Holiday Weekend

Happy (a few days post) 4th of July! We celebrated by going up to Silverton, where Maggie had been invited to be a part of the parade. She got to ride on “the tank” for half the route and then walked in the color guard for the second half. She felt very special!

One of the highlights of the parade is always the last entry — the fire trucks. They turn on their hoses and spritz (or deluge) the crowd as they pass. Tessa wasn’t too sure about that part, but she liked all the candy and necklaces that people threw at her. We stayed over for the fireworks. Both girls stayed up until close to 10 so as not to miss the spectacle. And it was spectacular! They put on a huge show, and it is echo-y and boom-bastic in that mountain bowl, let me tell you. So of course both girls fell asleep in the middle. Don’t ask me; I don’t know what kind of children I’m raising either.
On our way home we stopped by Andrew Lake and walked around a bit. We live in the mountains! Sometimes it’s still hard to believe we actually live in the mountains.

Then on Monday we drove up to Black Bear Pass and hiked halfway to Telluride. It’s steep and it’s high, but boy-o is it beautiful!

Obviously you can’t have had as good a holiday weekend as we did, but we hope you had fun however you chose to celebrate, kick back, and bliss out!

Desert Camping

Let’s backtrack to March and our first family vacation (and when I also took a vacation from this blog). We went to Utah to Natural Bridges for the girls’ inaugural camping trip. We went with our best friends – Kenny and Stephanie and their two girls Nora and Julia – and had a spectacular time! It was still a little bit chilly at night (Tessa had to be removed to my sleeping bag in the middle of the night each night), but both girls did amazing. Maggie blew us all away with her hiking, and even Tessa did some trail walking down on the canyon floor. It felt like home to be back in the slickrock country and of course the kids loved scrambling and climbing and building sand piles. When it was time to go back home, Maggie cried and said she never wanted to leave. I’d say that’s a success!
We found an amazing park in Dolores, CO

The fam, plus a blond photobomber

Our tent setup

Maggie, Nora, Julia

Slickrock hiking

Sipapu bridge

Tessa on the go

Maggie with a mission

Maggnificent Monday

Who is this girl? Look at her. Maggie is four and a half. It’s unbelievable that half a decade has passed since we knew of her. Most of the time Bill and I look at each other and marvel at how amazing this kid is. She is a rock star of a hiker and walker. Kids much older than her have a hard time keeping up with her on treks. She loves to run down trails and will just spout imaginings for miles. Sometimes I walk to pick her up from school – a 2.25 mile walk with 200 feet of elevation change; mostly I’m hurrying along behind her. Maggie is reading all over the place. We’ll be driving along and she’s just talking nonstop, saying all the words she can read on signs out the window. Sometimes she’ll read us a book at bedtime now, and the cemetery is a favorite place of hers to sound out funny words (and search for Jesus’ tombstone). She’s very mature about some things, like when she realized she’d lost her favorite stuffed unicorn and simply told our neighbor she was having a sad day. And she’s in a booster seat now instead of those monstrous strap-you-in-and-hope-you-can-still-breathe carseats.
There are times when Bill and I look at each other and wonder who’s genes are to blame for certain things. She’s back to refusing to go to school since they made it a rule you have to wear shorts underneath skirts and dresses. (Of course she still goes and has a wonderful day and doesn’t want to come home.) There are nights when she strides out of her room at 9:30 and asks for more books to read in bed and then at 5:15 the next morning she’s saying she’s bored of being in her room. Her obstinancy is starting to win out over our motivation to teach her how to swim and how to ride a two-wheeler. And she’s doing that charming kid thing about eating boogers (even after I told her they are her body’s trash, just like poop). Oh, and she’s teaching her sister wonderful things like screaming in the house and splashing bathwater all over the floor and eating without hands or utensils.
But she’s also taking her sister’s hand on the sidewalk, and trading her toys to get one she really wants, and writing her “love you” cards. She’s asking to go on beekeeping dates with Bill, and setting up playdates so Bill and I can have dinner together, and asking grandparents to babysit Tessa so she and I can get pedicures. She is requesting alone-time when she feels frustrated and fighting bedtimes less often and accepting that she can’t buy a toy every time we go in the grocery store. We love love love this girl!

Fantesstic Friday

The girls tend to get in snits when they bathe together, so one evening Tessa got her own personal tublet. She thought it was pretty fun, I got to do the dishes, and the baby soup stirred itself.

Tessa is growing up so fast. She is running, in her own direction and according to her own whims. She is climbing up and down stairs, at her own pace. She is using a fork to feed herself, whatever she chooses on her plate. She has opinions about everything: what shoes she wears, which rock to carry home, how she’s held, who tickles her knees. She is starting to see the humor in real things, like a book where the turkey consistently wears clothes wrong and always says “oops.” She is only missing two teeth (in progress) and her hair is long enough to pin back with a bow (if she’d ever leave it in there). She doesn’t like to have her hair brushed or her toes touched or to be left alone in a room. But she is also to an age where I can tell her “I’m going to put the laundry in the washing machine and then I’ll be right back. Okay?” And she’ll say “okay” and wait. The cat is out of the bag about lollipops (pop), marshmallows (marmo), chocolate (choc), ice cream (i meem), and popsicles (pockle). She’s still pretty picky and fickle about food. However, that brain can now comprehend “take a bite of ___ and then you can have ___.” Sometimes it’s a pretty weird reward system: “have a bite of watermelon and then you can have another kale chip” or “have some sweet potato with cinnamon and then you can have hummus pureed with roasted eggplant.” And she follows her sister’s every lead, which is sometimes a great thing, sometimes not so great, and sometimes leads to just plain chaos.

//www.youtube.com/get_player

Just another evening in the Collins household.