Boulder

One of our last stops was Boulder.

Fun place to be in the evening.

Lots of street performers,

good food,

and people watching!

The view out of our restaurant.

Waiting patiently for our table at the restaurant.

Waiting patiently for the rest of the crew to finish dinner.

I thought this was a great place to take a picture of all the kids.

I think my photography skills must have been affected by the high altitude.Or something like that.

This guy was really cool.

He had people in the audience shout out their zip code, and he would place them in the correct location on his USA map that you can see outlined on the ground.

You can see that Elliott is standing on Lake St. Louis there.

Then, after he had pretty much filled the map, he would recall what zip code each person had told him and then tell them which city it corresponded with.

Pretty amazing!

reconnecting

We loved our Colorado trip.

Loved getting to see everything.

But the real reason for going was to reconnect with friends.

We watched Luke's baseball game

Elle let me paint her "ponytails"

And what to say about these two goofy mustache boys?

Breckenridge

We LOVED Breckenridge!

We actually went whitewater rafting before our jaunt to Breckenridge, but we have no pictures.

I didn't bring any kind of camera, because I feared it would fall to its doom in the water and so relied on the photographer on the trip.

When you do that, it's important to make sure you actually get the pictures from him at the end.

Minor detail.

Anyway, I would go back to Breckenridge in a heartbeat.

So fun and pretty.

I believe I would go in any season, too.

The real reason for our trip:  meeting up with the Adamses and the Duffs.

It had been way too long since we had all been together.

Must do it again, much sooner!

weekend stories

The weekend started out with a trip to Six Flags for the boys.

Amber takes them every year, and this year was double the fun for them since Rob joined them also!

They had a blast!

Unfortunately there was a malfunction with the camera card and we don't have any pictures right now.

The rest of the weekend was catching up on things at home.

This pile of artwork has been on my desk for months.

It's the kids' artwork from school that we deemed worthy of saving.

I like to take pictures of it so that I can put their favorites in their books without taking up a lot of space.

It's been in that pile awaiting a photograph, so that is part of what I did Saturday.

I only got through Ethan's part of the pile.

He was VERY proud of this masterpiece:

I took a picture of the back of it, too, since he had written the objectives 

and his teacher had marked his grade.

The writing at the bottom is mine.  I'm a little obsessive and go through all the papers they pull out of their backpacks everyday, recycle what doesn't need to be kept, hang what is special.  I also keep an archival quality marker in the drawer where we sort everything.  That way I can write little tidbits like this so that when we sort them at the end of the year (which I still haven't done - yikes!), I remember why we wanted to keep them and it's fun to remember the stories behind them.  Like I said, I'm obsessive.

I also worked a little on the bookshelves in the playroom and found this picture from a few years ago.  

How funny is that??

I'm thinking it so should have been our Christmas card that year.

And I'm wondering what ever happened to my nice flat abs.  Ha!

Sunday morning when I got to the First Look room I found a package wrapped up nicely with my name on it.  I opened it and found this....

And this was all that was written inside the card.

Someone was so incredibly thoughtful!  Thank you whoever you are!!  You made my day.

We had a great time eating at a new Mexican place (new to me, anyway) with friends after church, and then capped off the weekend with a trip to the local shaved ice/frozen custard/frozen yogurt place to meet up with some more friends.  It was National Ice Cream Day, so I even got my cone for $1.  Had such a good time chatting, laughing, watching the kids play, and enjoying the cooler evening.  So thankful for our friends and for the time to spend with them.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Our first stop in Colorado was going to be Colorado Springs, seeing Pike's Peak or Garden of the Gods or both.  However, they were all closed due to the horrible wildfires that had been tormenting that area of Colorado.

So we went north, instead, and explored Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.

Pizza for lunch in Estes Park.

I thought the wall was so cool, with all the names etched into it.

There were lots of signs saying not to write on the wall.

So we didn't.

Our first scenic stop after entering Rocky Mountain National Park.

At the same stop, just different area.

I don't think I could have asked for a better backdrop.

Once you get so far up into the Rockies, the landscape changes to a tundra.

If I remember right, just a few inches below the surface, the ground stays permanently frozen.

It's very fragile, so they ask that you walk only on the rocks.

That's why it looks like Elliott is trying to keep his balance.

He's hopping from rock to rock.

Doing a little climbing.  We are definitely no expert hikers or climbers, but we do enjoy it as a family (usually).  But it was a lot different at 11,000 feet than our usual Missouri elevation.  It didn't take long for us to get winded and boys to get cranky.  And Brian to get sleepy - apparently a consistent side effect of higher elevations for him.

At the top of the climb.  You can't really tell, but they were on top of a cool rock formation.

