Laura's Life: mountains, swim lessons, friends, and growing up

whew. what a crazy busy summer its been. i have not posted in a long time but i have loads and loads of pictures i want everybody to see. i sat down on the couch tonight with my laptop so that i could download all of my many many pictures to the computer. it took forever.

so much has happened since my last post. kril turned 30 and we had a great time with friends at a local burger joint. then a few days later the kids and i, julie (my mother in law), and gabby (my niece) drove to colorado to visit family. kril's grandfather and cousins and their families live in the mountains close to denver. after the 16 hour drive with 3 small children.....we had a fabulous time. oh, and kiera got strep throat our 3rd day there. also, my niece got something like the summer flu as well. we had an awesome time. declan and kiera have 6 cousins that live there all very close in age. what fun they all had! we spent our days enjoying the mountains. one day we went to winter park. it was only an hour and a half from conifer (where our family lives). wow, that was awesome! alpine slides, rock climbing walls, bungee trampolines, and putt putt. that is why declan is on the ski lift in the picture. we're on our way up the mountain to ride the alpine slide all the way back down. what a great trip! it's so beautiful up there.

after recovering from our drive home from colorado, declan started swim lessons again. we figure the most exposure to the water, the better he'll be. he was so timid in the water last year and wouldn't do anything. now, he's jumping in all by himself. woo hoo!

week before last i was sick with some crazy sinus infection. body aches, nose blowing, etc. it took me a full 5 days of antibiotics before i even started to feel better. then another 5 days later i feel almost 100% and i'm back at the gym this week. i had to drag myself in to workout this morning. maybe i'll go again tomorrow.

in our little family we also have some new challenges. kiera is now in a twin bed. wow. already???

yes. she lays down and five minutes later comes out of her room and says "done sleeping". she'll get out of bed 2 or 3 times before going to sleep. whew. we're exhausted. declan never did that! he stayed in bed, fell asleep in 5 seconds and didn't wake up all night long. i keep telling myself that she quit eventually. yeah right.

was that my longest post ever? yup. i'm sure most of you just scroll down to look at pictures anyway. that's what i do. ha ha. here they are in random order.

guess who took this picture? declan.