Packed To The Hilt

Late Friday morning Glenn headed out to LVR to pick up Evan, Kenzie, Aleah and Parker - with strict instructions on what each child was to put in the car!  (4 items apiece - they have left stuff at LVR before and it's a LONG drive out there)  He did great and got it all!

After arriving back at our house, I fed them a quick lunch while they all recounted stories of their camp days!!

Next was trying to rearrange ALL of their luggage as we had to get Gwyn's car seat in there along with her stuff and MY stuff since I was staying up there for 3 nights!  WOW was that an ordeal!   But we finally got it all arranged and headed to Denver - traffic was not bad at all and we made great time getting up there!

Jill was already there - she had come down from Ft Collins to not only pick up her kids but to spend the night so the 3 of us could spend some time together for our birthdays - mainly COFFEE together!

Jessi and Gary fixed a great dinner and then we all had ice cream!  I was thrilled to see a carton of chunky monkey waiting in the freezer for ME!!

Yes, I eat it right out of the carton!!

The girls decided to spend the night outside on the trampoline!  And I guess they slept OK!!

Saturday morning we went out for coffee!!  Still can't sit inside or outside at the coffee place so we went to the park where we had our family pictures taken a few years ago!  It's a beautiful park and was pretty busy!  Hooray for great coffee with 2 beautiful daughters!

Jill headed home that day and I spent the next day and 1/2 just hanging out at the house -  enjoying my new computer that Robby had gotten for me (it's SO much faster!!), downloading more music from Amazon, playing games with the kids and taking walks!

Monday morning I had an appt. with my endocrinologist who is up in Denver so that all worked out fine!  I do have to admit I was ready for some down time after all of the company!

It's All About Gwyn

Jill left about noon on Tuesday and I headed out also to meet Jessi's in Co. Springs to pick up Gwyn!  It was finally her time to spend 3 nights with Nana and Papa!  She was excited as ever to get to our place!

She loves Papa's fish (as most of us do!!) so we had it the first night!!  But we did have to cut her corn off the cob for her as she has a couple of loose teeth!!  REALLY????  She's too young for that!

We made up some packets of pancake mix - I always make these up ahead of time so we just have to add the wet ingredients when it's time for pancakes!

Our neighbor asked if he could borrow the baby swing since he he had young grandchildren coming and we told him to keep it since ours were all too big for it!  And Gwyn had said we needed to get a bar so she could swing from it - and that's just what we did!

All decked out in her new swim suit that even has a matching hat!  She wore it one day into the hot tub and forgot she had it on and ducked her head - whoops!!  But it dried fast!

Papa was working on the jeep to sell it and Gwyn thought she should help!!

YUMMY drumsticks!

We had hoped to take her back to the North Pole this year but it was shut down by the health department right after it opened so that wasn't an option!  But we seemed to find plenty of things to do!  Here we had a tea party after I washed all the tea supplies first!!  Juice and apple cinnamon cheerios!

Gwyn joined me for coffee every morning on the deck with her cocoa!

No fires this year due to the fire ban - darn - we have such a nice place to have a campfire and we haven't got to use it at all this year!!!!

Our time with Gwyn was fantastic - she's a joy to have and loves coming by "herself" so she doesn't have to share us with her family!!

It's Birthday Month

It's July - birthday month for 4 of us and an anniversary for Jill and Robby!

Aleah celebrated her 11th birthday on the 4th of July along with Jill and Robby's 17th anniversary!

Jessi celebrated her 39th birthday on July 10th!  What a beautiful platter of goodies!

And on July 13th, Jill turned 40 and I turned 67!  We had fun playing around with Snapchat!

The Smiths came over on Sunday night while Neal's were still here and I opened my gift from the girls and Glenn - I was excited to get an Echo with a screen and have had fun talking to Alexa and listening to music!

Jaime had brought over this delicious fruit torte and a gluten free cake for Jill!!  We all enjoyed eating it!

On the evening of our birthday, we stopped at Bev's (Robby's mom) and enjoyed her new patio that she had built!!  Her birthday is also in July and the 3 of us enjoyed dinner at the local Mexican place!

One last shot of the birthday girls!!

It was fun to enjoy our birthday together - until next year.....

Iowa Company

We never know when unexpected company is going to visit us!  Neal's (Glenn's son) had been to Yellowstone and decided to head our way to spend some time with us!

They actually camped over by Lake George but after arriving for dinner that first night, the kids decided they wanted to spend the next couple of nights with us!  Neal and Jen were fine with that - they could have some adult time without the kids around!!

Chance is 9 and Maggie will be 8 in Sept!  Maggie is a real tomboy and quite the dare devil - she had no problem getting on the tree swing and swinging high - Chance on the other hand is not quite as adventurous as his sister!  But boy does Chance have a throwing arm on him!!  He has played sports since he was little and when we went outside to do outdoor games and played catch with the "sticky" ball, he threw to me - and let me say I had a sore hand when we were done!

The crew all went fishing at Dick's pond the next morning - I chose to stay home and get meals ready!

They had a great time and caught quite a few fish!

There was a horse loose on Dick's property and Maggie fell in love with him!

How fun to catch fish with Papa!

ATV rides are always a hit with the kids!

Saturday morning they all went gem hunting - no pictures since I wasn't along but they had a great time and came home hot, tired and hungry!!

Jill brought her two kids plus Kenzie and Evan down for LVR camp - they met up with Brad and Kylan and headed over to drop them all off!  She came to our place after that so it was nice to have someone to take a group picture!

