A Nature Walk by the Platte River

Labor Day weekend the girls stayed the night with Didi, so after dropping them off we decided to check out a local park located by the Platte River.  It had some nice playground equipment, but even better it had lots of nature to check out and vandalize.   So we went on an impromptu nature hike... otherwise known as a search and destroy mission for preschoolers.

Lucas and Dee Dee found all kinds of interesting things to look at, touch, taste (not really, but they sure thought about it!) and smell.   Dee Dee found a great mushroom (probably poisonous) that she pointed out to Lucas.  (Unfortunately...the mushroom didn't survive the discovery.) 

There were really great seed pods to check out. Some of these fluffy seeds even survived the encounter!

We saw thousands of these luscious, yummy looking Clematis berries (we called them.. Stop-Don't-Eat-That!!-They're-Dirty-And-Will-Kill-You-Berries... I'm not sure what the scientific name is for them)

A terrifying frog... although it wasn't nearly as horrifying as the dragonflies, those things are beyond mind blowing scary!

Whats a nature hike without some tree climbing?  They even posed for a little bit... before they we were off to check out everything else nature had to offer that day. 

Lucas did take a second to have a quiet moment on the banks of the Platte. I can almost hear him thinking, "If I'm really fast, I bet could be in the water before daddy can catch me.." It didn't happen, but not for a lack of trying on Lukey's part!

I visited the DNC and you won't believe who I saw....

On Sunday we decided to take the kids downtown to see what was happening with the DNC. And, to do some sightseeing that we'd been putting off for a while. I thought it was kind of important for the kids to witness a tiny piece of history...even if its just seeing the banners and the preparation for the convention. After all, we probably won't get back downtown during the week... the girls have school, Chris works, I can't parallel park (an important skill to have when visiting downtown). Plus it sounds like a total nightmare to go there ...by myself, with 2 three year olds in tow. It would be kind of hard to dodge protesters and the police when you are tripping over a couple of preschoolers!

While in the area we visited the historic Union Station, I had never been and it was actually kind of interesting to walk around inside the building. The kids loved the huge seats inside the station and it had some great echos when you use your outside voices! Outside they have a train exhibit that was very interesting to visit.

All the banners and flags made the downtown area look very festive and patriotic. We visited with some of the delegates as we rode the shuttle down the 16th Street Mall. The kids thought the bus ride was GREAT... I thought it was kind of like being in the second ring of Hell. I guess it just depends on your perspective.

There were TONS of police officers in the area, it should have been scary to see the number of officers we did. Instead it made me feel safe, it helped that all the officers were very nice and many were posing for pictures. At one point I had all the guys on this car waving... of course that pic turned out blurry... so use your imagination!

We were even lucky enough to see some peaceful protesters. The girls (especially Taylor) loved the fact that all of CodePink were wearing bright pink. I thought it was nice they got to see a group exercising their First Amendment Rights in a non-threatening way.

Oh yeah...as far as who I saw... lots of nice people but no one famous...

MADE YOU LOOK! HAHAHAHAHA

Our Balloon Festival Adventure in Pictures

The 9th Annual Rocky Mountain Balloon Festival

We were up at 4 AM and at the festival before dawn; there before many of the balloons arrived. Luckily for us... the kids were still energetic enough to dance the dawn into existence.

Just before the sun broke the horizon, the participants of the festival arrived and began their preparations for the launch.

The gondolas were laid down on their sides and the balloons were filled with heated air.

The inside of a balloon as it was being filled with air.

At daybreak many of the balloons were finally full and buoyant enough to rise gracefully into the sky.

Despite the early start the kids had fun, although Dee Dee thought it was a little loud.

It was amazing to be so close to these giants as they were filled with heated air and allowed to float off the ground.

As the sun rose in the sky so did all the balloons... decorating the sky like dangling Christmas ornaments.

This was a perfect and beautiful way to spend a crisp morning in the Rockies.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds-and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence.

Hov'ring there I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air...

John Gillespie Magee (1922-1941)

A Rainy Saturday

On Saturday I had an errand to run in Golden Colorado. It was a very rainy day but as I crested the hill, to enter Golden, the sun started to come out and the clouds started to roll back over the foothills. It was an awesome site.

First Day of School

The first day of school... I wish for it all summer, but then I'm kind of sad and regretful when it arrives. This year the girls are in second grade. Its hard to believe they are getting so big:( They were very excited to get back to school but they were worried about their rats and how they would manage without having someone to play with them. After some reassurance that the rats would be fine they were eager to be off to school. I always loved the first day of school, the new clothes, seeing your friends, meeting the teachers...so exciting. Luckily Taylor and Olivia were excited too and looked so cute for the first day.


