Girl's Weekend

Bethany and I have been dreaming about a hiking and horseback-riding trip to Rocky Mountain National Park since she moved out here last year. The first weekend in August, we finally made it happen. Just us girls, no kids, hiking our hearts out in the wilderness. It was the most wonderful trip, and made my heart happy just thinking about it all last week.


One of the most special treats was seeing a beautiful wild Columbine. I thought the season for them to bloom was long past, since my "tame" plants were done blooming in June. I think I scared Bethany because she didn't know what I was getting so excited about at first and thought it might be a bear! We just saw this lone plant along the trail to Timberline Falls, but the next day saw many more on a hillside along the Cache Le Poudre trail.

Bethany and I had wanted to hike to Timberline Falls on her visit two years ago, but after hauling a certain 25 lb. 9-month old 3 miles to Loch Vale, I was too tired to hike another mile. Turns out, it was a tough, steep trail in spots, so we definitely made the right decision. It made reaching our goal all the more sweet this time.

One of the prettiest places along the trail. Two streams converged and then separated again in a lush grove of green plants and flowers.

There was a lot more snow near the lake than two years ago.

Yes, there is my brave, crazy sister climbing all the way to the top of the falls. Do you see the trail? My point, exactly. Our guide book said the trail might be slippery from waterfall mist, but this trail was still very wet from snow melt even in August. And that glacier to the right didn't give us much room to maneuver. I ended up following Bethany up that trail, very slowly and carefully through the water.

This incredible view awaited us after our nerve-wracking climb. That lake is Loch Vale, about a mile below us. We ended up hiking 8 miles and being on the trail about 4 1/2 hours on Friday.

On Saturday, after our ride, we finally got to see some elk and it sure was a dramatic sighting. These young bulls were sparring on a snow field high in the tundra. The colors of the mountains and sky behind them and the snow flying beneath their hooves was breath-taking. Definitely a rare and incredible sight.

Our horseback ride on Saturday morning was great. The highlight of the two-hour ride was seeing a moose in Sprague Lake. My horse got bitten on the rear by the horse behind him and did a little hop and buck, but other than that our ride was relaxing and uneventful.

On Saturday, we also drove through the park to Grand Lake. We hiked some on the west side of the park on the Cache Le Poudre river trail. There were lots of wildflowers and pretty green hillsides as far as we could see. If we had a little more bug spray to keep the mosquitos away, it would have been perfect. We had a nice lunch in Grand Lake on the boardwalk watching the sailboats and then headed back to the Springs and real life. We will have lots of memories and great pictures to treasure until next year.

Spiderman

I had a funny conversation with Rylan tonight. It went something like this.
Rylan: I want a cat.
Me: We can't have a cat because I am allergic. When you grow up and move out, you can have all the cats you want.
Rylan: Is there a cat store? I want 36 hundred cats or... maybe five.
Me: That's a lot of cats! You know cats poop in a box and you have to clean it out, right?
Rylan: Okay, well when I grow up I will just ask my mo..I mean, my wife and she will do it for me.

El Paso County Fair

We have done a lot of things and visited lots of cool places since moving to Colorado, but I still had not taken the kids to the fair. When I saw our county fair had "Dollar Days" last Wednesday and Bethany didn't have to work, we loaded up the kids for the adventure. The livestock exhibitors keep their animals on the fair grounds all week long in barns divided up by species. That made it easy to get up close to the animals, which I knew would be the kids' favorite part. I love anything agricultural and it brought back memories of showing rabbits and lambs at our county fair in Kentucky as a kid. The weather was very warm, there was precious little shade, and the heat made the kids crabby, but overall we had fun together.

Before we saw the animals, the kids had a chance to "drive" some big road-building machinery.

Rylan fell in love with these goats. We caught him petting this one and singing it a lullaby. He is so gentle and affectionate with the animals. I think we have enough room in our backyard for a baby goat, and then Charlton wouldn't have to mow anymore.
Caroline enjoyed the goats, too.
This foal was in a friendly mood. We also got to see some rabbits of which I didn't get any pictures. Caroline was so excited to see them, that she tried to kiss the rabbit through the cage! When that didn't work so well, the rabbit's owner had compassion on her and brought the bunny out for a proper petting. We definitely have room for a rabbit in the back yard. I haven't had the energy to care for another living thing for a long time, but seeing the kid's love for animals blossom is making me think the Clarke family may need a 4-footed addition sometime in the future.
As much as the kids loved seeing the animals, I think the ferris wheel ride may have won out in popularity. I was so proud of being frugal by only spending $3 on admission, and packing our own lunches, then blew that with our $3 rides (each person) on the ferris wheel. But how could we go to the fair and not ride at least one ride?
Hate that the wire cross in front of his eyes, but you can still see Rylan's big smile.

