Woohoooo!!! School is finally out for summer! My kids finished the 2016-2017 school year on Friday, June 2nd.
I think this definitely qualifies as a "jump for joy!" I now have a pre-K student, 3rd grader, 5th grader, and still baby companion.
To celebrate I took the kids (plus Lucy's friend Collette) to the HOA swimming pool right after school. It was a little chilly thanks to an afternoon thunderstorm that blew in, so we didn't stay very long, but the kids had a blast. We came home and I made a huge batch of BBQ chicken nachos and pina coladas for dinner.
Then we fired up the fire pit and had even more kids come over for s'mores. Pretty fun summer kick-off party with a backyard full of excited kids!
Despite the earlier thunderstorm we got a beautiful Colorado sunset. Maybe one day we'll have a house up on the hill with a decent view and we'll really get to appreciate how beautiful (and BIG) the sky is here!
Both Lucy and Zach had their very first softball/baseball games respectively Saturday morning, but afterwards we found another local hike to do since Jon was on-call and needed to be close by. We headed to the Spruce Meadows Open Space out in Larkspur and simply started wandering the prairie. I made the kids pretend we were Laura Ingalls with a covered wagon making our way west-- and we even found some cow pies to make it feel authentic.
Look at that big blue sky!
I love the Colorado plains. They are SO gorgeous. This picture immediately made me think of the song "America the Beautiful" with the spacious skies, amber waves of grain, and purple mountains in the background. Point of fact-- the authoress of the song, Katharine Bates, penned the lyrics after visiting Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs. We get to enjoy the subject of her inspiration every day! The bright orange Indian paintbrush was just an added bonus.
We meandered through the meadows for a couple of miles and then headed back to our car. I think we could have covered a lot more ground if we'd had horses or bikes-- so maybe next time.
The kids collected wildflowers along the way which were everywhere thanks to the late spring snow storms we got-- so there's the sliver lining in that. The colors were so vibrant and breathtaking! Colorful Colorado at its best!
We then drove a few miles further south to Palmer Lake in Monument, CO. There was a nice little playground, and we weren't quite done enjoying the warm weather.
Miss Lizzie with Palmer Lake in the background.
Of course we were tired and hungry by that point so we headed to the Red Robin (with the gorgeous view) in Castle Rock for some dinner. What a fun first weekend of summer!
Miss Lizzie all ready for church the next morning. Everyone just loves those curls! She has learned to say "Cheese! Cheese!" and smile now whenever I whip out my camera.
Summer also means project time for me, since I have a little bit more time to play around with now that the kids are all home. I finished up this cabinet, which I found in the neighbor's trash pile, so I figured there was no harm in trying another chalk paint project since it was free. I do love how it turned out with the provence blue paint, and the hardest part was just trying to find a place to put it in our already cramped little house!
We decided to surprise the kids with a special trip to Great Wolf Lodge because of their good grades and they were elated! Even Lizzie couldn't help but be super excited because the kids were so excited. She makes a cute little wolf cub! We got there Thursday afternoon and swam for about 4 hours before heading up to our room.
Of course we had to snag a donut or two after all that playing, though.
Man, I love that little grin!
We changed and headed to dinner at one of Jon's favorites-- Carrabas Italian Grill. Their food is really good, and the service was super quick which is always paramount when you have four starving kids, and two really tired parents.
We headed back to our room for bedtime, and enjoyed this amazing view of the sun setting over Pikes Peak in the distance. Beautiful!
The next day was a lot more swimming and playing at all of the various amenities. Lizzie was so cute because she'd watch the older three kids go down the water slides, and she was trying SO hard to go down the little ones, but she finally worked up the courage and did it!
Lucy caught her at the bottom and she loved it! She did it about five more times before getting her fill.
Leah the Brave doing the big kid water slides! She was SO proud. We had a very fun, but exhausting stay at GWL, and we'll definitely be back.
We enjoyed two more baseball/softball games the next day (Saturday), and while we were watching Lucy's game, Leah conquered her fear of snakes and played with some little garden snakes some other kids had found in the grass.
Even Lizzie worked up the courage to "pet" it. So brave!
"Look Mom! I'm touching the snake!" She kept watching me for my reaction while she touched the snakey-snakey and she was so proud of herself. I'm just glad they aren't so terrified of the slitherey little guys like their mom is.
That night Jon and I got to enjoy a date night to the new movie "Wonder Woman" which was SO good! It lived up to every expectation that I had-- and I even had high expectations because I kept hearing how good it was. I loved seeing a powerful, feminine, smart, capable, woman be the leading role in a tough super hero movie and completely hold her own.
Finally, here's a little update of our "farm" as I started calling it, instead of just a garden. I guess we need some animals for it to really be a farm, but we sure love being out there and taking care of our "crops." Hopefully it continues to grow and grow and we get to enjoy it all summer long.
