Good-bye, Dear Friends

Within the past 5 or 6 months, pretty much all of Katelee's close friends have moved. It started with her bestest friends, Gracie, and then Sadie. Then the Rose family moved, and then finally the Brockbanks. Katelee has shed a lot of tears over this, but fortunately she is great at making new friends and she is trying to find some new bff's. :) On the last day the Brockbanks were in town, we went to McDonald's with them for lunch. Katelee insisted we take a "friendship" picture with them, which I thought was so sweet!

Good-bye, Brockbanks! We miss you!

Riding Bikes

Lego Staircase

Katelee was extremely proud of this lego staircase we built one night for our FHE activity.

Hair . . . Again.

A few more fun hairstyles we've tried recently. :)

I LOVE this 4-strand braid! ;)

Cute, cute, cute. ;)

FSA splash park playgroup

This is the 2nd summer in a row that we've gone to this splash park with our FSA friends. Both times have resulted in a water fight. This year it was Katelee & Kassandra versus me. :) I was pretty wet, but it was lots of fun!

Swimming Lessons

Katelee had swimming lessons again this summer from her fabulous teacher, Tiffany!

I thought I was signing her up for the Level 2 class, and didn't realize until the last day of class that she was actually in a Level 3 class! (It was my fault, I was just confused!) As a result, she was the smallest one in the class, but she worked hard to keep up and she really did a great job. The weather wasn't very cooperative, and she swam most of her lessons in the rain, but she didn't complain (too much!) and I'm very proud of her!

She has become really good at diving in from the side of the pool (pictured above) and loves to practice this whenever we go swimming.

Katelee's teacher always gives her a certificate at the end of each class. This year she wrote the following to Katelee

Katelee, I feel so lucky to have had the chance to teach you for two summers now! You have learned so much in that time. I LOVE how brave you are at putting your head in the water - especially when you swim front crawl and do survival float. You also have become more brave at diving for rings at the bottom of the pool - something that hasn't been easy for you. Keep practicing your "rainbow" arms while on your back as often as you can. Keep your tummy high and chin high. You're a great swimmer and are well on your way to being great at swimming on your tummy and back equally well. Good luck next time in Level 3!

Storybook Dance Camp

Recently, Katelee participated in a week-long Storybook Dance Camp. The woman who taught this class lives only a few minutes from our house, and has a dance studio in her basement. She is, I must say, a treasure and I am so glad to have discovered her! Katelee LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Miss Julie.

This was the description for the dance camp:

Discover the adventure, fun and creativity of movement, set to the backdrop of some of your favorite stories…Fairy Princess or Pirate, Jungle safari or Mouse wishing for a cookie…we promise that imaginations will stir up more than a bowl of “just right” porridge. Bring your smile, ballet slippers and a sack lunch and join us for a week long dance camp experience.

And YES, it turned out to be just as creative, adorable, imaginative and magical as the description promises. Katelee LOVED every moment of it!

All ready for her first day!

Katelee and Miss Julie

At the end of the week, the girls gave a small performance. They talked about the different storybooks they read and how they incorporated them into dance. Here is Katelee holding up the storybook she was assigned to present.

They also danced for us. They showed us their favorite warm-up:

and their favorite little dance.

This week was especially fun because Katelee's swimming lessons began in the evenings of this same week. (More about swimming lessons to come!) At the end of the week, I was laughing about the fact that I don't think Katelee wore real clothes all week long! We went from pajamas to her ballerina tutus to her swimming suit to pajamas. And repeat. I LOVED it! What a fun week!

Proof

. . . that I should never let Katelee skip her afternoon nap. Or this is where I find her at 6 p.m.

Sound asleep.

Visit from My Mom

My mom came to visit for a week this summer. We had SO MUCH FUN with her in town!

Day 1 - Tuesday, we relaxed, talked, and hung out at the pool.

Day 2 - My mom had some shopping to do, so we hit the malls on Wednesday. Grandma bought Katelee a pink feather boa at the mall, and Katelee LOVES it. I bought her some goggles while we were out, as well, and Katelee had a fashion shoot when we got home.

Grandma also brought Katelee a new Minnie Mouse toy from Disneyland. (Mom got to go with her school in May!) Katelee dressed her Minnie and herself to match. We thought that was pretty funny!

Notice the matching glasses, purse, phone and boa.

Day 3 - Thursday we decided to go for a hike. We drove to a trail that also had a little nature museum to look at and a beautiful old mansion to explore. We saw this friendly deer.

