Daddy's Home!

Shanti was out of town for over a week and got back a few days ago. We missed him! He attended a conference in Salt Lake City, and had to leave in the middle to fly to DC to accept an award from the Department of Energy acknowledging people's hard work in Greensburg. After the conference in Utah, Shanti flew to LA to get a cool VW van (with a pop-up top and beds) that his aunts gave to us (and Gabe). So he drove that back to Denver with his friend Carl who lives in LA. Whew! In addition to all this chaos, we finally found a huge used wooden playset and picked that up on Saturday. We will post pictures soon of Carl's visit, the van, and the playset.

Babysitting Co-op

I recently joined a babysitting co-op of families in our neighborhood. I earn coupons by babysitting other kids, then I can use those coupons to "pay" other moms to watch our girls. It's nice since you don't have to invest any real money; it's basically trading babysitting services. Yesterday I dropped the girls off, had my hair cut and ran some errands-- all by myself! It's amazing what you can do without 2 kids tugging at you :)
Here are Shilah and Serena with a couple of girls we watched a few weeks ago...

Serena Walking!

Serena is officially walking! Usually it's just a few steps, but sometimes she walks across the room like in this video...

Bailey Days

On Sunday we went to Bailey Days, which is a festival in a nearby mountain town named Bailey. Shilah had a great time bouncing and swinging, and both girls had fun petting the puppies at the local humane society tent. It was a beautiful day!

Sleepover!

We watched Shilah's friend from playgroup again (about a week and a half ago), and this time she slept over. It was Shilah's first time having someone sleep over! We set up a couple of mattresses on the floor of Shilah's room, and soon they were both out for the count...

Shanti's Family

Well here is the last set of the pictures from our trip. We had a great time hanging out with Shanti's family both in Maine and his mom's house in Massachusetts! Of course one of the highlights was Tamara's new baby Cheyenne. Shilah was so cute as she kept saying, "I love Cheyenne!"

Uncle Shanti with new niece Cheyenne...

Grandma Evie!

Aunt Claire and Shilah eating ice cream...

Aunt Tamara with the Pless cousins! (Serena is thrilled)

Serena with Aunt Anica and Uncle Aaron-- they're getting married next summer!

Friends in the Buffalo area

Also while we were in Buffalo we got to see some friends. Here is my friend Kelly from college with her two kids. It was neat to see our kids play together!

Shilah with Shanti's friend Ed from college and his wife Jenny (no, Shilah is not picking her nose :)

Shilah with my friend from high school, Kim...

Shilah with the niece of my longtime friend Laura...

Niagara River

While we were in Buffalo we spent a little family time at the Niagara River...

Buffalo!

After our visit in Maine & Massachusetts, we drove to Buffalo to stay with my parents. Here are the girls with Grandpa Rick...

We love swinging with Grandma Sho Sho!

We had the chance to visit with Great Grandma Youngers, which was really nice since we usually only see her once a year.

Shilah had a great time swimming in grandma & grandpa's pool. We bought her a new life vest-- it took Shilah a while to "swim" on her own, but soon she was floating by herself, holding onto the edge of the pool!

Serena taking steps!

Serena can confidently take about 3 steps at a time now, sometimes more. She's taken up to about 10 steps, but has to stop every few to catch her balance. It won't be long until she's officially walking!

Grandpa's Farm

Back to reporting on our trip! After spending time in Maine, we drove to Framingham (just outside of Boston) to visit Shanti's dad and stepmom. Grandpa Ed and Tita Georgette work on a dairy farm, so the girls had fun petting the cows! Shanti actually took a quick work trip that morning into Boston to do an energy audit of Fenway Park. Cool! Stay tuned for pics of our adventures in Buffalo...

Ridiculous headline of the day: Victoria's Secret sued for thong injury

11 months old!

Serena is 11 months old today! Here she is showing off what a messy eater she is :)
Today Shanti and I are also celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary. Time flies!

Father's Day

To celebrate Father's Day on Sunday we met Gabe & family at Reynolds Park in Conifer. We had a nice little picnic, and Shilah & Emory had a great time running down the trail and finding butterflies!

At the Ocean!

While we were in Maine we spent some time at the ocean. It was Serena's first time, and it was neat to see her play in the sand (and eat the sand). Stay tuned for more pics from our trip!
Yesterday we had a nice time celebrating Father's Day with Shanti, the best dad our girls could hope for!

Cousin Becca's wedding

We kicked off our trip by attending Shanti's first cousin Becca's wedding in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. We flew into Hartford Thursday afternoon and drove to Maine on Friday. It was a beautiful wedding and a great time!

















Becca with new husband Will














Shanti with the girls and their new first cousin, Cheyenne. Shanti's sister Tamara had this new baby girl, only 3 weeks old here!

Shilah had a great time running around with her cousin Angevin. Gevin is Shanti's first cousin Jeshuah's little girl, and is about 6 months younger than Shilah.

Grandpa Ed attended the wedding also!

Dancing with Aunt Claire

Shanti and the girls with aunts Tamara, Claire, and Anica

Serena had a great time riding on daddy's shoulders!