A Father's Day Adventure!

After a breakfast of steak and eggs we took Dad on an adventure!!  We traveled to the mountain town of Silverton, Colorado.  I thought we were high in elevation in Durango (our house is at about 8,000 feet) but we had to climb even higher to get up to Silverton at more than 9,300 feet!  We rented a Polaris RZR that seats 6 people!  The kids donned goggles and the older two wore helmets as we went off roading to an abandoned mining community from the 1870s.  It was such a fun day!  

We are ready to go!

Joseph is giving us the thumbs up!

Happy Father's Day Daddy!

Heading back into town...

Lorelai wanted to ride up front on the way back

Checked out a waterfall on the way back

One kid asleep...

Two kids asleep....

Three kids asleep...

The bustling town center of Silverton, Colorado

At at the Brown Bear Cafe.  I am amazed at Evelyn's imagination but I'm not sure if I should be worried at all.  She decided to draw children playing on a volcano that was about to erupt while their family dog was trapped inside the house nearby.  Yes, those are children stuck in the lava...

Happy Father's Day!

A very Happy Father's Day to our wonderful Daddy!  We do these pictures every year, and put them in a tri-fold frame on his desk.  I'm always amazed at how the kids grow.  We are so lucky to have Joe.  He's the best Dad we could ask for!

We support the BLUE!

We are taking advantage of these chaotic times to teach our kiddos a valuable lesson. A lesson about personal responsibility and law and order. We support our cops and decided that they may need a morale boost. We spent the morning making blue M&M cookies and they also colored pictures for the precinct. We believe that all lives are important (to include the often forgotten unborn) and these are the values we are teaching them. We are praying for their safety!

SGT Dixon was awesome!

The kids received some police badge stickers

Epic tug of war...

Bruno will fetch with me and always brings the ball back. With the kids it’s a different story. It’s always a game of chase and a bit of tug o’ war.

Hiking and Fishing

It was another beautiful day in sunny Durango and we wanted to spend the day outdoors.  Some of us wanted to hike and some of us wanted to fish so we split up!  Joe, Maddie, Evelyn, Scarlet, Joseph and I went on a hike by our house while Papa Joe and Lorelai went fishing in our community lake.  The hike was the longest yet!  It was about 4 miles round trip and took a little over 2 hours to complete.  I was very impressed with how well the kids did, especially Scarlet!!  She really kept up well!  Joseph made it the whole way to the waterfall at the end, but rode back in the backpack carrier.

Lorelai got to spent some one on one time (always her favorite) with Papa Joe and they fished for hours!  They were pretty successful too!!  The biggest catch of the day was a rainbow trout that was so big, Lorelai had a hard time holding it!

Almost at the halfway mark, standing on a cliff overlooking the view.  Making my Momma heart beat too fast with them so close to the edge!

Joseph got nervous at the edge.  "I'm outta here!"

It's difficult to tell with all the vegetation but they're sitting on the edge of a drop off.  It's a long way down!

After the hike we came home and fed the kids lunch.  Scarlet and Joseph went down for a nap after that.  Scarlet does not usually take naps anymore so she wasn't too happy about it.  I went to check on her about ten minutes after I put her down....  I think the hike was a success in tiring her out....

Here are some pictures of Lorelai's fishing adventure.  She's fished a couple times before but always in the ocean.  It was a new experience!  Look at the joy on her face!

Lorelai's rainbow trout

It’s OPEN!!!!

Durango has had some strict lock down orders. No deaths here in town and very few cases but nonetheless it is much stricter here than where we moved from in Tennessee. It’s been hard on the kids. But today, for the first day, the caution tape was down at the playground!  The kids took off running. It was amazing!  We couldn’t stay long because we had somewhere to be but I couldn’t pass up the chance to let them play!

Running toward Utopia!