comanche lake

While the girls left earlier Friday afternoon, the boys headed out Friday evening and met up with the Boy Scout troop to go on their own backpacking adventure in Comanche Lake in Northern Colorado - Jaiden's first ever backpack trip!

Dennis sent a few texts Sunday afternoon on his drive home of their adventure...

They had to cross many logs...

and more...

Not sure if this photo will work but it is a panoramic Dennis took of Comanche Lake.

All in all they had a good time. Dennis said Jaiden got blisters and so Dennis took a lot of weight off Jaiden's pack to help ease the hike. Dennis also said that the other adult scoutmasters were pretty impressed when Jaiden pulled out of his own backpack, his own backpack stove, cook set and made himself his own meals!

The other cool thing is Jaiden now only has one more requirement for his camping merit badge!

Jaiden's description of the adventure "Awesome!"

tomahawk troop adventure

Within 5 days of returning home, Alyssa and I were off for our Girl Scout troop overnight weekend at Tomahawk. We left mid-afternoon on Friday and finally arrived at about 4 pm. We were greeted by a deer near our cabin seasonal!

Luckily the fire ban was lifted so we were able to make foil dinners over the campfire and then the girls wanted to go for a night walk. Alyssa took them up to where the teepee's are pitched. While they were climbing in, I noticed how cool their flashlights looked so I had them keep them on so I could take a photo from outside...

... and then one of them inside.

The next morning we woke to beautiful blue skies and after our breakfast was our farm tour.

Alyssa went straight for the chicken coop...

and I think picked up every chicken in there!

After lunch we had a fire building session that was led by the camp staff...

Alyssa's group did the log cabin style campfire...

The first girl's match blew out so Alyssa was second in line and she lit the fire beautifully!

Then it was time for archery!

Once she warmed up, she had perfect form and was doing very well!

This is my target - you can't see it very well unless you make the photo bigger but there are 2 bull's eye, 1 red and 1 blue/black border! It was a lot of fun!

This was a cute photo walking back from dinner to our cabins with the girls arms linked and singing their way back...

A Saturday night campfire with s'mores...

... and that topped our awesome Girl Scout overnight!

guppies

I have so many things to share and not enough time! So going back a few weeks again, we flew home  from Washington/Idaho/Montana on Saturday and by Sunday at 6:30 am, we were headed to our final swim meet for the season! Yippee! Swim team was certainly fun to do in the outdoor summer pool but getting up every morning was not so great - both kids decided they prefer sleeping in and doing the lower key evening swim team twice a week. But this was our last swim meet so definitely a must not miss!

The kids did awesome and thankfully, the weather was cooler. I volunteered as a timer so my view of Jaiden's breaststroke was this...

and Dennis' view was this...

Go Jaiden go!

Here was Alyssa in her breaststroke... 

but this time, Dennis' view of her butterfly!

Go Alyssa go!

12 yr old boys

Not that long ago, I called my dad and said "I have a serious problem. My son has somehow turned into my little annoying brother and I was reliving the horror of living with a 12 year old boy." I meant that in the best way... of course! My dad laughed because the things this boy does now is really quirky and things maybe only a 12 year old boy or any boy gets. My dad understood it whatever it was at that particular time.

The it is now these funny things that have happened in the last two days - the first was Friday night when he became obsessed with making these optical illusion dinosaurs. He wanted to make a 6 foot tall one but that was out of the question given I only have 8 1/2 x 11 paper and a printer that prints that size so he settled on creating these two dinosaurs... which I must say are really cool!

If you walk from one side of the dinosaur to it's other side, it is as if the head is following you - it really looks like it is moving. I think what was funny about this incident was that he kept asking for help but he was talking non stop at the same time. 

At one point with the first one, he told me it was going to watch me all the time and then try to attack me. I nonchalantly said I would flatten it and he roared in laughter. But the best part was after he had tried so hard to put it together, it didn't work. I told him that was because he chose red instead of green - which he thought was hilarious - but okay that wasn't the best part but it was when we watched a YouTube video on how these work and he had assembled it incorrectly! I laughed so hard and he was laughing too so we made the green one which did work and I carefully took apart the red one and reassembled it for him. 

They now reside in his room watching him. He wants to make more.

Then Saturday afternoon, he decided to clean his room. The next thing I know he is borrowing my computer to watch a how to play his nose flute on YouTube. His Aha Moment occurs and he's walking all around the house playing his nose flute annoying both his sister and dad. I, however, having grown up with a little brother know how to tune him out... until I come around the corner and see him like this...

 I could not stop laughing and then I asked him to play a song and I would video it for all of you to enjoy his new talent. But you have to come to the web site to see the video because it won't load in the email. 

It's a unique talent, right? 

And this was all in barely under 24 hours... life is good with an annoying 12 year old boy!

team flare

Thank you everyone for supporting our team... I hate to post these photos because you will see them in your mailbox once I get the cards back from the printer but... the kids did it again! They were not the top fundraisers this year but they did earn a medal for being second place for top team fundraising.

Go Team Flare!

