Girls Weekend #2

 Pancake time for the girls - Glenn always enjoys making strange pancakes for the girls - even the adults couldn't figure some of them out - HA!  And I even took these pics BEFORE they were dressed and had their make-up on!!  They are BOTH beautiful just like this!

I guess this pic is from Saturday - I made them special coffee that morning and Sunday morning I made Jessi and I special coffee - Jill is a cocoa drinker so she joined the coffee drinkers on the porch with her drink!       Jessi had brought me a 6 pack of small coffee flavors - what a fun surprise!

While the moms packed up late morning, the girls made smoothies and I took the "annual" picture of sitting on the front porch - usually it's with cocoa or coffee but today it was smoothies!  We played a couple of more card games before it was lunch time and by 2:00, it was time for them to hit the road!

Yes, both girls are taller than their Nana!

Jill must have snapped this picture on the way home - teenagers who can never seem to get enough sleep!

It was a great "girls" weekend - and maybe next year we can do separate ones!

Girls' Weekend

 Girls' Weekend usually means Kenzie and Aleah are coming down for their 2 or 3 night stay with us - but due to their hectic summer schedules, time was running out!!  In the meantime, Jill and Jessi always enjoy coming down for a weekend so they can get away from the daily summer grind and have time to themselves to blog and read!  Since school was starting in a couple of weeks, the ONLY choice was to have all 4 of them come at the same time - needless to say the young girls were NOT happy having their moms come too so they kind of pretended they weren't there......

Now these two 16 year olds, always want the PERFECT picture - so that's why they look SO GOOD in all the pictures I took!  They would look at the picture after I took it and if they didn't like the way they looked, they would ask if I would take it again!!  GIRLS!!!!  

I made mango daiquiris for the older girls and I -  non-alcoholic white peach daiquiris for these two!  Jaime and Brad came over for adjustments so they joined us for happy hour!

Game time!!  I can't tell you how many times we played rummikub, Phase 10, Skyjo, Skipbo, and the 7 game!!!  But I can tell you we only played 5 Crowns ONCE and then only 1/2 way through because I was in 2nd place and we had to stop so I could get dinner going!!!  And darn it, we never made it back to it!

We had a couple of really nice days!!  The crew all arrived late morning on Friday and then left Sunday after lunch so we had plenty of time together!  These two got some blogging done and reading!

One of the things the girls do when they come is to make chocolate chip cookie dough and between the 3 of us, (and this time with a little help from Jessi) we eat the entire batch raw!!!  YUM!!!  We also use my moms' old recipe which takes crisco - and it's hard to believe what it costs to buy a stick of crisco these days!!!!  

The batch turned out perfect!  Instead of using full size chocolate chips, they used the minis which worked out perfect because we don't eat it for the chocolate chips but for the dough!

The girls had made plans to go to Cripple Creek and celebrate all of their birthdays - don't they look great?  They had tickets to go to the Butte Theater and see Bee-Hive which was ladies singing the best female songs of the 60's - guess it was great!

They ate lunch at The District and said it was good!

And then walked around Cripple Creek and took some pictures!  After the theater, they went to the Teller County Fair and even saw some old friends from 4-H and school!

Meanwhile, the girls wanted to go to Goodwill to go "thrifting".  They love the Goodwill store we have in town so we headed in - and ironically, we ran into Rayna and Hez!!!  How fun!!  The girls found clothes to buy and then we went to the new thrift place and looked around!

Friday night dinner was Kenzie's choice of Spicy Crab Linguine and Saturday night dinner was Aleah's choice of Chicken Alfredo!  Both were great but next year we'll probably NOT have 2 pasta dishes in a row!

More games that evening......

July Photo Dump

 Just a few pictures to round out July!   August has already arrived -The 2 "A" months, August and April have always been my LEAST favorite months of the year!  Isn't that weird?  But so far August is going great and I can't complain one bit!

When Gwyn came down to stay, I FINALLY opened my pack of cards that I had purchased in Greece and was SO shocked and surprised when I saw that each card had a different picture on it - WOW!  I had to spread them all out so I could just see the different pictures!  A few of them were of the same thing but taken at different times of the day so the lighting was different!  I was SO GLAD I had bought these and we were excited to use them!

A cute picture of Jim and Brenda sitting on the front porch!

When Gwyn was here and we played with the "outside" toys, we both decided I needed to order some new sets of our 2 favorite games!!  They look so bright and a nice change from the old sets!

Glenn and Brad went fishing one day over at 11 Mile and Glenn caught the BIG one!  It's a Northern and Glenn even made their website!

Last but not least, Glenn is getting ready for winter early this year!  Check out ALL that wood he already has!  And the majority of it he did NOT have to cut - just picked up from the neighbors!  He did help a neighbor cut a tree and got some really large pieces out of that which he now has split!  I believe we're good!!

And that's a wrap for July!

Camping #2

 After a good nights' sleep and a hearty breakfast, the camp woke up!  They guys were all going to head out to ride and it was a beautiful morning!!

Here's Gary and Evan all set to ride on their new bikes!

Kenzie decided to ride AND drive with Papa and even Jaime decided to head out with Brad too so it was just Jessi, Gwyn and I left at the camp!

We did some reading, had some coffee, played some games inside and out and before we knew it, they were all back in!   Here's another photo of Gary and Evan!

It must be Happy Hour in our trailer!

And somehow, we all fit! Even Kona!

Dinner than night was taco stew - we set it up on the table outside of Jaime's place again and it worked out just fine!  Evening time found a few of us walking down to the aspen grove again just to see if the moose was there but he wasn't!  Cute picture of Kona though!

