4th of July

Happy July 4th!!! I love this day of the year. It is a wonderful day to celebrate the wonderful freedoms that we expereince as Americans. I am so grateful that we live in a country where we have the ability to share our faith freely and enjoy God's creation. I love the red, white and blue. I love the patriot songs. I love the fireworks and parades. It is just such an enjoyable day for me. 

We met up with our Young Life family and friends in Vail to enjoy the parade together. I think next year we will get the whole family in the parade to represent Young Life. This year, Justin walked with the crew again and I stayed with the kids on the sidelines. 

Family Shots

  

My high school friend Angela, who happens to be the Beaver Creek Rodeo QUEEN! Her float was right behind the Young Life Float! 

Young Life Float - We had two loaded Jeeps from which they threw out some serious Vail Valley Young Life gear! 1000 beach balls, 1000 sunglasses, 1000 frisbees, and 1000 cups! We are getting the VVYL name out to all of the valley! Our area director also outfitted everyone with new patriotic VVYL shirts for the parade! 

Watching the parade with the Bakers and Bangtsons

My favorite performance - Trinity Church's "Stomp" Band

U-S-A!!!!

A real gondola car from the lifts was put on the float! This is the "Golden" car for the 50th anniversary of Vail. They don't mess around at this parade. It lasts over an hour with all of the floats that go through the village. 

These boys had so much fun together! 2012 is on the left and this year on the right. Mack and Trevan are growing up (even though Mack is rocking the same hat!)

Our friends James, Kendra, and Alyiah joined us as well! 

 

Rocking their new VVYL gear

 

Picnic at Beaver Creek - We enjoyed our dinner, a concert by Jack Ingram, and fireworks. Beaver Creek presented a fantastic fireworks display that the kids totally loved. We had a fast decline after though and kids were asleep in the stroller before we could get off of the lawn. The only bad part about the fireworks was the insane amount of time that it took to get off of the mountain. We were exhausted by the time we got home at midnight. Happy 4th to all! Can't wait until next year! 

Check out this spread! 

 

Baxter's at Home Trim

We gave Baxter another home hair cut last week...but this time we had some complications. We bought our own pair of sheep shears since we had been borrowing our friends pair. This pair was much more sharp than the previous one we had used and Baxter had so much more hair than ever before. We ended up cutting him in a few places and they required stitches :( So, in avoiding a $85 grooming fee, we got a $550 vet bill! Yikes! And then we still had to take him to the groomer to get him finished off. 

I am not sure if we will try to trim him again, but I was pretty discouraged from this round of self-grooming. The real question is - if we spent the money to buy our own clippers, why didn't we buy dog clippers? This question only occurred to me after this attempt at grooming. Now I think I will try to sell the shears and buy dog clippers. Silly me. Live and learn. 

Here is Baxter's trim in photos. 

The Before & After

The Home Hair Cut - Bax Looks Awful! 

  

Macklin helping with the clean up. 

The final outcome of the home hair cut - not too bad, but still uneven. 

The $23 finish up work on his head and feet. 

One happy and, more importantly, clean pup! He looks like a totally new dog! 

Eagle Flight Days 5k

On Sunday at the Eagle Flight Days 5k, I had a moment that took six years to create. I felt like the culmination of living in the Vail Valley was on display for me in a coaching sense. What happened, you ask. 

I had 18 members of my cross country team at a local 5k!!!!

Two coaches racing, one worker (it was her job or she would have been running too), and then 15 racers all took part in the Flight Days 5k (one did run the 10k, woohoo). I was beyond excited to have this type of turn out. I only had 38 runners on the team last year and, of those, I think only 27 of them are returning. So to have 15 of those returning runners compete in a summer run just because they want to = SUCCESS! Not only did they compete, but they competed well. The course was long and the results did not reflect the hard work that kids are putting in this summer - that was a bummer. But the fact that 14 of my runners made up the top 24 racers overall in the 5k was incredible! I was so proud of each of them. One more fact - we had three tops runners at an elite running camp, one was out of town and another was doing a 24 hour race himself. I am really excited about the running culture that EVXC has established over the past six years. We are set to have a great season this fall. I can't wait for August  12th to come! 

Can't forget my biggest fan! Love this shirt! 

He cheered me on to defend my title in this race from last year. 

Last Week of June

Some of our summer time happenings! 

We bought the kids a little baby pool and they LOVE it! When I showed Mack, he asked "Can we play with this right now?" It has been used daily ever since. 

 

We had a pirate in our midst! Let the dress up play continue...I think it is awesome! 

We are using our fire pit (finally) for some s'mores after Campaigners. 

I have a little helper in the kitchen. She is looking especially cute thanks to Grandma! 

Also, trying a new bow position...what do you think? Just barely enough hair to try it. 

Happy Birthday to Kari! Jen made Kari some yummy gluten-free (couldn't tell) cupcakes for her birthday last week. We got to play ultimate at Nottingham Lake Park in Avon. It was so much fun. I felt like I was in college and playing on the quad. I love my babies and wouldn't trade them for the world, but I kinda miss random game nights :)

While Justin was gone in Dallas, we snuck down to Glenwood to have dinner with Daniel. The kids always love to visit him! 

It has been hard to catch a genuine smile from this boy lately. Glad I got this one! 

Heading into church on Sunday....I couldn't not pull out my camera! 

Macklin is enjoying some new bubbles that were a part of a care package from Grandpa and Mema! It was one loaded care package, complete with sunscreen for three of us and car wax for Justin's truck. They know us too well! 

VBS 2013 at Eagle Bible Church

Last week Macklin went to his first Vacation Bible School. I told him all about it prior to attending. He seemed excited to go to "school" since he has been catching on to what school is through movies and his older friends. Since we missed our own church's VBS, I asked if we could attend the one with our friends' church. After getting put on the wait list, he got it! 

He asked me where it was when we were driving there last Monday. I told him that it was at the "wood park." Bad move, mommy. The wood park is his favorite in Eagle and I said that just so he would know where we were going. It was really at the pavillion building at the wood park, but you can imagine his question after we got checked in. "Mommy, can we go to the park now?" Oh, my sweet boy that doesn't understand school yet. That led to the next two days of wondering away from his Pre-K aged group. After Tuesday, the director contacted me to let me know that if Macklin couldn't stick with his group, that he would have to become her personal helper for the rest of the week. We had a long talk on Tuesday night and he seemed to do much better for the rest of the week. 

He did seem to get tired from the 9-12 stimulation each day. He took great naps each day. Sometimes he would say, "Mommy, I don't want to go to vacation bible school." But, then he would get excited when we got there. There were tears almost every day when I left, but they only seemed to last for a little while. Friday was the big day. I took the picture below after Friday. It was super high energy and he was very excited to have all of his new things (bible verse dog tags, streamers and candy). Check out the video of him too. He is on the front left (look for the black hat with white front like below). Just gives you an idea of what was happening. 

I would say it was a success after a little bit of a bumpy start. I love that he was exposed to the Bible all week with kids his own age! Now, to work on those five new memory verses! 

The theme was Kingdom Rock. EBC did a great job with all of the decor, skits and activities.