Camping and 4th of July

I kind of liked having the 4th of July on a Wednesday this year, since it broke up the week. And it turned out to be even more fun since the Shaheens invited us to go camping with them the night before. We just drove up after Trav got off work Tues. night and since it was only about an hour away, we still had daylight hours to enjoy! We camped at a place called Hesperus, in Colorado. It was gorgeous. We were just tucked into what felt like an enclave between two mountains, surrounded by pine trees and bordering a little creek. 

The kids played and threw rocks into that stream for hours. And it was great, because it was really shallow. Megan was going nuts because the lighting was perfect, so we tried doing a few impromptu family photos... looking oh so good in our camping attire. :) I'll have to post those later when I get them.

The biggest bummer was all the fire restrictions, so we couldn't do a camp fire, but the Shaheens had a sweet camping stove that we cooked everything on. 

Hot dogs for din din!

Weston lookin' good in his jammies tucked into shoes.

 Collin and Lily played so well together. It was so funny to hear them talking to each other.

Collin: "Hey, Lily, wanna go see the spookiest, spooky, spookier ....." (he probably wasn't even sure what he was trying to say)

Lily: "Uh, YA I do!!" ... (with so much enthusiasm)

Then, that night, they cozied up to Bron and started telling {stories}. It was hysterical. Lily's best was about the girl that was "ugly. She was so ugly. UGLY. Kinda ugly." haha. And Collin's always involved a vehement, "and then I CUT off his hands!!" (Bad guys hands, of course. Cuz that makes it OK.) Lily would also sing her stories and they were adorable! I wished I had my video camera like Megan! This age is to die for.

After the kids were in bed, we just talked and talked and talked. Kind of my favorite thing to do. (Like you couldn't tell.) We love the Shaheens! Such good friends.

The next morning, Megan brought up all the fixings for French toast. She is the best person to have around if you want good food!

And Collin spent some time sporting Weston's jacket. We are classy campers.

 I absolutely LOVE this picture!!! So cute!! 

 This one got dir-tee!! He loved playing in the dirt by the fire pit and therefore was rather sooty.

I cleaned his hands multiple times and they always ended up like this in no time. 

This was also the day that Trav cleaned his Swiss army knife with a pump of hand sanitizer and cut out Weston's stitches. The holes were fairly prominent at first, but it looks really good now.

We spent most of the day in the mountains, then drove home in time to shower and get ready for a BBQ that night at the Snedaker's house.
I don't know if we were the most patriotically dressed, but my toes were!! (Gotta do something while watching Bachelorette. :) And don't worry, those dark areas are a shadow, not dirt... or funky tan line. :)

 They had a slip and slide and kiddie pool in the backyard that the kids played in most of the time, then at the end we went out front on their driveway while they set off a bunch of fireworks.

Both boys loved the fireworks. Weston was so funny and would automatically clap after each display, without any prompting to do so. He'd look at me while clapping, with raised eyebrows, like, "Well, wasn't that somethin'!"

 At one point, I tried to count how many kids were there and I got to 17... not even sure if that was all of them. All under the age of 6! 

 Their little boy, Jett, is just 3 days older than Weston, and climbed into Trav's lap at one point and gave Weston a huge hug. It was so cute! 

We had such a good time. Happy birthday, America!