 This year we changed it up a bit. Jaiden, of course, ran the walk and finished in 23 minutes 12 seconds. I ran behind him... definitely not with him! but I ran the entire walk and finished at 36 min 49 seconds! While Dennis walked this time with Alyssa and I think she was quite happy with the new arrangement!

I had them pose with the Red Tie Challenge signs for fun...

They are both too cute! The other fun thing was that any team who raised over $1000 received a $10 gift card to Starbucks so we stopped on the way and the kids both got Frappucino's! 

Such a fun morning and now... I need a nap!

5th and final...

Our fifth and final day at Priest Lake was full of ideal lake down time!

We started the day with breakfast at Hill's resort across the lake. I had never been over there so that was fun to see and breakfast was delicious. On the boat ride home, we decided to try some more waterskiing and as it would turn out, Alyssa got up! I have a cute video of her but for the life of me I can't extract any still shots so I will try to upload the video but you will have to come to the web site to view it.

In the meantime, here are the final photos of our last full day...

one relaxing on the dock and the other floating on a dolphin

I love this cutie pie!

A quick photo of Dennis in the lake with the kids

and that concludes our trip to Montana, Idaho and Washington!

more sking and tubing

The lake returned to its peaceful and beautiful calm self again - thank goodness. The sun came out and the weather was phenomenal. We did a lot more relaxing on the dock and took a few spins in the boat for some water skiing...

 Doesn't he look cute? So glad Dennis thought to take a quick photo of him perched on the back of the boat. And here he is up and skiing again...

 Then he and Alyssa did several runs on the tubs...

 and the tsunami which is a crazy tube that has no seats!

Dennis did a few runs with each of the kids but I wasn't in the boat at the time so I missed out getting a photo of him flying off the tsunami. He, however, caught a really long video of Alyssa and I in the tube - I wasn't about to try the tsunami but I said sure to the tube... I was scared out my mind... this was a side of Granny Suze I had never seen and I was certain Alyssa and I were going to flip. I was very relieved when the ride was over and offered to swim the tube in from the dock, except I have no idea what Dennis was thinking and he threw me the rope so I had to swim about 1/3 of a mile in! Alyssa loved being pulled by me... I made a note to self to not do that again!

boulder trail

As it turned out that storm stayed all night and the next day. We woke to the waves still crashing on the shore and to a very grey, cool day. We decided to set out to explore a local hiking trail that took us way up into the hills behind the lake. The locals call it the Boulder Trail but the official name is Hunt Lake Trail. It sounded interesting enough so we thought we would give it a go.

We should have turned around when we couldn't drive any further up the road... it really was designed for a higher clearance road than a small rental car but Dennis parked it to the side and we hiked the last 1 1/2 to the parking lot and trailhead.

This is a view of Priest Lake from the parking lot/trailhead.

 And this was the start of our trail... and when we realized why the locals call it the Boulder Trail...

 because the trail wasn't well marked and there were rocks, piles of rocks everywhere...

 an unending amount of rocks to keep climbing up, up and up...

Dennis took a few photos - this next one is Alyssa and I. Alyssa wasn't so keen on climbing the rocks and her fear of heights stepped in several times requiring a lot of coaxing and encouraging.

I took this next photo thinking this might be the top but then I discovered there was yet another pile of boulders to climb down!

 This is the first miniature lake you first come to...

... and where Jaiden relaxed on a rock while I took a few photos... 

 ... and as we waited for Dennis and Alyssa to catch up with us...

 And this is Hunt Lake!

 We couldn't see much of the mountains behind the lake because of the clouds but I don't think it went much higher up. It was so beautiful and serene!

Alyssa was thrilled to have a time to rest and eat some grapes!

 And one last view of the smaller lake before we headed back through the boulder fields!

 This next photo Dennis took as we were coming down. I didn't even realize he had taken it but I liked it because there aren't many photos of me with the kids! I can't remember what I was grabbing for out of my bag but I do know at this point, I was looking forward to finishing this hike!

And that was our 3rd day at Priest Lake! That hike literally took us the entire afternoon. I think we left the cabin at about 10:30am and didn't return until almost 5:30pm! It was definitely an adventure!

kayaks, floats and skis

An interesting day on the lake today! The kids were thrilled to find that Granny had kid size kayaks and eagerly took those out for a morning spin. I was a little surprised to look up and see them so far out but since we had just done paddle boarding in the middle of the reservoir, I wasn't too alarmed!

 That is them - those two little specks. As they came closer, I took several more photos.

 Jaiden...

 And an unhappy Alyssa because I was taking her photo!

 Then we went out for a spin on the boat and after 24 years, I tried to get up on one ski to show the kids but my memory didn't serve me well and I just couldn't quite pop out of the water as quick as I used to. Jaiden, however, was intrigued so he jumped in, put on two skis and yelled "hit it!"

 First try and he was up. This is actually a still shot from the video we took. We were screaming and hollering at him and he has this crazy smile on his face. So excited that he got up so easily!

Then it was just lounge time on the dock for the afternoon as the waves kicked up. Jaiden even attempted to take the kayak out in those waves...

... as it turns out those waves never stopped crashing the shore. Shortly after this photo, we had take down everything and strap it down as the wind and waves became quite relentless. We still enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the cooler weather ... just from the deck instead of the dock!