Colorado Springs Vacation, Day 2

Saturday morning we slept in, enjoyed a nice breakfast, and headed out for another day of fun. We decided to take Katelee miniature golfing. She loved it and has already been asking when we can do again!

Gerald showing Katelee how to hold the golf club. Once she got the hang of it she was surprisingly good - better than me!

Yes! I did it!

Katelee like the elephant.

Hole in one!!!!

Yes, Katelee DID get a hole in one! Here she is beside her golf ball holding up 'one' finger!

Gerald also got a hole in one before the game was over, at the windmill.

(Though does it count as a hole in one if you tried three times to get a hole in one???? I don't think so . . . ) Ha ha ha!

Quick story: Sunday night after returning home for our trip, we were having family home evening. Katelee was in charge of the activity. She brought out blankets and colored on paper to create her own 'mini golf' hole. Gerald pulled out his putter and a ball, and we played 'at-home' miniature golf. What a creative girl!

After golfing, we headed out to see the Garden of the Gods.

The Garden of the Gods really is beautiful country.

I love the red rocks.

This formation is called the "kissing camels." Can you see them?

One of the park rangers gave us a little tour. Katelee befriended his dog, Winnie. They became inseparable for the rest of our time there. ;)

It was a beautiful day - perfect weather!

My little hiker

The sky was SO BLUE that day, I couldn't stop commenting on it. It was really gorgeous against the red rocks and with the deep green of the mountain trees. The colors all complimented each other nicely and made them seem even more vivid.

Can you find Katelee?

After we were done at the Garden of the Gods, we enjoyed some dinner and returned to the hotel for more SWIMMING!

Sunday morning we checked out and headed home for church.

What a nice little family get-away! We can't wait to do it again sometime soon!

Colorado Springs Vacation

When we were first married, Gerald and I set a goal to take at least one family vacation a year that did not involve visiting family. My parents were excellent at family vacations, and those memories of family trips are some of my most precious. We wanted to create similar memories for our kids and make spending time together a priority.

It was time to go, and we were in need of a family vacation. We didn't have a long time, or a lot of money to spend on travel, so we decided to spend a couple of days and nights in Colorado Springs. No, it's not very far from home, but the truth is we haven't taken the time to explore there very well. And it's a great place! In fact, we'd like to go again soon. :)

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Colorado Springs has a great zoo! This was our first stop on our family vacation, and may have been our favorite overall place we visited. This zoo may not be the largest zoo ever, but it is definitely the most "hands-on" zoo I've ever been too.

The giraffe's are so much fun to visit! As you can see, you are right up next to them and can pet and feed them.

Pretty sure this picture above was taken right after the giraffe licked Katelee's hair!

Feeding the giraffe some lettuce - yummy!

Katelee loves carousels - isn't that smile priceless?!

One of the 'enrichment' events we stumbled across was this one: the zoo keeper hid the possum's food within a box and newspaper, and he found it using his sense of smell.

Katelee thought it was pretty cool to stand a couple of feet away from that possum. She wanted to reach out and pet him! (That's not allowed, by the way. :)

The tiger was very active and was putting on quite the show for us! I could have watched him all day.

Katelee wanted to switch. :)

We were at the leopard exhibit in time to see them feed the leopard. This is a real leopard skin that Katelee is touching.

We also got to hear the elephant trainer tell us about the elephants and see the orangutans paint with the zookeepers.

What a fun zoo and what a fun way to start our vacation!

Seven Falls

After visiting the zoo on Friday, we decided to explore a nearby park called Seven Falls. Colorado has some beautiful country, and this was no exception

One of the first things we saw when we entered the falls area was an elevator going up to a look-out deck. These stairs were next to the elevator. The sign says "185 Steps to the Eagles Nest." Katelee really wanted to take the stairs, and feeling adventurous and energetic I agreed. Gerald took the elevator. :)

From the top we could see the whole waterfall...

... as well as the LONG flight of stairs to climb up along the waterfall. Unfortunately, there was no elevator over there. :) Shoulda taken the elevator while I could! Ha ha!

The sign said, "Congratulations You Made It! Only 185 steps to the bottom."

Katelee loved feeding the trout along the river at the bottom of the falls. They would really jump for the food!

We also enjoyed some Native American dancing and music at the bottom of the falls. Katelee was mesmerized and loved watching them dance.

When they announced that children who wanted to could join them on stage for a special dance, Katelee was the first one up there!

Finally we decided to tackle the 224 stairs to the top of the falls.

The view from the halfway point landing.

It was at about this point that I remembered that I am deathly afraid of heights! Yikes! I started up the second half but started feeling shaky. So I decided to wait at the half-way up landing while Gerald and Katelee went to the top.