The campfire was a success once again - this time Jessi had the perfect marshmallow!

Can you tell it was a little chilly out that evening?  We put the color packets on the flame and enjoyed the pretty colors once again!

Gwyn slept on the folded down couch in our trailer that night - she stayed plenty warm and was happy about that!!

Monday a few of them went for a ride again and after lunch we all packed up except for Gary and Evan, who were staying another night!  It was another bumpy ride out to the highway but then it's only 45 minutes to our place - one of the reasons we LOVE going to Buffalo Peaks!

What a great camping trip with most of the family!

Family Camping - Buffalo Peaks

 Glenn and I were excited when Jessi texted and asked us if we wanted to go camping with them over at Buffalo Peaks!  YES - we did!  And then we found out Jaime had the weekend off and so we turned it into a mini family camping, knowing that Jill, Aleah and Parker would be in New Orleans at the National Youth Group Gathering!  We did invite Robby but he was super busy with work so opted not to come down!

Plans were for Jaimes' and Glenn and I to head over early Friday morning - due to the weekend, we knew it would get super busy over there and wanted to make sure we could get a campsite big enough for 3 sets of people!

But unfortunately, Glenn went to bed with bad stomach cramps and I was the same that night - 1:30 came and then I was basically up the rest of the night, sick as a dog!  DANG!  By early morning I was done with all the stomach issues but was so weak that I knew I couldn't go camping that day!  So Jaime's headed over and even on a Friday morning, all the good spots were taken!  They did find a place big enough for all of us but it was pretty uneven - still better than nothing!

We headed over early Saturday morning - took a while to get the 5th wheel leveled but Glenn managed to get it done and then we headed out for a ride!

It was fun ATVing with the Smiths as we hadn't done that in a long time!!  The weather was gorgeous and the scenery spectacular!

I always love this view overlooking Buena Vista!

The Keppys' arrived not long after we got back - Evan had to work and Kenzie had a party Sat. evening so they were coming together early Sunday morning!  We were really hoping Kylan would have gotten the day off so he could come over and ride also but that didn't happen.....

I guess we're having happy hour here - Jessi made a corn dip which was excellent!

Brats, hot dogs and salads were on the agenda for dinner that evening!  We ate up around Jaime's trailer since that was where the fire pit was!

Jaime wanted to take us down across the road to see this stand of aspens so a few of us walked down - Jessi just happened to turn and look down towards the creek and there was a bull moose just standing there looking at us!!!  OH MY GOSH!!  We were all SO excited!  This had been on Jessi's bucket list forever and here it was standing right there - luckily I had my camera with me!!

Back up to the campfire for marshmallow roasting - I had found the LARGE marshamallows and oh gosh did everyone have fun roasting them!

As you can see, it was VERY dry at Buffalo Peaks - apparently they're not getting the nice rains that we are at our place!  

Here's Jaime showing us the PERFECT roasted marshmallow!  And then the girls would pull off the crunchy outside and eat it and roast it again!

Jessi also had a patient tell her about these colored tablets that you put in the fire for color - her Walmart didn't have them but mine did and I actually found them - oh gosh it made the fire pretty and we had enough for both nights!

I think everyone slept pretty darn good that first night!  Gwyn did get cold so she opted to sleep in our 5th wheel the next night as we had plenty of room!!  To Be Cont'd.....

It's All About Gwyn

 Gwyn was excited to be done with family pictures AND lunch - why???  Because she was coming home with us for a couple of nights!!  It wouldn't be as long as some years when she comes down but due to time constraints, this is the best we could do!

We had a quick stop (right - is ANY stop a quick stop??) in Co Springs so Gwyn could get a smoothie and I could get a caramel frappe!  Papa wanted a malt so he could drive at the same time -  nope - this McDonald's doesn't serve malts so had to get him a sundae!!  It took FOREVER!

Gwyn quickly changed her shorts for pants and put on a sweatshirt when she got to our house - the temps are sure different in the mountains than in Denver!

I went to get a pack of cards to play the 8 game and realized that I had NOT used the deck of cards I had bought in Greece - WOW - the cards are absolutely beautiful!!  (more on that in another post)

Papa took Gwyn for a ride in the razor - and yes, she got to drive!

Gwyn gets to pick her 2 dinner meals and I ALWAYS know in advance what she wants:  1 night is fish and the other night is cheeseburger soup!  She watched Papa cook the fish out on the deck!

Papa decided to get in on the 8 game later on that evening!  I'm sure I can legally say that I have played that game way over 100 times with the grandkids - and yet Papa said he had NEVER played it!!!!  HMMMMMMMMM!

Gwyn and I BOTH had fun when I got out the tub of outside toys - we had started doing contests last year on how many times we could click the ball up and catch it!  And yes, Gwyn always beats me!

This may be the LAST year that Gwyn gets to swing!  All the other kids are too tall now and this year we realized that her feet drag on the rock if she doesn't lift them a little!  Makes me sad!!

Papa insisted that Gwyn come out so he could show her how the log splitter worked - I'm not sure she was impressed - HA!

Last year when Gwyn was here, I took her up to Mike's house as they had a new puppy and she had so much fun with it - well this is the puppy now, all grown up!!  Gwyn enjoyed throwing the ball and watching Zeb retrieve it!

Cocoa and coffee and cinnamon rolls - YUM!

And one last picture of the two of us (excuse the gray side - who knows????) before we head to CS to meet Jessi!

We met Jessi at Chapel Hills Mall and saw "Lilo and Stitch" - cute movie and a perfect show to enjoy with Jessi's free popcorn and drink for HER birthday!!

It was a fun but short time with Gwyn and hopefully next year will be a little longer!