Fourth of July Fun!

Happy Birthday America!  

Once again it has been way too long since I have been able to find the time to post anything on the blog.  I am way too far to catch up, so I am starting afresh with our latest and greatest adventures!  We decided to pack up the cars and head up into the mountains for the 4th of July.  On our way we stopped in Vail and found an abandoned ship!  

Isn't this a pretty cool playground!  Both kids loved the climbing and it gave us a great place to let the kiddos exert a little energy before throwing them back into the car for a couple more hours.

When we got to our cabin, little Miss Molly expressed herself well by saying "I think we need to find another place to go camping!"  That girl knows what she wants:)  The cabin was actually just what we needed and ended up working out just fine.  Molly even grew rather fond of the place and we have been playing "cabin" ever since.

Since we missed Grandma's birthday earlier in the month, we had a little birthday celebration for her the night we arrived.  

Both kids loved the cupcakes!

Molly is getting to be an expert at helping others open their gifts!

Since we were camping, Molly and Pa stayed up to check out the starry night sky.

The kids' camping chairs were also a big hit!

What's more American than apple pie?  Fishing!  We kicked off our Fourth of July festivities by going to a good old fashioned fishing hole in Marble, Colorado.    

At first Molly was a little squeamish about the worms, but she soon got over it.

Molly even caught her very first fish!

She reeled it in with a little help from Pa.

It was a little floppier than she imagined!

So proud!

Daddy wasn't going to be left out.  Not too long after, he caught one of his very own!

Molly still wasn't to sure of the flailing fish as it came out of the water!

Mason definitely kept Grandma busy while we were fishing!

It didn't take him too long to decide to put his feet in the water!

After we went fishing we did a little exploring in Marble.  Wow!  It was beautiful and fascinating.  We got to walk over the old site where they cut the marble used at the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington.  

Mason thinks he can pretty much lift anything!

A perfect Marble chair!

This was definitely Mason's favorite place!

Once again, lifting big rocks!

Molly did a little dancing on a huge marble slab.

Mason joined her for a little singing too.

After such a big day, you'd think my kids would be utterly exhausted.  So they proceeded to do a little running around the campsite.

Molly was pretty excited to eat the fish she caught!

After trying it she proudly declared "Not too bad!"  I'll take that as a victory!

Mason preferred the watermelon.

The campground also had some pretty cool marble sculptures, which the kids quickly decided needed to be played on.

Bath time!

The next day we headed up to Aspen to hike the famous Maroon Bells.  If you have never been there it is spectacular.

I wasn't entirely sure the kids were going to make it all 3.6 miles up to Crater Lake and back, but they were troopers!  Molly almost did the whole thing by herself!  Here we are at the lake up top!

Mason even walked quite a bit himself too!

Again, lifting rocks.

One of the few times she wasn't walking.

Dora better watch out.  There is a new explorer in town!

All four of us!

Up top with Grandma and Pa!

 Two hikers!

Me and my boy! 

Such a big boy!

  

Come on Pa!

Daddy and his girl!

 After the hike we put our feet in the water at the bottom and man was it cold!

Mason loved to stop and smell the flowers!

So pretty!

After the hike Mason was all smiles.

The next day we headed to the Glenwood Hot Springs, one of my favorite swimming spots!  We had a blast and Molly even braved the waterslides with Pa and Daddy!~

 We had such a fun trip!  Now for a little update on the kiddos.  Molly and Mason are busier than ever and definitely keep me on my toes.  We kicked off the summer with a second degree burn to the bottom of Mason's foot and had to have him in a cast for a week and a half.  (Yes, sandstone in your yard can get hot enough to do that.  Who knew?)  While Mason was still in his cast Molly tripped on a stair and fell into a piano bench and almost knocked out her two front teeth.  Our dentist said she had never seen a kid knock her teeth out so far without actually knocking them out of her head.  We have been to the dentist every couple weeks since, I think.  Thankfully, she should be able to keep both teeth in her mouth and we are almost done with her treatments.  A day after Mason got his cast off he ran up to a car and tried to grab the exhaust pipe.  He got another second degree burn on his hand, but thankfully this one was really small and we were able to treat it ourselves.  He is now fully healed.  Just when it looked like things were quieting down around here, we had the fire department come to our house to "rescue" Mason.  He managed to lock himself in our bedroom.  Whoever lived here before had a real lock installed on the bedroom door and we never had a key for it.  We had been meaning to remove the lock and put in a new doorknob but just hadn't gotten around to it.  Before resorting to the firemen, I tried to call a couple of locksmiths (no one answered), climbed an extension ladder to try to get into our windows (they were locked), and virtually tried to break down the door.  Molly even helped by trying to cut the door handle off with her scissors! The fireman were very nice and Molly thought it was "amazing" to have the fire truck pull up to her house.  I better get back to the kids now, it just got pretty quiet where they were playing!  Who knows what they could be getting into?