After school they were excited to tell me about their teachers (they rock) and about the friends they were reunited with at recess. But, Olivia had the biggest news... she lost one of her front teeth during reading time! The school put the tooth in a tooth shaped case for safe keeping (very cute) and she got a sticker for losing her tooth at school.

Too bad Olivia has the worst tooth fairy in the world... she is very forgetful about doing her job!

Prop Humor out on the range...

Oh I forgot about this! Here is what passes for humor in South Dakota...

Get it... its open range...sort of (there is a fence) and the stove is open....get it...

maybe you had to be there!

Jewel Cave- Or Step-Arobics 300 ft. Underground!

As I sit here typing, I still have a lingering pain in my thighs and calves, my memento from our visit to Jewel Cave, the second longest cave in the world. The black hills has many caves, and neither Chris nor I had been to one in a very long time. So we decided that would be one of the sites we visited on our trip to South Dakota.

After talking to the family, we agreed to leave the babies with them, and took the girls on the tour by themselves. This was one of the best decisions we have made in a long time. The babies would have hated the cave. I can't imagine them in near black darkness going up and down dozens of stairs. I really can't imagine ME doing it while packing a 30 pound tot!

Jewel Cave is a national monument in South Dakota and is a pretty awesome place to visit… once! They have several different tours during the day. One is a wussy 20 minute tour where you get a lecture and a quick elevator ride to one of the caverns. The one we chose was rated 'moderately strenuous' ... that doesn't sound too scary does it? (Turns out moderately strenuous is at the top of my physical ability!) They had a couple of other tours that included the ability to get through spaces like this (see pic). Yeah... like my ass is going to fit through that!

The girls fit easily into this 5.5"x24" space...now imagine going through several feet of cave that size!




The tour we were on starts with an elevator ride down into the bowels of the earth to a depth of 300 feet. Once there you are given the spiel and an opportunity to turn back. I, being an intrepid spelunker in my own mind, thought, "oh this will be fun!" and we all agreed to continue with the tour. The tour is 723 metal steps, (the equivalent of 40 flights of stairs... wish I'd read that before today) incorporated into a half mile of trail deep underground. There are lighted areas along the trail, so it’s not totally dark, but it’s not exactly well lit either. My thought was that it was going to be a fairly leisurely tour; after all, it’s an hour and twenty-minute tour and only a half-mile long. Lots of time to take pictures, ask questions...no reason to be out of breath.

Holy crap... its dark and kind of steep!

Turns out, we were with the tour that was apparently trying to set some sort of land speed record for getting through the caves. Sean, the leprechaun-sized Park Ranger who was our guide was very nice and very knowledgeable. I don’t know if it was him or the people in the front of the group that were setting the pace, either way it was killing those of us in the back! I’m not in great shape, but even the super fit Amazon from Iowa who was behind me was breathing hard. By the end of the trip, I was out of breath and sweating rather profusely. Given that it’s a constant temp of 49 degrees in the tunnels, it was rather embarrassing to come out covered in a fine sheen of perspiration.

Sean telling us about something interesting... wish I'd been listening!

The tour itself wound around underground, ending at a depth of around 400 feet. There were lots of cool things to see in the large, natural caverns. The cave gets its name from the abundance of crystals located in the caverns; they were hard to see in the dim lighting of the caves, so some of the pictures I took were very surprising when I viewed them on the computer. The rock formations, and sheer size of some of the ‘rooms’ in the cave were hard to capture on film (or is it pixels now?). The caves themselves were large enough that I didn’t get a real feeling of claustrophobia… in a million years I never would have thought that I would have been that comfortable that far underground. Well, except for the panting, sweating and shaky legs…all of
which had nothing to do with the caves!




Some of the features underground plus my handsome hubby and my pretty if overexposed girls!

The girls handled it great, although, Olivia got a little nervous at the very end of the tour. She doesn’t like heights and there were some parts where the walkway was above a pretty good drop there towards the end. I didn’t notice so much as I was trying to breath at the time. Taylor liked it, but thought Mount Rushmore was a better place to visit!