These two even managed to get a few extra turns on the wheel, because a TV news crew was filming. Rylan was so excited about getting to ride with his Bethany, too.

Caroline was busy scoping out some other rides she wanted to try next. She loved her ride, too, and wasn't afraid a bit. I am not sure who will ride those crazy, spinning, vomit-inducing rides with her when she is older. Definitely not her mama!

I need to head off to bed so I will wait for another night to update on how the kids are doing with their "habits." I will say God is definitely answering prayers and things are going very well!

After the rain...

....God put the most brilliant, breath-taking rainbow in the sky for us to enjoy. The pictures don't do it justice, it was really incredible!

Not exactly a pot of gold, but I did find a golden haired beauty at the end of this rainbow.

Breaking old habits and forming new ones

Overall, I am loving my kids at this age. They still are adorable and say the funniest things, they both nap at the same each day, they can enjoy most of the same activities, and they are old enough to know to stay out of the street and not put dead bugs in their mouths.
But... I don't love potty training. I thought maybe I would get a break with Caroline because things were going so awesome at first. After about 5 weeks, she started having a huge regression, for no apparent reason. She went back to having careless accidents and not bothering to tell me when she had to go potty. We were so close to our Kentucky trip with it's 18 hour car drive that I decided to salvage my sanity and put her back in pull-ups. When we got home it was back to underwear, all 6+ pairs a day. She even started going #2 in her underwear, which she had never done on potty training attempt #1. So discouraging.
So here we are now, about 3 1/2 months out and still only marginal success. I think her problem is laziness, not comprehension, so I haven't wanted to stop and go completely back to diapers. Problem is, I don't know how to motivate her. It is simply much easier for her to just pee where she is standing and then whip off the wet clothes in two seconds flat. Charlton got her some Nerds candy and that has been a great reward, but most of the time she still won't tell me when she has to go. When I take her to the potty, she usually resists me and tries to immediately hop back off. Then she will pee on the floor 5 minutes later. It has been really frustrating. I know she will get it eventually, but I will be so glad when all the yuckiness of potty-training is over.
I am not sure which is harder, forming new life habits or breaking old ones, almost 5 year old ones. I have been completely avoiding dealing with Rylan's thumb-sucking habit for a long time, but there is nothing like a looming dentist appointment to push it to the top of the priority list. I won't go into all the reasons why it feels like huge challenge for him to quit, but suffice it to say, the obstacle felt like a mountain and my resources felt like molehills. They still kind of do, but...
I recently read an article in a MOPS mom's magazine that felt like it was written for me. A mom noticed that when her children had to go through something really difficult, they handled it best when she walked through it with them. Duh, I know, but what really struck me was her example in the article: thumb-sucking. This mom would lie down beside her child every night and rub her back and pray with her until she fell asleep without sucking her thumb to soothe herself. I felt like God was giving me the answer I was looking for to help Rylan quit. Very difficult, but with God's help I believe he can do it. So I may not be updating the blog very much in the future. I have no idea how long it will take, but I do know my evenings will be spent snuggling beside a sweet and brave young man, helping him learn to fall asleep without his thumb in his mouth. We would definitely appreciate your prayers if you think of us.

Grammy's Visit 2011

Charlton's mom visited us on her vacation last week. We had a wonderful time with her. The kids were so excited to pick her up at the airport. She wasn't due to arrive until 8:30, but at 5:00, Rylan decided he couldn't wait any longer and asked if we "could just go get her now." We had skyped with her recently and both kids have longer memories now, so they could remember and anticipate all the joys of Grammy coming to stay with us.

Grammy took us out to Red Robin, Rylan's favorite restaurant, and we tried to get some pictures afterwords. Caroline looked so pretty in the new colorful dress Grammy brought for her. You can't see in the photos, but the outfit included ruffly matching pink sandals, which Caroline thoroughly enjoyed taking on and off all by herself.

Classic Caroline, sucking her thumb while twirling her hair. She looks a lot like her Grammy Clarke!
We watched a few of Rylan's karate classes.

We went to a summer story time organized at a park by our church. This week's theme was "Circus". The tent made a great hide-out!

Caroline swinging with Grammy on a hot day in the park

We had a snack inside the train car and got a kick out of the funny polka dot pattern made by the train's roof. Both Grammy and Rylan had spots!

We had to cool off with popsicles and sunglasses are a must in sunny Colorado.

I wasn't a very good photographer with Grammy, Charlton, and the kids. I think this was about the best shot.

We also spent a morning at the pool, sans photos because we were too busy splashing. On Saturday, Grammy's last morning with us, she and Charlton took the kids to It'z a big indoor amusement/arcade place. The kids had grown so much since winter, the last time they were there, that they were finally tall enough to experience some of the rides. They are both adrenaline junkies, it seems, and had so much fun on the rides.

Thanks for coming to see us Grammy, we had a blast with you!