Parker Days

We had a wonderful time in Parker at the Art Days this summer.  Grandma and John went with us.  Keagan had so much fun doing art projects.  He is becoming quite the artist.  We think Logan is his muse.

 But it was not only fun to go to the  event, it was fun to get there!  We got to go thru the tunnel under Parker Rd and go by the mural.  Then we had to make a stop at the playground.

Grandma Diane's Visit

Grandma came out to Colorado to lend a helping hand with the upcoming move.  Mostly it was just to give mom a break so she could get ready to start packing.  We had a great time and mostly just enjoyed the nice Colorado weather this summer.


The first thing on Keagan's list was swimming.  I think we made it every day but one to the pool and he just swam and swam.  Grandma and Keagan stayed in the pool for 2 hours one day. Logan was just happy someone else was there to play with him when he had enough of the water.

 Next on our list was trains.  Grandma was lucky and got to go to the Royal Gorge with John and all of us.  We also stopped by the train museum to ride the trains.  There was a special event on Saturday and the train was going on Friday so we ran up to Golden to take a ride on the steam train.  It is so much easier have another set of hands!

 Now with all the summer heat, we decided Keagan's shaggy hair-do had to go.  This is always a horrible time for mom as she knows how much Keagan hates it.  We have to tell the lady what we want before Keagan sits in the chair.  He just starts crying and carrying on.  Someday he will grow out of it...someday!

 One of the other things that we did this week was head indoors to Lil Monkey Bizzness in Parker. It was just so hot the kids were cranky and no one wanted to be outside.  It is great to have a place to go inside to play.  The boys had fun and took naps so we were all happy!

Oh what fun it is to ride...

...on a train to Royal Gorge!  In our touring of Colorado via train Grandpa John decided he would like to see the Royal Gorge with us.  We got seats in the Vista Dome so we had a fantastic view of the gorge in air conditioning and out of the brief rain shower in the afternoon.  Logan fell asleep on the way back so mom was very happy to have a place to sit down comfortably and watch the beautiful landscape.  

The Royal Gorge is a very special place to mom and dad as they went white water rafting here on the Arkansas River in 2006 for their second wedding anniversary.  The water was running really fast and the rapids were a Class 4-5!  It was so scary but so exhilarating!  We have been back a few other times and never has the water been running that fast (or it was running faster and the rapids were closed). 

Keagan really enjoyed the train ride with Grandpa John, Grandma Diane and Choo-Choo Jen (John's daughter).  We were really lucky there was an extra bench open across from our table so we all got to spread out and enjoy the views.  

 When we got closer to the bridge Keagan would keep pointing to it and was amazed how high up the bridge was over the top of us.  For many months after this trip he would call this trip"high choo-choo."

Gardening

One of the things Keagan takes seriously is his new gardening skills.  Since it is so dry here we need to water our plants almost daily.  Thank goodness our well did not run out of water this summer like last summer when we were on vacation.  The earth boxes that both John and I have are a source of eternal fun for Keagan.  Ours does not have many tomatoes so he waters the plants almost every day. He knows we have to keep filling the plants up until they "pee" water.  This means it is full.  At John's house Keagan inspects the tomato plants and then picks small little sweet grape tomatoes almost every day.  Keagan does not like tomatoes so he is always trying to find someone to feed them to.

August 2013: Keagan and Max

This is taking so much longer than I thought it would.  Someday I will get caught up to the present.  I finally got done with August-December of Logan's 1st year photo books.  I still only have the 1st 6 weeks of video completed...but first the blog when I can get a chance :)  

We got an offer on our house the first week of August and decided one of the houses we saw on our trip to MN in July could work out.  We all breathed a huge sigh of relief as we were getting tired out of trying to sell our house.  We actually were going to pull the house off the market if it did not sell within 2 weeks of getting our offer and try again in the spring.  Now we can enjoy the rest of the summer and get prepared to move 1,000 miles!

We started the month of August with our good friends Stacey, Max and baby Penny.  Max and Keagan just get along so well it is so easy to get together with them.  We had a playdate, a trip to the train museum as well as McDonalds play land and then a trip to the Wildlife Experience all in the span of 3 days.  The boys both seem to enjoy having a friend to enjoy all the fun activities.  

Wildlife Experience

Bubble gun

Keagan received a bubble gun for his birthday this year and it is a relaxing way to end the day.  He loves shooting bubbles into the air and chasing after them.

