4th of July at Aunt MiMi's Lake...

What a treat it was for us to actually have family around to celebrate the 4th of July with!  We had so much fun lighting fireworks off with the family pyros, namely Kindra, Garrett and Uncle Rob...

 Then we went out on the lake to watch the local town fireworks from the water.  What a cool experience!

And back to the house for more pyromania... good thing Grandpa wasn't there for this part, he probably would have had an anxiety attack...

 Holidays are just so much fun, Sophie could hardly take all the excitement...

Thanks for letting us hang out at the lake you guys!  What a blast...

Microwaveable Puffy Paint...

We tried it and....  we liked it!!  One of those projects that looked cool, but you wondered if it actually did what it claimed it did.  Well this one was worth the effort, the kids loved it...

Ana and Sophie even made a puffy garden for Nana since she 

wasn't able to be in her garden after her back surgery...

Camping Extravaganza...

It's not summer in Colorado unless there is CAMPING!  We kicked off our summer this year with an awesome camping trip to Pickle Gulch with a few families that we just love.  

There is nothing like fresh mountain air, marshmallows roasted over an open fire, and 23 crazy kids running in every direction for 3 days!  Nope, nothing like it...

(Notice the whistles in the picture above... we really wanted to go home with 23 kids, too :)

Fort building...

 Hayden can't get enough of the great outdoors.  He is in his element in the mountains...

Family flags...

 Ana can't get enough of her friends.  She's still our social butterfly...

 Nature crafts...

 Great girl friends...

 Sophie can't seem to get into enough trouble.  Yes, this one is always into something...

 The ultimate "Bags" tournament...

More nature crafts... 

 And Family Olympics...

 

Thanks camping clan for such a fun trip, let's do it again soon!

The Many Slushie Stands of Summer...

In an effort to teach our kids how to earn, save and manage money, Rob built them this slushie stand last year (they got the slushie maker from Aunt Mimi).  So on the first semi-warm day of this year, they were begging to get it out and start earning some more dough.  We held them off till it was actually hot enough for people to want to buy a slushie, but then there was no holding them back...

It's quite the entertainment for all of the neighbor kids, helpers are never in short supply.

It's been a great way to teach the kids about profits, and how you need to use them to buy more supplies for your business - it was a hard concept for them to understand, especially when they saw how it slowed down their savings!  The kids have had many Slushie Stand days this summer and earned enough money to buy a family pass to the Denver Zoo.
Way to go guys!

Summer Time Fun...

While Hayden and Rob were having a "Boys Day Out", the girls and I whipped up some home-made sidewalk paint.  Good messy fun...

I do love my girls...

Sophie-Pink Turns 4...

Ever since Hayden and Ana's birthdays, over 3 months ago, Sophie has been anxiously waiting for hers.  3 months is a long time to wait for such an important day!  Almost daily she would ask me, "Is my birthday tomorrow?" or "What comes after Easter, my birthday?"  Well, the long awaited day finally arrived and we now have a 4 year old! 

Soph wanted a Pink-Minnie Mouse-Princess Party... a tall order for one so small.  She was so excited about her birthday, I just had to try to make it happen.  We looked up ideas for the pinkest Minnie Mouse cake that we could find, and upon arriving in MN, Aunt Mimi and I went to work.  As Sophie saw the cake coming together she could hardly stand the excitement... "Oh mommy, it's... it's... so wonderful!" she said with huge eyes and hands clasped together.  That, my friends, made it worth all the effort...

She was a little disappointed that she couldn't invite any of her friends from CO to the party, but she had plenty of cousins, aunts and uncles, and family to share the day with...

Ana even made her a "Pin the Bow on Minnie" game...

She had a smile on her face for 2 hours straight, I don't think she could have imagined a more wonderful Pink-Minnie Mouse-Princess birthday...

Happy Birthday Sweet Punky-Pink...

I almost forgot to document her birthday cake for breakfast (which happened to take place in a fort/bed that the kids made under my sister's pool table)...

Parading...

Something that I've found funny since returning home to MN for the summer (that I guess I never thought was weird before), is how every single tiny, little town (whether the population is 4000 or 647) has to have it's own festival.  The funnier part about it is that they all have to come up with some meaningful name for the festival.  Pipestone, the town I grew up in, calls theirs the "Watertower Festival", because apparently the old watertower in town is really old.  Seriously?  They couldn't come up with a more creative name than that?  And they don't even do anything to commemorate the old thing.  I think it's just an excuse to have a festival.  Some of my other favorite local festival names are Hobo Days, Hot Iron Days, and King Turkey Day:)

Anyway, during every festival there is a parade.   If you have not been to a rural town parade... you haven't lived;)   It starts out with every fire truck, police vehicle and ambulance that the town owns, followed by a long chain of collector cars carrying the mayor and other members of the local government.  Then come the "floats" (if you can call them that), they are basically hay wagons carrying every 4-H group, local business, church group, pageant winner, class reunion... every community organization that exists.  And they all throw candy, and not just a little candy.  The residents of the town line the streets in their lawn chairs, with many of the kids holding gallon-sized ice cream buckets, which by the end the parade are nearly full!  Oh, and how could I forget the tractors, 50% of the parade is made up of tractors, and probably bigger tractors than you knew existed. 

Well, my kids had their first experience with rural town parades this summer. My sister, Kris, is part of Pipestone's Active Living Committee (don't ask me what that is, I think that they try to get people to exercise more). So she invited Hayden and Ana to ride their bikes in the parade with her group.  They thought that was wonderful...

Sophie enjoyed sitting on the sidelines with Grandpa...

Another bonus about small towns is that you can snag your kids right out of the middle of the parade and have them enjoy watching the rest of the parade and collecting candy.  Rural life seriously makes me laugh...

Later the same day, the next town down the road happened to be having their festival as well.  My niece McKindra was in the royalty for the town pageant, so Ana and Sophie got to dress up and ride with her in that parade as well...

This time Hayden was on the side...

they threw out entire ice cream bars!

What a cultural treat we had!  Thanks rural MN for all of your random town festivals...

PS. I just realized that this is my 400th blog post!  Cheers, to all you bloggers out there...