Colorado Springs Part 2 - Garden of the Gods

The girls.

While we were in Colorado Springs we also went to Garden of the Gods, which was absolutely beautiful.  It is a city park with lots of gorgeous rock formations.

The girls did a lot of climbing.

This is supposed to look like 2 camels kissing.  Do you see it?

The boys.

Haley's First Day of School

Haley was feeling left out that her first day of school was not mentioned.  With year around school, first grade started on July 8th.  Here she is.  So big.

Pikes Peak

 A couple weekends ago we went down to Colorado Springs for a weekend.  We got there Friday night and checked into the hotel.  Colorado Springs is only an hour away, but we thought staying in a hotel would make it fun.  We swam in the pool and then went to sleep.  Early the next morning we headed up to get on the train that goes to up to Pikes Peak.  You can drive to the top, but we thought the train would be fun.  It was fun and the kids were pretty good.

The ride was about 1 hour and 15 minutes.  When we got to the top, it was much colder than we thought it would be.  The wind didn't help.  The kids and I stayed out for about 5 minutes and then headed into the little lodge area with food and souvenirs.  We had hot chocolate and warm donuts.  Yum.
Here we are at the top.  It was a great morning in Colorado!

First Haircut

Look at the scraggly hair on that kid!  Mike had been pushing for weeks to cut his hair and I really didn't want to.  I was afraid he would look so grown up with a hair cut.  I wanted Caleb to stay my little baby!  But I gave in and here are the results.
I have to admit, I was wrong.  Seeing the before and after, Caleb looks so much better with his hair cut!  I'm glad Mike did it, Caleb was a wiggle worm.  But, he looks much more respectable now.  Looking back at the before, I'm pretty embarrassed I let it grow so long!

Tippy Toes

So, our cute little Maya has casts on her feet.  She has walked on her tippy toes since she started walking.  Her doctor recommended that she get evaluated, because even though it is cute to see her prancing around all the time, it is actually bad for her muscles.  If she keeps doing it, her muscles won't develop correctly and then she won't be able to walk flat footed.  So, she has been going to physical therapy and casting is something they do to try to break the habit.  She has had them for 2 weeks and will have them for 3 more, for a total of 5.

Last week she had pink.  She will have these orange ones for 2 weeks and then a new color for 2 more weeks.  
She actually has only complained once.  The first night she asked to take them off at bedtime.  After that I haven't heard one complaint and she does everything any regular kid does.  She climbs all over the playground and even still does gymnastics class.  I sure hope these casts do the trick!

A small step for mankind

Just a quick post to comment on some of Caleb's firsts today.  He had his first ice cream cone (it was one of those mini ones with about a tablespoon of ice cream, but it was funny to watch him stick out his tongue), got his official crawling position and took a few honest to goodness knee over knee strides (so far it has just been the army crawl), and then un-officially took a couple of steps (more like falling but luckily his feet moved and Becky and I were there to have him go from one to the other).  He also climbed up 3 stairs.  Time to get a gate.  He is cute, and even waved goodnight on his way to bed, which was another first.  Tomorrow we are expecting some physics...

Rocky Mountain National Park

So we took a trip to RMNP back in August.  I guess it is better late than never when it comes to blogging, right?  So we arrived at our campsite Friday night, just in time to set up camp before it got dark.  We had smores and popcorn over the fire and then looked at stars.  Saturday we got up at the crack of dawn (literally) and went to discover RMNP.  We took the drive to the top which is very curvy and we discovered Maya gets car sick.  She only puked once, but complained and whined plenty.  Then we had a picnic lunch and went on a hike to a waterfall.  Alberta falls I believe.  Mike, of course, carried Caleb in the baby backpack and I got the pleasure of carrying Maya on my back and the backpack with all our stuff on my front.  It was awesome.  Sunday (yes we camped for 2 nights, totally against my religion, but I let it slide) we took an easy hike around Bear Lake and then went to downtown Estes Park.  We had ice cream, bought Christmas ornaments, and walked a little too much for some children's liking.  Overall it was a great family trip, and hopefully we made some memories.
This is documentation of Caleb's attitude for most of the trip.  It was awesome.
Here I am saving Maya's life.  Look at that reflection in the lake.  Amazing!
Here is Haley at the top of the waterfall hike.  It was nice to have one child that could carry her/his own body the whole hike.