Month: June 2011

It’s been a long, hard 8 months, but we finally have a home of our own again! We closed on Friday on the house we’ve been under contract for since March (the other 5 months of the 8 total were spent trying to buy a different home). We spent 7 hours Friday taping the house to prepare for painting and another 3 or 4 Saturday morning. The rest of Saturday was spent cleaning and painting. We have the great room painted and most of the girls room and about 3/4 of Kevin’s room. Just our master bedroom to go and carpets to clean and we’ll be ready to move in!

More posts to come in a week or two. We’ll be spending a while getting settled!

See for yourself:

Annika put this headband on Ammon and he forgot it was on his head. It was there for at least an hour! =)

Last weekend, we were planning on going camping, but the weather decided otherwise. It was supposed to be sunny, but only in the 50’s and it was supposed to rain and snow the next day. Instead, we went off-roading a little and found an old tailings pile from an abandoned mine and panned for gold. We had fun digging in the dirt and found lots of fools gold, a tiny white-ish crystal, but no real stuff. It didn’t matter though, most of the fun was in digging and looking for it.

The kids bumping around in the back

A beautiful waterfall on the way up the trail

I thought this looked cool, the river rushing through a tunnel in the snow

After panning, we sat down and did hot dogs and s’mores over a fire.

Taking a break

Annika scarfing down watermelon after watermelon slice until she was red and sticky and full!

The view

This picture cracks me up….I spontaneously decided to face the camera in the back of the car and take a picture. This is what i got!!!! lol

Ammon likes to take these shots of Jack because he’s still in awe of what this jeep can do. It’s fun. It’s true. It’s kind of a functional toy.

On the trail

Another rushing river

The first Saturday in June, our local State Park had this nature scavenger hunt for kids. We thought it would be a good opportunity to use our park pass and get outside with the kids. We enjoyed a 45 min walk on a trail through the park, overlooking the reservoir. We saw lots of fun things like bones, cactus, hawks, ants, etc. After the walk, the kids made grasshoppers out of clothespins and pipe cleaners.

Here’s Annika’s cute grasshopper

We also found a great park by the “beach”, complete with the fastest slide that sends you out onto the beach. So fun!

Annika has been nicknamed the destroyer for good reason. In the past week and a half she has managed to:

-cut most of her hair off

-draw all over the floor and the walls

-cover herself and the floors with sunscreen

-eat toothpaste

-EAT, not chew 5 pieces of gum….in about an hour

-paint our bathroom with nail polish

-decorate our jetted tub and bathroom floor with 5 bottles of  sprinkles and eat half a bag of mini chocolate chips

-use the cat’s litterbox as her own litterbox (#1 & #2)

-go to the bathroom, camping-style…outside and then using a plastic shovel tried to bury it…Upon it sticking on the shovel, thought it would be great to wipe it off on the porch chairs

-pulled the curtain rod out of her bedroom wall

………….dare I go on……………

Now, keeping in mind that I’m busy with packing and finishing tables and planning a birthday party, etc…I’m still checking on Annika every 10 min or so, but apparently that’s not often enough.

Some of these are funny…some, not so much. Luckily, in 5 years, this will all be a big laugh. Ha. ……Ha…..

One of the many sunscreen incidents….

Ammon’s sis Christina and her clan came to visit us for a few days. Here’s the lowdown on our fun time:

Saturday:

-Off-roading for Christina, Arvin, the boys and Ammon, while the girls and Lauren and Arvin’s Mom, Pushpa visited and rode the horsies, kitties, dogs, pigs and such

-Hot springs, then ice cream at the Ouray Candy store

-visit to Box Canyon Falls

-Pizza @ Panny’s

Cousins @ breakfast

View of the reservoir from the off-roading trail

The Narayans (minus Lika)

Sunday:

-wrote letters to Grandparents

-went to church

Monday:

-hung out and played and chatted

The kids (oh, and Ammon…or does he count as a kid?) making Yug-ioh cards

The boys and Ammon playing Yugioh….whatever that is…

Tuesday:

-the Narayans, me and our kids spent the day at the Reservoir; fishing, playing, and enjoying amazing weather

-my kiddies all caught their first fish, thanks to Uncle Arvin (since I know nothing about fishing!)

-Arvin grilled the fish and burgers and we had corn on the cob to go with it, complete with s’mores for dessert-YUM!

Cousins posing in front of the spectacular view

The first fish we caught that day

Just chillin’

Kevin and Annika fishin

Annika holding the bait…artificial pink bait that Annika thought looked tasty. She tried to eat the entire jar of them, but upon tasting them, promptly spat them back out

Kevin fishing all by himself

Success! He caught his very first fish

Two fisherman

Tasha wasn’t as sure about the floppy fish as Kevin was, but she still caught one

Auntie and the little girls hanging out on the bridge

Beautiful day

Uncle Arvin and Annika waiting for a bite

Hurray! Annika’s first fishie

Tasha had a lot going on her last week of school. Parties and popsicles in the park and awards assemblies. It was a busy time. I was able to be a part of most of the festivities, which was fun.

Tasha received an attendance award for being late or tardy a total of only 5 days or less for the whole year.

Tasha and her 1st grade teacher Ms. Wilson

Annika being her darling self

Kevin had a birthday party at school and there were fake mustaches in the bags-fun!

We were trying to get a good shot of Kevin for a frame

We tried to do a little off-roading to see if the trails were all clear so we could take Ammon’s sister and her family. We only got about 1 mile up the trail and hit snow deep enough that we had to turn around. So, we tried another trail and had luck! They had plowed the trail almost all the way up. The kids thought it was amazing that the snow was taller than Jack on the sides of the trail. Despite the snow, it was in the 60’s and quite pleasant.

See?

We had a blanket in the car, so Ammon threw it up on the huge pile of plowed snow and threw each kid up on it one at a time. They didn’t want to get down!

The snow was taller than me!