California Vacation

Later in July, we took a week and visited Nana in Thousand Oaks. I spent my time doing some running in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, enjoying some time with family and friends at the beach and by the pool, and changing out all of the receptacles and switches in Nana's house.

Later, we took a short trip to LegoLand for some classic Southern California theme park fun...

Lastly, on the way back to Thousand Oaks, we stopped in Long Beach to visit cousin Kari and her beau, John. They both work at the Long Beach Aquarium and gave us all wonderful "backstage passes" by allowing the kids to feed various sea creatures and meet some of the birds up close. We were also able to see all of the innerworkings of the aquarium that usually only employees are exposed to. Thanks Kari and John!

4th of July Fun

This year, like last year, we celebrated the 4th with Mom and Dad. They came to visit for the week and we spent time working on the house and playing in the neighborhood. For the 4th, we get tickets to the Rockies baseball game. The game was amazing. The first pitch was a home run and it didn't stop after that. The home run count was in the teens - including a Rockies Grand Slam. The Rockies came from 9 runs back to win in the bottom of the 11th inning with a score of 18 to 17... 35 total runs!



We also had a chance to get away for a day and explore Mt Evans. Mt Evans is the most accessible 14k+ peak from Denver. It also is the only 14k+ peak that has a paved road to the top (almost). So we drove to the top and hiked the short trail to the summit. We ran into some wild mountain goats along the way and were able to mingle amongst them - pretty awesome.