Candie's visit

Candie and Kevin came to visit us last weekend. There was a concert at Red Rocks amphitheatre that they wanted to see. We watched movies, walked around Old Town Fort Collins, Barbecued and generally had a great time. I loved having Candie and Kevin here and I really hope they enjoyed coming. I have found that any inconvenience from having people staying at our house is made up by the fact that we have the coolest family and that spending time with them ROCKS! Julia was helping out while the other kids decided to have a band. Lily had out her guitar and Isaac was usually playing the drums but he had switched to piano for the time being.
On Sunday they decided to turn on the programmed music on the piano and have a ballet recital. They all got tutu's on and danced for a quite awhile.
Candie had done a project with her activity day girls and wanted to do it with us. They made pumpkin shirts by putting elastics on the shirts and then Tye dying them. When they were done they drew jack-o-lantern faces on the circles left from the elastics.
This is Joe saying goodbye to Mia. They had a lot of fun together. Mia was totally okay doing pretty much anything Joe wanted to do, even if that was playing video games all day. I kept on having to kick Joe off the playstation so he would go and play with Mia outside. He loved showing her all the cool things he had learned to do.
Mmmm, the remaining spoils of Candie's visit. Candie bought this carmel apple while in Old Town on Saturday. She then forgot about it. We reminded her several times to eat it but she never got around to it. We didn't realize that she had forgotten it until late Sunday, after they had left. Well, we didn't think she would want us to save it until her next visit, so Dave and I had a very nice treat. Which filled a very small part of the hole from them being gone.

Clara's first day of school

Clara finally had her first day of school. She goes to another elementary school that is close by that has a Headstart preschool. She goes from 8-11:20 Mon-Thurs. but since I have to pick up Joe at 11:20 everyday it makes it very difficult. For the time being I am picking up Clara a bit early and Joe a bit late.
She is so happy to be in school. We got her a backpack (so she can be like the other kids) over the weekend and she carried it around telling everyone that she was going to go to school.

Denver Zoo

I am sorry but this post is very picture heavy. I had a hard time picking pictures out. We got a chance to go back to the Denver Zoo last weekend. What ended up happening is Dave met some guys who love to play volleyball. He told them to call whenever they were going to play and they really did. The only problem is that they were going to play in Denver. One guy lives in Fort Collins and was going to travel down, so he could have traveled with him; but I thought it would be a lot more fun to come and we would just go to the zoo while he played. We ended up spending over 4 hours there walking around. It has a lot to see though so it didn't seem like we had been there that long.

I couldn't believe they had a Komoto Dragon. Well the truth is they have three. I was so fascinated I had a hard time leaving the exhibit.

Clara's favorite animal is the elephant. She can even do a pretty good elephant sound (well pretty good for a 3 year old)

The Lions were really cool. Just watching our every step.

I had never seen a hyena before. They were chasing each other around but stopped right when I got the camera out. Most of the exhibits there have large enclosures with glass viewing areas in several places, so you can get up close no matter where they are.

This polar bear thought he was hiding. He had gone down under a rock in the water. Unfortunately for him they had a underground viewing area that made it so we were standing right next to him.

The train at the zoo was so lame. I thought Hogle Zoo's ride was lame. It was an oval with a conductor telling you about all the animals you could see if they weren't behind the bushes. One thing I can say is that it does have a lot of trees and bushes. Which is good unless you are trying to see over them.
Lily did not want to go at all. She complained so much that I just let her wear my head phones the whole time so I wouldn't have to hear anymore complaining. She ended up having a great time and was really fun to have around.

This was often the only view I could get of the kids. It was either this or them fighting over who got to sit where on the stroller. I am still surprised that 7 & 9 year olds fight over who gets to sit in the stroller

Isaac showing us where we are on the map. He is so photogenic.

Joe really wasn't this grumpy but he didn't spend a lot of time out of the stroller. I couldn't figure out whey until we had been their a couple of hours. He had mentioned the day earlier that his ear was itchy. I checked it out and it looked red and I made a mental note to watch it. After about 2 hours he said his ear hurt, when I checked it I realized it was so swollen that it was sticking straight out and was about 1/2 in thick. I felt so bad for not noticing until then. When we got home we gave him some benedryl and by the next day it was much better. We figure it was an insect bite that he reacted badly too.
C
This was the kids climbing on things that I asked them not to. I didn't see any signs that said not to climb on it, so after I minute I said to have at it. Afterwards I decided it was meant to be climbed on. Of course they have got to know that a metal statue that is easily climbed in a place where kids are prevalent, they must have realized that it was going to be climbed on.
Of course Clara's favorite place was still the carousel. It's to bad the zoo is so far away or I think we would spend a lot of time there.

Grandma Sue's Visit

I promise that we did spend a lot of time with the other kids but either they were at school while we went and did things or the pictures we took of them didn't turn out.

My parents came over labor day weekend to see our new place. It was so much fun, we had a great time. We went to old town and walked around, we took the younger kids to build-a-bear (my mom takes all the kids when they are about 4 because decided to both Joe and Clara at the same time). We went to the Denver Zoo and my dad took the older kids around to look at most of the animals while my mom and I took the younger kids to the carousel. We had a fantastic time. Having visitors for us was great, it wasn't any inconvenience at all and the kids just loved having people they loved in the home. I hope others take this as a hint and decide to come out and visit us.
Joe got a Zebra that is dressed like a Jedi (they didn't have a jedi costume. He has a white shirt and a vest - Joe didn't care he just wanted a jedi). He named him Stripes the Zebra. Clara got a dog named Hannah Banana that she dressed to look like a princess. They really love their animals.

This was us in Old Town Fort Collins. It is a cute little walkable area in downtown Fort Collins. I think my parents were pleasantly surprised. We didn't get to spend a lot of time down there because we had to get back and pick up Joe from school. I am hoping that we can go spend more time the next time they come to visit.
This cute little bear is in Old Town. They have statues of a whole bunch of different animals, along with a fountain and kids water area.

This was at the Denver Zoo. The carousel was so much fun. The younger kids didn't get a chance to see many animals but they didn't care because they got to ride on this. It's to bad that mom had the camera or maybe we would have some pictures of Lily & Isaac too. My mom felt so bad that I took a whole bunch of them the next time to try to make up for it.

Mom - just remember that you had the camera, dad didn't. It not any one's fault we didn't get pictures of the older kids. They know you love them.