Updates through pictures.

We were lucky enough to get Carole for a whole week out here and we managed to sneak out for an afternoon and head up to the aquarium in Denver.

We ate lunch at the seafood restaurant in the aquarium first (which I think is the most backwards thing I have ever heard of, but the food was good and the giant aquarium at our table that even included a Mermaid show was awesome).

Look at the trepidation in Austin wanting to touch the mermaids hands but not quite being sure if it's a good idea.

Look at this ham-bone attempting to smile at me. :-) 

And this one with her true "Crystal smile". 

This was Tyler's facial expression the whole time, kind of tired...kind of scared.

Austin making friends with the turtle.

They even have a tiger at the aquarium.

Marmee taking pictures of the fish and the girls mesmerized by her.

It's not a great picture due to the glare but since sharks are my favorite animal I had to include this picture.

And of course there was a bounce house outside that we had to jump in.

Oh yeah and look what followed us home from Denver on Saturday...poor big beast needed a good home. :-)



And the perfect spot for...

And the reading nook happens to just be the perfect spot for the hanging mobile that Kimberly sent from Turkey.

Girls weekend

Joe was in Vegas this weekend so we had a girls weekend with just us hanging out.  I took it as a great time to do some crafts with the girls.  Everyone asked what my plans were this weekend, you know since I would have the house all to myself...I of course laughed at this because number one I am never alone and number two days broken up by snacks and naps fly by in the blink of an eye.  :-D

Look at how big Tyler is, she can sit on the couch with her sister and watch a movie for minutes. :-)  I used to think they didn't look anything alike but now I see the resemblance more and more everyday.

We made these garden turtles, Austin handed me each jewel so I could glue them on...you can imagine what a time commitment that was.

We have had some torrential rain the last couple of days, here's Lake DiFabio in the back yard.  Yep that's not my camera being blurry all of that grey grass is standing in close to a foot of water.

We constructed a reading nook complete with fuzzy pillows and Christmas lights.  You can laugh now because yes Austin is wearing snow pants that she found in storage...why wouldn't see be, duh! :-)

Updates from Colorado

First to update about the fire, we are now at 95% containment and 346 homes destroyed, two lives lost and it burned 18,247 acres.  Here are some pictures of what used to be homes.

I think the best part about this fire has been the support of the city, sometimes...unfortunately....it takes an event like this to have people stand together.  The firefighters work 16 hour days and head up to the fire in caravans once in the morning and once at night.  Every day there is a giant crowd gathered to bid them farewell and another giant crowd to welcome them home.  100's upon 1,000's of people line the streets waving and holding up signs thanking them for their work.  There isn't a day when you can open the paper and not read about a truly inspirational story of hope and perseverance.  Our food bank just hit the 1 million pound mark for donations and all over the city there has been benefits and fund raising.  Personally I can't wait until they open the burn area back up so we as a city can start replanting our forest.

We had BIG day in our little world the other day.  Little Sister is finally big enough to sit in the "special" carts with Austin at the grocery store.  Holy cow the excitement in the air was palpable from both of them.

For the 4th of July we went and spent the day with my folks on their boat.  I am absolutely positive of the fact that both girls are "boat people" they love the water, the wind in their hair and zooming along the wake.

The fire

Our poor city is on fire right now, the kind of fire we are told can't happen in populated areas.  So far our home isn't in any real danger but the shop is just across the Interstate from the mandatory evacuation site.  We're hoping that the winds don't pick up again today and blow it across.  Here's some pictures to show how bad it is.

This is what the fire looked like a couple days ago, just really some smoke from the mountains.

With the changing winds you can see how it is crawling down the mountain yesterday.

Once the winds changed it took 30 minutes for the front of the shop to look like the above picture to this one.

Here is a view as the sun sets and the fire lights up the sky. 

This is the view from our gas station on the corner, you can see that the fire was successful in crawling all the way down the mountain to the city.



Toddler Time

This house runs on Toddler Time, it will take nearly 7 minutes to put on shoes, 3 minutes to clear a place setting, 45 minutes to eat dinner, 90 minutes to fall asleep...you get the gist.  Bottom line I spend a lot of time waiting each day and saying things like "Can you please hurry?" or "We are running late can you try and hurry?".  If I step in and do it for her she will quite literally melt into a puddle of screaming and crying that Satan himself would be proud of so I just stand there with Tyler waiting patiently.

We went to South Dakota this last weekend to visit Derek and Rachel.  The girls had SOOO much fun, we even visited a petting zoo (ok that part was for me, but we took the girls with us).  :-)  Every trip up there gets more fun as the girls grow and change and find that they can all play together.  It's just too cute.

Our Little Eater...she will eat anything you put in front of her and loves ribs.  That shirt she is wearing had to be thrown away after this experience.

Look at the size of this moth Joe caught for the girls. That is Joe's cell phone sitting next to it so you can see the vastness of it.  (Meowser must have been been impressed too which led her to eat it this morning luckily while the girls were still asleep).

Austin riding a pony at the petting zoo!



The girls birthday party.

So far it's really nice to have the girls' birthdays so close, I am sure one day they want to do their own separate things but for now it's much easier.


Helen testing out the new picnic table that Marmee and Papa got for the girls.

The birthday girls sharing some water waiting for people to start showing up.

The Elmo cupcakes that I made for their party, my fingernails are still red from the amount of food dye I had to use.

The Hello Meow romper that Helen got for Austin.

The pretty blue hat from Anne.

 The awesome people puzzle and Austin telling Joe all about the people in it.

You can't hear what Austin is saying to me but she is walking the beads up and giving them to me and letting me know that she will not stick them up her nose. :-)

Singing Happy Birthday to the girls.