Summer Happenings #2

Okay, so I'm having trouble keeping up with things this summer, so I'm going to have to recap the last several weeks. A couple weeks ago, we had a lovely visit with Mike's mom, or "Grandpa" as Jack insisted on calling her the whole time.  We went to the zoo, rode the carousel in Nederland, had barbecue, played pool, and all sorts of fun things. 

 Jack loves, loves, loves to throw sticks and rocks into the water. On this day, he accomplished this while holding his chocolate sucker, which he wasn't letting go for anything!

 Last week, we tried out a new park. We've been to at least a dozen different parks in four different towns this summer.  Jack really liked this new one because it had a tractor and animals besides the usual toys.

 Then, we have a new member of our family. This is Sam, short for Samantha. She's a 7 year old blue and white short hair. We adopted her from the Humane Society yesterday. She seems very lovely, although she's still a little stressed out at her new home. She's doing well with tolerating Aspen, but Aspen has been following her around and pestering her all day long! She's not scared of the dog though, so it seems like they will settle in well together.

 Over the weekend, we went camping at Big Creek Lakes in the extreme north of Colorado. On the way up there, we saw not one but two bull moose eating on the side of the road, not far from each other. We stopped to watch for a bit. We didn't have the good camera with us, so not much zoom, but the pictures give you a little idea.

 Jackson loved all the chances to play in the dirt. He was very into housework too...He appropriated the tiny broom we use to clean the tent and proceeded to sweep the entire camp with it.  He moved a lot of dirt around, got it all over his face, and ran into a bunch of pine sap, but not sure the ground was cleaner for all his efforts.

 After he got tired of sweeping, he decided to start covering the dog with dirt, but she was a very good girl and put up with it well.

 Look at that dirty face!

 Jackson liked playing in the tent, and jumping on the air mattress. Here we are in the tent right before bed. He didn't sleep very well in the tent, which means none of us did, because he hates being under blankets but kept getting cold without them!

 The next morning, we went on a good hike. It was about 2 miles round trip, so we knew it would be a stretch for Jack, but we figured we'd go slow, and we stopped lots for rests and to play along the way. At the halfway point before we turned around, there was a lovely pond where Aspen fetched sticks in the water and ran around while Jack threw countless sticks and rocks into the water.

 Mike discovered and picked a few of the world's tiniest wild strawberries along the way.

 Jack had to check out every stream and bridge along the way. There were many!

 However, Jack got so tired before we got back that he asked to be picked up and immediately fell asleep in my arms, so I spent the last 10 minutes of the walk carrying 30 pounds of dead weight. I can't believe he could sleep as we were hiking back! But he slept the rest of the way back, and then for another hour when I laid him down in the tent.

 Both days, it rained in the afternoons for about an hour, so we did have to spend some time hanging out in the tent. Daddy and Aspen decided they were ready to nap, but Jack had other ideas and climbed aboard to play with Daddy. He was scared of the thunder and would dive into my lap every time he heard it but he had fun climbing on Mike between times.

After the rain stopped, Jack had fun driving his tractor through the puddles. 

 He also liked to bring us both handfuls of rocks constantly. He thought he was being so kind to us by filling us up!

Overall, we had a really great time. I think we are done with summer travel now though. It's time to start thinking about heading back to school and getting into our routines again. I still have lots of summer projects to get done too! I did finish hemming and hanging all the curtains in the house. We hung 22 curtain panels, 20 of which had to be cut short and hemmed back up again. I'm definitely tired of ironing and sewing, but it's nice to have that project done. Now, I'm working on restoring the antique sewing machine I bought and working in my garden a lot. I got my first ripe tomatoes today!