more parks and other fun.

Allow me to introduce...

My Man

Enjoy!

City Park

We've begun our park quest. Yesterday was the "end of the year" picnic event for my Mom's Club and since it was meeting at City Park I thought it would be a good time to get going on our list.

As you can imagine from it's name, City Park is THE park in Fort Collins. It's located near Old Town and includes a lake, huge open green spaces, a playground, a nine hole golf course, an outdoor pool with waterslides, a train, a trolley that goes to Old Town, and plenty of picnic shelters.

We were looking forward to spending a few hours with other families from the Mom's Club. The club had even reserved the train for an hour of unlimited rides. Unfortunately, earlier in the day we were struck with a classic Colorado spring storm. A storm that included a lot of hail and lowered the temperature by about 20 degrees. It meant that fewer families showed up than originally planned, but I think those of us who did still had a good time. The unlimited train rides turned into only two rides due extremely wet tracks that were making the train work too hard. It was a bit disappointing, but still fun for the rides we did get to take.

This is what the park looked like when we arrived. The picnic shelter we were in was also flooded with curtains of water dripping from the roof. This was about 3 hours after the storm had passed through. The amount of hail was impressive.


My cold toes.


The boys enjoying themselves despite being cold and wet.


Cason peeks from the "dangerous animals" car.


Jonah choose the caboose.


All in all it was a fun start to our summer season even if it felt more like winter.

Weekend recap

Our weekend actually started last Tuesday with the arrival of Josh's parents and his brother's family. Steve and Tessa are moving from Japan to Hawaii (Air Force) and they have a couple weeks leave time in between. They flew into Kansas City, had a short two day break and hopped into a van to drive here to Colorado. They got in late Tuesday night and so stayed with us that night. It was serendipitous because it gave Josh and I a chance to go out to breakfast Wednesday morning for our anniversary. Midday Wednesday they headed to a cabin in the Red Feather Lakes area about an hour and a half away from us. We stayed here because it was Jonah's last week of school. It was a good last few days for him and we're already enjoying summer break.

Friday Josh's folks drove back into town for some provisions and also to pick up Jonah and Cason to take back with them to the cabin. Josh and I then were able to attend a reception in Estes Park that was given in honor of all the contractors at Della Terra. It was a really fun evening. Better than any work Christmas party we've attended. Also nice to see my husband recognized for the quality of the work he did for them.

We got a night to ourselves and then joined everyone else at the cabin on Saturday. It was a quiet relaxing weekend. My sister in law Tessa is into henna art so she practiced on me and Josh's mom.



This is what it looks like after it's dried and you've scraped off the paste.


We took a little hike on Sunday.
Josh gave the pre-hike talk, reminding the boys of the trail rules.


Later that day the guys played football and set up races for the kids. Our boys love running races.



All in all it was a nice weekend visiting. Especially since we know we probably won't see Steve and Tessa and their kids for another four years.