Camping at Eleven Mile

We did a two day camping trip to Eleven Mile State Park this past weekend. We went with Chris, Zack and Nathan, Chris' dad. The kids had a great time. They got to go fishing. They played in the tents. They went exploring and they consumed a fair amount of smores.




Jenelle's idea of fishing is kinda funny. It's more a contest to see who can cast their pole the farthest. She is quite the good caster. She can almost cast her pole better then her dad. So 10 seconds after Jenelle gets her worm in the water she is asking if she can reel it back in so she can cast again. We didn't catch a single fish, but I don't think she cared.



I was a little disappointed with our campsite. There was one hiking trail that went along the lake, but the trail was one big ant hill. If you didn't keep moving the ants would swarm your feet. If you haven't gone for a hike with a 5 year old lately, they stop every 2 seconds to pick up a rock or look at a flower or watch a bird fly by. We were almost yelling at the kids to keep moving because the ants were so bad. Not a very good hike. We tried again later along a rocky trail. The ants weren't bad and the kids had fun climbing on the rocks, but we ran into two dead carcasses. Half the bones were picked clean and the other half of the animal still had skin on it. Very gross, but the kids were fascinated. They wanted to know when the animal was going to be alive again. We said the animal is dead. "Dead dead?" was their reply. Like they know of another kind of dead.

The campsite was also lacking trees. I really love that pine smell. We drove 2.5 hours to get to the park. If I'm going to drive that far, I want nice scenery. We did have a nice time, but I don't think we'll camp there again anytime soon.

We almost didn't stay for the second night. The wind was blowing so bad and our tent doesn't do well in the wind. The wind caved half the tent in. We considered going home. Jenelle was concerned that we would be leaving before the smores portion of the evening. The wind eventually died down and we stayed the second night and had a lot of fun.

Next weekend we are camping at Jellystone up in Estes Park. Jenelle's cousins are coming to town and we're all going up to camp. Check out the blog for our next camping adventure.

Mount Evans - Echo Lake Hike

We did a fun hike a few weeks ago. We did the Chicago Lakes trail at Mt. Evans. We went there once before this summer. This time we were going to hike to the lakes. It's a beautiful place to hike, but it is fairly steep. We hiked for about an hour and we ran into another hiker. We asked him how far to the lakes. He said, "About 40 minutes." We hiked another hour thinking that the lakes had to be around the next corner. We went around quite a few more corners and still no lakes. We ran into another hiker who said the lakes were another 20 minutes. We were pretty tired at this point. We had eaten all our snacks already and it was 1:30pm. We were ready for lunch and we still had a two hour hike back to the car. Ugh! It's a good thing that Jenelle ate most of the snacks. So she was all happy and cheerful on the hike back; while Curt and I were all grumpy and hungry.

We finished off the day with a nice lunch. I'm disappointed that we didn't make it to the lakes, but maybe another time.

Swimming fun.

Jenelle and I have been to the pool a lot this summer. We didn't go much last summer because Jenelle would cry every time she got splashed in the face (which happened quite often.) What a difference a year makes. She is putting her face in the water and kicking and paddling. She almost swam the length of the pool (coming up for air, of course.) She is doing great. We saw some other kids swimming without floaties. Jenelle gave it a go, but sunk immediately and cried. So we'll use the floaties for a while longer.

Bunny update

We have caught 5 bunnies so far. We caught the baby and Jenelle name him Hoppity. We took Hoppity to the Leawood Park. We play there often and there is a huge deck for bunny protection. There are lots of other rabbits there. We will visit Hoppity in the future. Maybe we'll bring him some carrots!

Happy Birthday to Curt

Curt had his birthday July 9th. In this house you don't just celebrate your birthday; we celebrate your birthday week. We started out the week going to breakfast at a new place. The Country Road Cafe in Kittredge. They have the best breakfast there. No more eating at IHOP for us. We made cupcakes on Wed. We wrapped up the week with a date night at Carrabba's and a movie.

Curt wouldn't want me to reveal his age on the blog, so I won't. But he just broke his first bone. He's like a teenager! :)

Competitive or crazy?

On June 29th, Curt and I had a date. We don't have a sitter very often so we were going to have as much fun as possible. We debated between tennis and a movie. We chose tennis. We are both competitive. Whoever wins get bragging rights. I hit a great lob into the far corner of the court. Curt chased it down and hit the ball. He feet stopped, but his momentum kept him going. He fell right on his wrist and broke it. Curt has never broken a bone before! We rushed to the emergency room. We were there for the next 3 hours. Dr. Bakes reduced the bone. I don't know why they call it that, but he pulled the bones back into place. The doc said that 90% of the time a break like this one requires surgery. Ugh. He referred us to an orthopedic surgeon. Good news. The bones were aligned properly during the reduction and Curt won't need surgery. He'll be in the cast for 4 weeks, though. Our summer fun plans have been put on hold for a while. Curt broke his right wrist so it's hard for him to do a lot of things.

Jenelle has had fun coloring pretty flowers on Curt's cast. She wants to know when she can rough house again. 3 more weeks.

Curt claims that since he was ahead one game when he broke his wrist, he should get the victory. I hate to tell him, but if a player is injured and can't complete the tennis match, the opponent gets the win. That's ok. I'll give him the pity win.

Slip n' Slide

Greta invited everyone from preschool over for a slip-n-slide/princess party. Lots of kids from preschool showed up. Even Sammy was there. It was a HOT day. Jenelle enjoyed her first slip-n-slide adventure with no tears. She didn't do very well at the sliding part, but had fun all the same.
The kids had a water balloon fight and lots of sprinkler fun. Summer is a great time to be a kid.
I hope you enjoy the short video. (It takes a LONG time to load video up to the blog.)