Breckenridge - Part 2 & July 4th

July 4th in Breckenridge is loaded with activities.  It reminded us a lot of Park City's celebrations 2 years ago.  The parade was fun... one of the floats was throwing snow!   

 Kids and adults alike go nuts for the main street water fight.  Fireman open up the hoses for 2 hours and people just play in the street.  Kamden REALLY wanted to help hold the hose like other kids were doing but he didn't want to get wet.  Smart kid.  That water was very cold.

This is him holding a fake hose and spraying water...

The art district had a sidewalk chalk contest.  They were super impressive!

That face... I want to pinch it!

My parents joined us for a couple of days over the holidays.  It allowed Joe and I to spend an evening out on our own!  Sadly, I didn't get any pictures with my mom but this one is awfully good of these three guys...

On the last day they were in town, we drove up to Vail.  It is about 45 minutes from Breck.  The day we went, they have a big farmer's market.  Kam was obsessed with this water feature... didn't seem to mind the freezing water.  Luckily, I had extra clothes with me.

Grandma captured this photo at the playground while they babysat and Joe and I went out for dinner and drinks

Breckenridge - Part 1

We love the mountains.  We love the snow, cooler weather, beautiful scenery, and laid-back lifestyle.  We got married in Estes Park, Colorado and like to visit the state often.  This year we took our longest vacation since Vietnam (when I started this blog!).  We were actually gone even longer than that since we went to Colorado straight from the family reunion in Nebraska.  I think we were gone 18 days total!

I don't have any pictures from the drive by it was basically torturous for everyone involved.  We spent about 10 hours in the car and 13 hours total travel time.  The drive was a bit longer than it should have been because we made a detour to drop off my Grandma after the reunion.  Fortunately, she lives on a farm with lots of trucks and tractors.  Kamden didn't want to leave! We were also lucky that Joe has family that lives outside Denver so we made another long stop there before the final 2 hours up the mountain.  It went as good as could be expected but we aren't ready to do it again anytime soon.

The place we rented was AWESOME.  It was a block of main street right in the center of town.  We wanted to stay walking distance to most things so that the kids didn't have to get in the car for much. 

Anyway... onto the good stuff....

I captured a few fun pictures of Brody playing with Kamden's toys while he was sleeping.  Brody changed SO MUCH while we were there.  He went from just (kind of) army crawling to full on crawling, sitting from laying, pulling up and occasionally cruising along furniture.  It was crazy.

The first few days were just spent getting the kids back into a normal sleep routine and settling into the house.  We were walking distance to a great playground at the local elementary school and the hot tub was a huge hit for Kamden.  Although, he corrected me that is actually a "warm tub."

After a couple days in town, we drove back down the mountain about 30 minutes to Silver Plume.  This is were we caught the Georgetown Loop Train.  This was awesome.  It was a roundtrip ride that lasted about an hour.  You can make it longer with a mine tour but we figured the kids weren't ready for that. 

The next day we walked around town and took the free gondola up to the base of the mountain.  There were a lot of summer activities up there but not much for little kids.  Kamden really liked the ride though!

More to come! 

Nebraska Reunion

Family reunion season!  Love it!  I apologize in advance for the crazy number of pictures.  This is the brief version :)

This year we met at in Nebraska, not far from Lincoln & Omaha.  The hunting lodge was a bit "rustic" but if viewed as very nice camping... it was a great place.  Plenty of space for the kids to go crazy.  We were right on the Platte River which would normally be awesome.  This year the area has been blessed with a lot of rain which meant the river was very high and not safe for the kiddos to play in.  Despite some rain, heat, and mosquitoes... we had a blast!

Did I mention this is is a hunting lodge....

This is how we do it.

 

This started approximately 7 minutes after the rain stopped...

 

These people were overlooking those two crazy kids and wondering the appeal of playing in mud puddles.  

There was way too much fun with water guns with both the big and little kids.  

Look at this little troublemaker....

These two have an adorable little bond

Some of the "big kids" ventured out in the river

The youngest two (the amazing baby T and Brody)

I am ready to gobble up this face

 

The Matriarch!

We had a rib cook-off.  We ALL enjoyed the entries but these two were the official judges.

Look at those clouds!  Luckily, this missed us but it provided a spectacular lightning show on top of some amazing fireworks.

Lily

We have been out of town for more than 2 weeks and have a ton of photos to go through and blog posts to write but I can't pass over a major change in our house.

We put our cat to sleep right before leaving for vacation.   She had many names over the years.  We originally named her Sammy but never actually called her that.  She was just Kitty, until Kamden couldn't pronounce Kitty and it came out as Lily.  So Kamden finally gave her the proper name of Lily.

Lily was Joe and I's first pet together and was with us from just about the beginning of our relationship. She ruled the roost with the dogs and was SO patient with the babies and toddler.  I am sure Lily was aware that as our family grew (by 2 dogs and 2 kids) she continued to get further and further down on the totem pole since she needed so much less at the end of the day.  We loved her regardless and didn't take the decision to put her to sleep easily.

She used to be (what I liked to call) "Petite Plus."  She was a small cat but pretty darn chunky.   Over the last year, she started to lose a lot of weight.  Like half her body weight.  She easily weighed at least 13 lbs at her peak and was down to 5.5 lbs in the end (despite eating and drinking plenty).  She had kidney disease for the last few months.  We put her on some prescription food and when her bloodwork showed normal kidney function but she was still losing weight, the vet believed she probably had cancer of some sort.  We rescued her 11 years ago and she wasn't a kitten at the time so we felt she had a full and happy life.  She will be missed.

Here are a few of my favorite photos of her:

Meeting Rocky for the first time

Man... the dogs were scared of her!  Duke didn't like to walk by her and would get up and move if she got too close to where he was laying down.

She was SO SO SO great with the kids.  She probably bit Kamden twice and he deserved a lot more than that!

She recently laid next to Duke on his bed.  I snapped this photo fast because he got up ASAP and Lily took over the whole bed.

Here she is ruling the big dog bed

I captured a couple of photos with Brody the day before we put her down... patient to the end....

Our Lily

10 Month Update - Brody

Kamden's 10 month is here

Soon to come...

We have been a tad busy having fun but be prepared to be crushed with posts soon....

Did I mention the fun?!?!?!