Part III and a Twig Beat-Down

Not sure it really helped anything separating this into a few posts, but it felt WAY too long for just one. So anyway, here's part 3.

We didn't ONLY eat all week. We also took the kids to lots of cute little parks where they could play.
They made friends all over Colorado.
We also went to Manitou Springs, and on the drive there I heard Paige saying in a really girly voice: "Every girl needs a little makeup". I looked back and she was pretending to teach Neely how to powder her face, with a wet wipe. She got embarrassed when she realized I was listening.
The kids favorite part of Manitou Springs was the little arcade area that had TONS of little quarter rides, and really unique ones. Like kangaroos.
And UFOs.
And a "killer whale" that was clearly a dolphin they painted to look like a killer whale. Ha.
There were also gigantic bike sculptures I made the kids pose on.
And we saw what we dubbed the "Batmohearse" parked there.
Then we drove around Colorado Springs looking at houses I want to live in.
On a street with the little buffer zone between the road and sidewalk, like this:
Poor Jess did 99.99 % of the driving the whole trip. But he looked good doing it.
Oh, and I liked the street names there, especially "Silver Swan". But we picked out the street we'll live on, mostly to please Cason, once we can afford the gigantic houses they build on it.
AWESOME!!

Another day we took the kids on a little walk by a creek.
Neely was cute in the carrier with her legs sticking out in front.
The big kids liked it, until Paige tripped while sprinting along the sidewalk and scraped her knees AND her nose.
Jess held her while she cried, and then I asked her how she tripped. She pointed to a tiny twig and said it tripped her. So I pretended to get really mad and went back and yelled at and beat up the twig while she watched. I stomped it and then picked it up and broke it in half. She felt better after I avenged her.
Another day, we did a different hike and it was SO nice out. Neely was hungry so they started without us, and I fed her in the car. But THEN a BEE flew in my window so Neely and I ran for it and did the hike with them after all. Ha.

When we got back I went to make sure it wasn't hiding in the car waiting for us, and the VERY first time I stuck my head in to look, it landed in my hair and I could hear it buzzing. So Jess smacked it out of my hair and killed it.

I took this picture of him and Neely, and Paige was clinging to him, calling him her "hero" for saving us from the bee.
I think Cason's favorite part of vacation was getting tons of superheros in happy meals. He was so lucky, he got a new one every dang time, no repeats. He was so pumped when he got Batman. He strapped him in to his carseat with him to keep him safe, and put his hands behind his head. You can see Batman's belt showing under the buckle. Ha.
His hair was getting rather long while we were there, so we took him to get his first haircut by someone who's not his mom or Grannybob. He was SO good though. He just sat quietly with his shy look he started doing lately, with his tongue sticking out.He felt pretty good after. He made up a song that went something like this: "I'm so cool in my new shirt. I wook soooo haaaandsome!" He was pretty handsome.
Other than that we shopped for some more summer clothes for everybody, and Neely got her big girl carseat while we were there. We have a certain one we love and I swear every model gets cushier and more comfy looking. Jess said the new one's a throne. Fit for our little queen bee.
Aunt Gail showed up in town our last day there, so we all went to dinner before we left. I failed to get any pics but this one though. Neely's expression makes me laugh.
The kids loved Cassie and miss her already.
When we said it was time to go Cason went to give Cassie a hug and said "Bye Dr. Cassie." Haha. We thought it was so funny. We've only mentioned that she's a doctor now like once, but he remembered apparently.