Palisade

Yesterday my entire family was in town, so we went to Palisade State Park to swim, canoe, and relax in the sun. This was Andy's one venture out in a canoe. My brother-in-law Merlin had taken one of the canoes out about 30 feet from shore, and was just lounging there. Andy and Todd paddled out, and Todd jumped over and capsized the canoe. The only problem was that they couldn't get the canoe upright again. They finally ended up just dragging it most of the way in, and then flipped it over.

My sister Connie, looking kind of creepy!

Connie's husband Sugi, with our niece, Maia. She belongs to my youngest sister, Corinne.

My sister brought this blow up chair to float around on, and Kylee thought it was really fun to paddle us around with a canoe paddle.
She got so good at it, she even started offering rides to other people! Here she is backing away from shore with "Rocky Mama" (Grandma Roxy).

Kylee stayed on the floatie with my mom for over an hour. She just loved it!

A few months ago, Kylee became obsessed with fingernail polish, except she called it "nail hashish". I painted her nails for her, and said, "Kylee, it's PO-lish. PO-lish. Can you say PO-lish?" She tried to repeat it, and she could do it slow; "PO----lish." Then I would say, "Good! Nail Polish!" And she would say, "Nail Hashish!" Finally, I gave up. That night, I walked past her room about 30 minutes after I had put her to bed, and I heard her in there talking. I stopped and pressed my ear up against her door. She was in there practicing! "Nail PO-lish. Nail PO-lish. Nail PO-lish." Over and over again. She's never called in Nail Hashish again.
My sister Connie and her husband are staying with us for a few weeks, and the other day Kylee conned Connie into doing her nails. First, Kylee had to "help" get all the old polish off.

Look at that concentration! She's ready to work in a salon!

4th of July Weekend

On the 3rd of July, my sister Tiffany, and her husband Todd and I decided to hike up Rock Canyon. Andy was too tired to come with us, and also too tired to watch Kylee, so I had this genius idea of lugging her up there in her backpack. I'm not gonna lie...it was a lot harder than last summer when we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. I didn't realize how heavy she's gotten! I carried her about 1/2 way up, and then Todd carried her. On the way down, Tiff wanted to try, so she carried her for awhile, and then I carried her the rest of the way down.
I really like this picture a lot. I think she looks so cute!

On the way down, we stopped to play in the river for a few minutes. Kylee wanted to stay in her backpack, so we set her on the bank. She did great, and loved it...until she leaned WAY over to try to put away her fruit snack wrapper, and fell flat on her face on the ground. She was screaming her head off, and I thought for sure it was because of the goose egg on her forehead...but then I realized she was saying something about a fruit snack. I saw one lying in the dirt, and realized her LAST fruit snack had fallen out of her mouth when she fell. Oh, the trauma! I opened her a new package, and she was good as new! Crazy kid never even noticed that her head was bonked!

Rock Canyon Scenery

I always love to take scenery pictures, especially when we go hiking. I think mountains are so pretty!

I would like to hike up again sometime, when we have more time. This time we were in a hurry to get back in time for the Stadium of Fire.

Last Saturday was mine and Andy's second year riding with my company team, the "AFS RED RIDERS" in Harmon's Best Dam Bike Ride, (aka MS 150). Andy had been sick for several weeks, so we weren't at all sure how far he would be able to ride. We thought MAYBE he would make the 40-miler. (I was secretly hoping he would only make it that far...because I wasn't ready for this ride).
His dad joined our team this year as well. This is all of us looking happy before we start. We should have taken an "after" photo later that afternoon...the smiles weren't quite so big!

Here's a bigger group of our team, getting ready to ride. Andy was a maniac, and ended up riding the whole 100 miles on Saturday. I did 85 miles (pretty sad that I can't even keep up with a sick cancer patient....), and his dad did 75, which is great for his first time riding! The number one lesson I learned, to remember for next year is: It might be a good idea to ride your bike more than ZERO times prior to attempting this ride. Andy and I kept thinking we were going to go on rides and get in shape...and suddenly the ride was here, and he'd been on one ride and I'd been on zero. I thought we did really good, considering how out of shape we are! It wiped Andy out though, and he's been sick ever since. Do you think that stops him though? Oh no! He has another 100-miler coming up in about a month, and he has every intention of riding it. I really don't know how he does it!!