Some AZ pix

Pictures of the kids and Nana in her front yard.
Papa Tom and Collin.
The sundress Nana made for Kayla.
The kids swimming with Uncle Chris and Kelsey

Time to Go

It's always with mixed feelings that we leave Arizona.
It's nice to go home, but we have sooo much fun here!
Today we are keeping busy packing up our bags and car,
getting gas and water bottles and mapquesting.

This is a different departure though!
Yes, we are on our way back to CO, but we are stopping in Grand Junction before
heading to the Springs. We are so excited!
We will take part in an all day dinosaur dig in Fruita Colorado this Thursday.
We will celebrate the 4th of July with my parents and Grandparents in Grand Junction
the following day. Then we'll spend two days hiking, picknicking, and tooling around
downtown GJ. So our vacation is not yet over!
I do know that this Sunday will be a difficult day. We'll say goodbye to my parents and
head back to Colo Springs, ending the last of our three summer vacations this year.
That means getting ready for school to begin, dealing with our house in this horrible market
and getting back to the daily grind!
BUT it also means seeing friends we are missing, playing with the cousins, and seeing our puppies
after more than two weeks!

This vacation has been awesome. We swam and swam and swam some more. The kids rode their bikes
almost every day (or night actually) :)
We spent lots of time with Papa Tom... Collin cuddled with him every chance he could.
I had some great conversations with my father-in-law and we realized that we are
very politically like-minded. The best part was that Tim was able to vacation with us...
we travel to AZ without him so often, but he got to be here this time!

Here's what we did at Nana and chasing Papa's house:
Went for two evening wildlife drives (darn it we didn't see any snakes or bobcats, but did see some enormous jackrabbits)
We sewed Webkinz clothes with Nana and then she whipped up the most beautiful sundress for Kayla with some material she had. Looks as nice as a Baby Lulu dress!
Nana made rings with the kids. We made shrinky-dinks (I forgot how fun those are)
We put books together of the kids paintings and they made cute covers for their "books".
We learned to read lots of new words and Nana and Papa taught Kayla (OK and me) some math tricks.
Kayla played piano duets with Chris and Collin got to play with Chris's guitar.
Chris and Kelsey made us an amazing sweet potato quesadilla dinner and blended up some yummy drinks.
We took Drew to a dog park with a pond and tried to force him to swim.
We saw "Zohan" which was ridiculous and "Wall-E" which was awesome!!
We spent an afternoon with our good friends, Susan, Lauren and Hailey. It's nice to see how much
our kids love eachother, even after long periods of time without seeing one another.
We had lots of great meals with lots of great people!

What an amazing and full trip we had. We learned so much and experienced so much!!!
Now we are off to look for Allosaurus bones and teeth!

Arizona

We are enjoying our stay at Papa Tom's house this weekend.
It's nice to have no schedule and no place to be.
Well, I take that back... we have to be at the pool twice a day,
morning and night.
The kids can't get enough of it and they are having so much fun!
Collin is flying in to the pool with larger than life leaps.
Kayla is swimming independently which is so nice to see.
She jumps in and swims around the pool like a fish.
We had Chris and his lovely girlfriend, Kelsey over for a pool party
last night and tonight we are just finishing drying off and getting
ready for bed.

We have an upcoming week of BBQ's, more swimming, playdates with old
friends and we'll be staying with Nana and Papa starting on Tuesday.
Right now it is 9:00 and dark out... a James Dean biography is on TV in
the background (Tom and Tim watching)
and a cartoon in the office is on (Kayla and Collin)
Other than that I hear the hum of kitchen appliances as I type and
I am enjoying the satisfied feeling of swim exhaustion.
Goodnight!

And this is what we usually wake up to...

This will be a morning of pick torture like I wrote about in an earlier post!
I'll do my best to be gentle.

Cousins

I love how much these cousins love eachother!

Lucy, a Mom??

It seems like she just came home last week, but Lucy is 7 lbs, over 4 months old, and had her last shots yesterday.
The vet told us that her first "cycle" will be at 10 months old and that we could breed her after her second one.
So it is here, the decision... whether to find her a mate or spay her.
I am going to check out a litter of Cavachons in two weeks, which we might pick
a male from. I also know of two Cavalier breeders and I might ask if they would be willing to offer their male's "services."
Either way, there is a good chance that this time next year, Lucy might be a MOM!

Like they walked through just yesterday

This is a picture from our Morrison, CO trip on Saturday.
We learned about how the Red Rocks were formed and about
different types of mining done in the area over the past
couple hundred years.
Most exciting though, was viewing these dinosaur footprints.
They are so well preserved, it looks as though they just walked
through yesterday.