Taylor's photo shoot

I was just taking pictures for fun and thought these turned out cute enough to share.

Buena Vista Apple Fest

We heard about a small town in the south east mountains having a apple festival and we just had to go see what it was like. We got to pick apples from the tree. They were a little too tart for all of us except Kennedy. She loved eating them and ate about 3 during the time we were there (the exact number is unknown because she kept dropping half eaten apples in the dirt.) We had yummy homemade apple pie, fresh warm applesauce, and Taylor got to go on a buggy ride pulled by a miniature horse. All the different apple dishes really helped get me in the fall spirit.

Taylor picking the apples(left), Taylor and Kennedy sitting in the old fire truck(right)

Taylor washing clothes the old fashioned way (left),The classic face after getting splashed in the face(right)

Kennedy found this basket and thought it was the coolest thing ever

Taylor goes to preschool

Taylor started preschool this last week and absolutely loves it! She goes every Tuesday and Thursday morning to Mrs. Kim who she adores, and tells me on days that she doesn't have school how she wishes today was a school day. When I pick her up she can't tell me fast enough everything they did that day. As much as I have been looking forward to a break while she is at school, it has been surprisingly hard having her away. Its not so much the fact that she is away, it has more to do with the fact that this is the start of her being at school now until she is 18! Crazy.

Mountain Get-A-Way

For the Labor Day weekend we headed up to Beaver Creek, CO with some of our good friends. It was so fun to get away and enjoy the mountains and say goodbye to summer. Some of the highlights were dancing to the music of Oktoberfest, pony rides at the stable, and riding the chair lift to the top of the mountain.

Finally!

For all those who have been patiently checking our blog over the last two months, these pictures are for you. After coming back from Costa Rica, one of our top priorities was to buy a new camera. It was quite the ordeal trying to decide on what kind of camera to buy and then even more of an ordeal getting the camera we wanted in our hands. So after what felt like all summer of being camera-less, we can now take pictures again! In honor of our new camera, I took some pictures of the girls while they were playing with the hose yesterday.

Costa Rica

As some of you are already aware, and are awaiting the vacation run down, we left the kids at home with their Grandma Ricks and got on a plane headed for Central America. We spent a total of 11 days filled with new and exciting animals, beautiful scenery, and many, many insects...biting and non. We planned our trip with our good friends Jami and Spencer but due to scheduling conflicts we arrived in Costa Rica two days earlier then they did. So we spent that time in one of many little surfer towns, Montezuma. We loved it here and didn't think that it could get any better and luckily we were very wrong. We had a room with an amazing view of the beach and surf (literally five steps to the beach) in a wonderful and quiet hotel surrounded by tons exotic flowers and lush jungle. While in Montezuma we hiked to the Montezuma waterfall, beautiful, and went horseback ridding along the beach and through the jungle. The horseback ridding was fun despite the small abrasions left on our calves from our lack of wearing long pants. We first laughed at our stupidity but when the small abrasions turned into open, oozing wounds we stopped laughing and started first aid. Be it the humidity, or being constantly in and out of the ocean, our legs didn't even begin to scab over until two days before we came home...8 days after horseback ridding! We moved on to our next destination and met up with Jami and Spencer at our wonderful and almost exclusively our own resort in Santa Teresa. Oh how we loved Florblanca!! We stayed in our own open air bungalows and had a whole staff bend to our every need. It was fabulous and much out of our budget except for the fact that our very good travel agent got us such a great deal!! Thanks Jami! We enjoyed sleeping in and relaxing on the beach during the days. We spent evenings boogie boarding while watching the sunset, eating delicious food and playing cards until we retired to our candle lit, incense filled rooms. Loved it! Nate and I also got to experience zip lines for the first time. We did an 8 platform zip line though the jungle with amazing views of the ocean as well. It was amazing! Okay so before I ramble on and on about the amazing things we did and saw, is anyone wondering where our amazing pictures are?? Well funny story, okay not so funny but definitely true. One morning we decided to rent some ATV's to drive to some other beaches and explore the area since our prior form of transportation around town, i.e. a golf cart belonging to our resort, ended up only being for transportation on the resort...oops. Anyways, we rented ATV's and attached our backpacks to the front with a bungee cord as instructed by the owner of the ATV rental place. When I say we put our backpacks I mean our backpacks containing cash, credit cards (only because of the ATV rental), camera, and a bunch of other misc. items. Not thinking and totally forgetting about the backpacks entirely, we pulled up to a quiet, almost deserted beach and parked our ATV's on this little gravel patch surrounded by jungle to check it out. When we returned to the vehicles not even 5 minutes later, our backpacks and all their contents were gone. So to spare you the rest of the gritty details, we lost all forms of payment we brought to Costa Rica, all our memories and amazing pictures we had taken thus far, and our trust in our previously trustworthy Ticos. Okay so its not fair to blame all natives of Costa Rica, i.e. Ticos. Actually after many conversations about what happened to us with the locals, the blame actually fell on the Nicaraguans, who are immigrating like crazy into Costa Rica for a better life. They are the poor working class and according to Ticos, the source of all Costa Rico's crime. Nicaraguans or not, we hoped for a small miracle that who ever did take our stuff would have a change of heart and at least bring back our cameras. However, after a day of dwelling and moping we cut our losses and tried to forgive and forget so that we could continue to enjoy our vacation...which we did. So the following pictures were taken with a disposable camera, hence the terrible quality, of the remainder of our trip in the Osa Peninsula. We spent our time here exploring the rain forest by hiking many different trails. We saw many animals we didn't even know existed and some that we did. Of those were Toucans, Macaws, Sloths (a mother and a baby), every kind of monkey including the very loud and very early "bird" howler monkey, crocodiles, snakes, and poisonous frogs. It was an amazing place and an adventurous end to a great vacation!

