Enjoying some mango on the hammock on a hot summer’s day

It has been a good last couple of weeks with not a whole lot scheduled. While the kids did have half-day camps the first week, last week, when I was in California for a retreat, was completely open.

At Elitch’s after a fun filled afternoon

Last week I took an afternoon off work and we all went to Elitch’s, the big amusement park in Denver. They also have a water park there and being a hot day we spent a lot of time in that area. The highlight of the day for me was doing this really scary swing ride from 150 feet in the air with Anna, who was just tall enough to do it. I think I was more scared than Anna to do it.

Hanging out by the Snake River in Keystone

Marcy took the kids up to Keystone for a night while I was gone, mainly because Jude really loves the tennis lessons there. But they also took some time to go exploring by the river near out condo.

Camping in the backyard

We are planning to go camping in a few weeks so Marcy thought it would be a good idea to get the tents out and give the kids some practice. As expected it was late to bed and early to rise so the kids were pretty tired the next day but they did enjoy it. They also enjoyed making s’mores and roasting marshmallows over our gas firepit.

Roasting marshmallows for S’mores over the gas firepit

The big event to happen while I was away was that Anna got her ears pierced. She has been wanting to get this done for ages and we said that if she could brush her hair morning and night without any fuss for 30 days straight she could get it done. Well, truth be told she has been doing this for months now but only called Marcy on it this past week. She said it “hurt a little” but she was very a happy camper.

Anna with her newly pierced ears

I got home on Saturday night and today we had nothing organized. So I asked the kids what they wanted to do today they said to go to the zoo. So, we rode our bikes and spent the morning there. They had a very cool lego exhibit with all kinds of creatures made entirely from Legos. It was very impressive. On the way home we spent some time at the museum, it was the first time I had been there in months.

By the wolf and bunny made of Legos