Fall Fun

We took the girls to the Rocky Mountain Pumpkin Patch in Longmont again this year, it is so cute! We have been taking them since they were babies and we couldn't wait for them to be big enough to ride on the rides there.  Funny, after we realized how much $ they charge for the rides we were kinda wishing they were too little to ride again!  The girls had a blast though, they rode on the cars and the airplanes, went on a pony and a train ride and played in the bounce houses.

 After the pumpkin patch we decided to hire a low budget (actually free) photographer, aka Papa, to see if we could get some good family pics... we were very impressed! Thanks Papa for taking pictures of us!

 And last but not least I finally got a picture of the girls preschool teacher Ms. Suzanne!

Estes Park and Heritage Square

So maybe the one good thing about working every other Saturday is that I am learning to appreciate the weekends I do have off! We have been doing lots of fun stuff this summer with the girls.  Two trips to water world where I didn't have a camera, and most recently we took some day trips to Estes Park and Heritage Square...

 We saw lots and lots of elk in Estes Park, the girls thought they were cool but really didn't understand why they couldn't go try to pet them!

 And Heritage Square with our friends the Mercers was a blast! I couldn't believe how brave the kids were!  They went on every ride in the park, and lots of them they went by themselves :) My favorite was the ferris wheel and the girls loved the banana planes!

Preschool

I can't believe my little baby girls are in preschool already!  They were so excited for their first day of school! The have a wonderful teacher, Ms. Suzanne, who came over to meet them first so they couldn't wait to go see her again :)  I went picture crazy that morning but still forgot to get one with Ms. Suzanne, will get one soon!

I love this picture, little supermodels!

First Camping Trip

We finally took the girls camping this summer, it was a blast!  They played in the dirt, went fishing, roasted marshmallows for smores, rode their bikes and slept in the tent! 

 We were lucky to be able to go with a big group of neighbors, so there was lots of kids for the girls to play with and they could ride their bikes around the loop for hours!

 Isabella was cracking me up trying to toast her marshmallow from so far away. She was there forever and ended up getting mad because she didn't want any help ("I can do it MYSELF!"), she didn't want to move, and she wanted it black!

 ....Still waiting for that marshmallow to cook! Notice the pout :)

 She finally gave in and let us help her, yum! Fresh gooey smores!

We were so happy that the girls loved camping.  They weren't scared to go into the tents at night, so we got to spend some time together by the fire :) Such good girls, we can't wait to take them camping again next summer!

Montana

We took a road trip to Butte in July to be with my family after Papa Gustav Stolz passed away on June 25.  I will be honest, I was pretty stressed about taking the girls on the 12-13 hour drive to Butte, but the car ride turned out to be a breeze and it really was amazing to spend time with everybody and remember what a truly AMAZING man my Papa was.  Our time spent with Papa was a blessing.  We will miss you Papa!

Gustav "Gus" Stolz Jr. 1/25/1924 - 6/25/2011



My dad's blog has more pictures from our trip and of Papa :
More Montana Pictures
In Remembrance

Fountains on the 4th of July

We had a very mellow 4th of July celebration, in fact it was extremely mellow compared to our usual celebrations.  But sometimes smaller is better, and especially if you ask Sophie and Bella, the beautiful quiet fireworks are much better than the giant explosions that hurt your ears! Let's hear it for snakes, smoke bombs, sparklers and fountains!!

 ...Okay, don't tell anybody, but it was my favorite 4th of July in awhile too, I think I just might prefer fountains to sparker bombs and artillary shells these days :)