Lil' Miss Hawthorne carrying oh-so-important things such a wine and a salad to a backyard dinner.

Two Wheels...

This is one proud little girl. She decided that today she was going to ride a bike with no training wheels and she did...on the very first try...and in flip flops. She is determined and does not like giving up. Now all she wants to do is practice riding her bike. We have been doing a lot of biking riding around town this summer and she is so excited to show off her two wheels.

Camping - Backyard Style

This weekend we took part in the National Wildlife Federation: Great American Backyard Camp Out. This was the first time we slept under the stars in a tent as a family and hopefully not the last. As much as we love our sweet little trailer, it was awful fun sleeping in a tent. We even had some really cool tent neighbors who let us share their backyard with them. Our camp out came complete with s'mores and starry sky, and coyotes and crickets. It was a perfect summer night to spend time outdoors with family and friends and I really could not ask for a more perfect night than that.

Lettuce and Spinach from our garden.

Colorado Classic Campout

This weekend we skipped out of town for the Colorado Classic Campout. Last summer we were given an amazing 1970 Rolite Retract-A-Wall camper and it sparked our love for all things with vintage campers. For Andy's birthday my parents gave him (us) the gift of going to the Colorado Classic Campout at the Starlite Campground. Starlite has a bunch of vintage campers you can rent on the campgrounds or you can bring your own. My parents brought their pink Shasta trailer and we brought our camper - complete with brand-spankin-new curtains and throw pillows. We were able to tour all the other campers there. I loved being able to see what other people are doing with their campers and get some ideas about what we want to do with ours.

We also drove into Salida one day. If I couldn't live in my little town, I would live in Salida. Salida is the perfect combination of outdoorsy and artsy. It has amazing art boutiques and creative, environmentally friendly businesses. It has tons of cruiser bikes and an amazing bouldering wall for kids. The Arkansas River runs through town and you can go rafting and fly fishing. We also heart Amica's Pizza and Mircobrewery there...it's the best! I am looking forward to going there again very (hopefully) soon!

Garden Update

We have been busy the last few weeks...and things are starting to payoff. Here are some pictures of our garden a few weeks ago

Tiny lettuce sprouts.

At this point, all our garden beds were not quite finished.

Here is the garden now. Most everything has been planted. Today we actually harvested a bunch of spinach. Everyday we check to see what has gotten bigger and weed a bit. It is humbling to grow something - to witness the miracle of planting a small seed in the ground and watching it sprout and grow bigger and just seeing what is was meant to do.

Giant sunflowers that are just a few inches now.

Here is our lettuce...ready to harvest now!

A Needed Adventure

Today was one of those amazing summer days where you just want to be outside

so we went on a little adventure.

We went to Denver and has to seize the opportunity for Blake to take a picture in front of her street. Everyone should have their own street. It should be a law. Please let me know if you ever see Brecken Avenue or Quinn Way.

Brecken is rockin some new braids...if you look close, you can see a few of her purple highlights.

We found ourselves at the Denver Chalk Art Festival. I was so inspired by how these artists can make something so amazing out of chalk and a piece of pavement.

We also were able to put our creativity on the streets of Denver as well.

After the Chalk Art Festival, we had to find a place to cool down so

off we went to the fountains.

The girls loved running through the water...Quinn was not so sure about the fountains.

We had so much fun. Today was one of those days where you just the weekend

could start all over again just so we could have more fun. Here's to more weekends!