Hot Summer

It has been HOT here in Colorado. This is the hottest June that I can remember, days and days in the 90's. We have been going to the swimming pool, parks with splash areas and even our own sprinklers.

We have decided that for the summer we are going to take the girls swimming after dinner on Friday nights. We hope it will be a fun tradition. Of course that means we have to actually have the energy at the end of the week to do it! And with a 2 and 4 year old they don't know it's Friday night and technically we can get away with not doing it. Umm...I'll keep you posted...

Weekends

We usually try to have someone over for dinner or go somewhere fun at least once during the weekend. This past weekend it just turned it out we had people over twice. There were people visiting and you can't really plan that!

On Saturday, Bill's daughter, Nicole, was visiting from Florida. Here she is with her sister Emma who just moved back to Colorado.

Of course Bill and Dawn joined us too.

On Sunday Dan's cousin, Tim, was in town with his wife. Lelong is Chinese and is really good with kids!They are thinking about moving out here when Tim retires in a year and I asked Lelong if she could help the girls learn Chinese!

This weekend our plans are to go to California on a short trip for Max's baptism.

VBS

Last week Mia attended VBS at our church. She loved it! And she learned a lot more than I thought she would.

She had to give Jesus a hug every time we went in.

She has never gone to an activity for five days in a row. Be Wednesday she was EXHAUSTED! I had her stay home that day and then she went back for Thursday and Friday.

On Friday there was a Mass, potluck and party for all the families. Since Dan has every other Friday off (love, love, love that), he was able to attend too.

After the food, the kids showed off all the songs they learned. She's the shortest one in the picture with the pink flower headband.

She is very excited about going back again next year!

Doctors

After two weeks of trying to get the dentist and ENT to do surgery at the same time, I have given up. They work at different hospitals and won't or can't (I'm frankly not sure which)change. So...we have scheduled with a different ENT office visit for next week, one that works at the same hospital as the dentist. Our primary concern right now is her teeth so we are going to keep the same dentist. Hopefully after the office visit, we can schedule her surgery rather quickly. We are really hoping she will have to be put under anesthesia only once this year.

Anna is getting pretty good with the camera. She took this of herself.

City Festival

Last weekend was our new city's festival. We took the girls to the parade on Saturday morning.

We love our county fair that comes each August. It's small and rural, nothing compared to the L.A. County Fair.

Later in the afternoon we went back for the carnival. We stopped at the new chalk drawing event. The girls got to make their own drawings. That lasted about two minutes as they were really wanting to get on those rides!

There were very little participants in the real chalk drawing contest.I think it was the first year. But we all loved this one.

Next we hit the rides!

When the cloud cover vanished it was hot! So we left after a couple of hours and headed for dinner. Best to leave some excitement for next year!

Father's Day

Father's Day was great. We woke up and went to church as usual. After that, Dan and Bob went golfing. In a few hours I got this text picture:

Bob got a hole-in-one on the 17th hole!

When the guys were done golfing, Sheri and Bob came over for a barbecue afterward. The girls washed the potatoes for the grill.

After dessert we all agreed we were tired and called it a night.

The next day Dan got this from Becky. He loves to make ice cream for all the kids!

Happy Father's Day, Honey! Thanks for all you do!

The Great Outdoors

We love love love Colorado in the summer. (Except when there are fires close by.) We try to spend as much time as possible outside.

The girls play in the backyard every day. They like to chat with the neighbors and sometimes climb over the fence and play in their yard.



We have been going to the park to fly our kite. Windy days are common around here in the spring.



You quickly become a nature lover here.





Loving summer. Winter...now that's another story.

Cleft Clinic

Last Thursday we took Anna to her annual cleft clinic. I must say I am very grateful for these clinics where all the doctors come to us. Here is what they said.

Plastic surgeon: She will have a lip and nose revision around five years old. There is nothing she can do about the scar on Anna's lip. She doesn't understand why doctors use that technique. (Good to know...not.) Anna has a good palate, especially for a kid with bilateral cleft palate repair.

Oral surgeon: He will do the bone graft when she is 8 or 9. If her two top teeth need to be pulled in the next few years, he will do that.

Pediatric Dentist: She needs to go under so he can put fillings in her two top teeth and hopefully save them for a few more years.

ENT: One tube has fallen out so she needs new tubes. She should get them same time as the fillings but the doctors work at two different hospitals. I'm waiting to hear from them about how we are going to go about it so she doesn't have to have surgery twice.

Pediatrician: She looks good.

Speech Therapist: She is a "backer". She is making sounds using only the back of the mouth. She can say k, g, and m really well. She can say l and r at the end of words. She can say all vowel sounds. Everything else she is approximating with the k and g. So that explains why she says "goggles" perfectly clear! (Mia understands EVERYTHING Anna says and translates for me when needed.) She will be starting private speech therapy on Friday. (She will still get services through the county at home and then at a preschool starting in August.)

Audiologist: Hearing is good!

Golfing

We are only hiking every other Sunday. But that's okay because we are taking the girls golfing on the other Sundays! We play three holes and then have dinner. Right now the girls only putt, but in a few years they can learn to hit short drives. I figure in about three years they will be better than me! By the way, that is super easy to do.

We take one cart because it's $21 a person for the second cart and, really, that's ridiculous for three holes!




Right now we only have one putter which will be Anna's because she is right handed.



Of course she putts either way. No discrimination right now!






Our friends have a left-handed putter for Mia so we should be set for the summer! My guess is they won't always be this cheap to outfit!




At dinner the kids menu is on the back of an etch-a-sketch. Mia had a lot of fun playing with it.





Next Sunday is Father's Day and we're going to let Dan golf more than three holes. And with a much bigger partner!

Our New Pool

Our new community pool is great for little kids. About half the pool is only a foot deep. The other half is four feet deep.





The slide at our old pool went into ten feet of water and the kids weren't allowed to wear floaties while going down it. So you had to tread water to catch your non-swimming child! At our new pool the water is only 4 feet where the slide ends and the kids can wear floaties.



The one thing they need is more lounge chairs. The pool opens at 10:00 and by 11:00 all the chairs are taken. And that was on a week day!

Neighborhood Problem

We have a problem. Baby bunnies are falling into window wells all over the neighborhood and their mommies don't seem to be anywhere around. Yesterday, it was our turn. Mia found this little guy. He was shaking.



Of course it might not have been from the fall. It could have been that there were six kids looking at him in the beginning.



He kept trying to get away, but Mia or Anna would gently carefully quickly put him back in the box.

As with everyone other one found in the neighborhood, this poor little guy did not survive the night. Maybe next time we will try a baby bottle.