ｍｏａｂ: ｐａｒｔ 1

Our final summer adventure lead us to Utah. My sister, Jaime, flew in from Kansas City and my sister, Jill's, family all met us in Moab, UT. 

We left on a Thursday night and met up at a hotel in Moab.

On Friday we explored Dead Horse State Park followed by Canyonlands. 

I apologize. I tried to be choosy with my picture selection but we had so much fun exploring. And we don't get to get our families together often so I had to take advantage.

First stop: Dead Horse State Park

We successfully got 11 in our selfie!

Riley, Jake, Me, Jaime, Sami, Jill Sydney, Brian, Brendon, Cole and Reece in front! :)

Cousins

#Twinning ;)

Don't show Grandpa Beggs this one! He's a tad bit scared of heights.

Sisters!

So "DEAD HORSE STATE PARK" is a slightly disturbing name for a park... turns out there is a twisted story about cowboys weeding out the week horses and fencing them in to die. This is what their fence was made out of. Crazy cruel. :(

 ***

Next stop: Canyonlands

Mesa Arch photo op... fantastic!

Silly Aunt Jaime.

Sisters!! 

Again...do NOT show Grandpa Beggs!

Cousins
Cole, Riley, Sami, Brendon, Sydney, and Reece.

Brendon taking a selfie. 

Our last stop of the day was a picnic to watch the sunset. Haze had set in about mid afternoon. We are assuming it was from the California fires. I do think it brought out more colors for our view. I think we logged over 24,000 steps on day 1. We got back to the hotel after dark and tried to get as much rest as possible for day 2.

ⓒⓡⓨⓢⓣⓐⓛ ⓜⓘⓛⓛ ⓗⓘⓚⓔ

Crystal, CO is one of the most beautiful, remote spots in Colorado. It's almost a ghost town...we hiked 6 miles to check out the beautiful Mill. It was a rainy-ish day, but so worth it. It does make you wonder why people ever settled in such a place.

6Tᕼ & ᖴᖇEᔕᕼᗰᗩᑎ YEᗩᖇ

Just a few...or FOUR weeks late.

Maybe the denial is finally wearing off. 

Reece has moved up to middle school and Riley is on to high school. 

I had some issues with pictures when transferring them after I got my iPhone 6... which made this blurry. And the next one too. I didn't know when moving my pictures to my computer the "Live" function on my phone camera was technically taking movies. I spent HOURS trying to get all my pictures over and now I'm stuck with a few blurry ones. Technology can be so lame sometimes. :(

***

This was 2 weeks before school actually started, but it was my first time picking Riley up from high school. He had to take a 2 week course to prove he could skip 9th grade Math...which is what he took in 8th grade. Needless to say it was a breeze for him. Now he is asking his Math 2 teacher for more challenging work. Apparently Math 2 is not challenging him  either.

***

Reece, Ryan, and Johnathan at 6th grade orientation.

6th grade orientation definitely deserves ice cream! ;)

ҒRIDΔΨ ΠIGHTS

With the nonstop construction that is taking place here in Glenwood the downtown businesses worked on drawing the folks out on this Friday night. They hosted an outdoor movie at the Adventure Company where we got to use their rafts as seating. It was so fun. We ate yummy pizza at Rocky Mountain Pizza Co and grabbed some sweet treats from Sweet Adventures, then we curled up for "Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Ms. Pac Man and Pizza with Luke.

ｆｕｔｕｒｅ ｖｉｓｉｏｎｓ

My boys got to be a part of a the opening night for the Aspen Music Festival that takes place every summer in Aspen, CO. This was at the end of June and was a rollover from the programs they took during the school year. It was amazing and so special they got to perform together. Riley was in the Lead Guitar program and Reece was a part of the Maroon Bel Canto Children's Choir.

The programs were issued a grant that allowed a song be written just for them to debut. That's pretty awesome in my book. So the entire piece was called "Future Visions." 

The Strings section got to play their part called "Future Groove."

Lead Guitar got to play their part called "Bells of the Future."

Then we got to hear the Choir sing the song.

The final piece they all played/sang at the same time and it was incredible how it sounded when it all came together. This music loving momma was in tears. This was the WORLD DEBUT of a song written just for this program! Performed at the ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL!! How cool is that?

I spy Riley in blue!

Since I know my son so well, I spy Reece and his shiny, blonde hair. =p

After hours of rehearsal they got a pizza break before show time.

***

Who's that handsome devil??

Riley was added to the "sign up" page for Lead Guitar. So sweet!

Check it out here!

Ԁıṅṅєŗ åṅԀ å ṃọṿıє

Back in July, my boss had a fun barbecue and movie night at her house. 

We had such a fun night enjoying each others families, eating lots of food, candy, and watching "Princess Bride."