Grandma Karen's visit: July 9-17

I still haven't completely posted all the Maui photos, but I will someday.
Summertime is so busy. It's a different kind of busy than the school-year. Time passes lazily, and yet it marches on all the same.
Hosting Grandma Karen was a special time for us. And for her, I think. Given all of Papa Matty's many health issues, this is the first time in over three years since either Grandma or Papa has been out to Colorado. Papa wasn't able to make it on this visit, but Grandma flew out on Thursday the 9th. Scout & I drove down to see her while Ruby was at her dance class (with Aunt Lacey). It felt almost surreal to see Mom at the Denver Airport! So exciting.

Reading to the girls

A selfie with a gimlet

Ruby shows Grandma some of her shopkins

On Friday the 10th--we took a walk down to Shepardson and took this photo by the weeping willows

playing candyland

Cory prepares for his backpacking trip

It is so stinkin' hard when your sister cheats at candyland.

Here is further proof of the mayhem that Candyland can cause.

Doing the dishes

 Having mom in town was AWESOME. So fun. For a million different reasons. But, seriously, I got to relax. This woman took care of me, took care of all of us, and took care of my plants, too. She is so generous, so talented, so good a making people feel like they can just sit and relax and she'll happily do her thing and fix dinner or clean up or just do her "momming."

Ruby really loves Reddi-Whip

 Okay, so one of our adventures was to go take a walk in Lory State Park. This is a hike that the girls and I have done about 4 or 5 times. I figured it would be a nice one to try with mom.

So we set out on the Well Gulch Nature Trail

The trickling "waterfall"

Butterfly

Break time in the shade

 HUH. Right about here, you'll notice that the photos change, I'm at the back of the pack, and we're heading downhill.
That's because we just encountered a RATTLE SNAKE. Here's how it went, in 4 easy steps:
1) Scout and Ruby are ahead of me & mom on the trail, and they come tearing back at us with the look of fear in their eyes screaming "SNAKE"
2) Being the brainiac that I am, I figure, "Oh, any snake would see us and just move on its merry way right off the trail." So I OFFER TO GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE.
3) Upon reaching the snake, I have my sunglasses on and it's shady so I can't claim that I actually saw the snake, but all four of us heard HIIIIIIISSSSSS, chh chh chh chh chh chh.
4) Retreat. Retreat. Retreat.

So, we made the decision that the snake (which we determined must be a rattlesnake by virtue of the creepy rattling sound we heard) was, in fact, going to stay put and maybe we should just change our course and head back down the hill.

The End.*

After all that adrenaline, we had a snack and called Cory. Cory, being Cory, said, "COOL," when we told him that we met a rattlesnake on the path. * A note on how "cool" the snake was. Later, when I asked Scout (the only one to actually SEE the snake, though we all HEARD the snake), "What did the snake look like?" She replied, "The snake was all coiled up and you could see the head."
SERIOUSLY?????? I think back about what could have happened to us up there and I shudder.

After all the snake debriefing, we walked down by the reservoir before returning home. So long, Lory Park, not sure when I'll return to you.

 The next day, we took a walk around Fossil Creek park, and the girls were DONE. COOKED. NOT IN THE MOOD. But I saw a cool bird.

 On Thursday before mom left, we went down to the CSU trial gardens. I have about a thousand more photos of lovely flowers from this occasion, because people really like to borrow my camera and take photos of the flowers, but here are a few.

 The night before mom left, I did try to get a photo of her and Scout. I didn't do a good job, but they're going up on the blog anyway. HA.

After all of the fun, we had to return Grandma to her home. Ruby, Scout & I drove Grandma down to the airport and got her there plenty early. It was so hard to say goodbye, but we can't wait to see everyone again!