Colorado family travel and a mommy blogger's proudest moment

Like many of you, summer is gloriously busy with activities and vacations so posting will be more sporadic. What have we been doing?

We went to Learning How to Train Your Dragon with about 15 of our closest friends and then to Elitch Gardens with our Besties.


We did a staycation in nearby Golden, which ranks right up there as one of our favorite trips.

Contributing factors? Hadley's new ambition to become a "Chick Mom," barreling down the Alpine Slide with Uncle Chris at Heritage Square, fighting over trains at the Colorado Railroad Museum, riding the free horse-drawn carriage at the First Friday Street Fair, devouring the Golden Farmer's Market's mini-doughnuts, playing Frogger on the Clear Creek bike path and so much more in the post that follows.


Clarification: My children are making those faces because the sun was in their eyes. Or maybe I really do smell that badly.

Parties, parties, parties. Every year, our neighbors hold an amazing birthday bash for their three boys (all born in May). From their flown-in-from-California rib-eye hamburgers and steaks to the veritable waterpark in their backyard, this is the not-to-be-missed event of the season.

At one point, two 7-year-old boys with water guns and play swords approached me.

"Is that your daughter over there?" they accusingly queried, gesturing to Hadley.

"That depends. What has she done now?"

"She called us a bad name."

Now, I don't know about you but I was interested to hear what that might be. Hadley has a pretty limited vocabulary as it pertains to insults and going up against two heavily-armed older boys takes guts.

"That's terrible, boys. What did she call you?"

"She called us babies."

It was one of the proudest moments in my life.