The Royal Gorge

On Memorial Day we took a little trip to the Royal Gorge - about an hour from Colorado Springs. I forgot to bring my camera on our trip!! I guess I have a lot of things to keep track of these days. So Scott and I took pictures all day with our phones...our regular dumb phones. So they aren't the greatest pics. But at least we got a few pictures. We started out by taking a ride on this little train to a lookout spot over the gorge.

Here we are sitting on the train. Grant cried for part of the ride, but felt better after a while.

The scenery on the ride looked just like a sterotypical western. Cactuses, rocks, sage brush.

Here's a view down into the gorge. That's the Arkansas river down there, which runs all the way to the Mississippi River.

Here are the kids at the lookout. It was windy!!

Here's a view of the Royal Gorge Bridge (in the distance), which spans the gorge.

Here's our little train!

We drove over to the Royal Gorge Bridge.

We walked across the bridge and it was scary. It was so windy and you could see through the wooden planks down to the river way way way below.

We managed not to fall off the bridge, despite the wind.

Here is a look from the bridge down to the river below. If you look hard you can see the train going through.

And a view from the other side of the bridge. You can see rafters going down the river if you look real close!!

There was a cool western town near the bridge (part of the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park) and I took some pictures of the kids by some BIG longhorn cattle there. Somehow I didn't get those pictures saved on my phone correctly, so they're gone. :( I'm thinking I'll see some more longhorn cattle before we move out of Colorado. The summer rodeos are coming up! We also saw a western show at the park, and now Matthew has been making everyone yell "Howdy!!" before he does his puppet shows. :) Anyway, here's Matthew at the petting zoo there. We had a fun time even with the crazy wind! Next time I'll try to remember the camera.

Oh, how I love to go camping

Scott took Matthew on his first camping trip this weekend. Matthew has been so excited about this trip. He's been asking us about it several times a day for weeks. It was a boys only trip with Scott's friend and his little boy. Here are Matthew and Scott at the campsite.

Scott's friend, Todd brought their dog, Lucy, with them. Matthew was very excited about playing with Lucy! He's always telling me he wishes he could have a dog. Here are the boys and Lucy running around.

More running around!

Here's Matthew hanging out around the campfire.

Matthew stayed up long enough to have some s'mores.

They also did some fishing! Matthew got a fishing pole for the trip and he was so excited about it.

And he (with Scott's help) ended up catching the only fish of the day! Good job Matthew!! That's Todd helping him pose with his fish. Matthew told me the fish was "sticky."

Matthew had a great time and had lots of fun playing with Luke. Here they are having a little walk together. Matthew reported that he had a lot of fun, and I think there might be another camping trip in the works.

Picture Perfect

We took the three kids to get pictures taken this week. I took Matthew and Anna to get haircuts the day before so their hair would look nice. It didn't seem to matter though. Hair still got messy. I even combed it right before the pics were taken!! The photo lady thought this was our best group shot. Matthew was laughing a little too much!

On the car ride to the picture place Anna scratched Matthew in the face. Something like that has to happen on picture day, right? And somehow his hair was sticking up, but I didn't notice it until we saw the pictures later...and then it was too late. This picture makes me think of Tom Sawyer (or maybe a pirate?) for some reason. Matthew has a mischievous look in his eye.

Anna looked cute...even though the dry air here really makes her hair go crazy.
I tried to brush it in place during the photo shoot, but it didn't seem to matter.

Grant has the least hair and his looked just perfect. I like his very surprised expression. He was good for the picture taking and only cried a little bit.

This was the group shot that I liked best! Grant's chin is receding into his shirt a little bit, but you just can't get a perfect picture with so many variables. :) Everyone is at least looking in the right direction. That's something, right?

I like Daddy best

Anna said this today:

"Mama, I'm so excited we got a new baby at our house, but I like Daddy best!"

I thought Scott might like to know that, since sometimes he thinks she doesn't like him too much. She spent a lot of time today painting a picture for him and writing (I use that term loosely) nice things on it like, "I hope you are here, Daddy," "I love you so much Daddy" and "I will write you a letter when you go to work, Daddy."

