Seven Blissful Days at Lake Billy Chinook

Our week in Oregon was one word: Ahhhhhh. We relaxed, read books, swam, relaxed, partook in water sports of various kinds, ate delicious food, chatted and laughed, and...relaxed. It was amazing. Over the years, my in-laws have truly become the second family of my heart. I love spending time with the Conlin Clan and am blessed to have such wonderful people in my life. Besides giving us the chance to grow our love and enjoyment for one another, this vacation proved one thing: we Conlins definitely know how to take a load off, laze around and eat a lot of food. This vacation was the essence of chill. And I also have to give my love to and say how grateful I am for my wonderful parents who were willing to watch the kids for a week so we could go. Everyone needs a Nana and Papa. Anyhow, the pictures say it all....

Adam trying out the wake board for the first time, not bad!!
Taken from the upper deck of the houseboat.
The ladies taking a dive, Angie (A's sis), Alea (A's sis), Nicolle (A's mom-middle), Ashley (A's sis) and I (in black).

Looking hot in the sweet hot pink and purple P.F.D. (that's Personal Flotation Device, to you landlubbers).
Lake Billy Chinook is surrounded by these awesome towering igneous cliffs.
Full relax mode.
Adam's little bro, Ryan, turned 30 on the trip. So since we were on a boat, we HAD to have a pirate themed party, what else?! This is just before we sent him on a treasure hunt throughout the cove where our boat was anchored.
Alea and Zach and I looking sleepy as we got ready for an early morning ski (just to clarify, I didn't early morning ski, it's not nearly hot enough at 7:30am to get in the water, just Adam and Zach did that...crazies.)
Nope, I'm not practicing to be a highway man. I'm preparing the blueberry-ginger relish for our pork chops which included serrano chiles that were so spicy they were making me cry and choke while I chopped them, hence the lovely Old West-style robber gear.
Success! I may look WAY COOL on the slalom ski, but really it took me 10 tries to get up. Once upon a time, I could get up on the first try and actually looked like I knew what I was doing! So sad that it has come to this!
Contrary to my not-so-lovely form above, Adam really does look way cool here. The man still has it!
Adam and "Mr. Grin" the crocodile with our house boat in the background.
This is what we did pretty much all day long...reading in the sun then cooling off in the water.
Don't worry, this is a G-rated blog. No kissing actually took place...wink, wink.
Ash and I screaming our heads off on the tubes. Tubing was incredibly fun, but I couldn't lift my arms for four days afterwards because I was clinging on with all my might!

Alea and I tubing in a more relaxing style, slow and easy.
Adam (blue rash guard) is up on the rocks with our bro-in-law, Mike. And you probably guessed it...they are getting ready to jump the 25+ feet down into the water that is so far down in this picture you can't even see it. It makes me nervous just thinking about it!

Boing!!!!

Me: Let's get a playset for the backyard. The kids need something fun out there.
Adam: A lot of people have trampolines here, that is another possibility.
Me: Well, I think a playset would be more fun, since the kids are so young.
Adam: That's fine, let's do that....Well, they could grow more into a trampoline, and you know they would love it.
Me: True. Well, you make the decision, because either is fine with me.
And so he did.... Below are pictures of all the boys (I mean all of them) on our new trampoline. He says it was for the boys...well...you be the judge!

Luke loved being bounced! He was so mad when we took him off!

Ben and Zach catchin' some air.

Josh and Nana, instead of jumping himself, he likes to make you do the work boucing him.

Adam...now we know who really wanted this tramp.

Adam and I are off on a trip to Oregon, then the boys and I are heading to Washington, yipee! So pictures to come after the 14th! Have a great 4th!

Some Pre-Fourth of July Fun

Here is a link to an MSN version of the Citizenship Test. It was kind of fun...and I am proud to say I only got one wrong, the number of constitutional amendments, oops. Thanks History BA, I knew you were useful for something! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25461301/ Don't miss the post below on our visit to the mining museum that I just added last night, but I thought this was good prep for the 4th on Friday! Give it a try!

One Final Adventure

Ahhhh, sweet peace and quiet. While Adam and the kids are out at the Nickle-A-Play video arcade and the baby is snug in his bed, I have time to post. We had one last "exploring Colorado Springs" adventure before all the fun of July vacationing begins. Today we went to the Western Museum of Mining and Industry. It was a really cool museum exploring mining and the industrial advances that came about as new techniques for mining were needed from the "Forty-Niners" through today. We attended the tour, which was interesting enough to keep the boys mostly listening, watched a video, and then explored on our own.

