Spartan Sprint

 

Everyone woke up bright and early on that lovely, breezy Colorado morning. Even I got up because I was the official kid watcher for the day.


Look at these brave souls all ready to run their Junior Spartan!

Pay particular attention to how CLEAN everyone is, because that is about to change–dramatically.

There was a little of this…

a bit of that…

and tons and tons of this…

and this…

and this.

I gotta say, I didn’t envy these cool kids one little bit.

Admire them beyond believe–YES!

Envy them, no.

But oh, my goodness–they did it!!

They have every reason to be incredibly proud of themselves.

I know…

I sure am!

ROAD TRIP!!

Other than the words “Happy Thanksgiving” and “Merry Christmas!” my two very next favorite words have to be ROAD TRIP.  No doubt about it.

Seriously, where else can you drive all day to see a giant watermelon slice?!!

Totally worth it. We live for this kind of stuff.  Plus, we just have so dang much fun!

This particular trip–we were headed from Utah to Colorado for a Spartan Sprint (more on that later) which several of my kids and their kids were taking part in.

Oooh. Look at that lovely vineyard.

I’m glad I wasn’t driving past when THAT big, old rock fell down. I have nightmares about that kind of stuff.

This river was creepily close to the highway. It might have even gone under it–for all I know. Simply couldn’t tell. Yikes.

I read an article the other day that said that many of the plateaus that we see on the horizon were actually enormous trees a zillion years ago. Don’t know if I believe it or not, but it’s fun to think about.

I told Rhen all the details of this article and started saying, “Like, that one there…it used to be a tree.” All he would say was, “Huh. Interesting,” which is what he always says when he is only half listening.

Well, knowing that he was not totally paying attention, I kept saying it.

“See that over there? It used to be a tree, ” over and over–to all sorts of stuff–mountains, hills, actual trees, billboards, houses…you get the picture. I was amazed at how often he fell for it.

Made me laugh.

Roadside stop at the top of the mountain. Who are these adorable people?!

They just keep popping up…

everywhere we went!

We saw this interesting bridgey looking thing. Cool. Cool.

Then saw a couple of tunnels coming up…

If you know how I feel about tunnels, you’ll understand when I say, completely UNCOOL.

It was a lovely road trip–there and back again. Great company, pretty stuff to look at and great food, which I was too busy eating to take pictures of.

Someone even put up a Welcome Home sign for us on our return to Utah. How sweeeeet!

Oh, and see that thing over there?

It used to be a tree.

HAAAAA!

Friendly Fireside

On an evening like this, it would have easy to take a  picture of the beautiful night sky with all the stars shining—or take a close up of the gooey marshmallows roasting over the fire.

To be honest, it never occurred to me.

I was way too busy watching all these dear,

sweet…

happy people doing what we always do….

…just being together.

Family really does make for the best of friends.

Nearly Summer Snow

A few days ago we woke up to some crazy rain. I mean, like torrents of rain.  For 4 or 5 minutes it even turned to hail. I was amazed that it wasn’t even all that cold outside…just wet. We found this odd pile of hail in one spot on the lawn that must have slid off the roof or something.

ANYway, the best part of all this moisture is…

what it does to our mountains.

Oooooh.

Not bad for nearly June–right?

Memorial Monday

Sincerely, I know what Memorial Day is all about. I do. We ALWAYS take flowers to our sweet family at the cemeteries, whether or not they were Veterans and even though none of them died in a war. This year we did it on Saturday before actual Memorial Day. I forgot to take pictures. Sorry.

We did, however have a lovely barbecue so that we could just…you know…play.

We’re pretty good at that play stuff.

New to our game repertoire  was a corn hole set. It works well for a bit but then the littles wanted to wear it on their backs like a hero cape and run around the yard saving people. Slightly scary.

There was a soccer ball flying throughout the evening…

because pretty much everyone who is anyone (the kids, anyway) have played or are playing or will be playing– soccer.

So it was just a natural thing for all of them to see a ball and kick it!!

Someone brought a sticky target game…

that was also a hit. No pun intended.

Some of the kids created their own games or traded Pokemon cards.

We had hair braiding and chalk painting…

…hanging  inside the monkey bar thingy…

and lighting charcoal snakes!! I love those!

Also new to our game day was an extra large Connect Four.

Even the little kids played with it…

when the big kids were done–of course!!

There was, of course the fabulous barbecue food–but I didn’t pay too much attention to that–picture wise because….well, because…

eating takes two hands.

Heh, heh.

Happy Memorial Day everyone!!!