Meeting Isla Colleen

I don't believe there such a thing as too many pictures of a newborn baby, but if you do, you should probably skip this post.

What a joy it was to sneak away from the busy schedule of my five-boy-mama life to spend four days in the slowed-down quiet calm of new baby life with my sister, mom, Jason, Kai and, of course, the newest member of the the McKenzie/Lewis clan, Isla Colleen!  I feel so honored to have this beautiful namesake as a part of my life and hope I can always be the best example to her and live up to the privilege.  I love how her name comes together, it has such a lovely lilting sound, Isla Colleen:  Isla, meaning "island" in Spanish, and Colleen, meaning "girl" in Scottish.  We love our sweet island girl so much!

The four days were pretty peaceful.  Isla is perfection!  She loves to sleep, eat and sleep and sleep, unless it's night, then she only loves to eat.  Kai, as a busy 2-year-old, is, off and on, wholly fascinated and completely disinterested in his new little sister.  My mom and I entertained Kai so Leah could get some rest, and did our best to help around the house, but also got in plenty of wonderful snuggles.  Cuddling a new baby is simply one of the best things in life!  It was SO hard to leave, although my boys needed me back, if for no other reason than to have a dinner that didn't involve tortillas.  What a wonderful dream it was to be there.  I can't wait until the reunion!

I love you, Isla!  I am so glad to have met you, snuggled you and fallen in love with you, and I am so happy that I get to know you forever, you darling baby girl! 

 

So tiny!

Park time!

It was so fun to play photographer's assistant while Leah's friend, Carolyn, did a newborn shoot for them.

Something you don't get to do with boys...flowers in the hair!

Yes, you do!

Kai wanted to hold both Nana and Auntie's hands at the same time, and to have us hold each other's.

Sand Dunes 2015

If a picture tells a thousand words, then get ready for a Michener novel!

We love our nearly-annual trip to the Sand Dunes with a couple of our very favorite neighbors.  The Simonds and the Lyons are such wonderful families, and we are so glad to have had them as friends since Colorado day one!  This is the fourth time we've gone to the Dunes together in our seven years here, and it is a new and exciting adventure every time.  The Simonds introduced this particular Colorado must-see to us with a camper excursion the first summer after we moved here, and we've been hooked since.  The hot springs pool never gets old, and when you are camping right next to it, you can come and go as you want--swim when the water is calling to you and leave when you feel tired, then go back for more again.  And Great Sand Dunes National Park is the weirdest and coolest alien-planet like place I've ever been.  It is such a blast!  As a friend put it, "What a great place for boys...here is all the dirt you could ever want, play in it!"  Plus, the little river that runs beside it is great for cooling off after a hot, grueling hike up the sand.  We always go to see Zapata Falls, and one of these years, I'd love to bring bikes and go for a nice long ride.  It's a great vacation and the best way to kick off our summer fun!

With the Hacienda that opened up for rental at the Sand Dunes Hot Springs Pool last year, it's a down-right luxury vacation.  This year we had the Hacienda for a full week.  It was kind of a revolving door house.  Adam and Zac were only able to stay for the weekend, the rest of us minus Josh left midday Tuesday, Josh stayed the whole time.  Family and friends of the Lyons and Simonds were in and out all week, too.  It was a blast! 

We already have next year's trip on the calendar!

First up: Pool.

There is a lot of game playing in our down time.

It's a gorgeous place to take a nice long run.

It's much more relaxing now that all the boys are swimmers.

The Hacienda has perfect posts to hang a couple of hammocks.  Ben and Micah claimed them for beds this year.

Ben and Micah both worked on their juggling skills through the week and saw major improvement by the end.

Fun with the waterproof camera!

Jason helped Tommy use the flint and steel to light a cottonball.  It's not so easy on the first attempts and Tommy had watched Josh try several times before getting it to work.  Then, with Jason doing all the work, "Tommy" got it faster and joyfully exclaimed, "YES!  Got it on the third try!"  Haha!

We always do a hot dog and s'more roast before bed for an after-dinner snack.  YUM!

The Sand Dunes river was HUGE with all of the rain/snow we've had this year.

Climbing the Dunes after a rain is the best time to climb.  We made it to the top of High Dune in 35 minutes...our record by an hour!

With the sprinkles of rain, there were very few people climbing, the wind wasn't giving us a sand blast and it wasn't overly hot, so we stayed to play at the top for almost an hour.

And had some fun with the camera.

The pictures really don't show how VAST the dunes are.  It is really amazing and bizarre.

As you can imagine, there was sand EVERYWHERE, and I don't mean on the ground: scalp, pockets, crevices, armpits, ears, and on and on.

The little boys stayed back at the Hacienda because they weren't sure they'd want to go all the way to the top.  They'd have a turn to climb the dunes another day.

I love how Micah makes everything the best thing ever.

Back to the pool!  Had to keep Tommy's ear patch dry.

Time to relax.

The hike to Zapata Falls.  Mercy, who's a friend of the Simonds' and a student here from Nigeria, had no problem carrying her water bottle.  We were all jealous.

Josh and a couple of the other boys made it all the way in to see the falls.  The water was too deep and cold for the little boys to get so close, and I hung back with them, but it was still a beautiful canyon!

Let Tommy's first crush be noted: Mikayla Simonds.  Only 20 years older than him!  He loved her so!

Josh contemplating the frigid water before he has to plunge in to get back across the river.  Snow melt is COLD!

Josh had a little visitor who thought his blue shirt was beautiful.

After Zapata, I took Luke, Tommy, Ryan and Ben to the Dunes.  The first three had opted out of the hike to the very top on our first trip to the park, so I took them back to see how far they could go, and Ben happily joined us.

Tommy could have stayed at the river all day long.

He was just running around like a wild man, laughing his head off.  It was the best!

The little boys made it about halfway up the first really big dune.  It was definitely the steepest of the dunes and it was a hot day.  They were awesome!

And back to the river!

We progressed to this really quickly.

Evenings at the Hacienda.

S'mores and hanging with Ben.  That's a good night!

The Dunes are in a big, extremely flat glacier valley.  Having most of my running experience in very hilly Washington and pretty hilly Colorado Springs, it was  really weird to go for a run in the flat expanse.  I could see for miles; everything seemed like it should be closer than it was.

One last swim!

"Our" corner of the hot springs pool.

These two are the only ones still allowed to go on the little water slide.  Kind of sad for the rest of us!

Luke entertained countless pool guests all week long with his perfect "Watermelon" dive...er...roll?

A cloud rainbow to send us on our way.

Josh stayed behind to represent the Conlin Chaos...and partake in all the fun we were missing out on.

Ben was planning on staying too, but was really wiped out.  He felt bad leaving Micah, but he was simply too tired and wanted his own bed.  This is the con of the hammocks, you wake with the birds!  So I took him home with me, and he snored the entire 3-hour drive.