The museum was full of hands-on exhibits and large steam-powered machines. The tour guide turned some of them on and they were loud; they freaked Josh out so much that when we were going to go back through on our own he refused at first because he thought we'd have to hear the loud ones again. It was one of those museums that make you glad to live in 2008, with all of our modern conveniences, safety laws and labor laws. Just looking at pictures of the young boys, the "Grease Monkeys," Zach and Ben's ages, that worked oiling the machines or those just a few years older who were already going into the mines as full-time, 10 hours-plus-a-day miners, made my heart lurch. In August, they are having their Outdoor Machine Day where we get to see the big Steam Shovels like MaryAnn in Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel in action. We are excited to go! Sorry about all the commentary on the pictures below, obviously I was way too fascinated by this museum, I felt like everyone needed to be educated!

Weighing the different ores...this is coal mined in the Western States, some of the cleanest burning coal in the world.

Zach panning for gold, this is early-style mining called Placer Mining, or surface mining. Gold was discovered in Colorado in 1859 and then came the Placer Miners with the slogan "Pikes Peak or Bust!"

Before the deep blast mines came (where they blasted out rock with dynamite deep into the earth), this is how they got gold out of rocks...one hammer ping at a time. Seriously, this was their livelihood they were working for.

After hammering away for awhile, they used this tiny scoop to scrape out any small gold pieces that may have been chipped off. Can you even imagine the tedium of it? Thank goodness for salaries!This part of the museum had the loudest of the loud machines, the steam-powered jack hammers for drilling holes in the rock face in which to place the dynamite. The tour guide turned on one of the jack hammers and said there would be four going at the same time all day...many of the men went deaf at an early age. Surprised? No.

Modern mining safety gear; I don't think Ben is ready for the mines yet, since the boot is as long as his leg.

Zach operating the elevator on the miniature late-ninteenth century mine. Talk about dangerous jobs!

This was the biggest steam engine they had, one of the biggest ever built. Amazingly, it was pretty quiet compared to some of the smaller ones when it was running. This would be used in one of the larger mines to power any number of things, elevators, water pumps, electricity, etc. This is the one the little 6 to 8-year-olds would be running up and down oiling with little cans.

This is one of the noisy small engines I was referring to. This was used to power the pump to pump water out of the mine. Even though it was noisy, it does sound so cool, like listening to the past.

This was Josh's favorite steam engine, because it was red like his shorts and they didn't turn it on.

Department of Motor Vehicles Adventure

OK, so it wasn't really an "adventure" per se, but really more a necessary errand I was dreading, that turned out to be a pretty fun outing with my boys! We have lived here three months now, our Washington State license tabs expired at the end of March (right after the move), and we had not yet renewed our tabs/title/registration here. It was way past time. Especially since I got pulled over once already for expired tabs this month, and did not want it to happen again. The boys already think I am a major criminal for the one pull-over (yes they were in the car, and yes Ben was very worried I was going to jail), I can't imagine what a second would do to my rep. So, despite the fact that I came down with a stomach flu after running my 10.5 miles on Saturday and was sick in bed with a fever yesterday, the boys and I headed to the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles today to get the new green rocky mountain plates.

We got there at 12:23pm and had 135 numbers to go before our turn, so we headed out for ice cream at the Baskin-Robbins since the boys had coupons for a free scoop from the summer reading program at our library. When we got back, there were still 60+ numbers to go, so we sat down and got creative. We played I Spy; we made up stories two ways, each saying one word and also each making up a small part then passing it along; we played the baby-shower-style memory game where I covered things that I had pulled out of the diaper bag, uncovered them for 10 seconds, covered them back up and had the boys tell me what they could remember (they were really good!); we found things in the room starting with every letter of the alphabet; we had chap stick rolling contests; and we played "hide the penny" hiding it under things from the diaper bag and you had three tries to guess where it was. It was so much fun! The time flew by...seriously. There were no tears and no fighting. It was a bloomin' miracle.

