the great outdoors

our last camping trip of the season was at 11 mile canyon a few weekends ago. it was perfect!

on saturday morning we hiked to the top of the "mountain" by our campsite. pat carried laurel some, but she did a great job. we ate lunch when we made it to the top. if you click on the picture and make it bigger, i think you'll be able to see the river and the canyon in the top right photo. on the way down apache just laid down in the middle of the trail. poor guy is getting old. :(

the hike wore us all out. here's a shot of naptime in the tent...

the mornings were freezing - until the sun came up over the mountain. we LOVE camping!!!

welcome to the world, Fourie!!

just 3 days after andre turned 2, his little brother showed up.

laurel is already in love with baby Fourie. isn't he precious? and isn't marjorie just beautiful?!?!

laurel and andre being silly. love those little laughs!

andre is TWO!!

we had so much fun at andre's birthday party. we love you, little man!

marjorie outdid herself. the food, the decor - everything was so cute. especially the birthday boy!!

look how precious the caterpillar cake was. (yes, i forgot laurel's swimsuit. we improvised...)

DEE-LICIOUS!!

some summer scenes

worried look, two and a half years later...

dress up queen. bottom right - daddy's home!!

from our bedroom window. i won't ever get tired of this view!

another view - from our deck

laurel and her best bud. what a sweet dog!!



this is really long and may bore some of you to tears. i warned you!



"Thank you for the world so sweet;
thank you for the food we eat;
thank you for the birds that sing (not the boats that sink...)
thank you God for EVERYTHING!"

claire and louisa

my college friend, cara, lives about an hour away from us in golden, co. we've gotten to spend the past 2 wednesday mornings with her and her girls, claire and louisa. so much fun!

last wednesday, we explored the denver childrens' museum. laurel loved the little super market.

and everything else we found!

laurel and louisa are very close in age. and claire is the sweetest big sister. aren't they precious?

then yesterday we met them at the water park. we were having too much fun to take any pictures. our plan is to head to the cheyenne mountain zoo next wednesdsay. stay tuned...

first time bowling

we went to a squadron bowling party the other night. i was surprised by how much laurel loved it!

daddy's girl

all by myself!

more visitors!

my sweet cousin mary ramsey and her friend kaitlyn spent a night with us on their way across country. i love you mary!!

mary and laurel fell in love with each other

beautiful girls!

our friend tom was in town the same night. we loved visiting with these special ones!

tom came back by the next day and won a little heart over...

2.5 years old today

laurel and i looked through some old pictures and videos yesterday. i wanted to show her what i looked like when she was in my belly. what a walk down memory lane!! she was fascinated with the videos of her as a tiny baby. i cannot believe she is 2 1/2 years old now. thought i'd share a couple of videos we came across. enjoy!




laurel is 5 hours old here. mommy is still a little drugged up, don't you think? ha!

rayner shine...

we went camping again this weekend - i guess we've been bitten by the bug. we live in such a beautiful state! there are millions of places i want to explore. this time we went southwest to the wet mountain valley in the san isabel national forest. our plan was to camp at one of the campgrounds around lake isabel, but supposedly someone took the last one just 10 minutes before we showed up. we're glad they did! we kept driving and found a wonderful place off the beaten path. the only thing i would've changed was the weather. it rained from about 7:30pm friday night til about 5 am saturday morning. the wet mountain valley lived up to its name. it was certainly NOT ideal, but we survived!

saturday morning. absolutely beautiful. you probably can't tell that pretty much everything in the tent is wet, or at least damp. but i'm sure you can see the moon in the perfectly blue sky. pat did an amazing job setting up camp friday night BEFORE the rain set in, thank goodness! i wish you could hear the creek, just to the left of our campsite.

this little happy girl LOVES camping. she was such a delight.


there was a trail head right at our campground, so we went for a little "hike." we didn't make it very far, but it was just right. apache was in HEAVEN.


the weather was so strange most of the day saturday. one minute it would be totally sunny and hot, the next minute, completely cloudy and cold. it kept us on our toes.


little nature-lover. makes me incredibly happy.


we took a drive that afternoon and got a good look at the sangre de cristo mountain range. words can't describe how majestic it is. and look at the clouds! i took several pictures of the weather surrounding us. these 4 pictures were taken within minutes of each other, in different directions.

on the way "home" we stopped at Bishop's Castle. this is jim bishop, the builder. he started building this castle in 1969 and has built it all by hand. you'd have to see it to believe it.

p and laurel got a closer look. i kept my feet on the ground.

she may kill me later for the potty pictures. i just can't help it. could you????

supper that night. english muffin pizzas and s'mores. and NO RAIN! hallelujah. we're hoping to get in one more camping trip this season. stay tuned...

back yard bellies

marjorie and andre came over last week for lunch and a play date. we need to do this every week! by the way, marjorie and derick are from south africa. can you tell i'm learning a little bit of afrikaans?