Colorado

 We were able to escape from Provo for a few days and visit my parents in Colorado. They recently sold their house and are living in a HUGE rental house until they figure out what is next for them in life. We had tons of fun and even survived the road trip there and back! My dad and I celebrated our birthdays together on the 20th with some yummy cake and a day of mostly relaxing.

The girls both loved exploring the house. I don't know what I would do if we lived in a large home--I would probably lose them! Kendal especially loved the kitchen cabinets she could climb in to.

 So much space to roam around! And Roxy (the doggy) wanted to lick and love on the girls, but the girls were a little nervous at first. They eventually warmed up, Lyla let her lick her and Kendal was feeding her by the end of the trip. We now have a new word in our vocabulary and a favorite picture to look at in our books that have dogs in them!

 We went swimming in the front yard! The girls mostly wanted to explore the yard...

I caught her screaming! 

Kendal seems to think she can squeeze herself into extremely small spaces. 

One of the things on my summer bucket list was to take the girls to the zoo. So we went to the Denver Zoo! It was lots of fun! The girls paid more attention to the animals than I thought and they did fabulous even though it was really hot.

 Oh no! We have elephant ears!

 These two monkeys were kissing...and a second later, picking each others butts. Gross.

These girls love their Gammy and Papa. Just a little bit. Or a lot. 

 We went on the carousel. That was an adventure. The girls were a little tense and not sure of it. But, we did it and we even had them on cute baby polar bears.

On our last day we headed out to the local park with a splash pad. It was the coolest splash pad I have seen and wasn't even that busy. Kendal loved it and Lyla will love it more when she can walk I think.  

We also made it to Panera 3 times! Haha. I always make a point of going to Panera when we visit, because I love it and we don't have one here in Utah. I'm sure everyone else gets sick of it, but not me! We went out to eat, shopping, and lots of relaxing. Lyla was sick almost the whole time we were there, but she was still a trooper and gave lots of smiles. We even stopped where Leigh lived for 2 weeks after being born (Sinclair, Wyoming). Super small town, but we got to play at the park, eat lunch, and watch the fast trains zoom by.

Leigh and I had planned on going to see the new Batman movie while we were there, but decided not to because of the shooting in Aurora. I was a little paranoid. We got to watch the news with lots of updates on the tragedy. It was heartbreaking and just shocking to me.  It's just sad that it seems like no public place is safe anymore. You always think, what if? I know we can't live life in fear, but I still worry, especially now that I have children. The stories that have come forth of those that died while saving others and those that threw themselves over others to protect them are encouraging and a great reminder that there are wonderful people in this world. It was nice that the focus seemed to be on those that had been victims and not necessarily on this deranged man.