sweet summertime

it finally feels like summer is here! it's been sunny and in the mid 80s for a few days, and we have been enjoying the outdoors. becka is visiting (yay!), so we spent saturday in rocky mountain national park at the alluvial fan (in the first picture) and alberta falls (second picture). abigail's first trip:). as adam says, we're making an outdoorsy girl of her-she's also going on her first camping trip this coming weekend. it was a perfect, clear day, so we took some great pictures. where else can you hike in the snow wearing shorts or a tank top and still get super hot? adam figured out a solution though - stepping in 2 feet of snow wearing shorts...it's kind of tricky to hike in that.

sunday, becka and alysia and i also went and got pedicures and watched Made of Honor while dear sweet adam watched abigail. the ladies giving us pedicures (pedicurists?) were pretty insistent that we have flowers on our toenails, which led to a lovely photo shoot at nathan and alysia's. i think i'd skip the flower next time...although i'm guessing this will be the first and last time i'll get a pedicure. i wouldn't mind having one of their massage chairs in the house though. we also enjoyed grilling at nathan and alysia's on sunday night. very relaxing. until abigail started bawling - she'd had a little bit too much fun for one weekend.

let's see...the nice weather also inspired us to clean up our porch. i wish we'd taken a before and after picture. "abigail" bought mommy a beautiful hanging basket for mother's day, which is now soaking up the sun outside. we've been fighting a serious battle with a couple of birds who keep trying to build a nest under the plants in the basket. they were not happy when i kept removing their nest, but they were being pretty protective of their turf, and i didn't really want them swooping at us while we were outside.

we also visited some other birds in fort collins -glad i'm not picking a fight with these ones. the rocky mountain raptor program and maybe CSU(?) have a sort of bird sanctuary where they care for injured raptors. i LOVED this-we got to see a golden eagle, a bald eagle, hawks and an owl (forget what kind) up close. very beautiful and amazing animals.

well, abigail is waking up from her nap, and clearly is not interested in blogging any longer. we're getting very excited to see family in a couple weeks! we have a whole parade of people coming to fort collins in the next month, and abigail and anneke's baptism is coming up in the middle of june. most of our summer fun is happening in june, so i think we're going to be bored once it's over. friends, feel free to stop by and visit in july or august:).

welcome to the world, baby girl

we have all been sick on and off the last couple of weeks, so we finally get to see our new niece anneke tonight! we stopped by the hospital when she was born (a week ago), but didn't dare get too close. we're pretty excited to have a little cousin about abigail's age - and she is a cutie! we couldn't help but notice though, she makes abigail look even bigger! she's growing so fast - already into some 6 month size clothes - although a lady at king soopers assured me that this was not big; her grandson was the same age and already wearing 12 month size?! is that even possible?

we're also very excited for a visit from becca - 2 weeks away! becca, if you're reading this, i was thinking maybe you should bring along some chicago style pizza -it's just not the same anywhere else :).

today, adam is in denver for work, finishing a 3 day training on some software for work. sounds like it should make his job quite a bit more efficient, at least that's the plan. the weather is nasty here, and abigail has decided it is nap time, so we're procrastinating instead of going to the grocery store. how can it be cold enough to snow, when earlier this week we were lying on the lawn, looking at the clouds, and enjoying the 80+ degree weather?

i finally got around to uploading a few more videos of what abigail is up to. click here if you want to see them.