Everyone loves Daddy. Matthew is beside himself with excitement about going on a camping trip with Scott this weekend. Grant also loves Daddy's attention! And Scott is happy to give everyone their needed attention, even after a long day at work.

I'm glad they at least somewhat appreciate what a great father they have.

The Weekly Update

Nothing exciting to report...so here are some unexciting things...

This past week my mom came to visit. It was a short visit, but we were glad she could come. The kids loved it. Here is Grant wearing some little booty socks my mom made. I have a matching pair, also courtesy of my mom.

So cute!

Grant is growing bigger, but not that fast. He's still the little guy around here. But look out Anna, he might catch up to you. He weighed in at 13 pounds this week, Anna at 26 and Matthew at 39. All multiples of 13...curious. Scott didn't think it was that interesting of a coincidence. :)

Anna told me she wants to be a "cooker" when she grows up. She loves to help me cook and cook on her own for pretend. She likes to make pretend dinner with her clay and will work at it for hours! She calls her little clay cutters her "paring knives" and always wants to use a real cutting board. :)

Here is Grant sitting up for a burp courtesy of Grandma. We had fun seeing my mom last week, but it went by too fast! Before we knew it she had to leave. :(

We've been going through things in our garage with renewed intensity this past week, and actually cleaned it out enough to fit both cars in there at the same time. The next day we had a severe hail storm warning. It makes me unspeakably happy to have that done (the cleaning out I mean). The garage was filled with a lot of boxes that we had left in storage while we were in Okinawa, so going through some of it was like stepping back in time. I went through a lot of things from my old job, including a large amount of Boeing merchandise/propaganda. Sigh...memories. PS: Boeing is a great company to work for!!

Close up of Grant relaxing.

The kids played with the marble race kit a few times this week. Matthew always wanted to build the big set ups shown as examples on the box and directions. I was the consulting engineer on these projects.

Matthew has also started wrapping "presents" (on his own) and then sending us off on treasure hunts to find them. We did something like this for his birthday and he wanted to do it for the rest of us. Here is one of his wrapped presents before we open it.

Also keeping us busy for the past few weeks has been yard work. We've been focusing heavily on getting the bizillion dandelions out of our grass. My mom, who is plant smart, helped us get started with some of the other plants around our yard. Ahh, the joys of home ownership. ;) The kids planted some flowers and tomatoes in some planters. And I started a bunch of vegetable seeds as well...to go along with my unnatural love of produce. ;)

There is a small garden area in our yard and I planted some cilantro and jalapeno there (I'm growing my own salsa!) Maybe we'll use Matthew's tomato plants in our salsa.
Also this week Scott got his walking boot off and started physical therapy. He can now walk (or limp) around without his boot! He's gradually getting back to normal...pictures to come!

Seven Falls

We went to Seven Falls this weekend with my mom. It's a little park and waterfall near Colorado Springs - probably within Colorado Springs city limits it's so close! Here we are by a little statue near the start of our hike. The top of the waterfall is up a bunch of stairs (224 stairs it says) so we had a little bit of a climb. Matthew made it up all the stairs and Anna made it up about half way and got carried the rest of the way (by me). Scott made it up all the stairs in his walking boot while carrying the sleeping Grant. Grant only spit up on him once.

Here we are at the top. Anna was a little cold.

Me and Anna resting along the way.

Here is a view down the first set of stairs. It was so steep.

We fed some trout there by the falls. They were a lot more relaxed about getting fed than some of the carp we fed in Japan.

Here we are taking the elevator to a look out point.

Matthew was excited to walk through the cave to the elevator.

Up at the top of the lookout we had a great view of all seven falls.

Grant wasn't appreciating the scenery and started to get a little fussy.

Matthew wanted to check out the scenery with this thing...it doesn't work too well without paying the money. :)

You can see plenty without it though.
It was really beautiful!

More views of the falls.

I liked this Pike's Peak or Bust wagon near the falls.
We're there!! It was nice to get out and enjoy some of the beautiful Colorado scenery.
I'm hoping it will start getting warm for good now so we can see more of it!