The girls are such wonderful friends! At least, usually they are. While at the pool, they spent almost the entire time coming up with water cheerleading routines. It was so sweet!

Castlewood Canyon

We LOVE this place! Except, Camille is a mountain goat who scares me half to death as she climbs everywhere.

Birthday!

For the first time in a LONG time, we got to go to a Birthday party! Their cousin turned 4! We went and tye died shirts, hit a pinata, jumped on the trampoline, ate some pizza  and cake and had a GREAT time! It is fun that even in a pandemic we can find ways to celebrate.

Map!

We have a super ugly hole above our fireplace. It is meant for a TV, back in the day when a TV needed a big, huge, ugly cut out above a fireplace to fit into (oh, a TV never needed that? Well, the 90s would disagree).

I saw on Etsy a great way to cover the ugly hole up while still allowing for the nice storage capacity for non-TV related items: A pull down map!

The problem: It cost about $400, and in looking at it I realized that I should be able to make it for much less.

I decided to experiment and have fun trying to figure it out.

I found a map I LOVED on Etsy and for $!0 bought the printing rights. I had it printed to the size we needed, then the girls helped me glue it to a pull down shade, stain the wood it would hang from, and then Ben and I hung it up.

It didn't turn out perfect- it doesn't roll up as nicely as I would like,

But, it cost about $120, so it saved us quite a bit- enough to be OK with the inconvenience of not rolling up as well as I would like.

The finished project- I LOVE it!!!

Ella In Town!

Last year Audra's absolutely favorite and best friend moved to Texas. It was a horrible, terrible day! Her mom had surgery in Denver, so she came up and stayed with us. It worked out well because they had to quarantine for 3 weeks because of the surgery so I wasn't worried about her exposing us. We went to Chatfield, played at DeKoevend river, hiked St. Mary's...it was a great week!

Oh, and we went to Little Man's ice-cream! So yummy!

And, Ella brought face masks for all the girls- it was really fun!

St. Mary's Glacier

We have hiked this probably 4 times before, and I am pleased to say that this time it was actually really easy! Who would have thought I'd get more in shape with age?

We were very happy to have Ella with us today. It was 100 degrees in Denver, so getting up into the mountains to enjoy the cool air was WONDERFUL!!!!

Camille insisted on being Simba: