Pirates Cove

Day 2 of watching Rayna and Kylan was an easy day as we headed over to Jessi's, loaded the car seats and coolers and headed to Pirates Cove for the day!!  We even stopped and got some coffee to go - yum!!!

The Keppy's had already been here a couple of times so knew the ropes and what to do - which is of course stand in line so you can race in and get a picnic table!  Jessi had a Groupon to use and Jaime had already purchased online tickets for us so it was a quick trip in!!

What a cute place - I was amazed at how it catered to the little ones with several places for them to get wet, swim, play in the sand and the neatest pirate ship where there were all types of water things to do!!

Of course not long after we arrived, the kids were already hungry - we had brought plenty of food to eat!

Here's a picture of some of the spray pieces and in the background are the 2 ships and the huge bucket which after it is filled, tips over and sprays all the people standing underneath it!!

The kids loved the sandpit, complete with toys, and were having a great time there until one little boy started throwing sand at Kylan and just wouldn't stop - his mom refused to do anything - and after getting a face full of sand, Jessi pulled them out of there!!

Kenzie had a great time just swimming around in the shallow end and jumping to her mom - someone had to stay with her at all times of course but we let the boys just go their own ways and would attempt to find them about every 15 minutes if we didn't see them!!  There were LOTS of lifeguards around so it was all perfectly safe!

My favorite - the lazy river!!!  It was pretty busy most of the time and you had to wait for an inner tube but once you got one, you could float as long as you wanted to!  Here's Rayna relaxing!!

All in all it was one fun day and by the time the clouds rolled around and it started to rain, we were ready to go anyway!!  Thanks for inviting us Jessi!!!

Cross It Off My Bucket List/Butterfly Pavilion

Welcome to the Butterfly Pavilion!!  This place has been on my bucket list for years and I FINALLY get to cross it off!!  No, it's not some exotic destination  -  just a place I've wanted to take the grandkids for years and it finally happened!!  Can you believe that last Thursday was the ONLY weekday all summer that all of us could get together!!!

After we got the date on the calendar, Jaime realized that she had to work the weekend and Brad was flying to Montana to go to his class reunion so needed me to babysit for 3 days!  I headed up on Wed night and spent the next 4 nights in Denver!!

The first stop for Jaime and I was the laser place for a treatment!!  I'd had to cancel my last 2 appts. due to a blizzard and the 2 fires so I was way overdue!!  The gal turned the laser up a little bit and oh my, this session was quite painful!!!  OUCH!!!

But after meeting Jessi and Jill and their kids at the Butterfly place, we soon forgot the pain!!!

The first room is the creepy crawly place with all the spiders!  And guess what - we even had the chance to have a tarantula crawl on our hand!!  Rosie was actually pretty creepy looking but I sat in the chair (along with some of the kids) and held her!!  Even got a sticker to wear that said I held Rosie!!

Here's the tarantula tower where the kids kept jockeying for positions!

We finally made it into the butterfly room!  It was just as I imagined - full of beautiful trees, flowers and bushes with hundreds of butterflies flying around!!  Amazing!!  I love this picture as I caught 2 of the same type butterflies on each side of the tree and it looks like a pair of eyes!!

It seemed like all of the really colorful butterflies just flew around and whenever they did land, their wings were flapping so fast, my camera couldn't capture them!

We tried a mirror picture to try to get all of us - didn't work out so well but it's still cute!!

This butterfly might not be too colorful but the pattern on his wings is amazing!

A cute Rayna and Jaime picture!

I could have spent hours just sitting in the butterfly room, watching them fly around but little ones are not as patient and it was time to move on.........Parker loved the play area the best!!

Check out these cocoons!!

As we headed outside, the kids found the nature trail and got to run off some pent up energy!!  We even captured a picture of them in the gazebo!!  Then it was off to Cici's Pizza for some yummy pizza and the best cinnamon rolls ever!!  What a great start to my stay in Denver!

Aleah & Parker's Stay

The Keppy's left early Saturday morning as Gary had to get to work - we sure enjoyed having them stay for a couple of nights and hope they don't wait as long to come back!!

Aleah and Parker are great sleepers at night, although Aleah gets up really early!!  Nothing like getting the day started huh?  Now Parker on the other hand, sleeps till 8:30 and sometimes you even have to wake him up!  He was in the lower level in the office where it's VERY dark as there are no windows and we have a monitor hooked up which of course I took to the loft where we sleep!  Sure enough, I went down and woke him at 8:30 - he seemed a little sad when I first picked him up but by the time I put him in the booster seat and gave him his oatmeal, he was ALL smiles!!  I even figured out how to take a picture of him on my phone ( new to me of course as I never do this) and send it to Jill!!