Even Luke stayed close playing with my cell phone (I may never get it to work again, but he was happy at least) and eating fruit snacks. When we got out, it was 2:14pm. But instead of a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day, it was really fun. It was one of those surprise special times, I mean I know we are going to have fun exploring the zoo, playing at the park, reading together on the couch or visiting the museum, but this was unexpected. My boys are pretty fantastic (brag, brag ;)), but times like these make me feel extra grateful for the fabulous boys I have. Who knew the DMV was such a great place to take your kids?

Denver Museum of Nature and Science Museum Adventure

Yesterday's adventure included 11 children, nature, science and free admission. I think the most "adventurous" part of the adventure was the free part. When things are free, they can get a bit hairy. Along with two families we know from church, the boys and I packed a lunch, drove to Denver and hit the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on Free Admission Day. It was CRAZY BUSY. But a very cool museum. They had two mummies, one rich and one poor, and they did a comparison of the mummification based on wealth (soooo interesting...to me...not the boys, they just liked the fact that there were mummies. Dead bodies 3000 years old? YES, so cool!). We also loved the space, gem and mineral, and dino exhibits. And that was about all we could take of the crowds, but it is definitely one we would want to go to again, on a not-free day; there were so many exhibits to see and so much we missed because we didn't want to stand in the 10-minute line for the elevator (strollers, what a nuisance!). $20 is worth losing the crowd.

Ben's favorite...a whole exhibit of rocks, crystals and minerals.

Ben looking at the poor mummy. Literally, not as in "so sad to be a mummy" but "not enough money for resin so the bandages on my head have all degraded and now you can see my scary dead face." Zach docking a space shuttle in a simulated zero gravity situation, look at the concentration on his face...the "object staying in motion until acted on by an opposing force" thing makes this way harder than it looks! Darn Newton and his laws!
Some days I would truly love to send Josh to space. And at the museum, he got in on the fantasy. Now on those "Josh the Ever-Stubborn" days I can close my eyes and picture this. Zach having his head eaten by the dino bones that were tromping around the museum all day.
Josh loved the sharp teeth on this T-Rex head. "Look at my sharp teeth too, Mommy!"
Ben and the horn of a Triceratops, I had to pull him and Josh away from this touch and feel demo. Flesh-tearing teeth, horns for gouging enemies, rocks that were once in a dinosaur's belly, petrified dino poop...fascinating.
Josh petted this claw for 10 minutes.
Boys and bones of prehistoric life, what a day!This is the whole group of kids, minus one of the littlest ones, by a Mammoth head, look at those tusks, they are twice as long as the skull!

Thunderstruck

One of the coolest things about living here is the afternoon/evening summer thunderstorms. The wind starts to pick up, the sky gets dark and menacing, and then the thunder rumbles and the lightning begins; like our own little nightly fireworks show. The other night Adam and I turned off all the lights, and for about two hours we just watched the lightening strike every 20-60 seconds outside, followed by the rumblings of thunder. When the lightening strikes close though, it isn't just a rumble that follows, it is a crash that makes the windows rattle. There have been a couple of times we both jumped in our seats, and then ran to check on the kids. Don't worry...they always sleep right through it (makes you wonder what would happen if the fire alarms go off).

Manitou Cliff Dwellings Adventure

Today we found ourselves with a couple extra hours...well, we really didn't have a couple extra hours, since we were supposed to be at a birthday party that for some reason got stuck in my head as being tomorrow, so we completely missed it, bad mommy! However, when I was in the blissful moments of thinking we had some extra time, we decided to hit the Manitou (pronounced Man-it-oooo) Cliff Dwellings. These cliff dwellings were home to some of the Anasazi Indians from 1100 to 1300. The boys' favorite parts were watching the Native American dancers, who were VERY cool, and leaping and exploring these rocky homes (boys and rocks, I tell you!). My favorite part was just standing in them and realizing that I was standing where a group of pre-Columbian Americans had laughed and cried, told stories, toiled for their livelihood, birthed babies, cooked meals, defended their families, farmed, fell in love, lost love, lived and died. Real people had actually built these amazing homes in the cliff face close to 1000 years ago, it wasn't just some staged exhibit! Ahhh, I am such a history geek! But I loved it!

This one is for you, Mom!! Does anyone else think there is too much Kokopelli out there?!
Watching the dancers; they were amazing!
The boys got to do a Native American friendship dance at the end. Mostly just stomping in a circle, but they really liked it.