4th of July and the Sullivans

One of our most favorite things about visiting Denver in the summer is visiting all of the cousins. It is so fun to see all of the Sullivan's together and see the kids growing up year after year. Ellie now has clear memories of all of the Sullivan kiddos and brings them up often when we are home. We had a great time with everyone this summer from the 4th of July party and fireworks to the water park and pool, to some very delicious dinners, a sleepover with Mary and oldie movie watching with Aunt Kelley.

Golden

We spent our first week in Colorado renting a house in Golden. We loved it there! We enjoyed the small town feel of being able to walk everywhere. Greg loved all of the trails that were either riding distance or a short car ride away. We enjoyed the walks along the river to the park, Fourth of July town celebration, First Friday street fair, car show and the farmers market. The house we stayed in was very nice and it had a huge climbing tree in the back yard.

Denver Museums

We went to the Denver Children's Museum and the Denver Museum of Natural History. Thanks to the Sullivans, the Children's Museum is an annual trip. They love all the different exhibits at the kids museum. This time, their favorite was the ball room and catching the balls falling from the ceiling.

It was our first time at the Natural History Museum. It was so fun to go to all the different areas and watch the kids learn about space, dinosaurs, different landscapes and mummies.

Fun With Sofia

We had a wonderful time in Denver with Emilie, Dave and Sofia. We look forward to getting our families together in the summers. We had a few BBQs and some fun adventures around Golden, the Denver Zoo and the Children's Garden at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Patrick and Sofia don't necessarily play yet but they sure do like to look at each other. Patrick started calling her "Fia" by the end of our time together. We also spent some time with Kate and Lars before their big day as well as Mrs. C. It is so nice to spend time with all of the Cindrics.

Roadtrips

We left town for another 3 weeks in June/July to escape the summer heat in Arizona and enjoy the mountains and cooler weather in Colorado. We took our time driving and spent some time in Moab and Grand Junction and Greg was able to do some fun mountain biking.

The kids are great little road trippers. I think we prefer road tripping over the airplane any day. They loved the hotel rooms, jumping on the beds, the pools and continental breakfasts. Although the picture of the kids in the car below isn't from the drive, it explains their personalities perfectly on the road trip.  Patrick was very chill and Ellie was freaking out about driving up high in the mountains. Right before this trip, she developed a serious fear of driving on hills. Perfect timing for our drive to Denver.

In Moab, we went to a cute little park called Rodeo Park.  They had gigantic musical instruments made from different materials like wood and metal. We also went to Arches National Park. It was beautiful. We didn't do a lot of hiking because it was hot but Daddy and Ellie were able to hike up to one of the arches while Patrick slept in the car. Ellie got quite a hiking wound but she was a tough cookie!

We brought the froggy toilet because Patrick was showing some potty training skills but it certainly came in handy for Ellie when we were driving in the middle of nowhere! When we were in Grand Junction we went to a fun little street fair. Ellie had fun riding her bike around Grand Junction.