4th of July in Colorado

Okay, well it looks like my blog is turning into a monthly thing instead of every couple of weeks, but I guess that's how it goes when you have kids and lots to keep one busy!
Well, I'm not going to talk about my last trip, I survived and am moving on so I will tell you what we have been up to these last few weeks, minus pictures...my laptop has been having a lot of loading problems so Michael talked me into completely wiping out everything and reloading the start up cd's so now my camera is having trouble loading all the pictures since I have over 1700 on my camera flash drive, yes I can delete a bunch of them or so I thought. I checked my portable hard drive and found that the pictures I thought I saved on it are not there, but I did load them on my regular computer!! WHAT A PAIN!!!!
Any who, Gabriel turns 7 months on Sunday and he is trying to crawl, he is real wobbly getting up on all 4's and it's only happened a few times but I did catch one time with the camera after a bath!! He has also gone from a sitting position to all 4's just today. Even though I have witnessed this amazing thing 2 other times it is still so exciting to see. I just don't look forward to when he is actually crawling real good since the boys leave all kids of stuff on the floor that the baby will most definitely put into his mouth!!!
We just got back from an AWESOME vacation/visit home!! Our friend Seth who lives just north of Fort Collins got married the weekend before the 4th of July and we were lucky enough to be heading to Colorado for the 4th so we took a detour and enjoyed a fabulous wedding and reception and got to be with Michael's brother, mother, aunt, uncle and several cousins while there since many member's of his family were friends with Seth. After that fun time we headed to Durango and spent a couple of days with my folks as well as visited a few friends one of which is my good friend Kelly Rey who just had triplets (all natural, no fertility treatments involved) which is a total amazement. I got to be there to help with a feeding and diaper change, what a production she has got quite a system down and those babies sure are doing good too!! I miss living just down the road from them along with her sister in law who also just had a baby. After that we headed up to the mountains above Delores, CO for the annual Paulek (Michael's mother's maiden name and obviously her family) camp out. The first night it was just Michael, me and the boys, we went up early wanting to enjoy just being on "vacation" at least one night alone, but I noticed later the next morning Michael was saying well if they left (meaning his Mom & Dad, or Brother and Family) by 8am they will be here around 1pm or so, I'm guessing he wasn't enjoying the seclusion as much as I was. So yep as he predicted the next day Michael's Mom, Dad, Brother and Sister and their families set up camp with us and we enjoyed a wonderful day all together, which was a first since gosh, I don't remember!!! The 3rd day the rest of the family showed up, that's a huge party with tons of 4 wheelers too so all of us enjoyed many rides during the camp out (Michael's Dad let us take his 4 wheeler up with us early) Samuel couldn't get enough rides and climbed on whenever one started up, he's not shy or scared of "strangers" when it comes to riding fast, Hunter was exactly the same way last year! Hunter was surprisingly very interested in playing with all the kids and being a part of what they were doing, which is not usually him. He likes to be around the kids but not really participate, he tries but doesn't usually get what playing they are doing but they were pretending to play Star Wars so that was right up his ally!! On the other hand Samuel, stayed away from the kids most of the time he would pick up sticks and whack at all the flowers and weeds saying I kill bad guys, he would also grab a nearby adult by the hand and show them rocks, sticks, flowers and such to collect while they walked. It's so fun to see how those two are growing and changing, and it seems so much more apparent when your away from modern conveniences!!
Around noon on the 4th day which just happened to be the 4th of July we headed down the mountain (much to our dismay) and back to Oklahoma, but we only got as far as Santa Rosa since a good nights sleep was hard to come by in a tent, freezing your but off ,cramped by 5 people!!! Okay why do I like camping again? Not to mention the smell of clothes being worn for 4 days mixed with dirt and camp fire smoke. Boy was I looking forward to a nice warm shower, I had to wash my hair twice with twice the amount of shampoo I usually use. I won't mention having to shave!! WOW
Well despite the fact that we got rained on every afternoon and almost floated away one night, we had a blast and you can bet we will be back year after year to Ground Hog!!!
As soon as I fix my computer stuff I will post some pictures.
Hope everyone had a great Independence Day...Thank You to all the troops, and veterans for all that you have done for this country!! God Bless the USA!!!