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!

Ballet in the Park

I have about a billion pictures to post of our visit from grandma and the 4th of July, so stay tuned . . .

However, I wanted to quickly write about how cool my city is. The more things I discover here, the more I love this place. We are particularly loving the free cultural performances in the parks this summer.

A week or two ago, we went to see the Boulder Ballet do a fabulous performance in the park. We took a picnic dinner, spread our blanket on the grass, and settled in to enjoy the ballet. We went early enough to watch them warm-up and then enjoy the performance. The dancing was wonderful.

Below the state was a large open area, and the children quickly took over the space as their own personal stage. Katelee LOVED it! She would would stop and stare at the dancers for awhile and then join the dancing children as she tried to mimic the ballerinas.

(Can you see Katelee sitting on the stairs - in the orange dress with pink flower in her hair? She was mesmerized by the dancers.)

Katelee performing some of her own dance moves.

At one point near the end of the performance, the children were invited on stage to learn and practice a few basic ballet moves. Katelee was front and center, and very excited to be up there.

What a lovely way to spend a summer evening!

Medieval Sunglasses

I tried on my new sunglasses for Katelee today. "What do you think?"

She cocked her head to one side and stared at me for a second, before replying. "Mom, you look medieval."

Medieval?!?! My first thought was - they didn't have sunglasses in the 10th century (did they?). My second thought was - how does she know that word?

I wondered if she knew what it meant. So I asked her.

"It means," she told me, "the middle between evil and nice."

Ah. Medieval. It makes perfect sense.

But I'm not exactly flattered.

Maybe I should return these sunglasses.