Finale.

 Gotta hurry up and finish my CO post since life is about to get really busy and there's something big and fun to post about tomorrow....the first day of school! Still can't get over my Z becoming a kindergartner and Samuel a 2nd grader. Wow. More on that tomorrow!

Everyone was very busy Saturday night running around collecting strewn items, packing, doing loads of laundry or in my adorable, precocious nephew's case....dancing. I wish I could describe it but you really had to be there. Just picture a 2 year old boogying down, break dancing and well, dancing better than most adults!!

A few of my favorite mountain shots. A camera never truly captures what you see with your own eye. It's truly incredible and awe inspiring to see the mountains.

Especially if you're from the Midwest:)

Sunday morning we got everyone packed up, cleaned up and loaded up by 9am! Then most of us followed each other down the mountain and back towards Denver to go to my sister and her husband's church.

Eliana was being a total ham before she crashed and took a nap on the way:)

After church, some more family took off for their homes (sniff!) and some of us went to eat lunch and then we made our way back to my sister's house, where we were spending the night. The boys discovered their love for the trampoline in about 2.4 seconds and literally stayed on it for hours the next 2 days!

I couldn't get any non-blurry shots because they were so busy jumping..

Laughing.....

And falling over:)

My adorable niece, Sofia.

Mr. Personality himself:)

My mom finally got to feeling much better from her virus and even got in on the jumping on Monday:)

I'm sure she'll thank me for this picture later.....hahaha!

Eliana discovered that trampolining was super fun, too! She threw a major tantrum when I tried to get her off. I know, hard to believe she could throw a tantrum, right?

Right.

Later on Monday around dinnertime, we headed over to see some dear, wonderful long-lost Chicago friends! We lived one floor apart back in Hyde Park and kept each other sane during the long, lonely winter months while our husbands were working hard at school.

I thought for sure our kids would need a little time to get to know each other again since it's been TWO years since we've seen each other but I was amazed to watch them act like they hadn't even spent a day apart! It was awesome.

Plus they got to have a big slumber party and stayed awake giggling til 10:30pm. Double awesome:)

Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day, which is apparently normal for Colorado. Imagine sun!! We went to a park to get some of the kid's energy out. Samuel was a bit grumpy that day due to lack of sleep:)

My lovely friend, Ms J, and her youngest, 2 year old twins. They were so gracious to host us for 2 days and have 7 kids, 7 and under running underfoot!!

My friend is extremely creative and great at finding ideas to occupy children. She pulled out some water beads in the afternoon and all the kids gravitated towards them like bees to honey. She may never get them out of her grass but it was worth it, I'm pretty sure:)

So busy!

We were really sad to say goodbye to our family, our friends and our vacation but we knew we had to get back and resettled before school and work began again. We loaded ourselves into our van and left just after 5am on Wednesday. As you can see from the picture above, we were exhausted!!!

The boys alternated listening to books on tape and sleeping the whole way home. Eliana took at least 2 naps and I did, too! All the kiddos were konked out about an hour from home. Eliana and Zakkai were carried right up to bed and we didn't hear a peep from them til late the next morning. Samuel was really hungry so he got a little snack and then went to bed.

He was probably hungry because Ben was (in my brother in law's words) a "Road Warrior" on Wednesday and every time we stopped he was like, "Hurry! Quickly! Gotta get back on the road!" We didn't drink much or eat much, just wanted to sleep in our own beds:)

Other than needing a few days to adjust and feel good, we had a really good vacation. We loved spending time with our loved ones, seeing new places and having fun. As all vacations go, it went too fast but we will treasure the memories always!

Now....back to reality:)