Vacation #1...Com'On Down!

This will be my last post on our trip to Colorado. I promise!!! We made the 14 hour drive the night of June 28 to arrive in CO on June 29. The boys did a fantastic job and we had a very safe and uneventful car ride! For more on that you can read this post!!

Here are the boys are we are pulling out of the driveway on that Sunday night! We were all very excited to get there!
This is Pike's Peak! I loved seeing the snow on the summit! We have mountains in AZ, we are known as the Valley of the Sun, but not mountains like this!! It was so green and lush and pretty! I took lots of scenery pictures of all the mountains and sky...so amazingly beautiful.
Once we got to CO and reacquainted with all of our family, we spent most of our mornings at the pool! Most of the time, we swam,but after that we....
ate...cuz everyone needs to eat!!!
After dinner, Uncle B did baskets for bucks. Which either ended up in cash or push ups! On Thursday, 21 of us headed here...Water World! We had so much fun!
After Water World, it was my turn to cook. Since there are so many of us, each family chooses a night, shops, prepares, cooks, and cleans up for the entire gang, buffet style! Ryan helped choose the meal, but that was the extent of his helping!!! I made a Mexican buffet with enchiladas, nachos, tacos and all the fixin's!! It was so yummy and then for dessert I made my favorite peanut butter chocolate brownies for ice cream brownie sundaes!
After dinner, the Top 12 was hosted! This is where the entire group sits and listens as each parent tells everyone the accomplishments that their child has made in spiritual growth, academic growth, physical growth and social growth throughout the year. It is a praise session for each child individually and it was amazing! I could hardly get through it and as I type this nearly 3 weeks later, I still get chills and tears in my eyes to think of the response that each of my boys had after being singled out in such a loving and positive way. It makes me think that I don't praise them enough and I really need to make it a TOP priority in my life. Don't get me wrong, I am always quick to praise them, but is it meaningful. That's all I'm sayin'.

On Friday, I was able to meet up with Nicole, a friend from High School, who I haven't seen in nearly 20 years. It was so much fun to sit, eat and catch up!After visiting for almost 4 hours, we hugged and said good bye! I needed to get back as we were headed to dinner with the entire group of 24 to Pasta Jay's on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder! It was so yummy and so much fun!Pearl Street is the heart of the University of Colorado (Go Buffs!) and it was fun to be able to walk around and take it all in. Along the street there are lots of quaint shops and lots of street performers. Here is one that had some sort of bubble that he floated. The kids were memorized by him!Here are all the kids (minus the oldest!) in front of the big boulder!Saturday was the 4th of July and of course a BBQ was the plan! Uncle B was the grill master and all the families made a side dish or 2 to contribute! I made taco salad and something else, but I can't seem to recall what it was! (yes, my memory is just that good!)

Here is the BIG family picture! To see more, go here.Here are some of the kids waiting for the fireworks to begin! On the other side of the fence was a golf course, so while waiting, they played tag on a tee box! And right in the middle of it was one of the uncles! Silly kids!

And here we are on our way out of town on Sunday July 5! The boys are wearing their CU stuff that they picked put on Pearl Street at a store called Where the Buffalo Roam!!

Almost home...stopping to get gas and a picture of the Red Rocks of Sedona. So pretty!

Thanks for hanging in there with me, I know this was a long post, but I just wanted to get it into my blog since this has become my mode of scrapbooking! We had such a fun time getting to know all this family again, as the last time we had seen them was 9 years ago! They met Brendan when he was 3 months old and Colin was still a wish in my heart!

Colin's favorite part of our CO trip was "playing with my cousins".

Brendan's favorite part of our CO trip was "playing with my cousins and making the movie"

I didn't even mention the movie...one of the Uncles worked with the kids every night and they made a movie!! A real movie with characters, dialogue, edits and credits! It was so very cute and entitled High School Musical 4: 4 Years Later! Brendan was Coach Bolton and Colin was Jason Cross!

This will joyfully become a yearly trip for us and we couldn't be more excited to see them again next year!!