Girls Night Out

We didn't plan to color coordinate

My sweet little G1 was invited to a wedding and I got to be her date.  We had a fun night eating delicious food and sampling wedding cupcakes.  I am really loving her at this age!!! She is so fun to talk to and we have such nice conversations.  She is kind of shy in large groups and seems to talk better with adults than with the girls her own age at times.  That means she will stick pretty close to me at most events.....which most the time I love!  Just enjoying this while it lasts!

Steamboat

Bikeride on the incredible bike trail system

 Mid-summer we took a vacation with our extended family to Steamboat.  The kid's had been looking forward to hanging out with their cousins for quite some time so the trip there was a bit long and full of repeated "how much longer??" and similar questions from the back seat.

Every morning we could see hot air balloons landing across the street

 I have great memories with my cousins while growing up....and I am so glad my kids can develop these same memories.  We had such a great time together!  Every day brought a new adventure for our group of 12.  The kids (all 6 of them!) did incredibly well even though there were times when some tiredness set in.....overall this is a great group of young people and we had a blast hanging out with them.  Steamboat has an awesome paved trail system, so several mornings I hauled myself out of bed and got in some long (for me) runs before we started off our day.  Cannot beat that!

And they are off!!!!

 Our first day, we tried out some Alpine slides.  Most of the group had never done this before and I will have to say it was a huge hit!  Some of us were little braver than others but I think the general consensus was that it was super fun!

The whole hiking crew

 On our second day in Steamboat, we headed out for a hike to some beautiful water falls.  I am not sure if we ever really intended to hike the entire 5 miles so we could see the falls but no one told the 10 year old, two 8 year olds, and 5 year old this.....so we were off to the top.  I was so impressed with W because he hiked the entire way up and down all by himself.  He is quite the little hiker.  G2 is so full of energy and wild 99% of the time that we didn't think about him being only 3 and maybe still needed to hitch a ride in the hiking backpack for such a steep inclined hike so he rode on Mom & Dad's back and took a little snooze for pretty much the whole time.  Great workout for me!!!

Gondola

The third day, we rode up the Gondola to the upper mountain at Steamboat Ski resort.  Such a beautiful view!  There we did another small hike but our enthusiastic hikers from the day before were not quite as rearing to go, so we just did an easy loop two times and they were pretty thrilled with that!  Then off to some shopping downtown!

Future Olympic rowers?  I think so.

 We ventured to Steamboat Lake on day four.  It was a bit farther than I was thinking it would be and the mountain driving left me feeling a little off for most of the afternoon.  I need to learn that I cannot read in the car and things would go much better!  Once we arrived the kids played a bit on the sandy beach, rowed around in our river kayak, and got in some fishing.  The only catch of the day was Aunt Kim.  I saw her fish and it was a nice size and had a good case of rigor mortis by the time I met him.  I'm so impressed she touches fish...that is not my arena.

Hot Springs

 On our final day, we headed to the Steamboat Hot springs pool.  This is my kind of swimming!  The kiddie pool was (I think) around 90 degrees.  I could sit in there 4-ever!!!!  G1 and Cousin J had a fun time playing on this thing called a "wibbit" which was like a floating obstacle course.  W&G2 loved the kiddie pool where the could touch the bottom everywhere. 

We did a lot of eating!

 We did a lot of eating....I haven't mentioned this....but due to our stellar planning the meal times went (in my opinion) really smoothly.  We each took a couple of meals to be in charge of and then we all helped prepare the food.  We went out a couple of times but with a group as large as ours it went amazingly smoothly.  Our kids are just all at good ages where we can do fun stuff with them so the week went by so quickly and we had so much fun!  Cannot wait to be all together again!

The whole crew before heading our separate ways

Real Soccer--yep, this stuff is not fake

G1 and her teammate/friend enjoying some pro soccer

 G1's soccer team had the honor of getting tickets to a Real Soccer game in SLC this summer. (Ok...so for you non-soccer people, it's not Real soccer but Re-Al...I just don't know how to type the little mark above the letters!  So yes it is real soccer--not fake--but I'm trying to convey Re-Al here!) The girls wore their team uniforms and were able to go out on the field before the game began to sing the National anthem.  It's a pretty cool stadium and we had just been there to watch the Women's US soccer team play so G1 was pretty jazzed up about going out on the field.

G2 in his Argentinian soccer uniform. 
He is dead serious that he plays soccer for Argentina. 

 The boy's also enjoyed the game.  Especially when our Real team started scoring goals and things got a little rowdy.  The theme song for the team is a little odd, but catchy, and the kids got into the yelling and singing.  G2 also loves wearing the soccer uniform handed down to him by his older siblings from a trip their Dad took to Argentina.  He is dead serious when he talks about being a soccer player for the Argentinians.  And if he sees someone else wearing an Argentina shirt, he will either say it is one of his teammates or his coach, etc. 

During half time, G1 and her team got to scrimmage another team down on the field.

I think I had been to a men's soccer game back in Charleston many moons ago, but I do not remember it being this fun.  Our seats seemed pretty close to the field and we really enjoyed our time at the game.  Men's soccer is way different than women's soccer (remember, we had just been to a women's soccer game a week before at the same stadium!)....men are so rough looking while they play while I think they women play with finesse...but both are great and it was so fun to watch.  I think the hubby even enjoyed himself but I am not sure you will find him watching pro soccer on television quite yet!

Baby Kozmo taking a bottle

It's amazing how quickly Kozmo drinks his milk!  Since we were headed out of town and there was a strong possibility Baby Kozmo would be weaned while we were gone, we took a video of the cute little guy eating!

Baby Kozmo update

Two times per day we make the trek down to the fairgrounds to care for Baby Kozmo.  For the first couple of weeks, Kozmo  required two warm bottles a day.  They had a water heater down at the cow stalls, but it was a bit unreliable so we started transporting our own hot water to insure we would be good to go once we did arrive to do our chores.  It was so cute feeding Kozmo his bottle!  He could drink down his 4 pints of milk quicker than you would imagine!

Baby Kozmo with almost all of his biggest fans!

 After feeding Kozmo, we also tie him up to the fence and brush the poop off his fur.  We like to call this cow beautification!  Kozmo seems to enjoy his time being beautified and loves to have his neck scratched.  It is so cute because when he lays eyes on G1, he starts wagging his tail and will moo!

What a nice looking calf!

 Other daily chores we have include taking Kozmo's temperature one time per day, cleaning out his stall twice per day, filling his bucket with fresh water and grain two times per day, and taking him on his daily walk.  G1 has quite the stubborn cow so this has been challenging.  We are very thankful for an older girl, Alex, who has really helped G1 out a lot in the cow management area.  Alex and her mom have some livestock knowledge and I'm not sure what we would do without them!

Kozmo and his Mama

Another fun part of Kozmo is all the visitors we have had up to see him!  G1 loves sharing her new knowledge on how to care for a baby cow.  And most of the kids are pretty intrigued because they don't have much cow experience either!  We are also new to 4-H, which this cow is a part of, and we are really enjoying the experience.   G1 had to do a "demonstration" which she showed the other kids how to properly wash and brush a cow.  We have watched demo's on knot tying, cow diseases, and cow anatomy.  Overall, it's been interesting.  At this point, we have about 9 weeks left of caring for Baby Kozmo!