Lake Owen Camping Trip

Ok so this ahs taken forever for me to post.  I wanted to write a whole big spiel on our wonderful time at Lake Owen, but I just haven't had the time.  Hopefully the pics won't need much explanation.

Basically our campsite was surrounded by lodge pole pines and the door of our tent opened to a view of the lake and snow caped mountains as a back drop!

If you look closely you can see our blue tent on the back side of the lake against the trees.

this pic doesn't do the view justice!

There was a really nice trail that was part of an old railroad track.  JOhn and Andrew had fun climbing on the caboose.

Summer time Fun!

Our summer has started with a bang.  It seems like every time I blink something new is on the "to-do" calendar.  Of course if you know me very well, I wouldn't have it any other way.  :o)

Last weekend we held a BBQ at the park for all our friends.  We invited about 40 people and as they say expect 50%, we had 19 people there.  We taught an Englishman how to play volleyball, "open pit at a public park" sand volleyball.  He was such a sport.  He didn't shy away from the ball, in fact he even dove for it, and land practically face first in "cat poo" *sounds better with the English accent*  We then set up a temp net on the grass.  

It's been too long since John and I have played volleyball.  Our bodies quickly reminded us that we were not 16 anymore.  But we had fun regardless.

As you can see in the following pics Andrew has had a lot of water fun this summer.  We got him a $5 Slip 'N Slide.  There is the perfect little hill at Maria's house for it.  He is a slip n slide pro!  He has also enjoyed the new splash park at an awesome new park in Fort Collins.  I don't know if MO has any splash parks.  We have 3 now in FC.  The are just little fountain area, normally set up at parks, for kids to splash around in.  The water is chlorinated and recirculated so it's a little warmer then a sprinkler.    And of course my little fishy is addicted!

Andrew also got to go to his first Demolition Derby, or as he says the "BOOM BOOM BOOM Cars"!  There were about 22 of us in our group and we'd each put in a quarter and tried to pick the cars that we thought would survive.  Andrew is still talking about his "broken orange car"  He was good at telling us which ones to pick.  Luckily we didn't really listen considering his were almost always the first ones out.  I think his favorite part was watching the "HUGE" tractors trying to dry out the track in the beginning.  He just sat there in amazement.

His silly face glasses he got at Chucky Cheese.

The tractors preparing the field.

Watching his "broken orange car"

Splash park photos!

I'm sure there will be more summer fun pics to come!

My little fishy

Here are few picks of our daily swim adventure right here in our back yard, or should I say back porch.  I"m going to try to get him into swim lessons this summer.  As you can see, he's a natural fish!  Hopefully this weekend we will get alot of good picks at our BBQ.

A day at the park

I just had to post these.  #1 because I'm so excited Andrew can swing by himself, and #2 just because it's a funny pic of John.  Plus I don't think Jess has seen John "hairless"  :o)

... to save a buck!

That should be the slogan of my husband's life!

This time he talked me into cutting Andrew's hair myself. Or should I say bribed me. He offered Andrew $1.00 to sit there and offered me $5.00 to cut his hair. He said $6 was a bargain compared to $15. I have to say for my first time on Mr. Wiggle Head, I don't think I did too bad.

This past weekend was our annual Father's Day camping trip. We go up to Veedauwoo, half way between Cheyenne and Laramie WY, and camp for 1 or 2 nights. Since John doesn't like to be able to see other people when camping, but I refuse to backpack our stuff in, we typically drive about 5 miles down the road to the Tie City campground. Much more secluded and less known. However this year when we got down there it was still closed. We got really worried that they would all still be closed due to the last snow melt. But then we read the little sign, "Non-motorized vehicles only" I guess they decided to dedicate it to a Mnt. bike trail so you can only pack in you gear now. So I talked him into going down the Veedauwoo itself to see how crowded it really was. We started out in the RV/Tent sites because they are a little more spread out. We found one!!! Yeah for me. It was on the end of a loop, by a trail head, so the RVs on each side were like 50+ft away. The flat area for our tent was even down a little hill right below a rock wall so we really couldn't see anyone, or anyone see in our tent! The hill also made for the perfect place for Andrew to play with his Tonka truck. We found some new trails to hike that don't require as much rock climbing, which will be nice for you MO folks that like to hike with us!

 *I don't know if you can see it with the pic so small but there is actually some climbers up on the rock in the upper left-hand corner.

A few weeks ago, Andrew climbed his first mountain, Horsetooth Mnt., with John and some of his friends from work.  I the last pic you get a nice overview of Fort Collins.

This is a cute little pic I took of Maria (the baby I nanny for) the other day.

Here are some pics I took awhile back.

Like the marker on the legs?  :o)

Well, this is the most current updates so far.  More to come, eventually.  :o)

Tornado Video

This video was taken about 1/2 mile from the house I was at.  Right at the park we always play at.  It shows awesome footage of the hail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOfB0eQVFu0

A walk through the neighborhood

Today I spent the morning volunteering at our new church. We were trying to organize a Free childcare for the disaster relief efforts. We made up some flyers and hand delivered them to people in the Cornerstone neighborhood. WOW, what a sight. The news pictures, and even my pictures don't do it justice.
Everyone always hears how sporadic a tornado can be, ripping walls off of a dining room while leaving all the dishes on the table in tact, or destroying one house and 10 yards away not a shingle missing. That was a lot of what I saw today. There were some houses that were piles of lumber, others looked like they had little to no damage except windows and shingles missing, yet both had huge spray painted Red "X" with the letter "C" meaning condemned. I think if I drove up to my house and saw a pile, it wouldn't be nearly as heart breaking as driving up, seeing you house in the distance, thinking... "wow it looks like it faired pretty well compared to many, at least I can go get my stuff"... only to find the dreaded Red paint. Many of those houses acted like a pressure cooker, so structurally that are some of the most unstable houses.
The amazing part as we walked through the entire neighborhood, is we couldn't find one "victim" Everyone was very upbeat. You had trouble telling who lived there and who was the relief help.
Talking with our pastor, he said he has a whole list of supplies and people willing to be donated, and yet his Tornado Needs list has been empty from the first night. Including 30 hotel rooms and two empty condos, that he can't seem to fill. What an AMAZING blessing! Many people were evening saying how they are eating better with the free food then they would have ever had at home. The Salvation Army food truck is parked in the church parking lot and serving food from Restaurants at each meal. The first night they all had Outback Steakhouse.
In March our church prayed to see 1000 people at our Easter service in the parking lot. As Pastor Dave said, "we were all a little disappointed that we didn't' have that many, yet Thur night over 1100 people were fed in our church parking lot". And yesterday all the churches in town got together for a special worship service at the High School, which was packed at more then 1800!
God's timing is always Perfect!