Great Sand Dunes National Park

We went camping Memorial Day weekend - yes, a month ago - to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. I'm a bit behind with things - hey, I've got pool time to get in these days! Anyway - wow - this place is so incredibly cool. It was about a 4-hour drive from our house, down south, to a part of the state we had never been to. It's in the middle-of-nowhere in the San Luis Valley, next to the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
That's the "Sangres" in the background - and see that all that brown in front? That's the dunes. It's some phenomenon that's occured based on it's location -the wind coming from the mountain range on the other side of the San Luis Valley gets trapped at the base of the Sangres - and here are the dunes. They are HUGE - tall and wide. This (above) is the view from our campground.

And it is WINDY at the dunes - as you climb them the wind whips the sand on your legs, as one woman near us called it, "it's like a bad spa treatment." With CC being so low to the ground, she didn't care for the tall dunes as much. But...




For a couple months of the year, the Medano Creek flows through the base of the dunes. It's incredibly wide - a football field - and maxes out at about 6 inches deep. Perfect for wet sand play, dig, etc.




The dunes....



We stayed for 3 nights, the longest we've ever tent-camped. Also - first time ever camping without a pack-n-play! You should have seen those kids feet by the time we got home...ugh.
We explored nearby Fort Garland for Memorial Day - a fort run by Kit Carson to negotiate with the Ute tribe and protect settlers. This was the view from the fort!
Love this picture. I have memories of the sand dunes in Cape Cod...vague memories in truth. Did we slide down them? These dunes, this time of year, did not really support sleds etc for sliding down...something about the moisture level.

Please forgive the doggie-mom voice in the 1st video...advise to turn volume down. Callie got a good workout!

Brendan's 1st swim meet...and henna

Well, his first this year that is. He joined our neighborhood swim team, the Westbrook Stingrays, last summer. They practice every morning 8-9am, and have 4 meets each summer. These swim meets are crazy events - huge numbers of people (parents, siblings, swimmers) all crammed in around a pool - typically an outdoor city pool. We get there at 7:15am so Brendan can start warm-ups 7:30am - this is on Saturday mornings. The heating area is a madhouse of kids - is that Brendan? Are those the 9-year-olds? Oh, he's sitting down, must be in the next heat. I love his orange goggles that make him stand out - last year I videoed a total stranger the length of the pool thinking it was him.

The backstroke is his favorite, which the coach says is unusual - while adults typically enjoy floating on their backs, kids don't like that feeling as much. For the first time, at this meet, he swam the butterfly in a medley. Such a hard stroke - he was sooooo nervous about it - but he did really well, and after that race, he said he wanted to enter the 25m butterfly in the next meet.


The night before this meet, my girlfriend Monica had a 40th birthday party, and everyone got a henna tattoo! It was so fun - never had one before. The artist came to her house, and had a ton of photos and books with designs to get ideas from. I was drawn to a design with a Hawaiian-flowery-feel to it. I combined a couple of designs and came up with this....

So, each part of the tattoo has a meaning. The circle in the middle of the flower represents centeredness (my goal!! daily!! by the minute!!); the flower is made of hearts - love obviously - but the 6 hearts make it an even, balanced love. The other hearts at the bottom show being grounded in love; the other designs represents reaching, growing - and the drops of water, are water - flowing, changing, always moving. She said she guessed I was a water person - I agreed that being by water is one of the few times that I can truly live and just be in the moment without my mind shooting off in various unrelated worries/thoughts/etc. Nice! I'm very sad that it only lasts a couple of weeks or so.

Water

We spend soooooo much of our summer in the pool I thought I'd include a few pictures.
Brendan is on the swim team for the neighborhood (Westbrook Stingrays!) so he has practice every morning from 8-9am. Most mornings CC, Andrew and I watch and enjoy breakfast by the pool before the heat of the day - but Brendan is just starting to ride his bike the 4 blocks or so with a neighbor to practice on the off-chance that CC sleeps in ("sleeping in" for CC - or any of the kids for that matter - is 7:30am. Doesn't matter how late they were up) Big kid stuff!

CC just started her very first swim lessons. She was not a fan the first day - didn't want to get in - but is warming up to the idea. She's fine in there with me and her floatie - it's just the "lesson" idea I guess. Here she is doing a back float!
And then...CC in a bikini. She loves it - although she was confused by it at first (underwear?) - rubs her belly a lot while she wears it.

The whole family went out on the lake the other day - only the 2nd time for that. Guess that 8am swim practice is taking a toll on Brendan....he took a snooze while we were out.



Pretty sunset on the lake....
Did I mention that I LOVE summer???!!!

