Week of May 24 - May 31

We started the last week of school with a concert from Brookside's new choir, of which Sarah was a part! She did great! She got to be part of a small group that made scary sounds -- she made the "howl!" My favorite song was entitled, "Be Nice to Your Parents." Love it! Sarah always reminds me that the second line is, "'though they don't deserve it!" I still like it, though. She knows I do deserve it. That's why she's so good to me.


Monday was also fun because we got a visit from Mary and Dena and Jordan and little Natalia. We had dinner together and they oo-ed and ahh-ed over Benjamin. It was a fun visit!



Thursday found us back at Brookside Elementary watching Sarah sing, again. This time, though, it was for 6th grade graduation (actually, celebration is what they called it this year)! The sixth graders put on a fun show where they performed on their recorders and sang "Go the Distance" with flashlight syncopation. It was very cool. Then we watched a slideshow with pictures from the year. Sarah's favorite picture was of her and Allyson at lunch, showing off Sarah's giant strawberry!

Thursday was also the last day of school! So, on Friday, we packed up and went camping!! Yeah! Fun for us! I reserved a campsite in the southwest corner of Colorado at a place called Mancos Lake State Park. It was a beautiful campsite in a forest of pine trees. Here is our new tent:

Look at all that space!!

At our campsite, we sat around the fire . . .

And made s'mores . . .

and ate pancakes every morning made by our gourmet dad . . .

On Saturday,

Mariah's favorite thing was fishing with her dad out on the lake in the canoe in the morning.

Cheyenne's favorite thing was playing house in the tent which she and Calianne did while waiting for the big girls to come back from the lake.

Sarah's favorite thing was seeing the cowgirls which we saw when we came back out of Mesa Verde National Park after having gone halfway up, realizing we'd never make it on so little gas, and having to come back down and out of the park. That was after lunch. At the gas station, a whole herd of cows with little ones crossed along the road next to us and they were being herded by four gals on horses -- real cowgirls!

Calianne's favorite thing was seeing the Indian dances. When we finally got into Mesa Verde, we found that a group of Indians were visiting and were performing dances at the amphitheater. Since Mesa Verde protects the ancient remains of several Indian cliff dwellings, it set a great atmosphere for the rest of our exploring! (Plus, cowgirls and Indians all in the same day! Bonus!)

Savannah's favorite thing was when we hiked down to the "Spruce Tree House" cliff dwellings. There we got to explore the old houses up close and even go into the underground kiva (which was kind of like their living room). It was really neat to see something so old and still so well preserved! They date those cliff dwellings to the early 1200s.

Megan said her favorite thing would have been the Cliff Palace (more cool ruins), but since we didn't get to hike down to it, she wasn't so sure. (How's that for making sure the parents are sufficiently punished?) The Cliff Palace was really stunning, but you had to go down hundreds of stairs to get to it and then climb ladders up the cliff face to get out. We decided against it seeing as we would need to carry a toddler and an infant and help two five-year-olds and it was the end of an already long day. Still, it was amazing to see even from the top.

After the park, we went into town and ate at Jack and Janelle's Country Kitchen. We even met Jack and Janelle! We got back to our tent after dark and made it through another night!

The next day was Sunday. In the morning, we had a family devotional which was beautiful out there in the pines. Afterwards, we decided to drive to Four Corners so we could put an appendage in each state and be in four states at once!! We were planning on taking lots of funny pictures. The picture we did take turned out to be a lot funnier than any of us had planned:

Four Corners is in the middle of nowhere and quite a long drive and when we got there . . . it was under construction!! There was a chainlink fence all the way around the spot we had driven so far not to see but to BE IN!! In the picture you see several miffed girls and then a father and daughter engulfed in mirth. Savannah nearly hyperventilated from laughter. It was really funny and we made the best of it by walking around the chainlink fence through all four states -- though we had no idea when we were in each one. I must admit to being a bit miffed at the Navajo Nation -- those who are in charge out there -- but it will be a great family memory.

That evening we took a walk around the lake by which we were camped. It was beautiful!

Monday morning we packed up and headed out. We stopped at the Anasazi Heritage Information Center (or something like that) on our way back to the interstate. We got to see a cool movie about how they found all the ruins and also walk thru the museum and try our hand at grinding corn and weaving a rug. There was a short hike to a pit house ruin outside the visitor center that we decided to walk to last thing. We shouldn't have though, because we were too worn out! You can see our exhausted pose even though the view was beautiful!

We had a lot of fun. I hope it is a trip we will always remember!