Activities over the last couple of months

Howdy all

So it's time for another big batch of updates, and today we'll have four separate posts. First a "things we've been up to" posting, followed by separate posts for Rachel and Daniel and a Rachel birthday post. As I'm sure you can imagine, a lot happens in three months of blog-silence, so we'll do our best to not overwhelm you.















Back in January, cousins Brayden and Kayla came up to visit from Texas, and that was good fun. They stayed over at Grandma Babe's place, and so Daniel got to go for his first sleepover.

When they weren't doing that, they played, built things and read books at our house. Older cousins are the coolest thing around.







The National western stock show came to town, and this year Anida got to take the kids. As usual, Daniel had more fun climbing on tractors and other farm equipment than actually looking at animals, but Rachel got to ride a pony and had a good time at that.


















In March, Grandpa and Farmor came to visit, as they usually do around March Madness. Daniel suited up in his Xavier gear (aka "the good guys") and took on all comers at driveway basketball. He's gotten decent at dribbling the ball.

As it tends to do in March, it alternated between sunny 70-degree days and snowstorms, so there was sledding and bulding of snowmen as well. Daniel wanted to put a beard on his snowman with red food coloring, but the end result was that it looked like someone slit the snowman's throat.








As a family, we all went up to Winter Park and spent a weekend at a Bed and Breakfast with a swimming pool, which was a nice break. One day we put both Rachel and Daniel in ski school, with the result that Anida got to strap on her skiis for the first time in 6 years. Good fun, though we made the tactical mistake of running into Daniel around lunchtime and that was the end of his willingness to stay in school. Rachel had a fun day on the bunny hill, but was most excited to tell us about the hot chocolate she'd had for snack.














We took a day trip down to Colorado Springs to go to the Zoo down there. Now, you might think that we have a perfectly good zoo in Denver, so why make the drive, but they have giraffes you can feed - which is actually a lot of fun.
Easter came and went. Rather than join the municipal easter egg hunt (which tends to last about 20 seconds while the big kids trample on the little ones), one of the preschool moms arranged a 10-family egg hunt in a local park which worked out wonderfully. All of the kids got to get something, and no-one was trampled.










We also had our own little hunt in the back yard, colored eggs and had Grandma Babe over for an easter lunch.



















Some old favorites repeat themselves, of course. Both kids like to go to the children's museum, and occasionally to the "Monkey Business" inflatable playground. There have been a number of birthday parties, and trips to the zoo as well.

With the warmer weather, and new bicycles (see later posts), we've started taking bike trips as a family. Rachel can ride her own bike as far as the local playground, but jumps in the trailer for the longer trips to the reservoir.

By the end of the summer, I suspect she'll be pedalling along with the rest of us, though it can be hard to remember that she's still just 3 years old.

The way that Daniel and Rachel play together has evolved quite a bit over the last couple of months. Daniel has gotten a little less bossy, Rachel a little more assertive, and so it's balancing out. Sometimes they can play wonderfully together for an extended period. And sometimes - well - not. Particularly if one or the other is tired.

And that'll do for general updates for now. Next, the kids.