I had time to kill, so I took lots of pictures of the falls. And of this pretty blue beetle.

Gerald and Katelee coming back down. I was chanting "be careful, be careful, be careful," their whole way down.

Katelee picked some special dandelions for me while up on top. So sweet!

The rest of Friday evening was spent swimming at the hotel - Katelee's very favorite part! ;) We had a very, very fun day and slept well that night, looking forward to another day of fun on Saturday.

To be continued . . .

Summer Celebration!

I decided to make Katelee's first day of summer break a BIG CELEBRATION!

We were lucky enough to have Kassandra with us. We are going to be having Kassandra over a couple of days a week throughout the summer, which is nice because Katelee loves her! ;) They are both only children, so they've adopted each other as sisters. :)

We started the day by attending Katelee's preschool program. Then, we went to the library to sign up for their awesome summer reading program and get new books and movies. We all love the library! After lunch we went to Pump It Up. I had a coupon that got the girls in for only $3.50 each (awesome!) and they had a BLAST jumping and running and bouncing and sliding everywhere for a couple of hours. It made me exhausted just watching them. :)

Smile, Katelee!

Tired out!

After Pump It Up, Kassandra's mom picked her up and Katelee took a nap while I taught piano lessons. After dinner, Gerald, Katelee and I attended a play at the library, where they were performing "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." It was really fun to watch, and I liked seeing Katelee giggle and stare and enjoy the production. We ended our day of celebration with a little frozen yogurt from Red Mango and went to bed.

Hooray for Summer!!

Preschool Program

Katelee had her last day of preschool this year, complete with a darling program.

I went to the program expecting to get in some laughs. Preschoolers are pretty hilarious, after all. And there were plenty of laughs! What I did not expect were the tears. My baby is growing up!

Katelee is in the blue and green dress.

Both the morning and afternoon preschool classes performed the program together, which meant about 30 preschoolers on the stage at once! They sang 6 songs with movements:

Inky Dinky Doo

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Did You Ever See a Fish?

Way Up in the Sky

Climb Aboard the Spaceship

You are my Sunshine

I cried during You are my Sunshine when their teacher announced that this song was for the mom's. It was adorable. They all put on sunglasses to sing it. :)

Then they did two dances:

Chicken Dance (Katelee ROCKS at this, by the way!)

Dance with Me

Then they had the 'crossing over the bridge.' Ms. Judy said a few words about each student, had them answer a question, and they walked across a little bridge to represent they were moving on in the world.

Ms. Judy said that Katelee was definitely ready for kindergarten, that she was 'very accomplished,' and that they should 'put her on staff,' because she could probably teach the kindergarten class. Then she asked Katelee what she wanted to be when she grew up. Katelee said, "A firefighter!" Later she told me, "I was going to say a ballet dancer, but then I changed my mind!" :)

I did not get very good pictures. My video is a bit better, so I'll try to post a bit of that sometime soon.

After the program we enjoyed juice boxes and cake in the foyer. Yum!

Katelee with a couple of her best friends from school: Jayden and Paulo.

Katelee and Ms. Alice

Katelee and Ms. Helen

Katelee and her AMAZING teacher, Ms. Judy

I did it!

Last year, when my parents were staying at my house during and after my dad's surgery, we discussed preschool. I was teaching Katelee and home with "mommy school." My dad suggested we look into preschool programs for lower income families, so I googled it. About a year ago this time, we got news that Katelee had been accepted into this preschool program. It is done through the district and is very expensive. However, we were blessed to qualify for free tuition because of our lower income right now. We were so excited!

And then I got all the information and learned about how many hours a week the preschool was. 4 days a week! 3 hours a day! It seemed like too much to me. I was hoping for 2 or maybe 3 days a week, like most preschools. Katelee is my only child. I didn't see a need for her to be gone from home so much. I discussed it with Gerald. He thought she should take advantage of the opportunity to go. I thought we should say 'no thanks' and keep teaching her at home.

After more thought and prayer, we decided to just 'try it out.' If Katelee didn't want to go to school one day, or ever again, at any point, I was going to keep her home.

So, we started the year. And we all fell in love! We fell in love with Katelee's amazing teacher, Ms. Judy, who was born to teach preschool, and her fabulous staff. We fell in love with all the friends Katelee made through school. We loved the exciting opportunities and experiences Katelee was having each day. In short, it was exactly what Katelee needed in her life this past year. It has been such a blessing to her and to our family. And she never once asked to stay home! In fact, she often cried on the days that there were no school - can I just say the 2 weeks of spring break were really, REALLY long and hard for Katelee?!

I'll be forever thankful for this blessing in our lives. Katelee is excited for summer and even more excited for kindergarten in the fall! She has met her kindergarten teacher and seen her classroom and playground, and now there is no looking back! ;)