Dempsey

Love!

I was tired

It’s the day before school starts. I decided to learn Kevin’s ecollar today. My head is spinning with all the stuff for school. I get home. I’m tired. Dempsey asks for us to go out and ride bikes. It’s 95 degrees. I agree. She wants to play tag. I agree. Eventually we head back home. I cook dinner, she gives me this.

Sometimes it’s all worth it!

😍

Mom

The Last Gem Lake

I've been asking Dempsey for awhile when she wanted to do the Gem Lake hike.  We would sometimes do mini hikes and she would complain about how tired she was and I'd tell her that we were "strengthening her legs for her Gem Lake hike."  I knew that she would be able to do it, but wasn't sure how much she might dislike it! Hah.

As summer dwindled away I realized that we needed to make this happen.  Since Gem Lake is technically in RMNP, we needed a pass (which means we had to commit to a certain day and time) OR we needed to get in the parking lot before 6am.  Thank goodness for grandparents that live about 10 minutes away, we decided on the second option.

Dempsey luckily loves sleeping in a bed with me, so we were able to go to bed earlier so we could make the cutoff time.  I was so proud of Dempsey because she jumped up and was ready to get at 545 in the morning.  We left with bags packed full of snacks, handpicked by Dempsey!  I was quite impressed how many people we saw over there, but we were able to have our own hiking space which was nice!

Each of the kids have had their own way that they "survived" the hike...AJ it was using logic to let him know how much closer we were getting, Ryk appreciated climbing all the rocks, and Dempsey counted animals.  I believe our final count was 17 chipmunks, lots of birds, 2 llamas (so coooool they worked for the park service), and 3 bunnies (one was a teenager).  

We made it to the top and enjoyed our lunchables, and then headed down.  Dempsey totally beat me down, which I figured would happen.  And truly didn't complain that much.  It was an awesome hike and built up her confidence for hiking and mine with my knees!  Crazy, our last kid to do this tradition!  Of course she picked a dog pattern camelback.

Adorable and fierce, my Dempsey Snow.

Love,

Mom

Boys, Bows, Guns

 Had an AWESOME time taking the boys shooting guns for their first time this past weekend along with Sean!  Shot our new bows too.  Both boys did a good job learning proper safety protocols and whatnot.  Both the boys and Sean agree that the .22 revolver is the favorite gun.  Definitely proud of them for shooting the 9mm that has a lot more kick though!  With the revolver, you have to cock it before every shot, so it's a great gun for beginners.  We had to correct Ryker's default behavior of keeping his finger on the trigger even when he wasn't going to shoot the gun.  After a few hours and lots of practice, he finally remembered to hold it in a trigger-safe way until he was ready to fire, atta boy!  Safety, familiarization, and fun.  Perfection.

Grandparents

 One thing we know for sure, these kids love their grandparents (both sets).  This summer Meg has been taking the kids up to Estes regularly, and let's just say they have gotten quite comfortable up there, especially Dempsey!  On at least 3 'quick overnight' trips up there, Meg has come home without Dempsey because she wanted to stay up there by herself and soak up those grandparents.  It makes me very proud and happy that my kids feel so comfortable with our family members.  It's a true win/win/win for all involved, including the boys who have been fun to hang out with without Dempsey sometimes.  Also, there was a HUGE reduction in the amount of bickering since most of that is due to Dempsey/Ryker.  This last time, Meg took her up to do the Gem Lake hike (she'll cover that in another post), and then came back without her.  She was up there for an entire week until I finally saw her again!  I missed her!  It sure felt good to see her when I had lunch with them all yesterday up in Loveland for the handoff between Mark and Adella and John and Barb.  She was like velcro on me the whole time, and clearly wanted to be around me.  I guess she DOES still like me ;).  It probably helped that Meg and Kevin did not come up since she was working.  Usually when Kevin is around, the attention I get from Dempsey drops to zero (which is totally understandable!).  She'll come back around to me eventually.  

More Summer!

 We had an accelerated baseball season this summer.  Proud of the boys for going through with it even though neither of them wanted to after initially signing up!  

Also our good friend Erin visited for a few days and we made some new memories with her. 

And, more random pics of awesome summer.

Dempsey is now BESTIES with Claire!

Summertime Funtime

 Random pics of random family fun for your viewing pleasure.