Driving up Pikes Peak

First off, I need to apologize about the lack of blogging. But, alas, it is summer and I am not home near as much as I am in the school year. Plus, we move in a little over a month, so we're trying to do as much as we can before we head to Texas. So, I will try to at least post our weekly field trips and more if I can.

Last week we decided to make the drive up to Pikes Peak as our weekly field trip. Evan, the girls and I had taken the Cog Railway up to the top 2 years ago in July, but we'd never driven. Evan took the day off and we went with Rachel and her kiddos and Kim, Chris and their Kayleigh. We met at Kim's house around 10:00AM and headed off.

It was one of the best days I've ever had.

The lovely thing about driving to the top was there were lots of stops along the way. One of them was the Crystal Reservoir.
We stopped halfway up to have a picnic lunch.
And to climb some trees.

As we climbed higher up, the road became more steep (as did the drop offs to the side).
We were quite excited to get to the summit. And, because we didn't take the train, we had lots of time to explore.

Of course, we had to eat some of the world famous donuts from the restaurant at the summit.



Julia checking the map while standing on the train tracks.



On the way down, we stopped at the Bottomless Pit. I won't lie, I did not leave the car for this stop. I had no interest in looking down a bottomless pit due to my immense fear of heights.
I did venture out to climb around Devil's Playground. There was a lot of snow to play in.



I am so glad we were able to have this experience. The entire day was fabulous.

A beach in Colorado?!

Yep. It's a man made one, but still! We went to the beach!!!

For our field trip last week, we ventured out to the Aurora Reservoir.

It was lovely. So lovely.

The water was cold, but the kids didn't seem to mind too much.

Julia kept telling me how much fun she was having. I really hope she remember bits and pieces of the things we do in Colorado.




The kids begged to go back and we promised we would before the summer ends.

Virtual Coffee

Good morning!!! Holy cow it is gorgeous outside here today!!! No humidity and the high today is 83 and it's already 70. Perfect.

Of course, I still need my coffee to get me going this morning, so I'm glad you stopped by for some Virtual Coffee.

If you were really coming to my house for coffee this morning...you'd notice that I have two dogs at my house. No, they aren't new to our family, we're just watching them for some friends of ours. They'll be with us till Friday--a full week. Now, if you know me, you know I am by no means a dog person. These two little guys (a daschund and a yorkie) are so sweet and well behaved that I have done nothing but enjoy having them in our house.

Well, except that these two guys:
have been hiding out because they are pretty furious that we dared to bring in dogs to the house. Roosevelt has bitten the bullet and ventured upstairs to still go frolic outside and try to get attention while the dogs are sleeping, but Figaro is in full-on protest. And I miss seeing our cats lying around the house and demanding to be petted. I guess this also means they're not going to be thrilled to meet my sister's pets when we live with her while we wait for our house to be available in Texas. Sigh.

Have you heard about the wild fires in Arizona and New Mexico? Yeah, they're pretty terrible. We've seen a lot of their smoke and some days it's so thick in the air that the mountain's completely covered by smoke. But, all the haze has made interesting sunsets.

So, what have you been doing lately? Do you have kids home for summer break? Are you melting in a puddle of sweat wherever you are? We've been doing a lot of outside things--swimming in our new blow up pool, going to parks and playing at friends' houses. I do enjoy the schedule of summer.
Well, it has been lovely having you over for coffee, but I must go and begin my day. I will see you next week, though!

Summer days...

spent putting on sun block and trying not to lose sunglasses.

Taking trips to parks to play for hours while mom reads on the park bench.

Riding bikes and eating popsicles. Begging to buy ice-cream from the ice-cream truck who makes nightly trips down our street.

Going on field trips with our friends to hike trails and swim, to have sleepovers and build forts.
No tv after 10:00AM. No coats. No schedules.
Just fun and friends and lazy days.
Definitely enjoying our summer. How about you?

Bear Creek Nature Center

I know that I have talked about this place before. But we just love going here.

It's summer time again, so it's time for weekly field trips with our lovely friends. This week we chose the Bear Creek Nature Center and Rachel, her kids, the little girl she babysits and one of her nephews joined us.

We started off on the trails.

Julia realized she was way ahead of me and came back to make sure I hadn't left her. (Not that I EVER have mind you.)



(Omg, I love this kid. He is my favorite.)

Julia would declare quite often that she did not need me to hold her hand....until she did need me to hold her hand and then she'd panic if I didn't do it fast enough.




Henry found a skull. I'm thinking it's a deer, because, as Evan pointed out looking at the picture, it only has molars and no carnivore-type teeth.

Elisabeth found part of a lower jaw of the same kind of animal as the one Henry found. (Our kids were SUPER excited to have found such great treasures. And, yes, they totally kept them and they are drying them out.)






We had so much fun. The kids hiked for about 3 hours and most of it was in the creek. They were muddy and wet and so, so happy. It was a fantastic day.