Summer Craziness

Whoa. This summer has just been nuts. I really dislike it when I have to post a giant hodgepodge of events in one post. But at this point, if I don't post everything now, it won't get done. So here's a bunch of stuff that happened this summer:

Because Matt and I have had something going on every single weekend of the summer, we haven't had time to do any hiking. It's been pretty depressing, especially considering the amount of time we spent in the mountains over the last year. Oh, well. Hopefully, we'll have plenty of Colorado summers to enjoy in the future. For now, I'm just trying to get my mountain fix in any way I can, which means leaving Matt behind. A few weeks ago, I went out with Melissa for a weekday afternoon hike - something I haven't gotten to experience very often.

Hiking.

We went for a nice, short hike in Golden Gate Canyon Park. There were quite a few pretty wildflowers to see along the way.

Columbine.

Meadow.

An old homestead and meadow.

Aside from the mosquitoes and a few rain showers, late afternoon is a pretty nice time of day for a hike.

One of our many events this summer was the combined wedding of Matt's cousin and anniversary of Matt's grandparents. It was a crazy weekend of love and family!

On our way out to the festivities, we stopped to see a couple of friends and their new home. We drove through their Kansas town to check out the new digs and see how they were doing. Jeff is working on his dad's farm, and as a (western) Colorado girl, I am pretty unfamiliar with the activities Jeff participates in daily. It was a new and exciting experience for me!

In a tractor. My first.

Fancy computerized equipment.

Checking out the crazy combine.

Crazy Kansas wind farm.

Too soon, it was time to be on our way to the main event(s). First, we gathered after the wedding rehearsal dinner to celebrate 60 years of marriage for Oma and Opa!

The happy couple.

It was great to hear the family share stories of how Oma and Opa have been there for us all. I know that Matt and I aspire to have a marriage as loving and caring (and long-lasting!) as theirs.

Weddings are always fun for the family not directly involved in the stressful planning and organizing. Just being a guest allows for plenty of time to visit and have a blast with other guests. The night before the wedding, Matt and I were able to spend some time with family members, visiting and making late night trips to Jerry's for donuts!

When Matt was growing up, he would frequently stay up until the wee hours of the morning to get the freshest donuts from Jerry's. It's an experience I've never had and always wanted. So when we realized that our late night conversations had brought us to the hour of Jerry's opening, we (not including Matt, who pooped out) had to make the trip.

After a short stop to swing...

we had donuts!

Finally, it was wedding time!

Hooray!

Our awesome friends, Dac and Alisha, were the photographers (check out their shots of the wedding here). Since I knew they'd be doing such a great job, I didn't really bother to try and take any pictures of the actual event...

Oma's cake.

Us.

Alisha in action.

Scott and Kellie.

Dac in action.

And of course, being given the opportunity to hang out with Dac and Alisha meant we had some serious Settlers of Catan action awaiting us.

Reviewing the rules... it's pretty complicated.

More recently, we had a visit from our good friends, John and Anna. Due to various conflicts and complications, they've been unable to come out to Colorado for quite some time. While we've still gotten to visit with them in Kansas, we were ready for them to see our house and our lives out here in Colorado. To show them some amazing Colorado views, we headed up Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Beautiful elk.

Me and Anna.

Yay.

Aw. John and Anna.

Elk.

As usual, we saw some rude and inconsiderate people walking on the tundra and ignoring the signs. But I tried really hard to not let it ruin my mood, and I photoshopped them out of my pictures. So it was pretty cool.

Site of a lovely picnic dinner.

Because it was the Fourth of July weekend, Matt enlisted the help of John in the fireworks show! Yep, that's right. Matt jumped through the hoops to get certified to blow stuff up in the state of Colorado. With John's extensive experience helping Matt at shows in Kansas, he was well prepared for his role as "Number One" (like William Riker).

Setting up.

Doing fireworks stuff.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature wanted to make Matt's first Colorado show interesting.

Rain.

Covered fireworks... and a rainbow.

A brief break in the rain allowed for the serving of the delicious dinner I made for the guys (enchiladas!).

The rain continued through the evening, until finally the decision was made to just shoot through it! It was extremely exciting (and wet) when they started shooting the show in the pouring rain.

Anna and I had to stand out in the rain to see the fireworks. But it was worth it, and we were much drier than all the guys were.

A firework.

In the end, it was great that they were able to shoot the show, as many of the surrounding shows were canceled and postponed. Of course, all of the guys were soaking wet and pretty miserable in the end. Hopefully, next year is drier!

Whew! If you made it through this post, I'm impressed. As you can see, summer's been pretty crazy for us. And it doesn't stop here! We have more exciting things going on every day!