The beach at Florblanca...beautiful!!
Jami and I sad to leave our little taste of heaven


A rare picture of the whole gang at Florblanca
Me in front of our bungalow

An incredible sunset on the beach at Florblanca (this picture was taken by a photographer who was shooting a wedding that night, he knew we got our cameras stollen, felt sorry for us and graciously took some pictures of us with the sunset)

Nate and I on the boat tour of the Mangrove Forest and River
Nate and Spencer on the boat trying to find dolphins with no luck

relaxing and enjoying our ocean view in the OsaThe tropical garden on our resort in the Osa
Jami and Spencer in the Jungle by our resort
Hiking the pacific trail down to the beachWe hiked the pacific trail at high tide and experienced some of the biggest waves we have ever seen, the picture doesn't do it justice.

4th of July Festivities

I know what everyone is thinking...the 4th of July seems like months ago...but alas here I am trying to document the fun we had. It has been a busy month for our family so please bare with us while we try to catch up to speed. We spent the day with the usual morning parade, played at the park, tried to enjoy the festivities at our community's Town Center where they had rides and games for the kids, but lines were too long and the day was way too hot. We managed a pony ride for both the girls and despite protest, headed for the car. Later that day we went back to the Town Center to have dinner and hang out before the fireworks. It was so fun to hang out with some of our favorite people... sit and eat lots of watermelon and junk food while waiting for the sun to set and the fireworks to begin. Taylor could not wait to see fireworks and had talked about it for days prior. As we were waiting on the blanket at the park a stray firework was let off and made a very loud boom and after that Taylor decided she had had enough of the fireworks and wanted to go home. She spent most the night after that sitting on our laps and burying her head in our shoulders because she was so afraid. The next day I asked her what her favorite part about the fireworks were and she simply replied "when they ended." Oh to be 3 and how at times the world around you must seem so big and scary!

The Parade

Pony Rides

Taylor and her butterfly wings

Face painting...a butterfly of courseCrew Bowen waiving his flag
Eating too much candy, but having a blast together

(The girls with friends Crew and Mason)

Taylor finally decided that pretending to sleep was better than seeing fireworks, after a while the boys joined her...although they lost interest very fast.

Kennedy playing at the park before the fireworks