After our Utah/California trip, we came back home to Colorado and enjoyed some summer fun there. Of course, Nana's and Papa's backyard was a favorite retreat.
I mean, what could be better than water guns...
... and popsicles on a hot day?
On that particular day, there was even a beautiful butterfly Carter tried to catch.
With Covid still making things weird, there was also a lot of time spent at home. Clara took the opportunity to explore the house.
And the kids played cutely together (sometimes, haha).
We also grew some summer squash in our garden. Here's one of our first squashes!
One thing that was fine to do during Covid was hiking, so we took the opportunity to explore a part of Castlewood Canyon we hadn't been to before.
It took us to the old Lucas Homestead, which was built in the late 1800s by an Irish immigrant family. Aubrey and Carter enjoyed exploring the ruins of the house, which were pretty cool.
Here's the old fireplace:
Then, at the end of June/beginning of July, we spent three different days at Nana's and Papa's, all close together. The first day was just a for-fun trip to hang out. Papa played soccer with Carter, which was so cute.
And Clara hung out with Daddy. (Terrible photo quality alert.)
When we went back to their house a couple of days later, it was for Papa's retirement party! Karen got this cool map for him to put pins in all the places he went for work.
And I made him a landslide German chocolate cake. It's kind of a mess, but landslides are messy, okay?
The kids also made Papa some cute cards. 🧡
Carter also decided to provide some musical entertainment for the party. Hehe.
The third time we went to their house in that short time period was the 4th of July. Here's Clara all decked out in patriotic clothing!
The kids had to have popsicles again, obviously.
And then there were s'mores! Quite a good day, treat-wise.
Clara discovered a love of graham crackers during the s'mores making. It was her first time eating them.
Because Covid was still going strong and there wasn't a vaccine yet, my mom and dad didn't feel comfortable getting together with the whole family at their house like we usually do in summer, so Maren and Kara, their kids, and our family all rented out a house in Woodland Park, a mountain town near Colorado Springs.
While there, we all hiked to Monument Rock. I took too many pictures...
Carter and Bennett were cute buddies, as usual.
And we tried for an all-children photo (minus Clara, I guess, since she was in the hikking backpack) by this little pond, but Carter was feeling uncooperative. Good times.
So this is the best we could get:
Pretty place though, no?
The littles were good hikers. I think it helped to have the positive peer pressure of cousins there.
More photos of the rock (told you I took too many):
Just at the base of the rock was a huge, muddy puddle (I can't really call it a pond). The little kids had to spend a good deal of time throwing things into it, of course.
The older kids, however, preferred to climb the rock.
After the hike, we went up to Castle Rock to eat some Dos Amigos. The littles enjoyed climbing around at Festival Park after they ate their three bites of food.
Then we went back to the house in Woodland Park and mostly just hung out. I don't have any other pictures, so I don't really know what we did, haha. I do know both Aubrey and Carter had some... stomach issues, we'll say, which led to their first tastes of Gatorade. Carter became a big fan.
I also know I found this book in the house library...
... and we were inspired to watch Hamilton for the first time (just the adults). Kara had already seen it, but Maren, Daniel, and I had not. We loved it, and I sometimes wish I could go back and watch it for the first time again, just to experience the sheer surprise and joy of it. I laughed so hard at all the King George scenes. Ah, so good.
Anyway, here's a cute video of Clara I took at the house there. She thought it was funny to make it impossible for me to change her diaper.
And that's all for now!
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