Sterne Park

 I love finding new parks and a friend from church told us about Sterne Park in Littleton- its tucked away on some side streets and it is AWESOME! It has a huge lake, a little river and lots of minnows and ducks! There is a playground and a pavilion and lots of shade which is a plus.

 My kids played for hours trying to catch minnows in their test tubes and they amazingly succeeded! 

 Love the little trail along the river bed.. fun exploration!

Mustache or Bow? Jen and Josh's Reveal Party

Josh and Jennifer are welcoming their first child into the world in December.

 They thoughtfully invited us to the BIG reveal party to find out ...

Mustache or Bow? 

 Our families guesses...

  {Team BOW}

 {Team Mustache}

The excited parents! Split vote

 They gave an envelope from the ultra sound tech to a bakery 

so it was pretty exciting to find out with them! 

Congrats to Josh and Jennifer on their little boy! 

CottonTail

 The Gomez fam is on to their 6th pet, I believe. 

(all other previous pets either died or were sold) 

Its a bunny and has been the best pet so far! 

He lets the kids carry him around all over the place and play with him.

They are in love!

They clean up after him and he is not messy at all- he actually is liter pan trained. sweet! 

I built him this sweet cage to keep indoors. 

I have a feeling CottonTail will be with us for a while.

Welcome to the world, Natalia!

Natalia Adelaida Honstein 

Born 7.30.2012 

6 lbs 14 oz. 

19 and a half in.

What a privilege it was to meet our new little niece today. 

Matt and Tina welcomed her into the world last night.

She is the prettiest little baby girl with lots of dark hair! 

 Our children talk of little else but their new little baby cousin! 

Blue River Campground

 We were able to go camping with a group from Sola Church to Blue River Campground near Silverthorne, CO to camp out for one night. And guess what, I forgot my camera! Grr! So, my cell phone Instagram had to do. We had such a wonderful time even thru the rain! We set up camp right near the river. It was so soothing at night to hear it gurgling away.

When we got there around 3:30pm on Friday it was pretty nice and we got everything set up but very quickly the rain clouds moved in. We were able to get a fire going to cook our hot dogs and corn on the cob and even do some smores. 

We hung around the fire with friends for a little while but it really picked up raining and the kids were drenched and miserable so we went back to our tent and snuggled deep in our sleeping bags and the kids crashed around 9pm. They slept SO well. Around 10:30 or so the rain lifted and I went back to the fire to hang out and chat while Mark stayed with the kids and slept (he was so tired). 

  The next morning it was so pretty and we had coffee, pancakes, and scrambled eggs with ham and cheese- I did all our cooking (like last year) over an open fire and amazingly didn't burn a thing:) It took me forever to make pancakes in my skillet one at a time (I made about 20) But Mark said they were the best of mine that he has ever eaten:)

 The next morning we spent some time playing in the river, 

hiking around the river and making more smores with friends! 

Connie and Rudy Gomez had the BIGGEST marshmallows ever  and a pretty cool hammock to boot.

 Jim ( our campsite neighbor) told us about a car that was at least 40 years old that was stuck in some trees a little bit off the river. We hiked in and found it- it was SO cool! The kids did so good with some more difficult hiking.

 Ella found a bone under the car:)lol

 We packed up around 12:30 and then headed to Beau Jo's for pizza with the Greenes, Halls and Thomas's. After a yummy lunch, we headed up Mt Evans to show Josh and Jen and Julie and Rob the mountain since they are sorta new to CO. Mt Evans is a 14'er (14,000 feet above sea level) and you can actually drive to the top. Of course as we started to climb it was getting cloudy and by the time we were close to the top (above the tree level) it was pouring rain mixed with hail. Let me tell you, that drive is SOOOOOO scary. At times you are headed straight up and you can only see the road turning ahead and sky and clouds- there are sheer cliff drop offs with no guard rails. I was freaking out to say the least. It was terrifying. We didn't even get any good pictures because it was so cloudy and rainy.

As soon as we got off the mountain, we grabbed some Starbucks to calm my nerves and we were home by 5:30pm. I absolutely LOVE the Coloradan mountains but boy, do I also love my bed and shower:)