 Little brother Logan loves to watch those pretty bubble too.  In fact he likes them so much he would grab dad and try to stand up.  Of course watching his brother run around makes Logan want to do the same.  So once he got up why not let go of daddy?!?  He did not stay up long but he is working on standing every chance he gets:)

Fishing for Bears

After our train ride we took the opportunity to do another very Colorado thing, fly fishing for trout at the Blue River near Silverthorne.  Ok, so just dad put on the waders but we all needed them for this fishing trip.  We found a place to go public fishing but we had to wade across the river to get to the bank to sit on.  It was fun to take the kids and our gear across trip by trip and it was a very beautiful setting.  

Mom basically just ran around keeping the 3 ring circus going.  Ring 1) Daddy is out in the river fishing so mom is just making sure the kids are not in the path of the line and get hooked! 

Ring 2) Keagan is busy throwing rocks.  I mean there are just so many of them, they just need to be thrown.  I am sure this was not helping dad catch any fish but what can you do!  Mom is busy trying to make sure Keagan is not wading out too far into the river and gets swept away.

Ring 3) Logan the rock eater.  So I seen dogs in my practice that eat rocks and we have to refer them to surgeons like Jeff to remove the rocks so I was mortified to see my littlest son trying to eat the rocks.  I spent most of my time in this ring continually taking rocks out of Logan's hands.  They just tasted so good mom!

Finally we had enough of the good times and packed up our stuff and made the many trips across the river to get our stuff back to the side where the car was parked.  All of the sudden we saw a black bear directly across from where we had just been enjoying the Colorado scenery.  We had left in just the right time as it could have been scary to be across the river from a real bear!

Georgetown Loop

Since Keagan is completely fascinated with trains we have decided to continue our tour of Colorado via train.  This trip included a ride on the Georgetown Loop.  It really just goes up and down the mountain but somehow it goes backwards so we cross our path once and therefore they can call it a loop!

July 31st, 2013

We have realized there is beginning to be a theme to our train rides.  It rains at some point!  This ride had it all. Hot sweltering weather, a brief rain storm and then a cool breeze to end the ride.  This all took place in about 90 minutes.  It was really a neat way to see the mountains.  We are so glad our little man is so enthralled with trains!

Visit from Jordan

My cousin Janelle and her family stopped by to visit this summer.  We love to visit them whenever possible as they live in Aman, Jordan but they usually are stateside sometime in the summer. This year they decided to enjoy the beauty of the Colorado Mountains so we were excited they were able to stop by our house.  Keagan enjoyed playing noodle war with Alexandra while poor Paul was dealing with altitude sickness.  It was wonderful catching up with family!

Keagan and Alexandra
July 27th, 2013

Gymnastics Class

Well we finally decided to head to gymnastics class this summer.  Our good friends Kaelyn and her mom Alli told us it was a lot of fun.  And since mom works in the building with the gym we figured it would be easy.  Boy we did not know how much fun we were missing.

We start out with stretching.  Keagan likes the butterfly stretch the best where he gets to flap his wings. The warm up is a little difficult to do though as he just wants to get out and play! He loves to do the balance beam and heaven forbid I hold on to his hand too long.  I can do it myself mom! But the ultimate favorite is the foam pit where he jumps on the trampoline into the foam pit.  It is difficult to drag him away from jumping!

 But sliding down the huge inflatable slide is also fun and is a good break from the foam pit!

July 29th

More fun in the pool

We are really going to miss having a pool so close to our house and one that usually does not have too many people in it all at once.  Keagan would love to swim every day and we try to each day it is nice enough outside.  One night we even swam at dusk and it was a little chilly as the temps drop so fast once the sun starts thinking about going below the horizon.  But the water is kept so warm it was actually warmer in the pool and we did not want to get out.

Moms arms are weighed down with all the equipment needed to go swimming; the bags, the towels, the toys for Logan...Logan himself:)  So when we get to the locked door we have a system that mom unlocks it and Keagan opens it for her.  What a helpful little man!

Right now the horses are living right next to the pool at our friend Nicki's place.  So going to the pool is double happiness for Keagan and Logan.  They get to stop by and feed the girls their treats and then go swimming!

July 2013

Logan is working on his floating skills when he is in the water but mostly just enjoys splashing.  He never makes it quite as long as his brother in the pool so when he is done he gets to sit and enjoy his toys. Since learning how to stand though he gets more adventuresome.  If that fence is close by why not just grab it and try to pull yourself up! He manages to have fun either way.

Keagan loves to be in the water anyway he can.  His use of the lifejacket since coming back from the lake has allowed him to swim to the deep end of the pool but when it comes off it is time to do some jumps in the pool.  We are fairly certain Keagan is part fish!