Geocaching

 This weekend we went geocaching at Cheyenne Mountain State Park.  For those who don't know, geocaching is a real world outdoor treasure hunt.  People find hidden containers (geocaches) using GPS enabled devices (and GPS coordinates posted online at geocaching.com).  They were having a special geocaching event at a nearby state park and we decided to check it out.  I thought we were just going to be able to borrow the GPS and have at it, but we had to sit through a short class first.  And then there was another family looking for the same caches the same time as us.  :(  But it was still fun.  Here is Matthew with the GPS!

Grant is all ready to go!

The second geocache we found was stocked with lots of goodies for the kids.  Luckily we had some goodies to trade!!  If you take something out you are supposed to leave something of equal or greater value.  :)

Matthew was excited to find the caches.  He looks really tired here.  It was warm.

Another geocache we found (that's it on the ground in the bottom left).  The kids were checking out the stuff that was in there.  And we signed the log!

Here is a deer we saw along the way.  All my wildlife pictures (another one HERE) end up looking kind of Big Footy.

 

We found three geocaches and hiked a little over a mile and that was enough for our little crowd.  Plus it was starting to look like it might rain.  Time to head home.  :)

A last look at Cheyenne Mountain!  We had lots of fun!

First Day of Preschool

Monday was Matthew's first day of preschool.  Next year he will go to kindergarten, which I've heard is all day and pretty serious in our school district.  So I thought it would be good for him to do some kind of preschool this year.  He goes to a public school near our house.  There are two elementary schools within a few blocks of our house and the one with a preschool is not the one we live in the boundaries for.  So he'll go to the other school for kindergarten next year.  Here he is getting ready for our walk to school.

Here we are on the walk.  There is a dirt path behind our house that leads right to the school.  I clocked it with the GPS and walking it's .44 miles door to door one way.  It would be a lot shorter if we could go "as the crow flies" (maybe only .25 miles).  But there are drainage ditches and streets to cross and stuff.  :)

Matthew was really excited about school and he seemed to have a good time on his first day. He drew this picture and wrote his name on the paper. M-A-T-T-H-E-W plus a lowercase b for bus.  :)  Hooray Matthew!  I was kind of sad to send him off to school - it's 3 hours a day for 4 days a week.  I was wondering if I should keep him home with me this year instead.  But I think it will be good for him and help him get ready for kindergarten.  Plus he seems to like it.

Anna on the other hand was very concerned about school.  When we took her into the preschool classroom to drop off Matthew she cried that she didn't want me to leave her there.  Then when we said goodbye to Matthew and left him there, she was very worried about him for the whole 3 hours.  "Is Matthew ok at school?"  "Will Matthew be sad?"  I think she was relieved when we went and got him.  She is hardly ever away from Matthew so I think she will miss him a little.  I told her now we could do some "Anna and Mommy" things while he was at school, just the two of us.  She didn't seem too excited about that.  :)

In any case, this is the beginning of the school years for our family.  :)  No more taking vacations willy nilly in the middle of the school year.  Or maybe we'll still do that.  ;)

Goodbye Cousins!

Sadly, the cousins had to leave after a few days.  :(  We had a lot of fun having them visit!  It went by too fast!  Angie and her family are moving to Alaska in a few weeks so it was nice we got to see them again before they headed north.  Here are Kelsie and Grant.

And all the cousins together for one last picture!  Thanks for visiting us guys!  Come again and again!  (L to R, Jaron, Olivia, Anna, Karlee, Kallie, Grant, Matthew and Kelsie)

Western Museum of Mining and Industry

On Saturday we went to the Western Museum of Mining and Industry in Colorado Springs.  I'd never been there before, but a friend of mine told me it was fun for kids, so I thought we would give it a try.  It was "keep what you find" gold panning day at the museum, so we tried our hand at gold panning.

We didn't find too much gold, but we found pyrite and some other minerals.  Here is Kelsie with one of her treasures.

Anna mostly dumped her sand and gravel (and any treasures) into the water.  She was probably the one with the gold.  Oh well.  :)

 Here is Jaron giving it a try.  We had fun!

Jaron measured all the different mineral specimens.

 And Matthew examined them up close!

We also got to see a lot of the machines in action!  Our tour guide did a good job explaining how the equipment worked.

 You can't tell but here is one of the machines in motion!  I think this one was a very big steam run (coal run) power plant for a big mining operation.  They only turned it on to 1/10 speed, 'cause full speed would have shaken the whole building.  We got to see some other machines in action too, but this one was the biggest!

My favorite part was this steam shovel!  It looked just like MaryAnn from Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel.

 We even got to see her in action!

And we saw this little train too.  It made a lot of noise and scared all the babies.  They also had a 10 stamp ore mill up on the hill, but I didn't get any pictures of it.  It was an interesting trip.  We definitely learned a lot about mining...even if we didn't get any gold.

