This weekend we camped at Boyd Lake in Loveland with my parents. We had the best time! My mom and I watched as Kadin buried himself in mud and swam in lake water. Jasmine spent half her time trying to keep up with her brother at the playground and the other half eating watermelon. I love these evening I get to spend with my family sitting by the campfire enjoying the beautiful view and the great Colorado evenings. A big thanks to my mom for helping me prepare for my interview and GRE test!

We are two weeks into the Greeley Recreation Summer Baseball League.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Kadin is being coached by a man named Chuck Bowles.  I knew Chuck when I was a little girl.  Chuck was the "Pepsi Man" (worked for Pepsi), and he would deliver Pepsi products to Windsor Health Care, where my mom worked.  Each day before and after school i would help my mom at work, taking patients for walks, reading stories, assisting with feeding, or just sitting and coloring pictures with them.  This is probably where my love of helping people blossomed - seeing my mom taking such good care of her patients and experiencing it first hand myself each day.  Chuck enhanced the experienced by his outgoing and fun personality.  He always made us smile.

As most of you know, Northern Colorado was hit by a large tornado last Thursday.  The area hardest hit was my hometown of Windsor.  Windsor is just 15 miles to the northwest of Greeley.  The same tornado did moderate damage to the outskirts of Greeley just a few miles from our home.  The picture they keep showing on the news, of the tornado moving along the highway, is just west of our home on the road that connects Greeley to I-25.  So we all feel very fortunate that no one was hurt.  My parents and brother all had some minor damage to their homes, such as windows broken and shingles blown away and minor damage to the motorhomes.  My mom and dad live on opposite sides of town and the tornado did major damage next to both of their homes.  The destruction to one subdivision, in particular, in Windsor is devastating.  At least 500 homes were effected and at least 150 of the homes were totally destroyed.  

On a lighter note, Kadin learned to ride his bike this week.  He had one major spill and fell face first onto the cement after trying to ride down a small hill.  I was with him and noticed he was out of control seconds before the crash and couldn’t do anything to help.  it was really hard to watch him crash and to see his face torn-up.  He ended up splitting his lip badly, scraping his nose, and skinning both his knee and wrist.  His dad always tells him "if you fall off a horse you have to get back on" and he did just that the day after his fall.  

Today my dad and I planted 40 perennials/flowering shrubs in our backyard.  Thanks for the help dad!  I am so excited to see all our work pay off the next few years.  I’ll post pics once things start to look beautiful.

Jasmine is cruising now.  It has only been a little more than a week and Jasmine is no longer crawling, instead she is walking everywhere.  At times, when she is trying to keep up with her brother, she even tries to run a little.  She gets so excited when walking that she squeals and has a huge smile on her face.  

Kadin is going to Frontier Academy for Kindergarten.  Jason and I attended a parent meeting last week and everything went well and we are very impressed with the teachers.  Yippie we finally picked a school!  Kadin will start baseball in a few weeks.  The year will be an adventure because he will be with the 6 & 7 year olds.  It should be interesting - either he will learn a lot from the older kids or never get to touch the ball.  I’ll keep you updated.