2 Days of Friend Filled Joy

One of my across the country besties, photog Amy, paid us a visit with her entire fam in tow.  This is rare. Amy and I get away for girls weekends at least once per year, but it's not common that our children and husbands are invited along.  Her fam was on their way to Yellowstone for vacation and made a pit stop in Denver. We had so much fun watching our littles play and get along marvelously.  On Friday we attempted a hike at Lair O the Bear and made it about 20 minutes before lightning, thunder and rain blasted us back to our cars. No bother.  Instead we stopped at Red Rocks and let the children play on the stairs.  That's a lot of stairs to conquer and they did, with pride and lots of exaggerated breathing.  Enzo was the main attraction, as is the case when we take that dog in public.  We even had a sweet lady and her mother visiting from Japan who wanted to do a photo shoot with Enzo.  We politely smiled and hid him from view.  Creepy.  

 Amy fell in love with this pup.  

 We're working hard on keeping our tongue IN our mouth.  It's proving to be a very difficult habit to break.  Especially when her brother is present.  

Picnic in the rain, under a tree, surrounded by lightning, on the ground with no plates.  Nothin better.  Note, my children had already retreated to the Pilot.  They melt in the rain.  

 Enzo was groomed.  A lot.  He's still shaggadelic, but we can now see his eyes. Oh how I love this dog's big black eyes and button nose.

 You can just call my son "Rocky."  The meanest, leanest fighting machine in Colorado.

 How darling are these 3 littles of mine?

 Squirt doesn't know it yet, but we're aiming to arrange a marriage for her and this handsome little devil, Liam.  She couldn't remember his name for the full two days, but she'll get there.  She kept referring to him as the small boy.  

 The kids turned the play house into a Halloween restaurant.  They served magnificent eye balls, pumpkin pie and wine.  They've learned how to please the moms.  

We could have used 2 more solid days of DeYoung time, but we sure were grateful for the 2 we got.  Next is to continue convincing them to move to the Mile High City.  Work awaits talented home building Paul and Amy can photograph a urinal and make money doing it, so we'll do our best to persuade them.  Thanks for the visit friends.  I treasured every second.   

Tenting It

There are aspects of camping I love.  Campfires, walking out of the tent in the morning and seeing your breath, the sound of the tent zipper, exploring nature around the site, cozy sweatshirts at night, making pancakes on the griddle, dirty knees and ears and hands and clothes....so much of camping is charming. Then there are the parts that I'm just not sold on.  Setting up the tent, SLEEPING in the tent (attempting to), not having facilities 10 steps from my resting place, mud (different from dirt), living out of the car...it's a trade off for this Mama.  I like it enough that we went this past weekend and will go again in August.

Our church reserved a group site 15 minutes from our house at Cherry Creek Reservoir, so we signed up. Friday night at 8:00pm we pulled in (this process was a total cluster but I won't go into that) and we were all set up right in time for bed (after a couple smores).  The kids were asleep by 10ish, which is pretty good in camping terms, and I clonked out right with them.  The next day we did a fam bike ride around the park, which was lovely. It's an awesome park with miles of trails to bike and run through.  Enzo and Squirt shared the bike trailer...might be the cutest thing I've ever laid eyes on.  We spent a good chunk of the day at the lake with our group and the kids and Tim lucked out with an hour of speed boat time.  Dude had his first official tubing ride (because pontoon tubing doesn't qualify) and came through like a champ.  His little thumb went from down, meaning slow down, to way up, meaning "go grown up speed."  Tim was so proud of him. 

 Luckily there was a tent assembly crew to help my husband.  

 The before-stated darlingness.

 Gwen and Joel and their uber awesome bikes.  This is all the kids did all weekend.  Ride their bikes around the circle.  Pure joy.

 Enzo quickly learned which tent was ours.  If he didn't see one of us for 10 minutes he would sit next to the tent and wait for us.  

 The walk to the beach.  Did I come within inches of stepping on a four foot snake?  Why yes I did.  Did I scream?  Why yes I did.  

 Sweet Anna allowed these two random girls dump buckets of water over her head for a good ten minutes.  

 See the tiny speck in the middle of the shot?  That's my tubing son.

And that would be my wake boarding, in heaven, husband.

We were on a hunt for a four leaf clover so Dude and Lucas could find a Leprechaun village.  Problem was, they both genuinely believed this was possible.  Dude is usually in the minority when it comes to believe fact over fiction.  Unfortunately, the leprechauns didn't reveal themselves and we couldn't even find the end of a rainbow.  Disappointing.

 So in love with this ball of fur.  Our little rug.  

 Where's Enzo?

 After 24 hours, these two became fast baby doll friends.  

Squirt, Enzo and I went home to sleep that second night, which paid off.  Everyone got a good night in.  If I have to camp 2 nights I will, but when my bed is calling to me from spitting distance, that's tough to resist. So I didn't.  Judge me if you will.  We came back in the morning for the church service our group organized and I was grateful we did.  As was Tim since I was able to help pack up the unbelievable amount of crap one takes on a 2 day camping get-away.  

The kids had a fantastic weekend roaming free, but the award for most fun had goes to our dog.  This is the life for him.  He was so covered in burs and pokies and bugs that we had to get him a substantial trim at the groomers when we got home.  Poor guy had way too much fur to make it through the hot summer comfortably.  We'll camp again in August and this one is too far for me to head home.   I'll let you know how that goes.