Aleah's favorite thing to do besides the hot tub is to play "balls" with Papa!!  Since he isn't always around, it's a real treat when he is home and Aleah gets to sit up on the pool table and play!!

The kids LOVED the sand box and I had Glenn rig up a large umbrella that we could move around the sandbox to keep the sun out a little bit!  They also enjoyed doing the chalk on the huge cement under the deck!  We have a second swing down there so I could drink my coffee and watch them!

The bus is always a huge hit with the kids!  Parker thought it was great fun to climb in and out and giggled and giggled when he was inside!

The kids both slept great again!!  We put Aleah up in the loft with us on the Princess bed and still kept Parker downstairs but he only woke up once during the night and then went right back to sleep!!  Aleah was up at the crack of dawn again - sigh - no sleeping in for this Nana!!!  And I'm sure Parker would have slept till his usual 8:30 but Aleah thought I was downstairs (I was in the loft) and went down and woke him up!!  He seemed a little sad at first as he looked around for mom but since he didn't see her, decided that I would be the next best thing!!!

Unfortunately, early that morning Glenn took them down to the sandbox and as Aleah was running across the cement, she fell flat and really scraped up her knees!!  She was a little pathetic for the next couple of hours - needing a washcloth on them, not allowing any neosporin or band aids, and wanting to be carried from place to place!!  It was actually quite funny to try and see her walk - she took mini baby steps for a while!!!  But sure enough, she eventually forgot about them and went on her merry way!!

Glenn was working on the boat that day so the kids enjoyed being up there and watching him at times - he had the CD player going kind of loud and Aleah kept telling him to turn it down as it was TOO loud!!!

And mid-afternoon, Jill and Robby arrived back at our place after having a great time at the wedding and Mt. Princeton - needless to say, the little ones were VERY happy to see their mom and dad!!

Come and stay again Aleah and Parker - you two were real troopers!!!

A Full House

After our lunch out and stopping at Glenn's work, we headed out to the house - Kenzie was so excited to be at Nana and Papas' house as she hadn't been there in a LONG time!! 

Later that afternoon, Jill and the kids arrived (Robby was spending time with a friend that night) and after dinner, the kids couldn't wait to get in the hot tub - that seems to be the BEST thing to do at our house!!  Parker didn't get in but that's his little hand in the lower part of the picture!

It was a beautiful evening and I loved the 3 shades of green in this picture - the 2 shirts and the trees in the background!!!  The adults hit the hot tub after the kids finally went to sleep!

Friday was lots of playtime!!!

And early afternoon, Jill and Robby left for their 2 nights away over at Mt. Princeton where Robby was a groomsman in a wedding there!!  They were so excited to get away and it would be the first time the kids were away from their parents!!!  Luckily, all the kids slept great - except for the fact that the little girls got up at 6:00am!!!!  But at least the night was good!!  To be cont'd......

Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!

It was zoo time with the Keppy's at the Cheyenne Mt. Zoo last Thursday!!  Unfortunately Glenn was unable to get away from work so I met them at opening time to explore the zoo!!  This zoo has always been one of my favorite ones - I used to go to it when my folks would vacation out here in Colorado and one of my fondest memories is my cousin taking us to the zoo in her convertible and I just couldn't believe the zoo was on the side of a mountain!!

The giraffes are always first when you walk into the zoo!!  I was surprised to see that you couldn't buy the giraffe crackers anymore - oh no, they have went "green" and for $2.00 you received about 4 pieces of romaine type lettuce to give the giraffes!!  Gosh, if I would have known that, I could have brought an entire bag from home!!

It seemed a little strange to be feeding them lettuce but both Kenzie and Evan fed them and that's all that counts!!

I think giraffes make the BEST pictures ever!!!

One of our first stops was the bird place where you buy bird feed on a stick - the birds didn't seem too hungry that day but we finally got them to eat off the kids' sticks!  It was so bright in there that my picture of Kenzie hardly turned out!

They are colorful creatures though, aren't they?

Luckily the heat wasn't too bad but it did feel good to stop in the "backyard" and run through the mist to cool off!!  I wonder how many pics I have taken of kids and grand kids sitting in the spider web!!

One nice thing about this zoo is that it isn't huge and you can usually make it through it in about 3 hours!  That is if you don't ride the rides and stop and eat - which we didn't!!  Kenzie was really excited about getting to Nana and Papa's house but we had two more stops before heading home - Wines of Colorado for lunch by the stream and Papa's work so that Gary and Jessi could check it out and see where I actually spend most of my time!!

We had a great lunch at Wines and it's always fun to sit by the stream and listen to the water!!  To be cont'd.....................

