Trip to Colorado Springs and such

We just returned home from our trip to Colorado Springs for the weekend. It is a little over an hour away and they had some beautiful sights to see and fun things to do. It was nice to be gone and the kids thought the hotel was so amazing! They are easy to please. Here are some pictures from the trip but at the beginning I added a few to catch up from April.

I took the kids to the zoo on one of Landen's days off of school. Savannah was freaking out about this peacock eating someone's sandwich. She was yelling at him to try to get him to stop. I took lots of other pictures from this trip but I already added so many to this post that I will spare you :).

One of Landen and Blake's last soccer games in April. The kid's team name is Fire and they had these special shirts made for the whole team to wear (normally you can just wear a red shirt). As you can see they are more like dresses for my boys who are the shortest kids on the team. Granted Blake is only 5 playing on a 7 year old team (poor Landen). Side note: Jeb was 5'1" his freshman year of high school and he grew to 6'1" in a year....hopefully Landen will follow suit!

They had a great time and then it started to snow! One of those really random snowfalls in late April where we had beautiful weather for days and then Boom! We get a 30 minute snowfall. It's okay, we're used to Minnesota where winter lasts forever.

More fun in the snow!

Savannah's new friend Drew. I love watching Savannah learn to play with friends. She is very bossy and always says mine. She went and got Drew a Magic Tree House book like her so she wouldn't have to share and they could both read! (of course these are Landen and Blake's chapter books with no pictures).

Blake graduated from preschool on Friday!! He is happy to be moving on and keeps telling everyone that he is in kindergarten already. I try to explain he has 3 months of summer to enjoy but he keeps asking me about meeting his new kindergarten teacher next week. He was so adorable singing his songs during his program. He knew every word and sang with lots of enthusiasm. :) Landen was always so embarrassed to be in front of people at this age and Blake loves it (Landen is not that way now and I wish I had a little bit of it back...it was cute).

Mom and her goofy, fun boys!

This was on our first day in Colorado Springs. We went to the Royal Gorge which was unbelievable! Of course the pictures never capture how amazing it was. This is on a bridge that was built in the 1800's that is the largest expansion bridge in the United States. It is a quarter of a mile long and 2000 feet high and the gorge is down below. It scared me a little as it swayed back and forth (I don't like heights) and cars kept driving past us on it. I was sure the cars were going to cause us to tumble down in the water and rocks below! Apparently Savannah did not want to join in this picture because she wanted to race ahead on the bridge.

This is the tram ride across the gorge for the way back. I chose not to look down too often! I don't know how I married my husband who gets a thrill out of heights. He is always the one telling the kids to jump up in these things and "lets make it sway" :). There is a good reason why I am not in a lot of these pictures. You see, the baby decided to grow a lot this past week or so and I have still been wearing a lot of "in-between" clothes (looser, normal clothes) and after seeing our pictures, it is obvious it is time for maternity :). I think this will be a big baby. Landen (my first) was 8 lbs. 11 oz. so I definitely don't produce small babies!
Landen still enjoys the carousel ride but he won't admit it.

Savannah and Jeb getting ready for the train ride. They had so many fun things to do at the Royal Gorge area. We went hiking, rode a vertical train down into the gorge and had a great time! The kids were tired just after this but then we went back to our hotel and swam for awhile and then continued our fun with Mr. Biggs (see below for more details)

This is Little Bigg town inside Mr. Biggs (basically a cooler version of Boondocks, etc.). This is where Savannah and I spent our time. They had lots of fun places for kids to play. This is the princess, dress-up and beauty parlor section I was trying to coax Savannah into.

This is the type of dress-up she wanted to do. She took off her fire hat just before I got the picture but you get the jist (sp?) of her idea of fun!

This was one of her other favorite spots!

I did get her to have some fun in the shopping section though. She poured me some "hot chocolate" and we played pretend for awhile. I just enjoy doing "girly" things now that I have the chance. I'm sure she will like to put on the princess dress and the pretty tiara when she is older!

Here are a few pics I captured of the boys at Mr. Biggs before we hid away in Little Bigg town. This was called Bumper hockey. Blake was barely tall enough! I was so glad he was because they had a blast! I didn't get it, but his grin was priceless.

Riding the Go-Karts!

Landen and Dad coming in from the Go-Kart ride. Sorry about the bright flash on the right. We are having a hard time getting our settings just right on our camera. A lot of pictures come out horrible. Jeb is getting a new one from work that will be really nice so hopefully we will notice a difference!

Today on our trip it was Sunday so we took it a little easy. We went and explored Garden of the Gods which is amazing! Before we left Blake surprised us by fixing his own hair. He shut the bathroom door at the hotel and didn't come out for awhile. Then he presented us with this.

He explained he wanted to look like Christiano Ronaldo who is on Manchester United's team. He was voted best player in the premier league (England) and will likely win world player of the year. ManU is Jeb's favorite team and they won the Champions league last week. (ladies, if you google Christiano Ronaldo you will see why I enjoy watching Manchester United play also :)) Anyway, Blake was excited for his new do!

While we were packing up in the hotel Landen finally mastered tying his shoes!! Blake has been able to do it for awhile, but Landen is a perfectionist. He would try and if he couldn't get it right away he would just give up. I suppose it is a lot of my fault since I hate dealing with laces and often opted for the non-lace shoes. But now he is feeling very confident and happy that he figured out the trick to getting it right (and is no longer one-upped by his younger brother! :))

Jeb and the boys walking into Garden of the Gods. It was so beautiful!

Landen jumping off the rock. All the kids wanted to do was climb the rocks. Of course Savannah refused to be left behind. I wanted to stay on all of the nicely paved trails, but they wanted to explore all of the dusty dirt trails off to the side (of course I wore sandals and Jeb reminded me of that smart move the whole day :)) Oh well, we saw a lot of cool stuff!

Blake pausing during one of his climbs

At the top of one of the awesome red rocks! The background was amazing.

Does anyone else get nervous when their kids are near edges? I probably sound like I am afraid of everything! I love to do and try new things, but when you have 3 mobile children climbing and running, you kind of hold your breath!


Well, that was our short vacation. We had such a great time. I hope you survived all of those pictures and explanations. But remember, I have a goal to update more so be prepared!