Anna holding Socks, one of the new kittens

Marcy and the kids decided to do a surprise visit to Iowa a couple of weeks ago. The main motivation for the trip was to see the new kittens but it was also the last full week of school holidays and there was nothing else on. I had a lot to do at work so I stayed home and Marcy drove all the way by herself with the kids and Olive. Everyone did really well on the trip and they made it in record time to surprise Baba, Grandpa and the cousins during dinner.

Jude with Boots, the other kitty

It was another fun-filled week. They went to their favorite breakfast place, Perkins, and Jude learned how to make Monster cookies from Baba. They also had a lot of time in the pool as always and then the Anna and the twins decided to spend 24 hours in the garage just for fun. They even set up beds, played games and listened to music. They didn’t last through the night but they did make it all the following day. Jude made everyone dinner that night, spaghetti bolognese.

Getting ready for 24 hours in the garage

They were supposed to come home last Sunday but the air quality was really bad in Denver with the fires in the mountains so they decided to stay until Tuesday which was the last day of their summer break. So, they arrived back home around 6:30pm on Tuesday night and it was back to school on Wednesday.

Back to school…in person no less!

We are lucky that both kids have in-person school this year. Both schools went back on the same day, Wednesday, and they were SO happy to be back in class. Things are obviously different than it was last year but they don’t mind, they are just happy to have a semblance of normalcy.

At the top of Mt Elbert, the tallest mountain in Colorado

This weekend Jude and I did our annual fourteener hike. This is now the sixth year in a row we have done a 14er and Jude chose Mt Elbert, the tallest mountain in Colorado. We hit the road early, around 5:45 and we were on the trail by 7:15am. We took 7 hours 20 minutes not including 30 minutes at the top. It was a grueling hike but we had a great time and the smoke wasn’t nearly as bad as we expected. We were going to stay up in Keystone Saturday night but the smoke was too bad so we came home and had a quiet day today at home.