playing tourist...

The best thing about having house guests is being able to play tourist yourself. Last week we had our first wave of guests for the summer. I love to have people visit and luckily we live in a pretty awesome place that people want to come to. Our first guest was Mark's mom. I was super excited to have her visit. Even though we live just 15 minutes away from her there is nothing like being able to talk lazily in your pj's over breakfast with someone. Or staying up late chit chatting.  Am I right? Well... I may be wrong in remembering this visit with Joan... we were pretty busy for long, lazy breakfasts and we were often whipped after a jammed packed day to stay up too late!!!

Here are some of the fun things we packed into her visit...

The first day we ran around town and even went to the park for a birthday party for one of Gavin's friends. That night we were pretty tired so we ordered pizza from our favorite place, Peppino's in Frisco, and watched Gavin's first movie, Peter Pan. After the movie Gavin was convinced he saw Peter outside. We all had to look and pretend too!

We actually rented the movie from the library, for free which is awesome! We may have started a summer trend. We have been reading all the Disney classics to Gavin from a storybook collection so he is totally into them. Seeing the movie makes it even more fun. We actually rented and watched Snow White on Friday!

One thing I should mention concerning a visit from Joan is that she loves to eat out. Luckily she takes as along!! I think we never ate at home for lunch and only had two dinners at home. We ate at all our favorite places, Dillon Dam Brewery, Frisco Marina, Smiling Moose Deli to name a few. Here we are at Arapahoe Cafe in downtown Dillon right along the shores of Lake Dillon...

They serve awesome breakfasts. 



After breakfast Teagan and I headed to back to the house for some much needed baby zzzz's. The rest of the gang headed to Copper.

I know this activity must of made Mark a little nervous, but I think it is too cute. Joan said Gavin wanted to "decorate the rocks" and did so by doing this...

So they were beautiful like this...

After Gavin's work was done he got to do what he was so excited about...

 Bumper boats...

But the highlight of Joan's visit was riding the Georgetown Train Loop. If you ever come to Colorado on vacation, especially with kids you must do this! It was a ball!! Just look at this face...

It is a bit pricey- $25 for adults, children under 3 are free. But you ride on an actually train on actual tracks through some beautiful scenery. I thought it was well worth it!

  

If you do ride and have little ones I would recommend getting to the train station early to watch them fill up the steam engine with water. It is just like the water tower kids play with on Thomas the Train table sets!

Here is the railroads website if you are interested.

 After the train ride we stopped in the little town of Silver Plume which is very neat. This town makes you feel like you have gone back in time.

We stopped at the small bakery, Sopp and Truscott, for lemon squares a friend had recommended to me. They did not disappoint!!



Hopefully if you ever come up our way you can use some of these ideas when you are the REAL tourists!! Especially check out Gavin's decorated rocks in Copper. :)

what we are up to...

Sorry for the long delay. Here is a little snapshot of our life lately in the mountains...

Lots of time by the lake... Mark actually has the paddleboard our this morning...

 FIRE!!

 And marshmellows and, yummm, s'mores!

Our backyard friends... yes our BACKYARD!! We have seem them twice and think we heard one this morning!



"Mooooose Mommy"

More to come later. We had our first house guest of the summer last week and Mark and I visited rock & roll holy ground!

bumpy chair...

I know I should be posting more about mountain life, but I can't help sharing this short post today...

Teagan is Bumboing it or as Mark calls the Bumbo, her bumpy chair.

Hope y'all are having a good day! I promise to be back with more soon. We have been super busy and I have a lot to share!

we're rocky mountain high...

I know it has been way to long since I have blogged. Sorry! We had a problem with the internet in our house and there just hasn't been time to sit down with a computer, frankly! It is too beautiful here to be inside typing on a computer. I promise to share more later, but it is late and i am looking forward to some time with my hubby. I will just share this picture tonight...

I think it sums up our feelings about being here. We are in awe of the natural beauty and just want to soak it all in.

Promise... more to come. I especially have to show you who joined us for lunch on Saturday!

taking care of a little this and that...

There has been no time to blog lately. I have been too busy juggling all my hats!

Teagan turned 3 months last week. I can't believe how fast she is growing. Check out what she has been working on!

 

:)

Most maternity leaves end after 2-3 months. Well... up until a few weeks ago I had been telling Mark that I was on maternity leave. I have been working hard on getting the books up to date and I am proud to report my receipts folder JUST about empty!

I also worked on created two displays for items that we donated to a very special foundation's benefit auction a few weeks ago.

Sometimes I think I missed my calling by not going into graphic design. I absolutely love playing on Photoshop and creating. Luckily I get to play while making marketing material for our businesses.

I also did some fun work around the house. I finally decorated for summer a couple weeks ago. I got all my sand and shell vase fillers out for the first time in 2 years. Didn't seem right to display these while we were living in the mountains!

But lately most of my time has been spent doing this...

That is right, I am packing like crazy to prepare our family for our summer in Colorado. Did you see the Space Saver Bags. You pack them and the suck all the air out with your vacuum so they take up much less space. They are awesome! Gavin and I had fun seeing our bags shrink away! And yes, those are sweaters you may have spotted in my pile of chaos. I actually had to purchase a bunch of cold weather clothes for little Teagan. After searching in stores around here to no avail (it has been in the 90's here!) I hit the jackpot on the Carter's website. 70% off sale with free shipping! I know she needs it though. I heard from a friend that it snowed there last week! One of the ski areas, A-Basin, is going to be open for the Fourth!!

Speaking of the Fourth... We are taking the day off tomorrow. Our plan is to hang by the pool all day, dinner with the family and then fireworks on the beach with friends. Can't wait! I did drop the hat on preparing for the holiday though. This is the only decoration we have up in our house.

Just couldn't do it when we are leaving for Colorado in 6 days. Yikes!!! Can't do it all, but the day will go on and I will relax by the pool. :)

Hope you Independence Day is a blast!!!