Neal's headed for home early Monday morning after a wonderful time at our place!

Bear Fun

Yes, I'm still alive - yes, I am still blogging!!  Life has been super busy the last couple of weeks and here it is almost the end of July and I haven't hardly written a blog all month!  Part of the blame is me - I was reading a really good book series and every spare moment found me reading instead of blogging!  But I finished it and now it's time to blog!

Our neighbor Al had come over one evening and said his freezer had quit - did we have room for some stuff?  No - but we have an extra freezer in the garage that he could borrow!  Al decided to bring his old freezer over to our place to see if handy Glenn could get it going!  He PROMISED me he wouldn't leave it here if Glenn couldn't get it fixed!

So Glenn would leave the lid up just in case a bear would come over as he thought the bear could tear the door off trying to get inside!

Fast forward a couple of nights later - Al and Peggy are over and we're all sitting on the front porch talking when Al says to look over towards the shop!  And sure enough, there was a bear and I captured this cute picture!!

And that's why I try to ALWAYS keep my phone with me so I can capture the unexpected!

Camping With The Smiths

We decided it had been years since we've camped with Jaime's!!  SO when Brad suggested that Glenn show him some of his hunting spots over at Sargents, we decided to make a camping trip out of it!

Glenn and I left Tuesday morning to secure a spot - we had no idea if there would be any as the spots are pretty limited with our large trailers but we found a great place with plenty of room and fairly level!  We set up and then headed over to Gunnison to visit our friends and see their new house!  These are the friends that stayed in our place while we went to Mexico!

Jan and Jan's house is just lovely!!  And after some awesome margaritas, we headed to Garlic Mike's for an early dinner to celebrate all of our birthdays!!  Glenn and I had been there a couple of years ago and the food was fantastic!!  This time though - not so great!!  But we still had a good time!

Jaime's arrived about noon the next day and after getting set up, a few of them headed out to ATV!  Jaime, Kylan and I stayed and played games - a LOT of them!

One morning, Glenn and I, and Jaime and Brad took a couple hours ride through a lot of aspens - it was so pretty!!  Jaime decided she LOVED to ATV, especially through all the trees!

I did dinner the first night - taco stew - it was a hit along with the strawberries and angel food cake topped with whipped cream - yum!!

Matias and Jaime heading out for a ride!

One evening Jaime and I took a walk - the sun setting in the west was beautiful behind these trees - Jaime took this picture as her phone camera is even better than mine!!

There were purple flowers blooming all over - you got to love Colorado in the summertime!!  The only downfall was the dust on the main road as it was super dry over there!

Glenn and a few of them went rock hunting on Friday morning - found some cool ones!  I stayed home and drank my coffee in the sun and played cards with Kylan!

Some of the aspens we drove through - I told Jaime we needed to come back in the fall!

I rarely get a picture of Glenn and I in our Razor!!  So Jaime helped me out!

We even had a campfire one night!!  I had checked to see if there was a fire ban on and there was where we were camping!  So the first two nights we followed the rules and didn't have a fire - but the last night a couple of us drove around and many had fires going so we decided to have one too! S'mores were made with marshmallows that Jaime had brought and they already had chocolate in the middle!!  WOW!!  I'm not a s'mores fan so I declined to eat one but everyone said they were great!

So while we were heading home on Friday (the day before the 4th), everyone else was heading out to camp!  It's so nice to have the option of camping during the week!

June Photo Dump

My oh my - June is gone!  And I sincerely hope that our nation looks better in July than it did in June!

Aleah did not get to have her regular dance recital but modeled one of her outfits for us - absolutely darling!!  Hopefully next year I will get to see her dance at her recital!

Glenn and I decided to SPEND our stimulus money - he decided he wanted to build a fence around a bunch of his JUNK!!!  I highly agreed that was an excellent way to spend it!!  It looks great!!

I decided to spend mine on a new mattress for our bed!  Even though ours wasn't yet 8 years old, there were deep depressions in it and the new one sure sleeps nice!!

When the girls were here and we were playing Skipbo, THIS happened!!  And you know I LOVE 8's!

Since I'm now the treasurer of our homeowners' association (and recently became a board member also) I hosted a "muffins and coffee" for the neighborhood!  I didn't expect a lot to attend because of the virus but we had a few stop by and it was great to visit with them!  Luckily I can easily freeze these muffins as there were a lot leftover!!

I had ordered a new watch online because I have always wanted one that would tell you how many steps you take a day along with a few other features!  It took FOREVER to arrive due to all of the shipping problems the last couple of months but it finally arrived and Jaime helped me set it up!  I LOVE it - I originally set my goal at 10,000 steps but only reached it once so decided to put it at 7000 and now it's much easier to reach that goal!

The Smiths' came over one evening and brought Glenn his Father's Day gift - a really nice sweatshirt and an elk call!  He was desperate for a new sweatshirt so greatly appreciated it!!

Boy Company

Evan came down to spend a few days with Kylan and they texted me one night and asked if they could come over the next day!  Of course!!

I was busy printing out bills for the homeowners association but they said they really just wanted to work on the fort and swing!  Brad dropped them off mid-morning and they had a fun time hanging out!

This is part of the fort that they worked on - it's the place to store their weapons!!  I LOVE the fact that they were having a great time outside instead of just being on technology!!

Hot chocolate is a staple at our house - especially for the grand kids!!  Kylan is looking a little bit spacey here as he was super tired!!  But I'm sure he didn't take a nap when they went back home!

It was great to have the boys over for a while!