Growing Up

Papa pulled Jackson's first loose tooth last night!

Yum!

We went to one of my favorite places in Estes Park tonight after dinner. There are a million candy and ice cream stores here, but this one has the best pralines ever.

Playing games

We ate chili and played this game several times last night as we enjoyed the cold, rainy weather. It's all about Rocky Mountain National Park, so we learned a lot.

Emerald Mountain

We hiked again today. This was Jackson's second "peak" to complete on his own legs. He's been to the top of this mountain twice before - once in my tummy and once in a backpack. Both boys did great.

At the summit:

When we finished:

Tuesday

We took Trail Ridge Road to the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park today and hiked two trails with Papa. Then tonight Grammy made us a delicious dinner.

The weather was great while we were hiking, but we've gotten a lot of rain since we've been here. I wish there was a way we could bring it back to Texas.

Mat's birthday

Today we started by hiking with Jackson to the top of Bible Point.

And we finished with a birthday celebration for Mat. Playing pool and eating pizza at Bob and Tony's...




...then chocolate cake and presents back at the cabin.

Sunday

We met our friends from Austin, the Sewells, who are also on vacation up here. We all rode an old-timey train and toured a silver mine. Then we experienced more storms and traffic, but we made it to our final destination in time for dinner with my parents.


-- Post From My iPhone

Saturday on the road.

Well, it started out great. We left Snyder at 10:00, had a nice picnic in the park in Amarillo...


...watched a ton of movies...



...then everything kind of went downhill. Luckily, I don't have pictures of the rest, but it was a trip that we'll remember for a long time. We had a Number 3 episode, a migraine, a thunderstorm, a lot of sold out hotels, another worse thunderstorm, and after about 13 hours on the road a hotel that was noteworthy for it's weirdness. As we were leaving the hotel on Sunday we all started talking about what it smelled like. Jackson thought it smelled like old bacon, Mat said bar-b-que sauce, and I thought it smelled like cinnamon cigarette smoke. Do not recommend the Days Inn in Silverthorne.

I'll update on Sunday and Monday soon...

iPhone Vacation

We left this evening for our annual trip to Colorado. I'm going to try to keep my blog updated as we go using my iPhone. We planned to leave tomorrow morning but decided that would eliminate our obligatory stop in Llano for Cooper's BBQ. So we packed up the car and left today around 5:30.



We made it to Snyder, TX and finally had to stop. We just checked into the Holiday Inn Express at midnight and got the boys to bed. It was fun to see all the giant windmills at night with what looked like hundreds of flashing red lights spanning out across the horizon. We're planning to hit the road again at 8:30am sharp. (Which means we'll probably leave around 10:00. :-)

Sweet Birthday Boy

I couldn't let another day go by without posting some pics of our birthday boy. Luke turned three last week! He is just about the sweetest kid in the world - so easy and funny and cute. We had a fantastic birthday, especially because we had our Foster cousins in town that week and a visit from Granddad and Gammo and cousin Donice. Hopefully, I will be able to post about all the activities we did later - everything from a Bat Cruise on Town Lake to Hamilton Pool to fondue at the Melting Pot. But for now, here are just a few photos of the birthday weekend.

For Kirsten and Daniel

Thank you for the great birthday post you did for Luke. Now a little something for you! After I saw how much you enjoyed Luke's "where's my hands thing" at Thanksgiving (and how much he loved doing it for you over and over), I shot this video. I never got around to posting it, though, so hopefully it's still funny. I occasionally hear him doing it now for his own enjoyment, but of course it's harder with short sleeves. Maybe it'll make a big come-back in the fall.

At the Movies: INDEPENDENCE DAY!

The cast and crew:
Jackie and Judd Scott
Charlotte, Randy, Catie, and Elizabeth Byrd
Mat, Beth, Jackson, and Luke Hames
Steve, Jenny, Ben, and Little Megan Frame

and a cameo by Christopher Byrd



The Director




The Producer



The Leading Man



The Ingenue



The crew scouted the location.



The cast looked for their motivation.



Superman will do!



They enjoyed the craft service.



They found their marks and prepared for action...



There were stunts!



There was comedy!




There were special effects!





In the Big Battle Scene...



...the tanks of King's Country attacked the giant frog of Panther Creek...



and the frog won!



The crowd went wild!



They toasted the victory with banana pudding! (YUM! Extra bananas for me!)



Stay tuned for the sequel tentatively titled: LABOR DAY!



This production was made possible by our founding fathers. God bless America!

And that's a wrap.