Endings/Beginnings

Sometimes I feel like this blog can appear to be one big, long, "Christmas Letter" - you know the kind. I guess I can't help that - but it's not my intention - this is really just a way to keep our far-away family and friends connected to the little (or big) details of our lives, since we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. So, you won't see any pictures of my house the day we get home from camping (disaster) (ok, not just on the days we get home from camping) nor any videos of me hollering at Brendan to "find your goggles! now! Melissa is here to take you to swim practice!" - probably not any long stories about J and I watching Law & Order on Wednesday nights either. Those are also parts of our lives, just not so interesting. : )

Because of the boat, we've been spending much more time at Standley Lake - and we've always liked going up there. We went up there the other day just to fish at the shoreline, brought our neighbor Evan, who hangs out with the boys. This blog is making me think about bringing my camera along with me more often - at times I wouldn't normally have thought to do so. That's a good thing.

Can I mention that CC is on my lap right now? Drawing triangles. Making it a bit difficult to type. But still very cute.

Brought my camera to school the last week to take pictures to finally start creating my proto-types of school-year-in-a-book for boys. A couple here. The school year ending always makes me a bit sad - I feel so involved in the school and the boys lives there. Also, Andrew's teacher this year was Brendan's teacher for the 2 prior years, and she's fabulous - hard to imagine not having a child in her classroom!

I thought it would be fun in these elementary years to see both the lunch box and backpack the kiddos used that year...that will be part of the book. I would love a photo of my Apple Dumpling Gang metal lunchbox!!

3rd grade was a big year for Brendan. He was probably most excited about learning cursive. In doing so, however, he's realized how bad Mom's handwriting is, and that it's not really printing, not really cursive - a sad mix of the two. Also got the multiplication tables down - that made him seem so much older to be quizzing him on that!
Now summer's here!! I am so very happy about it. I love being able to relax with the boys more, the green grass and flowers, my garden, the sun rising so early in the morning, eating ice cream, lots of ice cream, sitting outside at night, open windows....ahh.

End of the (school) year stuff

CC had a dance recital in May - she takes ballet class on Monday mornings. You can see from the top picture how the class usually goes! The recital was at a high school and it's extra confusing for the girls - who are used to their teacher standing right in front of them doing the dance with them - because the teacher is offstage! CC loved it though, told everyone we saw all day that she had a "sital" that night - it's great for brothers to watch her for once after all the games she sits through!

Went to a Rockies game May 16th - our first of the season - vs. the Washington Nationals (we won.) The Rockies Rookies Club kids got to run the bases after the game - see video - that's CC in the light purple tshirt running up to Dinger (the mascot) at the beginning - then you'll see the boys racing each other around. Andrew used this as proof that Brendan cheated because he didn't touch 3rd base!

The boys had Field Day in May at school also - all the kids play a bunch of games outside (shoe kick, frisbee toss, ping-pong ball on a spoon, etc.) - they have a pin that they get colored stickers on, the color depending on if they came in 1st, 2nd or 3rd - or anything else. CC loved field day - for some reason it was all about Brendan that morning - she wouldn't leave his side (had to for the 3-legged race) The field is huge - hard trying to watch both boys events! See video of Andrew winning a 1st place sticker (well, it was a tie but still got that blue sticker) - how happy he is. He is a super-competitor - did not win the frisbee toss and it was not a happy moment!<>

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We've also just learned our awesome friends, Kathy & Mike Maness, are moving to Virginia. We will miss them incredibly - they are our family here in Colorado - but are excited about this next adventure in their lives. We are plotting vacations! The kids are so sad - it's one of those rare situations where everyone gets along awesomely - they've grown up together! That's Brendan and Kailey at age 4 on our annual camping trip - and the bottom picture is of Brendan, Kailey, Andrew, Jackie this month. We love you guys!

Catching up!

Geez - it's been a while. Part of the reason:

I've been working for the US Census since mid-April. That's my official credential - I'm a federal employee! Actually, it's been perfect - I can go work after Jason gets home and on weekends. It likely won't last too much longer, but it's been nice!

On Mother's Day we took the boat out to Standley Lake again - and pulled up on the other side of the lake to relax and fish from the shore. Kids had a blast playing in the MUD as you can see. Andrew is in his element when he's outdoors - he's a master skipper (of rocks) (seriously, he's really good) and just loves digging, throwing ANYTHING in the water (the bigger the better), etc. We think he'd be great on Survivor someday. Maybe even replace Bear Grylls!

May 1 - First day at Standley Lake!

We've been waiting for May 1, the day Standley Lake (the one right behind our house) opens up for boating...boys had the day memorized. We didn't make it out until the afternoon due to baseball and soccer, but we did it! You can see by the clothing it was pretty chilly, and it was windy - but still awesome to be out there on our own boat! So many times we've been at the shoreline fishing, or even just throwing rocks in, collecting shells, watching the other boats launch - this time it was us. : ) We are so very blessed! Didn't fish yet, but the fish finder found a few!

We saw parts of the lake we'd never seen or known about - a small "island" with tons of pelicans, trees absolutely full of nests, too many bird species to list.