This last weekend, the kids and I drove to Fort Collins to see Joe. His new job requires him to work there for a couple weeks at a time, and then he gets to come home for a few days before going back. SO- I decided I didn’t want to be away from him for that long and away we went! Five hours later, we were there! And Fort Collins is AMAZING! I love it there. I could totally live there… except for the fact that it’s 20 hours away from my family.
Anyway, we met Joe at his apartment and then we all drove downtown to people watch and eat dinner. We found this cool restaurant called The Beach House Grill and it was YUMMY! We got to eat up on the rooftop patio and the kids LOVED it. They even had a little kid area where Haylie and Connor spent the majority of their time before our food came. Maggie was not impressed that she had to sit still, again, after being in the car for 5 hours…

(See that bump on Maggie’s tummy? Yes, that would be her extremely LARGE “outie.”)

Afterwards, we walked down to this little bakery/ice cream shop called Mary’s Mountain Cookies where they take homemade GIANT cookies and slap some ice cream in the middle (multiple flavors of both, I might add).
Maggie liked it.

Haylie and Connor weren’t in to trying new things, so they just got ice cream cones.

Joe wanted to take us on a carriage ride around downtown. I’d never been on one before this, and I probably won’t do it again until all of my children are moved out. ;) It really wasn’t that bad, except Connor wanted to sit on the step and ride (as in where you step UP into the carriage). And Maggie didn’t want to sit at all. But, they all loved the horsie and we were all together, which is what really counts!

These are all of the pictures I got. On Father’s Day, we drove South of Fort Collins to Horsetooth Reservoir. We drove around and did some sight seeing about half the time and then parked the other half at the reservoir so the kids could swim. They did some wading and some splashing, but no swimming. It was WAY too cold! The snow just melted, like yesterday, for goodness sakes (OK not really. But not that long ago). I would have taken pictures, except I forgot my camera (but not really. It was in my purse the whole time. Grrr). Great weekend! Great family! Can’t wait to go back. 

Big brothers are the best. I always wished I’d had a big brother... Connor and Maggie have this special bond and they’ve had it since the day she was born; her face always lights up when he walks in the room. She ADORES him and he loves her right back.

I just thought this was so sweet- he was so patient with Mags as she waddled her way over to the big kid splash pad.

He stopped and waited and encouraged.

She finally crossed “the line” and stepped out into the unknown. And Connor couldn’t have been more pleased.

And then there was a big eruption of water and he was off, without a second glance at his poor baby sister. Oh well. :)

Maggie didn’t really like the whole water-spraying-in-her-face thing (if you couldn’t tell).

Isn’t she so nice to share? :)

(My niece Naomi and our Beagle, Lady)

Working.

Concentrating.

Scraping.

Piling.

Picking.

Inspecting.

Raking.

Working.

Boys….

On Monday, Joe and I and the kids moved back to Green River, and so we thought we better see some of what Rawlins had to offer, before we left. So we went and toured the old Wyoming State Penitentiary, which happened to be just a few blocks from where we lived. I took quite a few pictures, including one of my brother-in-law Sam, in the gas chamber, but those’ll have to wait for another post.

This picture and story really stuck out to me though…

I mean, can you imagine? She’s crazy!

Like literally…