Tuesday, July 21, 2009

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!!

15 comments:

Jane Anne said...

What a wonderful vacation!! We used to live in Colorado Spings (quite a while back... we moved when my oldest was 4 months old). The pictures brought back memories. I love the "Top 12" time!! What a special way to show love to the boys!

Alicia The Snowflake said...

Oh I'm glad you shared this with us. It looks like you guys had a great time. The praise night is a great idea! I hope it doesn't have to be another 9 years before you see them again.

E @ Scottsville said...

Oh my how awesome it all looked and sounded. I especially love the "Top 12" thing y'all did in praising each kid individually. WOW, how great for them to get to HEAR their parents tell it like that.

Such a great idea!

Loved your whole post!

Stacy said...

I enjoyed reading all your vaca posts!!! I also use this like a scrapbook.

He & Me + 3 said...

What a fun fun trip. So glad it went so well and that you will be able to do this every year. I love the fench picture. Very cool!

Grace said...

Happy faces! Great photos! Thanks for sharing. :)

Sneaky Momma said...

What an amazing trip! It's so easy to see why you want to blog about it so much. So many memories!
I love the praise session that you guys did. :)

Stephanie said...

You need to share that Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownie recipe...it sounds sinful!

Carrie said...

Those are such awesome memories! I love that you shared those with us! We'd love to visit Colorado some day, it looks beautiful! And Happy Belated Anniversary! The time sure goes fast! I'm still playing catch up! Sounds like your summer is really hopping and you're keeping busy with fun family and friends and football!

More Than Words said...

What an awesome trip you had to CO!! I enjoyed reading it and seeing all the pictures! Your boys will always remember that vacation!!

Channa, Oh its the Coachs Wife said...

How fun!! It looks awesome. I love CO! I wish I could live there.
I will be thinking about over the next couple of days. Thursday night will be here before you know it!! Enjoy your last few days with just you and the boys!!

Jenni said...

Looks like a GREAT trip!

Carol said...

What an absolutely perfect vacation. You did a little bit of everything and the pictures to follow along with you were great.

I love the part where you praise each child. I would cry through it I'm sure. I don't praise my kids enough. I think I take it for granted that they know how wonderful I think they are. It's a good lesson... to praise them more. Thanks for that.

I think it sounds fun to cook for everyone for one night, too.

What amazing memories for your children... all of it.

Mocha Momma said...

Woo hoo! The food and fun was a vacation for my eyes.

You guys had a great time. I'm so happy you got to go and that the boys did so well on the drive.

I'm ready for the next vacation.

Take care,
Nannette

Mocha Momma said...

Oh, the Top 12 was it? That was the neatest thing I've ever heard of in my life for a family to do.

And the reminder to meaningfully praise our kids a lot.

Thanks