Summer's here

Time for late summer nights, bike riding, and hanging out on the cul-de-sac until the sun goes down.

Pathetic!

Or choose one of these words:  sad, feeble, inadequate, lamentable, paltry.  Take your pick, because they all describe my blogging efforts as of late.  There's almost been a 2 month gap!  So here's the last 8 weeks in a nutshell.

• Dusty and I attended a wonderful Compassion Advocate's conference in Chicago.  Came away inspired and ready to do something big...more on that later.
• Rachel was an Eagle MVP student for the 4th quarter
• Aaron finished his first year of high school and is now heavily lobbying for driver's ed
• Rachel was one of the class winners and participated in the 2nd grade spelling bee
• Dusty continues to work like a madman
• Rachel turned 8 and got her ears pierced
• We completed another year of Awana

The last 8 weeks in photos.

Easter Fun

Since we left for vacation at 0'dark thirty the day after Easter, I didn't get a chance to post any Easter photos.  So lets back up 10 days shall we.  We had a wonderful morning at church followed by lunch with a bunch of friends (thanks Shelby & Jen).  Dinner was at our house with Mom and Dad and Daniel.

Our yearly after-church Easter photo

After lunch there was an egg hunt for the kiddos.  Actually "hunt" is a loose term....more like an all-out sprint to scoop up as many eggs as possible!

Even some of the adults got into it.  Here Carol is taking advantage of a momentary wind gust that compromised Heather's egg grabbing ability

Rachel found the golden egg and earned herself a dollar

All this was followed by the basketball game where a group of 40-something men pretended they were 20 years younger. :)  See the 14-year old in pink?  See out-shot all of them!

And Shelby, our generous host, tends to get a little demonstrative when heckled by the spectators!

Some of the rest

More random shots from Colorado

From the US Olympic Center - This is the distance of the world record for long jump.  Aaron is at the take-off point.  Rachel is at the landing!

Can you find the train going down the mountain?

End of the tracks!

Gold Mining, donkeys, & other odds and ends - Colorado Day 4

Yesterday we went up to an elevation of over 14,000 feet.  We started off our last day in Colorado by going 1,000 feet below ground level at the Mollie Katherine Gold Mine.  This tour had received high ratings on TripAdvisor and it lived up to that.  We were lowered down 1,000 feet into the ground (the equivalent of the Empire State Building) to the mine.  Dusty said that he had a moment of claustrophobia going down, but after we were in the mine all was well. 

It was well lit and open enough that you didn't feel cramped at all.  We were the only people on this particular tour time and our guide who was an experienced miner was very knowledgeble.  We were taken through the mine and Brad, our guide, demonstrated various pieces of mining equipment that had been used throughout the years.  There were areas in the mine that you could still see the gold in the rock.  It was a lot of fun and we learned a lot.  Mollie Katherine Mine Tour = 4 Hackney Thumbs Up!

After our tour we headed into the town of Cripple Creek.  I had read that there was a herd of donkeys that roam around the town and are the town celebrities.  They are descendents of the donkeys that were originally used in the mines.  Cripple Creek had a fun old time, small town look.

After parking the car and making our way down the street, we discovered that most of these buildings were casinos!  Looking through the door and the slots all lit up Rachel said, "Look, an arcade!"  Nope....keep walking.  We stopped into a gift shop and asked if we were here too early in the year to see the donkeys (they are corralled in the winter)  The lady in the store said they weren't out yet, but then told us where to find them.  So we drove out of town down a dirt road and found the herd out in a field.  I pulled over and as soon as they saw me get out of the car they headed to the gate.  These boys are used to being fed by people!  It was so much fun to feed and pet the herd...and this way we had them all to ourselves.

We headed back to Colorado Springs and the boys dropped Rachel and I off at the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame.

We had a fun time looking at the costumes, skates, medals and trophies, and the boys had fun eating ice cream down the road....everybody wins!

We swung back by Garden of the Gods to see a few things we had missed yesterday and take advantage of one more photo op.

Tomorrow morning we point Stevie (yes, we named our car) back east.  Thanks Colorado!  It's been great!

Colorado Day 3 - Pikes Peak & Garden of the Gods

We awoke to a sunny and beautiful day.  The day we was waiting for to head up Pike's Peak.  Dusty and I had rode the cog railway up the last time we were in Colorado Springs and I thought the kids would enjoy it.  The views up were spectacular.  It was such a clear day that you could see for miles....even into other states. 

The view off to the west was spectacular.  You could see the continental divide going for miles and miles.

We had 30 minutes at the top before the train headed back down, so I started snapping fast and furious...including one to make my mom nervous! :)

On the way back down we were treated to some bighorn sheep.

We spent some time walking around Manitou Springs and then swung by Garden of the Gods.  We may go back tomorrow, but it was such a beautiful day today and tomorrow's forecast calls for clouds.  So we stopped for a while and walked around.

Aaron said that doing this would be cool.  I think I'll stay on the ground.

One more day here in Colorado then it's time to head the car back east.