Hiking the Mesa Trail with Kip

Kip, Haley and Tucker hiked on the Mesa Trail with us on a Tuesday morning in June. We met behind Chautauqua, left a car and started the hike at NCAR. It is such a beautiful place. I have so many fond memories of spending time up there as a kid. The house I lived in on Ithaca is only a couple of blocks away. Kip hadn't ever been on the Mesa Trail so it was fun to share it with her.

Girls Camp

Cami and I attended the Arvada Stake High Adventure Girls Camp at Camp Firewalker in the middle of June. This camp is located East of Bailey on the shores of Lake Wellington. It is a very beautiful spot. Due to so much rain this year, the area was teeming with wild flowers. We had beautiful weather, not to hot but blue skies. Cami completed all of the High Adventure activities. She did the leap of faith, the cat walk, the obstacle course, the high ropes course and the rappelling. She was very brave and very impressive. I attended this camp a couple of years ago and did the high ropes course then. This year, I did the rappelling and cat walk. The cat walk was fun because I was able to go off backwards and hang upside down. I loved the hike up to the rappelling site and the rappelling was a blast also. It was a fun camp. I gave the Fireside presentation on the first night and had to sing for my lost hat in front of the whole group on the last night. Cami sang with me. She was a good sport.

Family History Project

Many of you may have noticed that Kathy has not updated her blog in quite some time (almost 2 months!). During this time she has been diligently working on a rather large Family History project. She finally finished today! Congratulations Mom! But I (Callie) am updating the blog for her because she is still putting the finishing touches on the project and I thought that it was about time we see a new post! So enjoy these pictures of Kathy hard at work and of course I had to slip one in of cute baby Drake giving Grandma Kathy one of his first smiles.

Drake has arrived!

Drake arrived 20 days early. He was only 5 lbs, 1 oz. I flew up to Idaho to meet him. I couldn't get over how small he is. So we took pictures of our body parts compared to his. Hence the foot shot.
Jordan and Drake.
Callie and Drake.
He is a calm sweet little baby.
I enjoyed my time with him. Is there anything sweeter than holding a new born?

Aunt Charlene

Aunt Charlene came to visit from the Dallas Texas area. The last time she was out was for Callie and Jordan's wedding so it was good to see her and show her our new home.

Charlene and I went out to lunch almost every day. That was a really fun treat for me since I have been working on the "Tarullo Tribes biggest Loser Competition" for the last 6 weeks. It was nice to "have to" to a break. I tried to eat sensibly and keep up with my exercise. I managed to stay at the same weight. Yea!

We visited with the girls, toured the tea house in Boulder, ran errands, went to gymnastic rehearsals, Cami's basketball game, looked at microfilms at the Family History Library and attended the "Retro Loud" at the Heritage Square Opera House. It was a very fun week!

Denver Zoo Parrots

We have been having beautiful weather in Denver so I decided to spend a morning at the zoo with Cara and Celeste. The Zoo has a really fun exhibit. It is a parrot enclosure. They sell small paper cups of nectar for $1.00 to be fed to the birds. Brandon really wanted to try it, so I bought him a cup. It is quite a thrill to have them "eating out of your hand". You can feel their beaks pressing against the cup and see their tongues lapping up the liquid. Most of them were territorial but I had two that had both their heads in my cup together. They didn't seem to mind the togetherness.

Brandon likes to repeat the same events. So when we got to a certain monkey enclosure with a bench, he had us sit and eat lunch. That is exactly the place where we had sat and eaten before. It is a fun out of the way place to watch the monkeys. Several came and hung on the net in front of the glass right by us.

Celeste and Cara were pushing the strollers so I was Brandon's "buddy," which means I held onto his monkey tail backpack and ran around after him. We had a good time and I got some good exercise out of the deal. Brandon always likes to pick up a zoo map and "follow along".

Arizona and my new grandson Indy!

I am currently in sunny Arizona visiting with Cassy, Taylor and Indy. Indy has four short legs and a waggy tail. This cute little puppy has two blue eyes and a wrinkly body. According to the vet, Indy is part sharpei, australian shepherd and maybe something else. He loves his new grandma! Yea.

Taylor puppy-sat Indy yesterday while Cassy took me on an outing to the Desert Museum. It was a fabulous afternoon wondering through the Sonora Desert, viewing native plants (cacti) and animals. We watched beavers, otters, Javelina (wild boar), snakes, tarantulas, lizards, and a beautiful moutain lion. It was a fun day!

Cassy treated me to my favorite meal - homemade tacos for dinner!