Colorado Trip Spring 2009

I took the kids with me to Colorado a few weeks ago to spend the week with my brother who lives at home with my parents, while they went on a much needed vacation. We had a great time visiting and got to do some fun things and see some special friends.

Gloria and I went to Colorado State together. She was a freshman when I was a senior, but we clicked so fast and became good friends. We haven't seen each other much over the past 8 years or so, but we've kept in touch and it was so fun to get together in person and meet each other's kids for the first time. Gloria is such a great mom to her sweet 3 boys and loves her husband dearly and seeks the Lord daily, I really admire her and wish we lived closer so we could get together to play more often. Carson had such fun with her boys, digging for bugs in the back yard was a highlight of the afternoon. Thanks for making time to hang out with us, friend!

Livi had fun in the sandbox in Gloria's backyard.

We got to spend some time with my friend, Angie, and her 3 sweet kiddos. The kids had fun painting and playing outside. Angie convinced me to go to her Zumba class with her and it was so much fun! We took all the kids and put them in the childcare at the rec center and off we went to our class. I'd been wanting to try Zumba for a while, so it was super fun to do it with her for the first time. I stumbled along, but had a great time. The music is fun and I can see it could be a really great workout once you get a hang of the moves and work it. Angie works it. :-)

We spent a wonderful day downtown in Boulder at the Farmer's Market and then walking all around Pearl Street, where the tulips were absolutely stunning.

Don't the kids look thrilled that someone was nice enough to take our picture together on Mother's Day weekend?!

Livi enjoying some ice cream on the back of a snail

Carson and Livi had a great time dressing up in Grandma's robes and snuggling up or doing some martial arts moves with their blow up baseball bats from Chick-fil-A.

Our plane was delayed about an hour returning home, so we spent lots of time going back and forth on the moving walkways. The kids did so great on this trip. I feel like they are at such easy ages to travel with and it makes it so much more enjoyable!

Dinner anyone??

I've really enjoyed purusing Our Best Bites recently, and we made these Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos the other night...they turned out really tasty! They were so easy and the whole family liked them. We dipped them in some salsa verde, but pico de gallo would be fabulous as well. They made for a really great summer dinner. There are so many other things on their blog that I would love to try....check it out and let me know if you try anything good, too!

Flowers

First cuts of this year's roses:

We have 6 rose bushes in front of our house and they are blooming really well so far. I love having a jar of fresh flowers on the kitchen table. It makes me happy every time I look at them.

Fun with Family

My parents came out for a visit all the way back in March and we had a great time with them. We got to do a lot of fun things and enjoyed some great weather.

We took a hike through the Redwoods down to the river to play for a while. Bumpa is a good rock skipper. :-)

Livi was eager to get in the water, although it was VERY cold.

My beautiful mom enjoying the sunshine on our front porch.

Dyeing Easter eggs

Bumpa made a space helmet for Carson.

A walk down on the Santa Cruz Wharf for lunch and a little treat at Marini's Candy shop. Carson had wanted a big lollipop for a long time, and he was thrilled with his selection.

We drove up Hwy 1 to a small beach we call Pebble Beach, it's a fantastic place to explore with the tidepools and the beaches made of the prettiest colored pebbles. It was a tad colder that day than we expected, but we had a great time.

We also got to enjoy the beaches closer to home.

Mini Firefighters

These guys crack me up!

Smoothies

One of my favorite things to eat for breakfast or a snack is a bowl of plain yogurt (of course the cream top is the best, with all that extra goodness), topped with fresh sliced strawberries and granola (we like the Nature's Path Organic Pumpkin Flax Plus granola). It hits the spot every time. So I was excited when we flew home from Colorado last week and stopped by the Jamba Juice at DIA for a little pre-flight treat (since you have to pay and arm and a leg for anything to eat on the plane these days, sheesh!....what happened to "free" pretzles???). They have a smoothie called the Chunky Strawberry that is essentially this same thing all blended together with peanut butter & soymilk and topped with bananas. So we tried it and it was SO good! I've been replicating it at home, using Trader Joe's plain frozen yogurt and strawberries and granola and peanut butter. We didn't have soymilk on hand this week, so I've tried orange juice for one and cran raspberry for the other. Soymilk would be better, or maybe even cow's milk would work, but they are good this way, too. I never thought about adding granola to a smoothie, but it's quite tasty.