Girls Weekend in Durango

After Julia left for school, a few days later Luke left to Canada for a 10 day business trip. Over the weekend he was gone, I decided it would be a good time to go visit my friend Jenny who recently moved to Durango and my friend Nicole came for the ride too. Yay for a girls' trip!

Durango is supposed to be about a 6.5 hour drive, but it took us a little longer with the boys and stopping for dinner. It was a beautiful drive to make through the mountains though with all the trees starting to change color, though it was hard to capture through the car window. 

We finally made it to their house a little after 8 that Friday night, and stayed up late talking. My boys had a lot of fun playing with their kids but finally went to sleep after awhile, and were excited to play again the next morning.

Here is Jacob having a fun time with Collin and Natalie, and Blake and Beckett playing with trains together.

Here were the kids eating waffles at breakfast, and Blake and Beckett bonding while watching a Thomas show together, haha.

Finally, we got everyone ready and we went for an awesome bike ride along the river. I rode a bike trailing Blake and Beckett with me. Blake was not happy about the trailer at first (he's throwing a fit here) but once we got going they were ok. Beckett was a good sport putting up with Blake haha.

Natalie rode a tandem bike with Sam, poor Jenny who's pregnant got stuck pulling the heavier trailer with Jacob and Collin and Nicole was on a bike too.

We were ready to go!

Like I said, it was a beautiful ride with the river to our side the whole way, and the trees just starting to change. My boys loved seeing the railroad tracks too. It was perfect weather and such a fun thing to do together. Made me want to get bikes for our family!

After several miles, we finally saw a park and decided to stop and let the kids get out and play, and we got to relax!

Sam rode down the street and picked us all up some fish tacos which were really good!

Then we wandered down to the river for a minute and let the kids play and throw rocks.

Finally, we loaded up the kids again (poor Blake looked tired) and then we rode until we saw a Burger King and we decided to stop and get the kids ice cream. I treated myself to a frozen strawberry lemonade which I have been loving all summer- I'm addicted to these!

After the kids played for awhile, and we finished our bike ride back to the cars, we headed back to their house (this is the view from their front yard!) and the kids decided they wanted to swim in the hot tub first, and then they played together outside and around the house.

The kids were completely preoccupied so us girls worked on jewelry together. I bought some beads and chain to make necklaces and Nicole worked on some earrings too. I thought it was fun and kind of a nice relaxing thing to do together.

We even helped Natalie make a necklace, it was cute :)  The boys were actually jealous that they didn't get to make a necklace too haha.

Finally, we got a bonfire going in their front yard, and we had just enough time to cook hot dogs for the kids before it started raining.

So then we got the kids to play inside, and soon we saw the brightest double rainbow, it was really beautiful.

Haha, their house was at the end of the rainbow ;)

The kids stayed up late that night playing together. Blake even bonded with the dog who he'd been terrified of at first, but now she was practically afraid of him as Blake chased her, haha.

Anyway, once we got the kids to bed, us girls went into the hot tub and stayed up late talking again and eating snacks. Good times :)

One last picture of all the kids together on our last morning. They were having so much fun together, my boys didn't want to leave! But we got everyone ready for church- here are the boys with Natalie in their church clothes, ready to go.

We just went to the first hour of church with them and then we needed to take off. Jacob got a big hug goodbye from Collin and Natalie, it was cute. Poor Jacob has missed them a lot since we've left.

We had such a fun weekend, we didn't want to leave either! One last picture of me, Nicole, and Jenny! I miss seeing these girls all the time and I'm glad we got to spend such a fun weekend together! They were great hosts!

Then, the worst part of any road trip is the drive home, and this was no exception. I was so grateful for Nicole's company and helping with the boys on the long drive, but unfortunately the weather was not on our side either. Through all the mountain roads home we drove over slick hail, in rain, through rock slides, and thick fog, but after 9.5 hours we made it home safe! But despite the long, hard drive, it was still a great weekend and I'm glad we made the trip down, and maybe someday we'll get to do it again :)

Fun with Julia

So I already mentioned that my sister Julia was staying with us for a few weeks at the end of the summer, but we actually got to see my brother Daniel for a day too.  The two of them made the drive across country from Maryland, Daniel heading back towards BYU and Julia heading back to BYU-I for her senior year and they stopped through Denver on their way.

