oh, colorado!

so, it's been, um, 2 months since we took our family vacation to colorful colorado. but, you know, the whole blog thing hasn't been working out for me lately. as promised, here is a short (or not so short) summary. if you want the detailed version, come over for coffee and i will give you a slideshow.

it was a treat to be able to spend 9 days in colorado. we had a lot of places to go and a lot of people to see. i'll be honest, i could have spent a month there! we were joined by both of my sisters and their children, who made the trip from pennsylvania. :)

jacob and kate's first plane ride (since they were infants) was SO exciting!


on our 1st full day in colorado springs, my dad hosted an open house for friends and family to visit with us and meet our kiddos. it was great to see lots of scruggs family that we hadn't seen in years!


that evening, my dad took my sister and i to a bruce hornsby concert at the coolest outdoor concert location, the denver botanic gardens. it was a beautiful colorado evening, with great music!


monday, the kids and i had lunch with my childhood bff and her little boy. :)


tuesday we packed up the truck and headed into the mountains for 3 days. the 11 of us stayed in snowmass village, co, right outside of aspen. we spent lots of time in the pool, hiked up to crater lake at the maroon bells, bungee-bounced, rode a gondola, and played (ah-hem) several rounds of bananagrams. no need to mention who was champion. :)

(somehow kate slept the entire 2.1 mile hike back down. grandpa and i took turns carrying her)

friday we returned back to the springs and spent the reminder of our trip with the vollbracht family. saturday we met cousins and aunts and uncles for a picnic and hike in the garden of the gods. later that night, the grandparents babysat so the cousins could have a night out- definitely a highlight of the trip for me. it was great spending that time together! :)

sunday was a vollbracht reunion. we spent the afternoon out at the farm. jacob was in tractor heaven at uncle fred's house. he even got a ride on the bulldozer!



great trip. great memories. ready to go back for another visit. :)

wait. what?

no, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. it's really me, updating the blog. i think this is the longest i've gone. and for the 3 of you that follow our goings-on, i do apologize. :)

so the past 2 months have been busy! there's been blueberry picking, a trip to colorado, new babies, wedding planning, eggs!, visitors, and now that fall is here- the start of another preschool year.

quick update on the family:
kate is quite the comedian. she is the wittiest almost-3-year-old i've ever met. she's always got something goofy or smart to say. she keeps us entertained and keeps us on our toes. we always need to keep an eye on her because she gets into things she shouldn't oh so quickly. her favorite things to do are change her clothes (we're up to about 3 outfits a day), walk around the house in her church shoes, help me bake, and lay her puppies down for nap (they take more naps than an infant). she talks about best friends all day long and her line at dinner every night is "i don't want to grow up and get big and strong." (we've told her to eat her food so she can be big and strong, so i guess this is her way of saying she doesn't want to eat :) )

jacob continues his tractor obsession. except he's kicked it up a notch and now he can draw them and build them with legos. he spends most of his time building with his legos or digging in the dirt outside. he loves making cars out of the couch cushions and making garages for his hot wheels out of his wood blocks. during the month of august, he received swim lessons from a college student at church. by the end of 8 lessons, he was floating on his back across the pool, jumping in all by himself, and staying under water long enough to search for pennies. this week we have started the 2nd half of our preschool curriculum, and it seems like he is pretty excited about it. let's hope that continues through may! :) also, in the last week, he just started riding his bike with no training wheels! proud moment for this mom and dad. :)


i wrote in one of my last posts about jacob and kate playing together more. they are best buds now, and pretty much every activity is done together. it's been so cute to see them pretend play with each other- things like restaurant and train station. :) it's also brought on a whole bunch of confrontation that i could do without, but how else are they going to learn, right? (keep telling myself this!)

jesse has been keeping busy with the chickens and his paintings. he has completed 2 paintings on commission that are now in colorado with their new owners. his artwork is updated on his blog. all of his hard work with the chickens is finally starting to pay off, as one of them finally gave us the first egg last week. now it appears that 2 out of the 4 hens are laying. boy are those birds filthy!

i have been busy keeping up with the house and the kids. (and in the midst of this post, am realizing i haven't been taking very many pictures!) i don't know how i would get it all done if i didn't work from home! i am daily reminded of what a blessing it is that i am able to do so. i have also been so thankful for the blessing of friends and community that God has given us here. it's been such a joy to share and do life with our friends here- from babies, to birthdays, to holidays, to weddings.

i love fall. i am SO looking forward to cooler temps, campfires, pumpkins, cooking dinner without sweating, more and more eggs, and all the things that fall has in store. so long, summer!

check back soon and hopefully i will have selected the best of the 200+ pics from our colorado trip and post them on here. :)