Beautiful colors on the rocks up there.

We even got to play in the snow.

On our way back down Trail Ridge Road.

Right when we reached the top, it started to rain.

Excited because they needed rain so badly.

Disappointed cause you couldn't see as well.

But this scene made up for that.  So pretty!

Up next:  Breckenridge

Go West

We took a family trip a couple of weeks ago.

This was our destination

Colorado.

To visit friends and to be tourists.

I went to Colorado with my parents and sisters many years ago.  Apparently when I was about 10.  I remember a lot of it - which surprised me since they said I was only 10.  So now I'm realizing that Elliott is probably going to remember a lot of what happens in his life from this point on.  Better make it count, huh?

One of the things I remembered was how flat Kansas was.

I thought it was pretty when I was younger and still do.

Love the storm cloud above.  Right before this scene, we had stopped in Salina and our trusty phones told us it was 110 degrees outside.  Our bodies told us it felt like that, too, with warm gusty winds to top it off.

It cooled down a little bit in the evening, but it was still windier than any place I ever remember.  It was the same story in this part of western Kansas on the way back.  Brian even remarked that he admired anyone who lived there, because it seems so isolated to begin with and then wind is blowing hard in your face all the time.  Very true.

We stopped and stayed the night about 30 minutes east of the Colorado border.  Apparently the time had changed to mountain time, but our phones didn't register that (and neither did our alarm clock in the room).  So we were down in the lobby (some of us sporting awesome vacation attire for our feet) ready for breakfast at 6:30, wondering why we were the only ones there and no food.  Elliott was starving and did not hesitate to find out where the food was.  He came back with an annoyed look and voice saying that the front desk guy said that it's only 5:30.  Oops.

And we made it into Colorado.

So far, it still looked much like western Kansas.

We stopped at this gas station and found this huge huge bear to pose with. 

I love this picture because in the background you can see Elliott laughing about this flushing toilet candy that he found.  (that we did not purchase)  At this stop we also found frisbees in the shape of a pile of cow manure.  (also not a purchase for the Weilers)

Very interesting place, I tell you.

Saw trains like this much of the way along I-70.

This one was my favorite, because it was so colorful.

Up next:  Rocky Mountain National Park

Race for the Cure St. Louis

Did my first Race for the Cure with these ladies a few weeks ago.

It was very humbling, to me, as a survivor, to see this....

a sea of people all walking for the same purpose - to raise money for breast cancer research.

I'm forever grateful to them.

For giving up a Saturday morning to help those of us who have been on the receiving end of "You have breast cancer".

I don't know all the details about how much money goes where.

I think they said 75% of what was raised here in St. Louis stays here in St. Louis.

I'm certain, though, that if it were not for organizations and events like this, that the breast cancer research would not be as advanced as it is.

Which would have left us with a much different outlook last May when we first heard those words.

So, THANK YOU to any of you who have ever been a part of this or any other event like it!

The bubble bus. 

 Never seen anything like it. 

 It was supposed to mark the halfway point.  

I think their GPS was off, cause we were almost to the finish line by this point.

Either way, we were happy to see it cause it was starting to get pretty warm by this time.

Loved the view leading up to the finish line.

We saw lots of tutu-wearing guys supporting their girls (wives, moms, sisters, daughters, etc.)

Lots of love here.

This guy definitely gets best supporting male in my book.

I don't know if he was there for a certain person or just supportive in general, but he definitely took it to a new level!

There was a special "survivor" finish area marked by this banner.  I'm glad Larenda's mom was there with me cause I don't know that I would have seen it.

She had told me that last year some of the Rams cheerleaders were there to greet them and that they were able to take pictures with them.

We all kind of thought that the Rams football players would have been a better choice, and look what was waiting for us in the survivors' area.....

Yep, someone else must have thought that was a good idea too.

Unfortunately, we watch college football at our house and I have no idea who these guys are.

But they were so nice and fun to take a picture with!

I can't quite put my finger on the emotion that I have about this shirt.

For some reason I feel that I will never part with it.

It's almost as if I earned it, like it's a prize.  An accomplishment.

But it's difficult to earn something that you really had no choice in trying to earn.

To me, it's just something that God gave us to deal with, to teach us, to bless us, to bring us closer to him.  So I really don't feel that I've "done" anything.

Except that it was a long hard journey.

And with a lot of help I was allowed to survive it.

Maybe it's like a reward or a diploma.

Maybe this shirt just symbolizes the end of that part of the journey for me and the beginning of the next part.

Or maybe it's none of that mush and it just reminds me of a fun day with these ladies.

Regardless, I'm happy to have it.

P.S.  If you ever have an urge to take a tour on the MetroLink.......we're your gals!!