Boys and their toys

Today Lochlan and I were hanging out in Gunnison doing some fun stuff. We were finally on our way to the grocery, and passed by the hospital. I noticed that their medical helicopter was parked at its pad, so I parked and let Lochlan check it out. The helicopter pilot came out of the hospital and asked Lochlan if he wanted to fly it and Lochlan was too scared and shook his head "no". He did walk around it slowly, checking everything out though. He was really excited to get home and tell papa all about it. So cute!

It's Summer!

Here are some random photos of us from the past few months (most of them are from our cell phones)...

Our new canoe!

Back in early May, I started looking for people selling used canoes, as I've been wanting one since I was probably 14 years old. I happened to find a guy in Colorado Springs who was looking to trade his canoe for a high end mountain bike. Since I was getting a new mountain bike, I emailed the guy with pictures of my old mountain bike and he was really interested in doing the trade! When we went back to Colorado Springs the second weekend in May to pack up Matt's stuff so he could move here, we went to the canoe guys' house and he was more than willing to trade! So we scored a HUGE and in-really-excellent-shape Old Town canoe that didn't cost us a penny! :) We strapped the canoe to the top of a friends' truck that we were borrowing and trekked it back here to the mountains. We have been leaving it at Lake Irwin, but are hoping to move it tomorrow to Long Lake, which is just a couple of minutes down the road from us and is a quieter lake during the summer months. We have had numerous friends use the canoe already, and right after we got it, we took Lochlan out in it for an evening dinner canoe picnic. He was in heaven! Here are photos from that first night.

Viva Las Vegas!

View of the Strip from our hotel room: We drove to Las Vegas on May 9th for a week for Matt's sister, Johanna's wedding. We weren't sure how Lochlan would do in the car along the way, as we are "those old-school folk" who refuse to buy a video screen for him to watch on the back on the passenger-side head rest. In total, it took us just about 9.5 hours to get there, as we had some potty stops along the way, and Lochlan didn't sleep at all. You might be cringing, but he didn't squawk at all, either. Instead, he sang no less than 10,000 times the Alphabet song as well as counted 1 to 10 in Spanish. Over. And over. And over. Yet, he didn't cry or complain, even once, so we couldn't complain. We tried changing up the songs he sang and playing some scenery-sighting games, but he wasn't having it. HA! Regardless, we made it to Las Vegas, had a really great time sight-seeing, rode the amusement park rides at Circus Circus, then spent over 3 days with Matt's family there. Matt's mom, A.K.A. Grandma Ann, surprised everyone by flying in from Guatemala for the weekend as a gift to his sister, Jo, for her wedding. Everyone was so excited to see her, as it had been over a year and a half since she left for Guatemala and everyone has missed her so much (especially the grand kids, and myself!). We stayed at Treasure Island, right on "The Strip" and Lochlan has a completely skewed idea of pirates at this point. Last I knew, the pirate show at Treasure Island was an actual family-friendly pirate show, but it has turned into a risque, borderline-strip show. A couple of weeks ago, Lochlan was playing with some of his toys at home, looked up at Matt and said, "Pirates take off their clothes". Ummmm...yeah! We have barely been able to stop cracking up every time he says it, but once he starts repeating it in public, we are going to be pretty mortified. The wedding was really nice and just being around the family again was fun. The weather was ridiculously hot though and I know we would lose our minds having to be stuck indoors for so many months on end there. We were able to meet up with a high school girlfriend of mine at her house for a BBQ on Mother's Day, and it was so great to introduce her sweet little family to mine! Although we probably won't go back to Las Vegas for a long time, it was a great excuse to get out of town and see the family again. We discovered on this road trip that Lochlan is the ultimate road-tripper and does not complain even once in the car for hours and hours and hours on end. I'm attributing it to all of those day trips when I took him to the hot springs over the past few years, and got him used to going on long car trips for a day at a time. Lucky us! n-right:1em">