ATVing New Trails

So on my birthday, we headed out a little earlier than usual to Buena Vista - a place we have been to many times but have never really camped in that area.  We had poured over maps and internet sites to get the best feel for the area as far as camping and I even checked out all 4 campgrounds but they were already booked!

We drove on a road which we knew had some wilderness camping spots and sure enough, there was ONE spot available and we grabbed it!!  It was kind of along the road but there was a beautiful, rushing stream right below us and plenty of shade so we were set!

I went to grab my camera to take a picture of the stream and OH NO - it's not in my purse where I put it!!  And then I remembered, I had put it in my work bag that morning since I was going out to lunch for my birthday - gosh darn it - I was NOT happy about not bringing it so I have no pictures to show!

We slept great the first night and you could hear the rushing stream all night long!  It was cold the next morning and pretty cloudy but we headed out anyway to do a 54 mile loop!

It was a great day - we went over 3 passes - Tincup Pass which is elevation of 12,154 ft - Hancock Pass which is 12,140 - and Cumberland Pass which is 12,015!!  Hancock Pass was the hardest as it was solid rock for quite a ways!  But it was neat to get above timberline!

The wildflowers were amazing!!  There were 2 kinds that I had never seen before - one was a deep purple and one was a crimson - they're so delicate looking!  And of course no camera to capture them!

After lunch we were up pretty high and it started to rain - we took cover between a couple of evergreens that kind of protected us!  I laid our blanket down which worked fine but then the wind came up and started blowing the rain on us so I opened the 2 ponchos that I'd been carrying for the last 3 years and we covered up with them!! It worked great!!!  A little later it started raining again so we just put them on and continued to ride!  By the time we finally got back to camp, we were 2 quite muddy people!!

It continued to rain................but I won't complain since everybody needs rain so badly!  We couldn't have a campfire anyway...........Glenn grilled quickly in the rain and we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing scrabble, reading and listening to it rain...........

I slept like a rock that night UNTIL early morning when I woke up with one of my horrible headaches - I was in misery for quite a while but finally got back to sleep and didn't wake up till 9:30!!  I think that's a record for me!!  But at least I felt better!!

We packed up and trailered over to another section so we could ATV Mt. Antero - this was a "difficult" course as described in our book - but we did just fine, even though it seemed it was straight up and down!!!  Once we finally got to the top, there were trails all over the place!!  Mt. Antero is 14,269 but we didn't go quite to the very top as there were clouds building up all around us and I sure didn't want to be on top of that mountain if it started to lightning!!  So we headed back down, had some lunch by the stream and finally headed on home!!  Pictureless but happy!!

July Is Flying By

Last Tuesday after I dropped the boys off, I ran a couple of errands before meeting Glenn down there to install blinds.  When I was deep cleaning my kitchen during the days we were evacuated from the business, I cleaned on top of my cupboards and somehow, both of my white mini light strands wouldn't work afterwards.  Glenn even took them down and worked with them but they just wouldn't work.  So I stopped at Hobby Lobby, hoping that I could still find a couple of boxes of these mini lights as they're so popular - and if not, I knew I could wait till Christmas and find them!  Lo and behold, I walked in and all their Christmas stuff was already out!  REALLY????  It's July!!  I knew they started putting them out in October but JULY?????  Needless to say, I found my lights!

Thursday morning when I went to work, I happened to look out my window and there was a doe with her 2 fawns!  I watched them for a long time and even took a few pictures!  It was neat to see the little fawns scampering around and finally running away..........

Thursday night we went out for my birthday dinner since we were going camping for the weekend!   I had made reservations at Mona Lisa Fondue - we had went there for our 25th wedding anniversary and both loved the place!  It's very romantic and intimate and the perfect place to celebrate something special!!!

I had a Living Social coupon to use which made it even better!!!  The 4 course meal was 1/2 price and even included a glass of wine!  Glenn opted to switch his for a beer but I enjoyed a delightful glass of moscato!  The meal was delicious but of course the best part was the dessert - I ordered the dark chocolate and it was so good!!!  We were so full when we walked out of there that we even opted not to walk around Manitou Springs - we just headed on home!!

Happy Birthday Jill

Our middle daughter is turning 32 years old today!  Where have all those years gone?  I don't think she's changed a bit as the picture below was taken in 2006 - enjoy your special day and make lots of memories!!!

Dinosaur Fun

Tuesday - I was hoping to sleep in a little bit but again that didn't happen - Kylan didn't talk near as much during the night but was pretty restless - Evan on the other hand, didn't move a muscle I don't think!  I woke up about 5:30 and peeked over at the boys and saw that all of Kylan's bedding was on the floor and he was sleeping on the bare air mattress!!  About 6:15 he came over to my bed and said it was time to get up and proceeded to yell at Evan to get up too!  It must be morning!!

