Happy Halloween

Busy Autumn Days

The last couple of months have been fun but busy. We spent a week in Colorado at the YMCA of the Rockies with my (Kim's) family. The girls loved playing with their cousins, and I loved seeing my brother, sisters and parents.

  

We enjoyed hiking, zip lining and riding horses with cousins.

 

 

 When we returned home school started. We have a First Grader and a Pre-Schooler.

 We also bought a house. Packing and unpacking boxes has been keeping us busy.

 We did take time out of our unpacking to visit the pumpkin patch.

The last fun part of our busy fall was J got her hair cut. She looks so grown up with her hair shorter, but she is loving it. She thinks it looks short like her mom's hair.

Estes Park, Colorado

Every two years we have a Family Reunion for my side of the family. This year my sister was in charge and she hosted it in Colorado. We decided to drive out a couple of days early so we could spend even more time with family. My sister has been wanting to show me this cute little mountain town, so we headed up into the mountains. There was a river walk trail that we decided to explore. Here is our crew.

We walked along the river until we found a spot to stop and play. The water was freezing, but they didn't seem to mind.

 

 

After we played in the river we decided to take a tram up to the top of the mountain where we were told we could feed some chipmunks.

Beach Camping

Every year we go beach camping with Steve's family. It is a family tradition that we love and look forward to every summer. One of our favorite things to do is wake up early and walk down to the tide pools. This year the tide was unusually low, so many different rocks were uncovered. We enjoyed hunting for treasures. We found starfish, sand dollars, crabs and many beautiful shells.

 

Aunt Tami helped S find many treasures, the favorite was the sand dollar.

 

 

 

 

Our girls love the beach. They spent most of their days playing in the sand and waves with cousins.

 

 

 

 Our evenings were spent climbing trees and roasting marshmallows by the fire.

River Camping

This last weekend we went river camping for the first time. We have been beach camping, mountain camping and forest camping, but we have now found a new favorite. It was so hot in So Cal, but we kept cool by staying in the river.

The current by our campsite was strong enough that it allowed the girls to float down stream a little. They enjoyed using the tubes to ride the rapids.

 

 

We were close enough to the Sequoia National Forest that one day we drove to the Trail of 100 Giants. We loved hiking through the huge treas and climbing on the ones that had fallen. 

 

 

 

S and J have been wanting to go fishing with their dad ever since they got fishing poles for Christmas. Since we were already by the river we decided to go fishing one evening. We had fun, but unfortunately the fish were not hungry.

We will definitely have to make a trip back to the river.