A Day with the Cousins

Two of Scott's sisters, Angie and Alycia, came to visit us in Colorado this past weekend.  We had a lot of fun visiting with them and all the cousins!  We went to Focus on the Family - an indoor play place run by a religious group here in COS.  We had lots of fun playing and the older kids went on the BIG slide over and over again.  Us moms went on the slide too...but only once.  :)

 Matthew was excited 'cause this was the first time he was tall enough to go on the slide.  I think he went down over 20 times!  They have you put your feet in a sack and put sock sleeves on your arms to go down.  :)

We also went to America the Beautiful Park in the middle of the day and played in the fountain.  But I didn't get any pictures of that.  Go HERE to see Alycia's pictures of our adventures.

And in the evening we went to the Flying W Ranch for dinner and some cowboy music!

Here are some of us eating dinner!  It didn't rain on us.  Hooray!

We were reminded of our last trip here with Grandma and Grandpa Guptill when Matthew showed us his tin cup and said, "Grandpa says these are the cups you get in jail!"

 Some of the kids had trouble making it through the show, but we all survived.  It was a busy day!

Anna's 3 Year Interview

Anna is 3 years old now and she's turning into a such a grown up lady!  Here is her 3 year old interview.  See last year's interview HERE.

Grant at 4 Months

Grant turned 4 months old on August 7th.  He had his well baby check up and is about 16 pounds now and in the 50th percentile for weight and 75th for height.  He is a very good baby, although he still isn't a great night sleeper, but that's ok.  He loves watching his brother and sister (and cousins!!) and they always seem to make him laugh or smile.  He can almost sit up on his own...well, not quite, but he's getting there.

He can roll over, but he doesn't do it consistently and I haven't been able to get a video of it.  Will keep trying.  :)  Here he is doing tummy time...not his favorite thing.

And here he is in the exersaucer.  He's old enough to be in there now and he likes it...sometimes.  I put him in there so I can try and get things done, but it usually doesn't last too long.  He would much rather be held!

Here are a few videos of Grant at about 4 months.  Nothing special, just so we can remember what he was like!  He's the sweetest baby!!

Happy Birthday Anna

Anna turned three years old for reals this week.   We confused her so much about when her birthday was, poor thing.  First she though her birthday should be back in the spring (by Matthew, Scott, Grant and I all have late winter/spring birthdays) with everyone else.  Then we had a birthday party for her about two weeks early.  Then on her real birthday we didn't have cake or presents 'cause Scott was out of town....and then we had our family party on the 13th when Scott got back.  So I guess it wasn't the best plan on my part.  Oh well.    Anyway, here is Anna with her cake.

Here are Anna and Matthew opening her card...

and finding presents on her picture treasure hunt

Matthew had a hard time not running ahead of Anna to get all the presents.

Anna opens a present...a playdoh factory

 He also had a hard time not helping her open presents.

And here she is with her cake again!

She did a good job blowing out the candles!  Happy 3rd Birthday Anna!

Julie Penrose Fountain

aka "The Stargate"
aka my new favorite place in Colorado Springs

All summer I've been looking for a fun and affordable place to swim (or at least get wet) with not much success.  Colorado has a lot going for it, but one thing it lacks (conspicuously) is an ocean.  I've grown accustom to having my oceans nearby.  :(  Even Anna and Matthew made it all the way to July before they stopped asking to go to the beach.

But I digress...last weekend we had a lot of fun playing in this fountain at a local park.  You can see the fountain from the freeway (most of the year it's not on) and Scott calls it the Stargate.  :)  We finally checked it out and it is so cool!

 Here is the fountain close up...spraying water

The water from the fountain flows down to a spiral shaped river.  And because of the shape of the fountain and river, the water flows like a river, downhill.  It's very ingenious and it makes the math nerd in me think about calculus and how much water is flowing in the spiral river at any given point since more flows toward the end (like a mountain stream turning into a big river).  You don't have to say it.  I already know I'm a nerd.

 Anyway, the kids LOVED it!  I even loved it 'cause it felt kind of like wading in a real stream.

 Matthew and Anna loved splashing in the river!

The Stargate in action.  So much fun.  I wish I had found it sooner!  Next year.

Helen Hunt Falls

We went to a nearby park to do some hiking this weekend.  Originally I was thinking we'd hike a little farther, but the trails there were very steep and not too good for small kids (or strollers) so we did a shorter one.

Here we are at Helen Hunt falls - where our hike started.

This was named for Helen Hunt Jackson the writer and activist, not Helen Hunt the actress.  ;) 

Above the falls

And looking down

Going up the trail.  It was very slippery with all the gravel and the steps were very big!  Especially for little Anna.

Pretty views!

Up at the top!  Scott carried Grant all the way up.  It was tricky for Scott since he doesn't have a full range of motion in his ankle yet.  And carrying Grant makes it a bit trickier.  I'm glad he could make it and not get hurt.

Here we are resting just above another waterfall (Silver Falls?) at the top.

Checking out the water

After our hike we drove down the canyon a different way.  The road we took was called Gold Camp Road - an old trail or track to take gold out of the mountains into the old mill in Colorado Springs. 

There were some great views along the way.

And a couple very rustic looking tunnels

It was so fun to get out and enjoy some of the beauty of Colorado.