Babes in Vail

Jeremy surprised me with the best birthday present ever, a girls' weekend in Vail with Hannah and Camille!  It may not have been a girls' weekend in the truest sense of the word since we all had our itty-bitties, but for all of us it was a great vacation.  I picked the girls up from the airport and we immediately drove up to Vail to get the party started.  Our room was amazing.  Jeremy booked a two room condo which was perfect for our nappers, but we were more blown away by the location and the view.  We had gorgeous mountain views from the balconies on both sides of our condo.  It was truly beautiful.  

We were hungry for dinner so we loaded up our kids into strollers and started down the walking path to town.  Something about the smell of pine in fresh mountain air is so therapeutic.  By the time we made it into Vail Village all of our cares and stressed were washed away.  We had quite a few comments about our stroller brigade, and even we had to admit that we were pretty unique with all three of us pushing strollers through town.

  We weren't sure where to eat, but a gentleman we passed recommended Bully Ranch.  We were very grateful for the recommendation, it was tasty!  I don't know if it all looked good or we were just so giddy being on vacation but we couldn't make up our mind.  Our poor waiter had to come back at least three times before we placed our order.  I ordered a chicken pot pie...doesn't that look tasty?  It was, I assure you. 

Camille thought that Jake would like the place based on the decor alone, there were antler chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and ranch themed decorations on every wall.  We walked through an Oktoberfest celebration going on in the courtyard and saw an impressive performance of cowbells.  We stopped at the pirate park to feed the babies and let Sammy get his wiggles out, then it was back to the hotel.  

My little tag along.

What girls' weekend would be complete without some late night craziness?  Hannah brought hair dye so we dyed her hair purple!  Yes, that's right.  While we waited for it to set we ate Oreos, peach cobbler, and played Harry Potter Trivia.  Not bad eh?

Before:

After:

We woke up Sunday morning and dressed ourselves for church.  We had to drive to Avon for the meeting and were a little late.  It was a tiny bilingual branch so we stood out a bit, but it was a nice way to start the morning.  

Morning in the mountains

After giving the kids much-deserved naps back at the condo we walked around Vail some more.  We checked out the furs, the jewelry, the parks, the art galleries, and the cupcake shops as we strolled.  We didn't have an agenda but we didn't need one.  

After we walked from one end of Vail to the other we were pretty wiped out but still wanted to check out the Blue, Brews, and BBQ festival at Beaver Creek.  We arrived just after a rain storm so the party had quieted down, but that didn't matter much.  We found a warm corner and helped ourselves to the cupcakes.  Yum!  Ask Sam, they were delicious!  

We couldn't stay up in our mountain paradise another night because we had the Bolder Boulder the next morning.  But it was like the mountains were giving us a parting gift as we drove through double rainbows on the way home.

At the start line ready to get this party started!

Hannah and Camille have never experienced the Bolder Boulder before and likened it to a running carnival.  Along the route there are slip 'n slides, water guns, belly dancers, bands, and marshmallows.  Since we weren't going for a time we were able to take it all in and just enjoy ourselves. We finally made it to the finish line and were greeted by thousands of spectators in the stands cheering us on.  All three of us think Jeremy is very brave and totally awesome for watching all six kids while we ran.  

Back at home we cleaned ourselves up and had some birthday chocolate cheesecake.  Happy birthday to me!  Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate (and planned the celebrations).  It was an awesome, awesome weekend.

The Napping House

One of our favorite books to read is "The Napping House."  One afternoon while I was hoping to take a nap, this line kept running through my head:  "The dozing dog who thumped the child, who bumped the granny, who broke the bed in the napping house where now no one was sleeping."

Baby Dax update

Daxton is four months old!  Yikes!  He's growing up so much.  He's looking chubby.  He likes to smile.  He likes to sing.  He love seeing faces smile at him.  He has learned how to roll over and even though he still doesn't love tummy time, he doesn't despise it like he used to.  But it's still a lot of work!  

He has started playing a new game I like to call potato bug.  He has always loved being changed.  For some reason it just makes him smile.  Well now once I take off his clothes he curls up into a little ball and will start sucking on anything within his reach: his toes, my hands, his clothes, and it makes him really hard to get dressed.  But he just smiles like it's the best game ever.  

We are using the bumbo more than ever mostly because he likes seeing everyone and I have two hands again.  Here Kelton was helping Cambrie prepare her Harriet Tubman time capsule.  

Here he wanted to help me with dishes.  

And here...Jeremy forgot about him after he finished dishes.  Oops.  Poor little forgotten dude.

Everyone loves cuddling with Daxton.  

He is happy just to chill on our laps sucking his fingers until he is a soggy mess.  

Love this kid and his smiles!

SOO much energy!

I am always surprised by Kelton pure energy.  He is always, always going! When we walk up to school sometimes he rides his Strider bike.  When he does, I just can't keep up with the kid.  He is fearless.  Normally that is an attribute that I admire, but when it means by 2-year-old is busting across busy neighborhood streets on his bike without stopping to look for cars, I get a bit nervous.  He refused to wear his helmet, and it may have been too small, so I decided to find the coolest helmet I could.  We found him a spiked dinosaur helmet and it did the trick.  So while he still doesn't stop (we're working on that), at least he's wearing his helmet.  

When he chooses to ride in the stroller instead of his bike, he never actually stays in the stroller.  He gets out to jump off of every landscaping rock and streetlight on the way.  Elmo slipper parkour!  

At the park, he climbs everything!

When I cook, he wants to help.  

When I get ready in the morning he wants to be with me and "see you Mom."  

He always wants to be next to me.  One day I had the privilege of experiencing what it must be like to be chased by the paparazzi as he followed me through the house with the camera flashing.  

Those days that I feel like I just can't keep up with the kid or that I'm suffocating because of his pure energy, his cute little voice saying, "Need hug," helps me refocus.  

What a cute kid he is...especially when he's sleeping.

Kindergarten lunch

My sweet little kindergartener isn't going to be a kindergartener much longer.  Today they were able to do a "test run" of the cafeteria and eat lunch at school.  McKenzie thought it was the coolest thing ever.  And I was just happy she ate her lunch!  Ruby is one of her new friends she made this year, and I hope they stay buddies because she's a sweet thing. 

Kelton wasn't about to miss out on the fun so we picked up a lunch for him too.  He also inhaled everything.  Win, win!

NASA

After Jeremy's race we decided to spend one more day in Houston checking out the city.  We took the kids to NASA to see what there was to see.  Jeremy and I thought it was pretty random and cool that we've been to both Port Canaveral and Houston within the last two months.  In the visitor's center they had some fun exhibits for the kids.  These globes help explain pitch, yaw, and roll.  

Here the kids can picture themselves as astronauts on Mars.  Apparently Kelton is tough enough to not need a space suit on Mars.  

The kids could practice landing the space shuttle....and practice, and practice some more.  

At the International Space Station area Cambrie was chosen to help demonstrate what it would be like to live on the space station.  She was zipped into an astronaut sleeping bag

 And used their exercise equipment

She was shown how the facilities worked and how they rehydrated their food.  As soon as Cambrie realized how that happened she became very bashful and the lady helping out thought she described it quite delicately saying that the water, "comes from our bodies."  After she came off stage she was given a picture of one of NASA's current female astronauts and a bottle of urine water.  I'm not sure which one she was more excited about!

We also took a tram tour of the grounds.  We drove passed a model of the space shuttle.

  Toured the astronaut training facility.  

And made a final stop at the rocket garden.  

The Saturn V was huge!  We ran out of time and had to get back to the airport for our flight, but it was definitely worth the stop.