Summer Vacation... part 1

Yesterday, Emily and Bailey had their first plane trip (Liam flew as a baby when we went to Pop-Pop's funeral in New York) to Denver, Colorado. We have an amazing 9 days of adventure lined up!

After landing in Denver, we found our rental car and headed to Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison, CO. We all thoroughly enjoyed our tour by "Dino Dan," who showed us several fossil sites as well as preserved ripple marks from ocean waves and many sets of dinosaur tracks.

Here's Emily underneath a dinosaur's footprint!

 Bailey posing next to some fossilized bone:

Liam with the dinosaur bone:

Daddy and the kids in front of the dinosaur tracks. These were near what used to be the ocean shore before the mountains formed! There are a variety of tracks, including one larger and smaller matching set--likely a mother and baby!

Here's Liam next to some tracks for size reference:

This ended up being a really educational and enjoyable stop for us. We all really liked learning about the dinosaurs who lived here. Not to mention, the price is totally reasonable--free if you want to walk it yourself or only a few dollars for the tour, which was wonderful.

After DinoRidge, we headed to our rental house in Colorado Springs. We were thrilled with the house, which offered us a full kitchen, living room, three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and a laundry room. They provided toiletries, laundry detergent, cleaning products, and even some food! I was impressed.

Today we visited the Manitou Cliff Dwellings, which is where the Anasazi carved homes out of the cliff. What was really neat about this place is that they let you go through the dwellings. We were all astounded at the tiny homes which housed 2, 3, or 4 families!

After exploring the cliffs, we headed over to Garden of the Gods. We actually thought we'd just drive through there and maybe take a photo at Balancing Rock, but the kids liked that stop so much we parked in another area and hiked some trails. We climbed lots of rocks, too. The view was amazing.

Here's our family in front of Balancing Rock:

And some of the views:

We were planning to go to a Wild West museum but when we got there, we weren't overly impressed. Instead, we headed to Cave of the Winds to take a tour. It was a good tour but lots of steps, often narrow and steep, and several tight spaces to squeeze through or duck under. That was fun but I imagine not for everyone.

Most of the cave photos are very dark and not so easy to understand what you're looking at, but I liked these pictures.

We're ending our day with dinner with Will's family. We've had a great time so far!

A Day Full of Fun!

Today, the McDowell kids were super spoiled. We began our day with rollerskating at Semoran Skateway. I was very impressed with all three kids! It was only Liam's second time on skates, and he did really well! He fell down a bunch of times but he kept getting back up and giving it another try. He wasn't interested in being on the "beginner" floor that they have in the back--he wanted to be out on the REAL rink with the rest of the kids!

   

Emily also did really well. I was particularly impressed with her for joining the games. Even though she's not the strongest skater, she got out there and did the Hokey-Pokey, the Cha-Cha Slide, and the dice game (which is kind of like Four Corners but they have six cones set up and they roll a die to see which cone/s are out)! She spent some time helping Liam skate, too.

Bailey is the best skater of the three kids. She got the hang of it really quickly and was out on the rink by herself most of the day! We had so much fun we may go again next week!

After skating, we were all hungry so we headed to Steak-N-Shake for a yummy lunch and milkshakes! Then it was home to swim in the pool and take a rest. That evening, Daddy had a surprise for us: he took us to see Finding Dory! I think it was the first movie that we all saw together, which is a really exciting milestone! The kids did really well in the movie theater so it's nice to know we can start doing that more often.

What an awesome summer day of fun!

We all scream for ICE CREAM!

Today we took a field trip to Mimi and Grandpa's house to water the plants. They put in some new landscaping but they don't have sod yet, so the sprinkler system isn't on. After watering the trees, we headed down to the splash park. To our surprise, the ice cream truck was there! We all enjoyed a yummy treat before having a blast in the splash pad.

TS Colin

Today we had a tropical storm warning. Colin was causing rain and wind all over the state. Fortunately we were not severely impacted; just some rain. AND since it wasn't thunderstorms, just rain showers, the kids asked if they could play in the rain. This is one of their favorite things to do in the summer!

So fun!

Ice cream!

For my birthday this year, my friend Susan gave me an ice cream maker. Today the kids and I decided to make strawberry ice cream. It was super easy to do! We mixed the ingredients and put them in the freezer while we ate dinner. Then, 20 minutes in the ice cream machine and voila! Strawberry ice cream! YUM!!

Here they are watching it churn:




And here's the best part: taste-testing!

      

Here's the recipe we used:

1 pound strawberries, trimmed, halved if large
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups heavy cream

Mash strawberries with sugar, lemon juice, and salt using a potato masher in a large bowl. Let stand, stirring and mashing occasionally, 10 minutes.

Transfer half of strawberry mixture to a blender and purée with cream until smooth. Return strawberry cream to bowl with remaining strawberries and chill, stirring occasionally, until very cold,

Freeze mixture in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to firm up.

EPCOT

Today was our last visit to Disney World before our passes are blacked out for the summer. We decided to go to EPCOT (or as Liam calls it, Eff-a-cot, LOL). We had so much fun. We were able to get FastPass+ for Soarin' which Liam had never been on before--last time we had tickets, he was too small. And Bailey was fairly little as well so she didn't really remember the ride. That was really awesome to be able to ride it together! We also took everyone on Mission: Space. B REALLY didn't want to ride and she fussed about it the whole time we were in line. However, she ended up LOVING it and asked to ride again. We also found this Hidden Mickey outside of Mission: Space!

Sunday we are going to Sea World with Mimi!! We're really being tourists this week!

SUMMER!

Today was the last day of school! Can't believe I now have a 5th grader, a 3rd grader, and a kindergartener!!!

Here's a photo of our gang before the bus arrived this morning.



After school we celebrated by having lunch at Burger King and then to the park before heading home to swim and play. It was a great day!