Summer Life

I need to do a quick update of our summer and all the fun. Colorado is going really well. The kids have easily adjusted. Summer started out with a bang. Before the twins were even out of school, I headed off to Utah. I was competing in the Utah Valley Marathon. I wanted to run the race last year, before I got sick, and since I was unable to, I was determined to run it this year. I'm so glad I did! I had a much better experience this time(instead of getting sick at 13, I lasted until mile 22!). It was so nice to have someone to run it with me. One of our new friends here in Colorado stayed with me until mile 21, then I got sick and told her not to wait for me, but it did help having her by my side for so long.

After that, Ryan brought the kids to Utah and Ryan, Skyler and I participated in Ragnar. It was so much fun. We did it with Skyler's friend Chad and his parents. Everyone was so impressed that Skyler and his friend were running this race. They really did an amazing job!

After returning from Salt Lake, we decided to spend the weekend in Estes Park. What a beautiful place!! The kids loved it there!!

Drew also got his hearing aid this summer. Who knew he needed it?? Not me!! He didn't pass a school hearing screening. Come to find out, he has moderate hearing loss in his left ear and mild loss in his right. After wearing his aids for awhile, he has decided he only wants to wear the left one.

The first week in July, Abbey and I headed off to New York City with my mom, Nicole and Ashley, Brooke, and Jamie. We had such a fantastic time!! We saw Newsies, Mamma Mia, took a city bus tour, saw the statue of liberty, New York LDS temple, bike ride through central park and Time Square

Jamie and Abbey at the temple

Riding Through Central Park

The Temple

A week or so after that, we had some great friends come to visit. While they were here, we went river rafting and took the train to Pike's Peak. The kids absolutely loved the river rafting and so did Ryan!!:) They want to make that our new annual activity!

Pikes Peak

To end the summer Ryan and I flew into Salt Lake and went to see our MOST favorite play, WICKED!! We love this play and this is the 4th time we have seen it. We bought the tickets before we moved away and we decided that we wanted to keep them and go see it with the family. Mom and Jamie, Brooke and Scott, Chad and Ashley went with us. Such a great time and honestly one of the best times I've seen the scene of Popular. The actresses were hilarious!!!

It's like I told Nathan last year when he was complaining about how boring the summer had been. I said, "bud, we can have a boring summer this year and save mom's life, with many more fun summers in the future...or...we can have one last fun summer with mom alive...what do you think we should do?" He quickly replied,"have a boring summer and save mom." A MOST excellent summer indeed!! Absolutely made up for the not so fun summer we had last year:)!!