June 2017

Before we get to June, I have to squeeze in a few last photos from the end of May. The kids and I took a quick trip down to Albuquerque to visit Mom and Dad while Dave was working over Memorial Day weekend. We had lots of fun, including hikes, playing with Aunt Aubri and Cousin Jade, seeing Shantae, Brandon and Lily, making Peanut Butter bird feeders, and playing in the backyard. Needless to say, the kids never want to leave.

The girls especially loved helping give cousin Lily a bath.

On to June. It was an extremely busy and fun month at our house. We hosted the Blacker family reunion this year and had everyone come and stay for a few days (except we missed Bryan, Aubri, and Jade). Even Grandma and Grandpa Crockett came! It was so fun to show off our new house and everything we have been working on for the last year, as well as to see everyone all together again. We had a blast with great-grandparents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, and siblings.

Cousin Ellie particularly loved our drinking fountain on the back porch.

One of our first fun adventures was taking everyone to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

After the Zoo we had an intense, adults-only round of laser-tag at Battlefield Colorado. Think less like running around in a small dark room and more like running around on an open army battlefield. We were all sore afterwords, but it was lots of fun.

Oh, how we love spending time with cousins! From left to right we have, Ellie, Zac, Cole, Katie, Alice and Lexi.

Russ took a few glamour shots while waiting for everyone to get ready for the traditional family picture...

From left to right: Katie (prego with baby boy #2), Russ, Jake, Aubrey, Clara, Lexi, Cole, Dave, Grandma and Grandpa Crockett, Katie, Alice, Ellie, Nathan, Mom and Dad, Lizi, Zac, Brandon, Lily and Shantae. We barely all fit in the picture anymore!

Another day we took everyone hiking/climbing through the Garden of the Gods. It's a beautiful place here in The Springs that is open to the public and has lots of fun climbing for the kids.

All of the cousins except Jade and Lily. From left to right: Cole, Ellie, Katie, Zac, Jake, Lexi, Alice, Clara.

Drawing in the sand was almost more fun than climbing for the little girls.

All of the grand kids played follow the leader with Grandpa - he had to follow them through all of their climbing and crawling and do what they did. He made it through most of the places they took him, but this particular place was a tad too small for him. We all had a good laugh watching him try to get unstuck. ;-)

Happy cousin Jake - that kid knows how to ride along on a hike.

Water games afterwards to cool off.

Baby Lily might just be the happiest baby there ever was.

Grandma had no shortage of crafts for the kids - they kept busy with painting gourds and making bird feeders.

Cole, Zac and Katie were expert grasshopper hunters by the end of the reunion, leaving behind several jars full of grasshoppers for us to keep as "pets".

The big boys made their own paintball course on our land and went to town a few times. It's so nice having space to do all these fun things!

Another day we went on a hike down to a stream at Castlewood Canyon State Park. The littles had the time of their life playing in the stream while the big kids caught crawdads. Below is Clara, Ellie and Jake playing together.

Russ showing off his catches.

Mom and Dad also had a husband/wife activity where one sat behind the other with their eyes closed and had to apply make-up on the one in front. Needless to say, we all looked quite done-up afterwards.