Over the Mountain and Through the Woods

...To Winter Park we go!  We enjoyed our trip over the mountain and on the west side of RMNP it was a different scene all together.  Logan woke up before brother and so he got to view the moose and her calf with us.  He was so excited to be out and of course he had as many viewings as the baby moose.  I mean it is hard to compete with Logan, baby moose.

July 24th

A break from the house

Alright, I thought getting a house ready to sell was hard, but having it show ready at the drop of a hat with 2 little ones running around is even harder!  To top it all off Keagan is ready to be potty trained but cleaning up his accidents on the carpet too adds one more thing to do.  So, we decided to clean up the house and leave for a few days.  Maybe this time the house will find its new owners.

One of our favorite places to go in Colorado is Estes Park.  Back in 2002 we came out to Colorado for a veterinary conference with classmates Tera, Mike and Rose and stayed in Estes Park for a few days before the conference started.  We fell in love with it then and visit frequently since we moved here.  Headed up to Estes Park to see elk, rocky mountain sheep and the beautiful mountain views has been a highlight the 4 years we have lived here.  We have been up to the summit at Alpine Visitor Center but never have managed to go across Trail Ridge Road.  So we decided to head across with the boys and stay in Winter Park overnight to relax and enjoy the trip.  We even think Hannah was excited to spend the night over at John's house where she could enjoy the peace and quiet that never is truly present in our house!

Our first stop was in Estes Park to have lunch.  We managed to find this park accidentally and had a great time.  There were so many things to do on the playground.  Logan enjoyed it as much as Keagan did.  We played hard as soon as we got out of the car as we could see a storm blowing over the mountains towards us.  The boys were tired out by the time the first big drops hit us and we ran into the covered shelter to enjoy our lunch.

 The boys had so much fun at the park they fell asleep for the ride across the summit.  We did not feel too bad as they always seem to have a little discomfort with their ears going up and down the mountain.  When they are sleeping they don't seem to notice.  Overall it was a great start to a fun mini-vacation.

Standing...

Well it should have been no surprise that Logan decided to grab on to his toy and pull himself up, but still it came as a shock one night.  He does not have much interest in grabbing our fingers and walking around like Keagan did, but he does like to try and get around with crawling (well it is sort of a crawl).  Logan's crawl is one of my favorite things to watch.  He has a gimpy leg that he just drags along.  It changes from left to right but there always seems to be a leg just hanging there getting drug along for the ride.  

I was not sure Logan would be as interested in walking as he can get himself around slowly, but obviously watching his brother run around is a good incentive for Logan.  So on July 23rd he just grabbed his play gym and just hoisted himself up to get a better look at the top of the toy and push some buttons.  He just looked at me like, well it is time for me to do this mom.  Watch out, I will be running soon :)

So happy to have mastered standing,  he will sit and enjoy the moment!

Down for the count

With Logan's new talent of moving around on the floor the boys are starting to play more and more.  We thought it was so cute when they appear to be wrestling.  This time Logan clearly has his brother down for the count. 

But it is friendly match so everyone is a winner.  Logan can feel proud of himself and Keagan has someone to play with!

July 22nd

7 months old

July 2013

Well it is that time of month again where we pull out the black velvet to take the monthly pictures.  I think the boys roll their eyes when they see the piece of cloth, but they indulge their mom.  It is getting harder to get the pictures this month though.  Logan does not want to stay still.  He is able to pull himself around.  He does not get far, but it still is surprising to me to leave my child in 1 spot only to look seconds later and he is missing.

Keagan knows the drill with the black velvet and does not seem to understand why he does not need to be in the pictures too.  This reminds me of my cat JC that recently passed away.  When Keagan was little and the black velvet came out this attracted JC like catnip.  It was hard to keep JC out of the  pictures.  Well I think Keagan learned this trick and I frequently need to come up with a distraction for Keagan to grab some quick pictures of Logan.  Of course if they are together and looking cute a quick brother picture is always a bonus!

So to get pictures of Logan, we sometime have to abandon the black velvet and go with whatever he wants to sit still on!  Or give him a toy to sort of distract him while trying to get him to smile.  The bead mazes are one of his favorites.  He loves to move the beads around.  Keagan did not enjoy this toy until he was much older.  It is funny how different the 2 boys are :)

Are we done yet mom?

Watching brother get his pictures taken

Happy together :)

Headed back home to Colorado

Although it was fun visiting family and friends, we were not very successful finding a new house in MN.  The market is moving so fast we need to decide quickly and we just did not find anything that we could not live without.  Coupled with a poor relator does not help matters.  So we headed back to Colorado to reevaluate life!

Dad dropped us off at the airport while he parked the car and took the shuttle.  To kill the time we walked up and down the moving walkways to ride the train, much to Keagan's delight.  We did find that Minnesota has an amazing playground at the airport for the little ones and so the flight back went so easily as we had lots to do before we got on the plane.  To top it all off the kids were tired from all that playing and fell asleep quickly for the entire flight! Success!!!

The Lake

Playing in puddles is always fun Grandma!

The boys and I some how managed to get the house as clean as we could to put it up on the market.  Our realtor tells us the market is moving so fast it may sell in as little as 7-10 days.  We could always hope that it would sell while we are gone to MN.  The horses moved into a friends pasture so I don't have to worry about them while we are gone either and they can't make a mess if they are not there.

We arrived in MSP to a heat wave.  The hardest thing for us is the humidity.  If it above 30% in Colorado we feel like we are sweltering.  So when it is in the 90s with 90% humidity we are just lagging.  Luckily soon after we came a storm moved in for a few days and although it was cloudy, overcast and a little rainy, it kept the temps down and made for a fun few days.

Keagan of course loved the pool with grandma and grandpa.  It was extra special as cousin Lilly was there to go swimming too.  When we were not in the water of the pool going out on the boat was a very fun treat.  Fishing with Grandpa (although I don't think they caught anything) or driving Rob's fast boat was very memorable for Keagan.

 The game house down at Donna's is always fun and playing with cousins Lilly and Cooper is a blast.

Driving Rob's boat

Practicing his crawling skills

Sleeping on the boat

Logan mostly just sat back and enjoyed everyone wanting to hold him and play.  He did get in some quality time in the boat sitting up front with Grandma Diane or falling asleep in mom's arms. If only mom would leave off the dreaded life jacket!   One of our favorite things is finding loons on the river and once when we found them they let out a loud call.  Logan just sat up started and called right back to them.  He was astonished those birds could speak Loganese.