The Golden Days of Summer

Life is great! For the first time in over 2 years, life finally seems "easy." We have settled into a great routine here at our little apartment. Jack is in preschool for 3 hours, twice a week. That gives me a nice break to spend some time with Lily and do chores. The other days we are happily busy with all sort of activities such as swimming, gymnastics and karate. Meanwhile, Luke is working up in the loft and even though he is putting in tons of hours, we are able to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner as a family almost every day. We are thoroughly enjoying our apartment community, our friends here, the swimming pool and our awesome view. I couldn't be happier with our perfect sized apartment that is big enough to live in, yet small enough to be able to keep clean. I recently bought a double stroller and now I am able to jog around the lake with Luke several times a week as well as walk pretty much everywhere with both kids.

I am just soaking up every last one of these golden days because I know soon it will end. Soon we will be thrust into the excitement (stress) of another international move. Soon we will give up this glorious sunshine for cold and gloomy weather. Soon we will have to say goodbye to our new friends and be faced with making new ones. Soon everything will change. 

But until then, I am savoring every moment of this golden summer. 

Lily ready to start the day

Jack's preschool class

Karate class

Jack's swim lessons

Lily's swim lessons

Amazing Athletes class

Gymnastics class

Awana's

"Little Scientists" program

Preschool story time at the library

Sunday night pizza night

Ready for  a walk in the stroller

Family movie night at the church

Face painting at the local Oktoberfest

Lily loves her baby story time:

Look who's walking everywhere!

Pooped out from having too much fun:

The butterfly project

Several weeks ago we got a shipment of live caterpillars. 

Caterpillars in the small container
with the white lid

We spent a week or so watching them grow until one day they started forming into chrysalis

Then we were able to watch them hatch out as butterflies. It was really awesome and Jack and Lily both loved watching their butterflies. Jack would help me feed them everyday

Squeezing some sugar water into bananas

Jack named our butterflies Big Daddy, Tiny, Tic Tac and Shelly

Our butterflies

Until finally it was time to release our butterflies. We decided to release them into the Butterfly Pavilion outside of Denver.

Our last morning with the butterflies

At the Butterfly Pavilion

One of the zookeepers came to help us release the butterflies.

One of the butterflies wasn't ready to say goodbye and he flew on Jack's shirt

Finally we detached him from Jack's shirt and set him by some food. Jack didn't want to say goodbye.

After finally saying goodbye to our butterflies, we spent several hours visiting with the other butterflies






There was also an indoor area where the kids could play

Jack in the spider web

Jack holding a tarantula

Lily cute as ever

It was a really fun project to watch the caterpillars turn into butterflies. Lily still looks for the butterflies every morning. We will have to do it again when she is older.

Day to day

We are settling in to a new "normal" here at our apartment. Jack has started preschool two afternoons a week and Lily and I are getting some one on one time. She is such a fun little girl. She is very happy and friendly, but yet feisty as heck! 

Jack is enjoying his baby sister much more now that she can interact with him. They play together and he loves to make her laugh.

 They also love hiding under the table:

Reading books together:

Snuggling together:

Playing outside together:

And sticking up for each other:

Jack is becoming quite the little scientist. He is always asking to do experiments and he loves making hypotheses. 

Playing with color tablets

Watching how celery drink water

Making color changing volcanos

We have made some new friends at our apartment complex and Jack has had a blast scootering around town with his new friends. 

Ice cream with our friends

Lily and Josh

At the pet store

At Bounce!

Crazy kids!

We also had a visit from our friends in the Springs. Jack's buddy Lucca and his dad came to stay with us for one night and we visited a music festival in Ft. Collins

Jack and Lucca

We met up with my parents and aunt and uncle for dinner

The boys were excited to have a camp out in the living room

We also visited a local kid museum and Jack had a blast playing a pirate!

 This awesome ball game kept them both entertained for a long time

 Crazy hair

 The mad scientist