Hangin' with the Denver cousins

Little Matty. This is Ben's little cousin Matthew. He is 7 weeks younger than Ben. I'm sure they will be tight friends! Brett might be just a tad big for this, but it still looks fun.

Ben playing on the deck.

Lucas, a fun boy cousin. Ben doesn't have any boy cousins around his age in Idaho. So visiting a house of boys in Colorado is pretty great!

McKenna and Cassidy being girls. It's what they do best!

Crash and burn

Our family vacation was not easy on my little guy. First strep throat, then this. I was opening the bedroom window when Ben came running across the bed. He caught his foot in the covers and hit his head on the marble window sill. It immediately started gushing blood. I slapped my hand over his forehead and ran him into the bathroom. Steve grabbed me a rag while I applied direct pressure. I could not believe the amount of blood my precious little boy was losing! I called Cal who was out with some of his old college buddies who live in the Denver area. He didn't answer because he was in the middle of a deep conversation. So I texted him to call me back 911! He quickly called me and I instantaneously burst into tears. Blame it on the hormones or blame it on the 1st time mom, either way, I was a MESS. Fortunately, my brother and sister in law were calm and much more experienced! We got the bleeding stopped and tried to clean it up. Cal came home as quickly as possible. Ben started sobbing again when he saw his daddy and ran into his arms. Cal held and loved him. My sister in law, Catherine, called my Registered Nurse mom for advice (once again, I wasn't composed enough to talk). She asked about the size, depth, and gaping and advised us to put a butterfly strip on it. Poor little guy. Look at that goose egg. I'm sure he had a headache the size of Texas! So to all you "tough" moms out there, I salute you.

Denver Aquarium

While in Colorado, we went to the Denver Aquarium. While there we saw sharks, sea turtles, rays, and so much more.

The girls standing in the jaws of a Carcharodon Megalodon. Tiger shark. I was very grateful for the glass seperating us. Check out those teeth!

There are glass holes in the ground where the kids could watch the fish swim right underneath them. It took Ben quite awhile before he dared stand on the glass.

That's a shark in the background.

There was an open pool where you could touch the rays as they were swimming.

Ben kept trying to touch them, but no such luck.

Swimming in Littleton

One thing that drives me crazy about blogging is that my pictures always go up in reverse order and I'm not concerned enough to figure out how to change that...sigh. Oh well. Here we are at the pool in Steve and Catherine's neighborhood. The kids have so much fun. They love the little play area right by it.



Sometimes swimming wipes you out!

Steve diving. Great form!
Cassidy teaching Alex how to swim ;)

Ben loved, loved, LOVED the water. He kept dunking his head in and laughing! Have I mentioned how adorable he is?

Right after said dunk!

Cassidy has tubes in her ears, so with the help of some ear-plugs she still had a lot of fun!

Kenna holding on for dear life in the 12 inches of water :)

Mount Evans-Colorado

On Father's Day we went for a ride to Mount Evans in Colorado. At the peak it is 14,262 feet above sea level. Read more about it here. It was absolutely amazing. We left 90 degree Denver and arrived at about 40 degrees on top. It's full of switch-backs and I was so grateful to NOT be driving. We saw lots of mountain goats, big horn sheep, and pika. It was a lot of fun. If you make it to the Denver area, be sure to add this to your list of things to do. Here is a picture of a tiny kid with his mom. Adorable!

Look at his darling little eyes.

It was a bit chilly and windy at the top.

Brett, McKenna, Cassidy, and Alex checking out the view.

Lucas exploring an old fort that was built there.

The girls were amazed at how friendly and CLOSE the mountain goats were.

Steve's little boys explored on the rocks. Our girls were a little more timid.

Further down the mountain, we stopped at a lake. There was a wild herd of Big Horn Sheep, hanging out in the parking lot.

Here is a picture of a pika. I think these fat little critters get fed pretty well.

Here is a picture of Steve and Catherine's family with the exception of Matthew. He was warming up in the car with my kids.Here Ben and I are hanging out at the peak. So glad I brought a blanket. Ben still wasn't feeling very well. He may have even had a little elevation sickness. I had a headache up there. Catherine was seeing spots, and little Alex got sick to his stomache and very tired. It's amazing how the elevation can cause those problems.

I had to use the fascilities (what do you expect from a pregnant girl?). Ben waited patiently outside the door. This picture cracked me up because I didn't know Cal had taken it until I was looking through the camera later on.

Colorado with a SICK Ben

We went to Colorado to visit Steve and Catherine. We left on Friday afternoon, after I got out of the class I was taking. We finally hit the road at about 5:00 pm. We figured that with the 10 hour drive in front of us, it might be best for the kids to be able to sleep on the way. They did really well for about the first 4 hours. They watched movies and listened to their iPods. Ben did really well for about half the trip. He started getting very irritable and HOT! We gave him some tylenol hoping that would help. It barely took the edge off. After what seemed like an ETERNITY, we finally arrived in Littleton at about 3:30 AM. The next day, Steve and Catherine had a mutual activity where they took the youth shooting. That's right up Cal's alley, so he tagged along. I hung out with the kids until they got home. By that time, Ben wasn't doing well at all. Cal and I loaded him up and took him to Urgent Care. The doctor told us he had strep. I felt so aweful for him. I've never seen him so miserable in my life. So, as any good mother would do, I took a picture. Fortunately, he started feeling better quickly, which was a blessing considering all the running around we did. What a trooper!!!