We visited Jewel Cave on Monday and on Tuesday we were on the road to home. We had to get back so the girls could start school. A funny thing happened on the way home... we ended up in Nebraska! It was only for a couple of miles, but it was a bit shocking to pass that, 'Welcome to Nebraska' sign. Its not a usual route to go through Wyoming to Colorado via Nebraska:)

“Happy Face on the Mountain, look I found the happy face!” Picture heavy

We spent the night at my parent’s house and then continued our journey to my husband’s parent’s house. They live in Wyoming but are very close to the South Dakota border, right near Mt. Rushmore and all the other touristy things you can do in South Dakota. The girls had learned about Mount Rushmore in school, so we thought it would be a great time to visit the real thing.

On Saturday, we arrived at the grandparent’s house. One of the reasons we timed the trip the way we did was because Chris’ brother was going to be in town. Uncle Jeff lives in a different state and we don’t get the opportunity to visit with him often. The kids really like their Uncle and had a great time wearing him out. They also have an aunt and another uncle who live there in town who are always favorites of the kids.

Sunday was the day we decided to visit Mt Rushmore. The day dawned sunny and clear but it promised to be hot later. We left bright and early and made our way to S. Dakota and all its wonderful things to see.

Mount Rushmore has always been one of my favorite places to visit. Not only is it historic, but a true monument to human ingenuity. There are two ways to get to see the faces. One way has the scenic tunnels that were created to frame Mt. Rushmore at nearly every turn. We went up the other side where you get the cool view of Washington’s profile. The kids were too involved in a movie to see anything. When we parked and got out, the kids finally noticed the faces for the first time. Very excited Lukey announced, “Happy Face on the Mountain, look I found the happy face!” I’m not sure who he thought looked happy I always found George, Thomas, Teddy and Abe to look rather austere, but I guess to little Lukey they looked happy!

We all had a good time running around and seeing the faces at all of the different angles. Rushmore is a very amazing place to visit. At the end of running around and getting all hot and sweaty, we decided some mementoes would be in order. The kids may have had even more fun picking out souvenirs. Olivia was the only one who didn’t want a shirt, she got a bell instead. All got Mt. Rushmore binoculars; this may be one of the best moments on the trip, all of them with their souvenir shop spoils looking through the binoculars.

During the afternoon, it started to rain, and rain and then rain a little more. To have some fun we decided to go to a rock shop in Custer, SD that we (Chris and I) had visited before. One of the great things about South Dakota is all the wonderful geology and by extension, the really great rock shops. They have some really unusual things there like this rose quartz. But one of the coolest things you can do is buy a ‘coconut’. A coconut is an uncut geode. You purchase the uncut rock not knowing if there is something great inside or if it’s not so great. After the purchase, they cut it for you for free. A coconut, in my opinion, is one of the best souvenirs to buy. All in all, it was a really great day and one I think the girls especially will remember for a long time.

The Ferris Wheel

This past week I went on vacation with the whole fam damily, and believe it or not, we actually had fun! We drove across Wyoming to see my mom and dad and then a bit further to see Chris' mom and dad as well as a couple of his siblings.

This is something I've been dreading for some time... being trapped in a fast moving vehicle with 4 bored, whiny, squirrely kids. I originally thought that for me to do that I would have to be drugged up on cold medication and possibly drunk too. Luckily one of Chris' coworkers brought in a portable DVD player for him to borrow. The DVD player was such a life saver... the kids lives more than mine! They LOVED watching TV in the car... it was such a novelty. We stopped in Cheyenne for gas... the kids were actually a little disappointed to get out of the van, they were worried they would miss the movie! When we got back into the car I told the kids that it would be 2 more movies before we were at grandma's house. At Wheatland we stopped for a potty break and to purchase some snacks. While there, an older gentleman asked the girls where they were going. With great enthusiasm, they told them they were going to grandma's house and that they would be there, 'in 2 more movies!' The gentleman laughed about that for a long time... he loved that movies were a new way to measure distance.

My parents live in a very rural area and don't have a huge number of neighbors. As you can see, they don’t live exactly in the middle of no where, but it is the same zip code. My parents board a couple of horses and only have one of their own. The kids loved the horses and enjoyed petting them.

The real treat however, was when my dad broke out the Ferris wheel (four wheeler) Taylor, Olivia, and Lukey loved the four wheeler, and Lukey is still talking about the ‘Ferris wheel’ as he coined it. Dee Dee, being smarter than my other kids, liked to watch, but decided safety came first and couldn't be enticed to get on it even for a picture. Taylor and Olivia got lessons in driving it, with grandpa on back for safety. It was a lot of fun and something I’m sure the kids will remember for a long time to come.