The 4th of July

My mom came out to Vail to help celebrate my birthday! You'll see her in some of the photos! We made breakfast and went to the Vail 4th parade on the morning of the 4th. After lunch, naps were in order for almost all of us, and then we had some of my co-workers over for a little hamburger cookout. It was a good day, and here are the photos:

Oh - first, on the night of the 3rd we saw some great fireworks.

I did not take great photos of them.

Just before the parade began.

The start of the parade!

Love this photo of my Mama!

S made some "hats" when we couldn't find any to buy

S decorated the condo...

Waiting for the guests to arrive...

The food - tons of food all prepared by S and my Mom!

My princess cake!

S let LM pick out my cake this year - when they went to the bakery, he told the lady his Mommy needed a "PRINCESS CAKE" with "THREE PRINCESSES ON IT!" The lady wasn't so sure, but LM was! It was so sweet.

I bet they don't decorate too many princess cakes that say "Mommy"...

The guests!

LM provided lots of great entertainment.

I pretended to blow out the candles because we forgot to buy a lighter...

Oh - and I brought a bottle of S's wine, since it was to be ready by July 4.

Pretty tasty!

The whole party.

It was a fun day.

See you soon.

Vail 2013 - A Rafting Trip

The boys had a lot of fun while I was at work in Colorado. They went to playgrounds, biked, hiked, went "exploring", visited a local science museum, visited the local library for story time and even did some swimming. I have virtually no photos of all of this fun, since I wasn't there and S didn't take photos. I do, however, have photos from the one other event we took in as a family - a river rafting trip! Here are the photos:

We were in a raft like that one. There was water in the bottom of the raft, so your feet got wet.

When you went over the mild rapids, other parts got wet, too!

The scenery was quite amazing, of course.

These are mud nests made by a certain kind of bird.

A train passed us by on the river!

For the first part of the trip, the boy was on the opposite side of the boat from me.

Some geese!

An example of our mild rapids. 

They got a little wilder than this, but not by much.

We passed several sets of fly fishermen.

And kayakers.

We stopped and walked around for a bit a little past halfway through.

So I took some wildflower photos.

Of course.

And the boys waded in the water.

And they also used the binoculars.

This was our able and wonderful guide.

After the pit stop, the official photographer caught us together on one side of the boat.

After rafting, we went to a ranch to eat and there were a few games to play.

It was a fun day.

See you soon!