I knew we had to get in gear as we were heading into town by 9:00 so after breakfast I made them sit down and do cards for their dads this time!  Note, the camo jackets went on OVER their pajamas!

After packing up the boys things (now I know what Jaime and Jessi go through every time!!) we headed into town and went to the Dinosaur Museum!  It was early yet so there were hardly any people inside which was nice!

I love this shot - typical kids when the sun is bright!!

The boys enjoyed walking around looking at all the dinosaurs and were very good!  We sat and watched a couple of shows on their TV's and they loved the one narrated by Ben Stiller that actually showed dinosaurs walking around and attacking other ones!  The educational show - not so much!!

They have a great little hands on play area for the kids!  The boys immediately found the puppets!

Kylan opted to use the magnetic parts to form a dinosaur on the board - Evan started on this project but soon discovered the books and he actually sat down and looked at several of them!

Both boys found it fun to see which animal they were when they stepped and jumped!

Of course no outing is complete with the gift shop!  I told the boys they could each pick out an item and naturally, they chose the same thing!

Our last stop before turning them over to Brad in Colorado Springs was Burger King!  Here again, they both ordered the same thing and had fun wearing their crowns! 

All in all it was a fantastic time with the boys, even though they wore me out!!  It will be fun next year when they come, to see the changes that kindergarten will have on them!  Thanks for coming down boys!!!

Boys Will Be Boys

Monday morning has begun!!  The boys immediately wanted to get in the hot tub but it was really foggy outside - you couldn't see the highway or anything so I told them that first we were going to cut out pictures on old cards and then make sticker cards for the moms!  Naturally since it was bright in our house, they thought they needed to wear sunglasses!!

Eventually the fog burned off and we headed out to the hot tub - I'm sure the boys were toasty warm as they played and played and played!!!  Me, on the other hand, sat on a chair with a sweatshirt on covered by a towel and drank my coffee!!

Snack time - they both chose peach yogurt but I'm not sure Kylan really liked it!!  Each time he took a bite he would grimace while Evan was saying YUMMY YUMMY!!  Quite comical!

Next was outdoor activities!  I had bought the cutest ring toss game so drew a line with chalk that the boys had to stand behind and the game was on!!  Both were cheering each other on!

Bubbles - I LOVE blowing bubbles!!!  I had gotten each one a cars bubble set - there was a tray to pour the bubbles in with 3 different sticks to use, all in the patterns of car related items!!  I'm not sure the picture captures this but the bubbles were ALL DIFFERENT COLORS!!  I was amazed - is it really colored bubble stuff or was the sun making them different colors?  I had no idea but it was fun watching the different ones!!  Also on the one stick they used, it looked like there was a reflection on the bubble of a car - was I going crazy or what?????

And then came the sidewalk chalk!  Now I assumed the boys would draw pictures - but the first thing they did was just to use it like a color and make solid masses of nothing!!  And finally they each drew a picture!  I have a feeling our chalk drawings might be there till winter if we don't get more rain!

After lunch, I told the boys they had to take a "rest" (we don't use the word nap anymore with them) or they wouldn't be able to go to the movie!  I put one up and one down and they both promptly fell asleep!!  The house was so quiet that I hardly knew what to do with myself!!

We headed into W. Pk to see the movie "Brave" - it was cute and both boys enjoyed it, covering their eyes during one scary part!  I had brought them juice boxes that were hiding in my purse and bought them popcorn so they were pretty happy!

Papa took over when he came home!  Did I forget to mention that it seems like all they talked about during the day were the F and B words???  Burps and belches - farts and fluffs - seems like that was all I heard and even though I told them they needed to stop, it would soon start up again!  Now I'm an old softy at heart but Papa isn't!!  After he told them to STOP, they didn't - he gave them one more chance, telling them that if they didn't stop the potty mouth, they would not be getting in the hot tub that night!  They didn't stop - and they didn't get to use the hot tub that night!

Instead Papa took them on a "nature" and "hunting" hike!!  Apparently he taught them all about deer and elk and survival - I wonder if they remember any of it????

Evan was excited about riding the ATV but Kylan chose not to ride!  Evan assured me he DROVE the ATV all by himself!!

It started raining right as they were finishing up their hike so it was a good time to come inside and play another game of Sorry!  They went to bed just fine and I headed to the lower level to watch some TV and recuperate - but found myself up and down those 2 sets of stairs 3 different times to tell them to be quiet and go to sleep!!  When we headed up to bed abut 10:00, they had finally given in!