And some giant dandelions.I'll need a deep breath to blow this one!
Katelee enjoyed gathering rocks, feathers, twigs and pinecones.Thursday evening, we went to see Cars 2, which we all LOVED! I guess the hike wore Katelee out, however, because the last few minutes of the movie she curled up and started to fall asleep.

Day 4 - Friday morning we decided to try the Denver Botanical Gardens at Chatswood. Gerald has been to the Denver Botanical Gardens (downtown) and says they are amazing! We had a coupon for free admission to the gardens at Chatswood, which also happens to be much closer to home, so we thought we'd try them out. We had a good time, but don't be fooled - these are NOT botanical gardens. :) It was more like a farm. Still, we had fun.

Katelee & Kassandra in the kids' tree house.

I love this view of the red barn and stone silo. I told the girls that it looks like Rapunzel's tower. :)

The wildflowers were pretty.

My mom and me.

One of the farm houses had beehives in it. That small hole is where the bees flew in and out.

Here's the beehive from the inside. Very cool.

Some pretty flowers.

Friday afternoon brought more swimming at the pool, and Friday evening we joined Uncle Scott, Aunt Darla, and Brianna for a fun dinner. They were in town for softball games!

Day 5 - Saturday we went to the temple with my mom. We took pictures, but my camera batteries died, and so they are all on mom's camera. Mom - I need to get those from you! :) I hope to post some pictures soon. We also went to the craft store and enjoyed playing games that night. We taught my mom how to play Carcassone, and she loved it as much as we do! We played it twice, actually.

Day 6 - Sunday. This was actually quite a busy day considering that we went to Geoff and Bonnie's baby blessing (which was very sweet!) and our full block of church. We enjoyed a yummy dinner and another beautiful evening at the temple grounds, where we went to take some pictures.

The last day my mom was in town was Monday, the 4th of July, which I've already posted all about.

And that was our fun, wonderful week with my mom! We miss her already; a week just isn't long enough! We already have a list of things we want to do the next time she's in town, as we just couldn't fit everything in. We love you mom! Thanks for being such an amazing mom and grandma!

Pancakes, Parades and Pikes Peak

We had a very eventful 4th of July this year, full of excitement and fun!

The day started out with a church pancake breakfast. The Sunday School was in charge of the breakfast this year, and since Gerald currently serves as the Sunday School president, he played a big part in planning and organizing the event. It was a huge hit, I think, and I thought Gerald looked great behind that griddle. :)

The breakfast was held at Civic Green Park, and the kiddos has a blast playing on the park and wading in the stream.

The parade went by a few minutes after our breakfast was finished, and we ran to watch the parade. I still need to write about my mom's visit here, but this was the last day of her week-long visit to us here in Denver. We had so much fun with her! Here she is enjoying the parade with Katelee.

Oh, and I have to show you the 4th of July hairdo Katelee sported. Can you tell it's a star? LOVED it!

After the parade, we headed for Pikes Peak. We had chosen to ride the cog railroad to the top of Pikes Peak as part of our fun day! Pikes Peak is a 14110 foot tall peak about an hour south of Denver - it's the tallest eastern-most mountain in the U.S. ;) If you know me well at all, you know I'm terrified of heights, so this was well out of my comfort zone. But I faced my fears and it was well worth it!

Gerald and Katelee on the train, before we left the station.

Mom and I. These four seats were facing each other, which I thought was really fun!

Katelee was excited about the train ride up the mountain!

Watching out the window as we got going . . .

This is a cog-railway, so it pulls us up the mountain like a huge gear. Like a rollercoaster.

It was a beautiful day and the scenery was stunning.

This is NOT the view from the top, just one of the many gorgeous views as we were climbing. Can you see how slanted the horizon looks? That's how steep we were climbing at that moment. It was even a steeper slant at other times. Yeah, that kinda freaked me out. :)

Made it to the top!

The views from the top were breathtaking. We could see five states: Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

Fun fact: It was a trip to Pike's Peak that inspired Katharine Lee Bates to write the words to America the Beautiful. In fact, it was originally published as a poem called Pikes Peak. We thought that was a fun thing to learn about on the 4th of July! ;)

After our fun trip mountain trip, we grabbed a pizza and returned to Civic Green Park where we enjoyed a live band performance. Gerald and Katelee even joined in the crowd of dancers - Katelee was having a FABULOUS time!

Before we knew it, it was getting dark and time for the fireworks to start. We had good seats only a block from the site where they were setting them off.

We had to get a picture of the girls in their red shirts.

The fireworks were fun - here is Katelee enjoying the show.

And then it was home to crash.

What a fun 4th of July!