Daniel left the next morning since he was anxious to get back to Utah, and unfortunately he had car trouble on his last day, but glad that he made it ok. The boys both had a good time with Daniel so we're glad that we got a little time with him. Next time we see him will be at his wedding early January!

So the weekend after Luke and I got back from our California trip, it was already Labor Day weekend. We wanted to do something fun while Julia was here, but instead of going through all the hassle in planning another weekend trip, we decided to just camp in the backyard. Best choice ever!

We did a campfire in the back with hot dogs and grilled cheese over the fire. Julia even tried her first West Virginia style dog with chili, coleslaw, and cheese on top. Then we had s'mores and the boys ate tons of marshmallows- that was pretty much Blake's dinner. We all just had a good time sitting by the fire until it got dark.

The best part about camping in the backyard is 1) We can still put Blake to sleep in his crib inside and 2) When the bugs get annoying we can go back inside and watch a movie! Jacob was excited to go to sleep in the tent though so we gave him a flashlight and he went to sleep while the three of us stayed up to watch a movie. When it got late I was tempted to just go back to sleep in my bed, but we didn't- we all grabbed our sleeping bags and slept in the tent together, ha. Then I got to wake up to this happy boy :)

The next day, we decided to treat the boys and Julia to see the Planes movie since they were so awesome while we were away on our trip. We brought our own treats and the boys did really well until the very end of the movie they got a little tired and antsy. But it was a cute movie and I was glad we all got to go together.

The next week while Julia was here was probably not all that eventful. A lot of time we were just home with the kids, except for occasional shopping trips and regular errands. Finally by Friday, I decided we should get out and do a trip to the zoo before Jacob started preschool again the next week. Yay, a field trip!

Julia hadn't been to a zoo in awhile, and even in DC she said the animals never seem to be out, so she was actually surprised to see some of the animals! And I was glad to have a second pair of hands, it was a fun but hot day!

We stopped and saw a sea lion show first which was neat.

And then the fish, which is Jacob's favorite. He was showing me how big the fish was, and they love finding the fish from Finding Nemo.

This dragon and Jacob were making creepy eye contact.

It was our first time being back to the zoo since they opened the new elephant passage and we were able to catch a little elephant show too which was really cute and fun.

We poked around more, and then grabbed a little popcorn snack and a drink so we could cool off in the shade for a bit. Then we checked out the bears, and the flamingos, which have always been a favorite of Julia's. 

Then we checked out the monkeys, played drums,

and the boys pretended to be animals in caves. By the end we were all hot and worn out and had seen pretty much everything, so then we stopped by McDonalds for a late lunch on the way home, it was a good day :)

The next Monday Jacob started Pre-K! He had an assignment due the first day to make a cutout of himself and he was so excited about working on it. He painted his own Redskins shirt and we made shorts and flipflops out of brown paper. I drew his face last minute but I should have had him marker it darker, but overall I thought it looked great!

Here was Jacob on his first day, excited to turn in his work and excited to go to a new school.

Though you can't tell from the picture, there's actually 24 kids in the class, so it's a bit large but they always have 3 teachers there which is nice. The first day at drop-off all the parents were kind of lingering, so I watched Jacob put his name up on a number, and then I left since he was doing great.

After I picked Jacob up on his first day, we took the boys to the park. It was a beautiful day and since most kids were back in school the usually busy park was practically empty again.

On Tuesday, I got a sitter for the boys and Julia and I were able to go with a few other sisters from church for a baptism session at the Denver Temple. I was really glad we decided to go, especially since it was the first time that Julia and I were ever able to be inside the temple at the same time. There was another sister in our ward who was recently baptized who was attending the temple for the first time, and I just thought it was a great experience.

The next day is when all the Colorado flooding started so for the next couple days we were kind of cooped in, but that was ok. I was just glad we didn't have much damage unlike many of our friends with flooding basements. We just had a little leak in our kitchen roof which we've been needing to get fixed anyway, and hopefully we will before it gets worse.

 

Since we were home a lot, we made lots of yummy treats while Julia was here, including some pumpkin chocolate chip waffles that got us anxious for fall.

And we practiced braiding our hair though we both still need a lot of practice haha.

 

For Julia's last night here we all went out to Smashburger. We were sad that our time with her was nearly up and having her around was so fun for me- and the boys! She was an amazing help around the house, was great company and a friend to talk to, and a fun babysitter/aunt as well! We've all missed her since she's been gone!  Come back and visit soon Jules :)