Back from the beach

We're back from spending the weekend in Lala Land (aka, my brother's house). I hope to post pictures of the trip soon, along with the rest of the Colorado vacation, Father's day, 4th of July . . . and at some point, we'll start sanding the old paint off the base boards and get them re-painted so I can declare the hall fully done. Sigh . . .

Happy birthday, Kat!

We've come a long way in the last 12 years. Here you are on the first birthday I spent with you & your dad in the skates I bought you for your birthday.

And now your 15. Wow! You're a beautiful young lady and I love you very much.

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Some pics from the early birthday we had for Kathryn:

Never too old to blow out candles:

Her new slinky:

Cave of the Winds & Garden of the Gods

We spent Tuesday of our vacation in the funky little town of Manitou Springs. We did some shopping, played at the local park and then headed up the hill (way up the hill) to the cave of the winds. Manitou Springs is the town on the otherside of the bridge in this picture taken from the Cave of the Winds overlook.
The entrance to the cave - it's 54 degrees at all times in there. A bit different from the caves we have visited in Texas that average in the 80's with high humidity.

A cool cave picture. We took so many.

This is Laney walking through the lowest, narrowest passage in the cave.

Kat gets friendly with the bear at the entrance.

On Wednesday some friends from college drove down and joined us for a trip through the Garden of the Gods. This city park is a monument of natural sandstone formations.

We didn't hike as much as we'd have liked - Laney had some altitude side effects that slowed us down.

A totem pole:

You can't climb most of the rocks without equipment & permission, but there are a few that are open to the public. Like this one:

Above the hole the girls are sitting in is a path that led to where Rob is in this picture:

Here we are as a group, with one bushed toddler: