Alex's Birthday!!

The Saturday before Alex's birthday we met up with Grandma Kathy and Uncle Kevin at the Denver Zoo! We had never been (well apparently I went when I was really little), and the weather was perfect! The zoo was bigger than I expected and was really nice, though it's not as interactive as the Cheyenne Mountain zoo here in Colorado Springs. We all had a great time.

Silly faces, but there's a tiger in the background!

Good thing my mom got a picture of me, I always forget!

I just had to get a picture of this. In the bathrooms the front of the doors had different animals on them, and then when you go inside and shut the door, well, you get the backside! Lol

Once we were worn out at the zoo, and Dan was done working in the Springs, we all met at Casa Bonita, a family tradition. We all went there as kids and now I've brought my kids here quite a few times. It's a silly, cliche, mexican restaurant with not the best food, but a huge waterfall and diving area where they put on skits, gunfights and have professional divers. There's even an arcade and a scary cave maze thing that the kids love to go through. And don't forget the sopapillas! They even brought one to Alex for his birthday with some whipped cream and candles on it!

Since it was 2 in the afternoon we got seats right by the waterfall!

Crazy faces....

  

Then we celebrated Alex's birthday on the 19th. It's kind of become a tradition for me to make birthday shirts for the boys. Alex is all about bugs these days so I made him a shirt with a jar full of bugs on it! 

I took the boys out for donuts for breakfast and then we waited patiently for daddy to come home from work so we could go out to dinner. He picked Texas Roadhouse for his birthday dinner and we had a fun time.

They brought out the birthday saddle for him to sit on and the whole restaurant gave a big "Yee-haw!"

Once we got home it was finally time for presents and 'cake'!

First present was a butterfly net from daddy!

Grandma Kathy got him a butterfly growing kit. The caterpillars came in the mail the other day! It's fun to watch!

I know it's silly, but he asks me to buy this every time we're at the grocery store and I always say no. He was SO excited to get a 97 cent box of macaroni!

Cade wanted to share his new obsession of Godzilla with Alex and bought him a little set.

And the one thing Alex wanted the very most? A bug vacuum! 

 Alex wanted his cake to be a cookie monster, our favorite family dessert! Yum!

For some reason I still think he's 4 years old, but he definitely has a growing brain and body. I am so excited for him to be in 1st grade in the fall. I think he will love how much he can learn. We love our cuddly, talkative, know it all Alex. He has the biggest heart and I look forward to another year watching him grow! 

First camping trip of 2014!

And it almost didn't happen. The morning of our camping trip Cade threw up. He never gets sick! We weren't sure whether to go ahead with the trip or play it safe. He seemed to feeling back to normal after puking, so we took a chance and went anyways!

We planned a trip to Farish Recreation Area with our friends the Bennetts. They live just down the street and the kids have a great time playing together (and the adults too), so we thought it'd be fun to have a camp out.

This campground is beautiful! North of Woodland park, at about 9,000 ft. Clear mountain air, great scenery, and military owned and operated, making it economical and nice friendly neighbors for your campgrounds.

It was a little chilly at night, stormy at times, raining at times, and terribly hot at times, but that's camping in Colorado for you!

We cooked, we hiked, we chatted while the kids played, Joe fished and even the dogs had a good time!

We had matching tents!

We called this a water dog. It was some sort of salamander, gills AND legs!

Carson got cold in the tent so he snuggled with Dan. So cute!

It's not camping without some dutch oven cooking!

Cade and Caleb

Our campsites were right off the lake and just behind us were the woods. The kids explored behind our sites and found these awesome boulder formations that created some cave-like areas to play in and climb around on. This is a kid's dream come true!

 

We joked about using this as their engagement picture, lol! Cade and Shelby

There were a few unpleasant moments, like when Dan burned his thumb on the dutch oven, when Alex burned is pinky on the fire ring, and then when Alex lost a battle with one of the boulders and got scratched up his back. He was still a good sport!

Alex and Conner never left each other's side, often holding hands

On our last night before bed we did a little glow in the dark tic tac toe. I think that's why the pictures are a little blurry. But they had fun and got to bring home some glow souvenirs! 

What a way to kick off summer! We had a blast :)