Summer Fun

We had a great summer. Summertime in Colorado Springs is the best. The weather couldn't be better and there's just so much fun to be had. We spend lots of days swimming, hiking, going for walks, going to the park, building fires, cooking, doing crafts, playing with fancy hair dos and just spending a lot of time together as a family. It really is the best.

 It was fun to use all our library coupons this summer. One of them was for the Sertich ice center for ice skating. The kids are terrible ice skaters, but had a fantastic time. 

The kids love riding on the motorcycles. 

 Hans is doing his best job trying to turn Justin into a redneck. It's not proving to be a difficult task. They love lighter fluid and big flames. This fire burned part of the grass. They also like putting out the fire the way boy scouts do. They have a lot of fun.

 I ran a half marathon in August. It was along the frontage road by I-70 from Georgetown to Idaho Springs and it was beautiful. The weather was perfect, the company was great, and the run was fast. I was proud of myself for running a 7:20 pace for 13.1 miles 5 months after a C-section. I recovered quickly!

 The kids took turns working at Hans' office to earn money. Mia is an expert at cleaning the office chairs and the wheels. They also put together new patient packets, shredded and scanned, and put things away. Mostly they cleaned.

 We did a lot of crafts. The kids love, love, love doing crafts. I love that they can enjoy it together. 

 We go on a walk nearly every day. This is the Alice in Wonderland park in Cordera that the kids love playing at. Mia is a monkey, for sure. This particular night, Katelyn proved that she can still do 25 pull ups in a row. She was sore for a week. 

 Liam is a good sport in his stroller.

 Hans took these three golfing. They went to Freddys after for milkshakes.

 We took too many treat trips. They love soda. And slurpees.

 We spent a lot of time at the swimming pool even though they are not too big on swimming. I liked having a place to go and chat with a few friends. The kids got too cold too quickly and would want to go home. They are all fantastic swimmers, however. They also like the water slides at Lifetime, but thought the water was way too cold. Most of our swim days were spent at our neighborhood pool.

 We had another awful fire this summer that burned a good portion of the black forest. It affected a few families in our ward that live in black forest and had to be evacuated from their homes. Fortunately, no one we knew had their house burn down. There were several of our friends with severe smoke damage, but no loss. Phew. It smells awful when these fires burn, and it stresses me out for Justin's lungs. I couldn't run outside or be outside. Luckily, we have air conditioning and TV...so we survived. 

 This is the lady gaga hair bow hair do we tried on Ashley. The girls love looking up hair dos and having me attempt them. They have a lot of faith in my abilities.

 We loved mythbusters during the fire. For family night one evening we copied a myth they did where you had to see how long you could hold your hand in freezing ice water. Mia won. 

 We finished the basement this summer. I was thinking I could handle having Liam live in my bedroom, but I was wrong. So we moved Mia to the older girls room, Liam to Mia's room, and the older girls to the basement. I am really happy with how it turned out. 

 The older girls had their hair cut at a real salon. They were very cute. They had free reign with what they did. Both girls went very short. I miss their long hair, but they look very cute.

 We like living close to the school playground. We discovered that all 6 of us enjoy 4 square. Great fun.

 Justin bought a skate board with some of his work money. He is very good at it! 

 On one of Hans' days off we went to the mining museum. I was thinking it would be lame, but we enjoyed it quite a bit. The kids just wanted to pan for gold the entire time.

 We had some impressive hail storms this summer. 

I am by far happiest when I'm outside. I spend a lot of time laying outside with the kids while they play or talk to me. I love that Liam can sit up outside with me now and look around.