Hiking with the Miners

This week we caught up on laundry, sleep, groceries, and all those reality things during the early week. Then on Michael's day off on Wednesday we headed to Rocky Mountain National Park to meet the Miners! It was so fun hiking with cousins. Little Julia was always in the lead, and their family is just growing up and so fun to be with at every stage. 

Camden was carried by a very kind dad the whole time, then eventually came around to Logan's beard enough to let him hold him sometimes too. Jaren is the best big cousin to the boys, and Lydia is such a little caregiver too. I just love them all!

We picked up food and pies and met them at their Airbnb that night in Estes Park. Such a beautiful spot, and so fun to see an elk in their backyard. My boys were so sad to leave them, but we came home for Thursday's speech therapy and Friday's ultrasound. 

We loved meeting our little man in our ultrasound appointment! Hearing the word normal over and over is the sweetest sound and I do not take that wonderful blessing lightly. Our littlest guy is growing growing just like he should and we love him. But we don't know what to name him.

On Saturday I went to our first in person Relief Society activity and it was fun to get to know some sisters more. Then the Miners came into town! We were so excited for them to get here. And we felt extra lucky that they landed at our place on Jaren's birthday! He turned 6 visiting us in Indiana and 14 visiting us in Fort Collins and that kid is just growing up too fast and I love him so much. He requested "gourmet BLTs" for dinner and chocolate cake for his birthday treat. So we went big with brioche bread, avocados, some spicy mustards, and the BLT parts too. Then he successfully blew out his candles so I hope he gets all he wishes for! That kid has fun goals and interests and hobbies and talents. Westin was totally impressed with his Rubik's cube skills.

 After dinner we took them to Twin Silos park, and Jaren so sweetly talked Bennett into going down the slide with him for his first time ever. Bennett was pretty proud of himself after and went once more with Jaren, then 10+ more times by himself. Much improved from our last visit, and the other kids had fun with the surprisingly thrilling slide between the silos. Then we played by the stream there for a while and saw some big crawdads.

That night they were patient with me while I scrubbed my newly lime washed fireplace... it dried SO much lighter than it looked when it was first finished, so I scrubbed each brick with a dish brush and a towel and tried to get some more color variation back in the brick. Logan thought I was "...quite particular" but Jenny supported me in my efforts and it looks way better :)

On Sunday we took up a big long bench and Michael and Jenny were last to come in with little kiddos, so someone thought me and Logan and the 7 (at that time) kids between us were a new family. It's still a new world at church with no masks and feeling like we've barely settled in this last year, but we'll get there :)

We had a fun chill Sunday with them and I think their kiddos were happy to rest up from all their hiking! They did so much and I'm so impressed with them. And we had to rest up for the week ahead of playing together!

Brick finally going up on our fireplace! This has been a domino project of one thing after another that we started end of April, but so fun to see it coming together.

The boys just watched and watched the workers whenever they were here like cute little creepers :)

Brick pattern is up!

iPad movies during this project while our TV is down.

Timed entry national park tickets are stresssssful

But we made it in! So fun to meet up with the Miners in Rocky Mountain National Park!

This hike felt like more elevation gain than we bargained for...
but we did it :) Camden was carried by Michael most the way up,
that little daddy's boy.

Saw the cutest ducklings in this grass! One hopped up to get a bug while swimming and it was the cutest little nature scene I've ever witnessed.

Logan's beard finally started to win Camden over.

This guy is EXTRA clingy when workers are in our house and it makes for some unproductive but cuddly days!

Limewash time! I love this sponged off look.

Now I need to choose a stain for the mantle and finish it up.

Miners are here!! They came to our house after hiking a couple more days while staying in Estes Park.

First park stop: Twin Silos.

Story time with the crew.

That night my fireplace had fully dried and it was waaay whiter than I wanted,
so I ended up sponging off more lime wash for a while. We got it back to a good spot but I'm still so surprised it dried so much lighter after sponging off so much.

Attempting to make Camden be apart of the cousins picture...

Gave up :) But here are the rest of the cuties!

Finally time to make a reservation to go into this temple for the first time since moving here.
Covid was such a strange time to make a big move!