Summertime!

We are getting back to normal around here- dad is working a lot, mom is not and I'm living it up in day camp.  This is the first week of summer and it has been a doozy.  Denver hit 104 yesterday, Tucson was 107.  It's toasty here!  We are making the most of the long days though and enjoying it.

This is me and Mr. Walker from last weekend.

Mom and I brought out the chalk for some driveway art.  This seems to be a Colorado thing.  Everyone has colorful driveways in the summer here, so we added our touch too.  We have a big driveway so it took us awhile but it looks good!

We made a mid week pit stop at Target to pick up some water toys.  Since we don't have a pool, this is the next best thing.  We got some water guns, a water octopus and a slip and slide.  It was a super windy day so mom refused to join me but I had a good time!

On Saturday, mom ran her first ever half marathon, appropriately named the Slacker.  We were up and out the door by 5 AM to get her to the start line on time.  She had to take a shuttle bus from the parking lot to a ski area about 15 minutes away at 10,000 feet.  So while she was freezing and trying to breath, dad and I headed to St. Mary's Glacier for a morning of hiking and playing.  It is another ugly Colorado view as you can see.

And dinosaurs still roam the earth here too so it was a pretty cool little trip for us.

Meanwhile, mom was slogging away, spilling Gatorade all over herself and praying her quads didn't give out her.  It was 13 downhill miles and she started feeling wobbly about mile 5 so it was a long morning but she made it running the whole way.
Here she is passing a walker at lightning speed.....

Dad and I caught her near the finish line and I ran in the last 100 yards or so with her.  I was kind of dragging her along but it was fun to cross together.  She even gave me her Otter Pop!

We spent the rest of Saturday laying around the living room trying to recover.  Too bad for mom, I also had a Girl Scout backyard camp out that night so instead of being able to truly relax and have a beer, she had to get up off the couch, shower, gather supplies and head out with me.  Thankfully, the other troop leader is awesome and offered mom a beer when we got there and then she sent mom home and let me stay.  I had an awesomely fun night!  Ten of us girls slept in one huge tent while Ms. Chris slept in a little tent all by herself.  We got to sleep finally about 10:30 and we were up and raring to go at 5:20.  Mom got there at 8 this morning to help out a little more and we had already been on a hike and had breakfast and were heading to the park.

I got home from that and fell asleep on the couch for 3 hours.  That turned out to be a true blessing in so many ways.  Mom is still tired and can hardly walk so she was happy to not have to keep me entertained and I woke up in a much better mood.
We finally rallied about 3 and hit the Slip and Slide and waited for the ice cream man.  It's looking like hot dogs and ice cream for dinner and then back to reality.

Have a great week everyone!

A Little Catch Up....

Have you ever been so overwhelmed and so tired that you get kind of dizzy and nauseated?  No?  Well, mom has and that is why there has been no blog for the past three weeks.  Fortunately, she was overwhelmed by fun stuff (mostly) but still amazingly tired.  We appear to be back on track- for the time being.

Anyway, last we checked in, we had celebrated my kindergarten promotion, my 6th birthday, Nana D and Mr. Walker coming and a trip to Elitch Gardens.  The fun has continued over the last three weeks!

We headed to Disney World for 5 days to meet Uncle Tim, Aunt Dana, Brooke and Faith for some Forced Family Fun and it was awesome!!

It started out with first class seats there and back, courtesy of dad's multiple business trips and earned frequent flyer miles.  We aren't really first class kind of folk but man, I could get used to this!  Mom had to calm me down when we were sitting at the gate with me yelling "First class, baby! Yeah!"  I'm not to subtle.

We landed in Orlando about 3:30, got our luggage and headed to the hotel so mom and dad could get their glass of wine.  We met The Dallas Goedels at Downtown Disney for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.  It was sensory overload for the old folks but us little ones loved it.  

After dinner, we headed to The Magic Kingdom and had our first of several very late nights.  (You'll notice a lack of pictures- dad lost our camera.  Mom gave it to him to take pictures and that was the last we saw of it.  Of course, dad says mom lost it but either way, we have no pictures!)
I introduced Brooke and Faith to the Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain and Thunder Canyon Railway.  We loved them all and it was even better because we got to watch the nightly fireworks show from the roller coasters.  Very Disney like!  We finally got home and got to bed about 1 AM.  Everyone slept very hard that night and we were up and going by 8 the next day.  We spent Thursday at Epcot, avoiding alternating rain showers and stifling humidity.  It was still a good day though because it is Disney.
On Friday, we hit Disney Hollywood Studios which was kind of a bust.  Not much for kids to do.  Except.....Rockin' Roller Coaster!!!  I am a roller coaster/adrenaline junkie and I LOVED this thing.  It goes from 0-60mph in 2 seconds and then has two upside loops and a corkscrew.  Holy cow!  Mom and dad went on it too but mom was so nervous she thought she would puke but she wasn't about to be shown up by a 6 year old.  It turned out to be her favorite ride of the weekend.  Imagine that!
After a crabby kind of day (unheard of at the Happiest Place on Earth), we headed back to Downtown Disney for dinner at the T-Rex cafe.  This is only about the coolest restaurant in the history of man.  Dinosaurs and meteor showers every 20 minutes- heaven!

We made a pit stop and the Lego store and saw this really cool sea serpent made out of Legos.

Saturday was a much better day.  We have the Disney thing down pat by now and had our day planned.  We headed to Animal Kingdom and managed to get there before the gates even opened.  We all made a bee-line for Expedition Everest while dad headed over to get our fast passes for Dinotopia.  Expedition Everest is another awesome roller coast that takes you backwards in a cork screw and if that wasn't enough, it is in the dark!  Woo-hoo!
After that, we sent someone to get a fast pass for the safari and we headed to Kali River Rapids.  We loved that so much, we rode it twice!
Since it was our last night, we toughed it out and headed back to The Magic Kingdom but first I got in a little siesta....

 We rounded out our visit with a few more trips on Splash Mountain, the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Here are a few random pictures thanks to cell phones...

Here is dad and me on the Buzz Lightyear ride

And here is a car load of Goedels (me and dad in the front, Uncle Tim and mom, Aunt Dana and Brooke, who you can't really see, Aunt Dana's sister Sarah and Faith)  We posed for the picture- can you tell?

So after a fabulous week of fun and family, we headed home first class again.  Everything was going awesomely until we boarded our plane in Miami and realized we left Animal on the last plane.  Oh dear me.  We had the flight attendant calling people, the pilot calling people but no such luck.  I was heartbroken and so not only were we exhausted but now instead of being happy exhausted, we were sad exhausted.  It was terrible.  We managed to hand to Animal for 5 years with no mishaps and now we lose him on a plane.   Fortunately, I have some very resourceful parents and they managed to find a replacement and had him shipped right away.  Of course the story I got was that this is the original Animal but the airline has a really big washer/dryer that fluffed him up real good and made him look like new.  I didn't really care, I was just so happy to have him back!

We had about 3 days to recover and then we headed back out again, this time to Albuquerque for a family friend's wedding.  It was a very quick trip and again, no camera.  I got to spend a lot of time at Uncle Adam and Aunt Erin's house playing with baby Sophia and all their dogs so I had a great time.

We are just about done with our travels, and although they have been fun, we are ready for some quiet time!