The funnest summer EVER

Friends

 

It’s been a really, really fun summer around here, and we wanted to share a couple of pictures from what we’ve been doing in July. 

On hot days, the kids like to run around the back yard and spray water.  I like this picture because it captured the spray in midair.

 

Our little city hosted its annual summer party again, and it was a good time.  The kids rode carnival rides, made art projects and Daniel got to paddle a kayak.  You might remember he did this last year too.  Unlike last year, the fireworks didn’t get rained out, and we went over to Declan’s house to watch them from their front yard.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been hot here this summer.  Not as bad as earlier years, but many days in the mid-90s (that’s 35 celsius for you metric-folk), and so escaping to the mountains can be a great idea.  One weekend in July, we headed up to Idaho Springs to visit the Phoenix gold mine.  Daniel was gung-ho about the idea, but not so excited once we got there.  I think he really wanted to ride a cart or train, and instead it was a walking tour.  We also got to borrow washpans and pan for gold –> and I’m not sure how old you have to be to have the attention span for this, but it’s" “More than 5”.  So they fed the chipmunks instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Texas cousins came to visit, in two separate batches.  Brayden and Kayla went hiking with the kids, went to dinosaur ridge and did some general tourism-stuff while visiting.  Chloe joined the fun in the back yard with the slip-and-slide.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And just to round it all out, we went camping.  We’d originally planned to go to Turquoise Lake over the July 4th weekend, but then we got the tickets to Norway that overlapped with that. So we were able to go a couple of weeks later.  And it was a lot of fun.  The kids got fishing poles and enjoyed trying to catch something (albeit with no real bait to speak of).  We went for a little hike, roasted marshmallows, got dirty and in general had a great time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only downside was that we’d booked ourselves into a campground that allowed RVs, so we had a lot of mechanical noises, generators, etc – not the escape to nature that some of our other trips have been –> so we’ll avoid that mistake in the future, but it was still a great place, and we’ll probably go back there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that’ll have to do for the general summer fun posting.  Next up, San Diego!