Dani's Wedding and the Start of Vacation 2017

We left Colorado on June 21st, heading out for a twenty day vacation! The first stop was Dani's wedding in Temecula! I wasn't able to go to her shower, but I did have the honor of getting a pedicure with the bridal party!

We had a great time chatting and getting some primping in.

The next morning the girls and I stopped by to see Dar get her hair done for the big day.

The venue was amazingly beautiful. 

Matt walked Dar down the aisle. She looked gorgeous.

After the ceremony everyone wanted to hold Chase at the Happy Hour.

Michael and Dani danced to All of Me.  Dar and I suggested this song to her months ago! It's a real tear jerker.

So good to see Aunt Helen and Uncle Bob.

Selfies!

We got back to the hotel and the girls were sound asleep.

The next morning it was time for the road trip!

California here we come!

Mia's First Communion

I am ashamed to say I took very few pictures at Mia's First Communion. About three weeks before, when I realized that I wanted a picture of Mia on her invitation, I met Michelle at Daniel's Park. It was not easy to get this picture. We had to run in and out of a shelter due to the wind and rain! But we got it and I bet you can't tell she's getting rained on at the moment.



Here she is in her veil getting ready for the photo. We didn't use one with the veil for the invite.

I did a little bit of Pinterest for the party...

And these are the ONLY pictures I have of the actual day. 

Well, we will always remember Charlie was there!

More Summer Activities

We go to the park quite often in the summer. It's more fun with Maks!

We went to several library events. I am always amazed at the free events here in Colorado. We have the best parks and libraries!

This woman did a whole play where her dog was the main character and he never moved!

The girls loved VBS and this year Maks was old enough to go!

We went to teppanyaki for Father's Day!

This has been a very busy summer and I haven't even bogged about half of it yet!

Summer Hiking 2017

We do a lot of hiking here in the Colorado. We have to fit a whole year's worth in about four months! This is just a few as I don't take pictures on every hike and some are in other posts. Our hiking group is made up mostly of homeschool families, but we all homeschool in the summer!

 We didn't hike too much on they one - it was mainly a play in the creek day. They made that structure in the creek in the back of the picture.

And Indiana and his brother made the "house" he is standing in front of.

On this next high we played in the river about half way through. One kid found a frog. The week before Mia brought some crawdads home. They lived for several days before we set them free in the creek behind our house.

Anna is a great contemplator.

We may do some more family hikes on the weekends but for now our hiking group is done with hikes for this year.

We also do quite a few family hikes. We have a small lake not too far from our house. Charlie is included on the family hikes when we can.

This was the pose of the month.

The weather is already getting little chilly around here at night and I think our hiking days are winding down.

Camping 2017

We decided to try camping again this year. I reserved two nights at Cheyenne Mountain State Park in Colorado Springs.

The campsite was really nice since the park is fairly new.

They even had special metal boxes to place your food and toiletries in to keep them away from bears. There was a bear sighted in the campsite next to ours when we first got there!

Dan gave Mia a lesson in learning to light a lantern.

They played on rocks, hiked around and played with the boy in the campsite next to ours.

Anna stayed closer to home which is why I have so many pictures of her!

Of course we had s'mores!

The next day was soooo hot and we had no shade. We decided to go to The North Pole, a small amusement park about 30 minutes away, thinking there would be shade trees and it would be cooler at a higher elevation.  

It was really hot there too! And there was so much wind at the campsite that Dan and I could not sleep at all!

I had a headache the whole time were at the North Pole. I don't know if it was the altitude, not sleeping, the heat or the wine around the campfire the night before, but it was irritating! And then it got worse when I went on a couple of spin rides. Yeah, stupid.

I did not feel anywhere near good while taking this picture, but hey, we made memories!

Needless to say, we did not stay the second night in the campsite. We are now 0 for 2 in staying for the two nights we paid for when camping!