Ogilvie Great-Grandparents

We went to visit my grandparents. You'd never guess my grandpa is nearly 90 years old.

Dan got a snack Sunday night to eat while we watched TV. I had no idea that he moonlighted as Santa Claus. Who else, besides Santa, drinks herbal tea, eats two giant cookies and chocolate covered pretzels and calls it a little snack?

The boys love Family Home Evening, can you tell? We mainly sing lots of songs, and they climb on top of Dan.

Pumpkins

Our fun with gardening has come to an end. Here are the boys with our fall harvest. We were pretty impressed with ourselves since this was our first attempt at gardening. We learned a lot, especially that we're never planting beets again.

This is Seth with the "baby pumpkin". It's his favorite, I think because it's the only one he's strong enough to pick up. Feel free to be impressed with my flower garden. It has been a labor of love, or obsession, take your pick, this summer. The lower part isn't in the picture because it still needs some love. My neighbors think I'm a bit over zealous, but in my defense, an hour of yard work with the boys helping equates to only about 20 minutes of actual work.
We grew 13 pumpkins this year. We loved it. Everyday the boys wanted to go out and count them. The pumpkin patch took up a lot of space, but I'd love to do it again.

Great Basin National Park

Dan's aunt Susan is a Park Ranger at Great Basin National Park. She is a geologist and gives tours of Lehman's cave. We had a mini family reunion and received an after hours VIP tour.

Before the tour we went on a hike to see the Bristle Cone Pine, believed to be the oldest living things on earth at 3,500 years old. We didn't make it to the grove because Seth cried the whole way up and then we decided to turn around and Brad joined in. The saving grace of that experience is that Seth fell asleep in my arms and I got to pretend he was a little infant again.

Lehman's Cave is the third most decorated cave in the United States and has some of the best examples of "shields" (I paid attention during the tour).

Seth did great and walked the whole way and Brad refused to be put down. It's what we expected- Brad has been freaking out in public places lately.

Uncle Mountie and Aunt Susan in the cave.

Gathering pinenuts with Maacha. Every five to seven years the trees produce more- we got there for a good year. My niece Maya was on a quest and would hardly sit down for meals because she wanted to gather more nuts.

The kids all got to wear ranger hats and wear "Cave Cadet" pins.

Seth, Brad, Maya, Kylee, Sophie, Giovani (Kylee and Giovanni are 2nd cousins)

Possible contender for our Christmas card picture.

We rented a tent trailer and the kids were really excited about it when they first saw it.

Weekend in Denver

It's been years, if ever, that we've done something really cool, but last weekend we were able to pull it off. We flew to Denver for the weekend and met up with our friends Gary and Teri and had a child free weekend.
This was Dan for a good portion of the trip- he loves his iPhone and was excited to use some of his cool apps.
The highlight was a concert at Redrocks amphitheater. Teri was super excited as you can tell. The venue is awesome. The red rock in the background is on both sides which makes for great scenery and acoustics.
Added bonus: Jason Mraz came to sit by me before he went on stage to perform. :)

Waiting to rock out.

Jason Mraz Redrocks Performance of I'm Yours

K'naan opened for Mraz and I almost liked him better, check it out: K'naan

We also drove to Boulder for the afternoon and went on a tour of Celestial Seasonings tea factory and Dan has been drinking herbal tea every night since. Downtown Boulder was so fun. I think I could definitely move there and be a tree hugging yuppie and wear my Chacos and hiking clothes everywhere I go.

We ate out and some great restaurants. Cafe Berlin was Dan's favorite. We also toured Denver's art museum and shopped. It was a great vacation.

A big thank you to the Kellers for helping us to embrace our dwindling coolness and to both grandparents and aunt Allie for their willingness to watch the boys.

Kangaroo Zoo

We went to Kangaroo Zoo with a friend of mine this week. It's has a bunch of blow-up bouncers for the kids. The boys both cried when we first got there, but then realized how much fun it was.
I had to coach him up the first few times, but then he got the hang of it.

Zoo

I took the boys to the zoo last week, yes, a total disappointment after being spoiled with Omaha's Henry Dorley Zoo, but luckily the boys didn't care. Plus, how could you not love a trip to the zoo while being pushed in a stroller and enjoying lunch with your cool shades while your mother sweats to death. :)

This is the mama elephant with her calf. Disturbing fact: the baby eats the mom's poop and it's nutritious for it- true fact according to the zoo keeper. They also have a baby giraffe.

This is Seth on Sunday morning. He got the blanket off his bed and the couch pillows and made himself a reading nook.

This is my first attempt at a video post, but here goes the monkey house.

Fun with Cousins

Cousins Maya and Sophie spent the day last week and the boys had so much fun.

Sophie and Brad cleaned my floors.

They all had a carrot from the garden and throughout lunch jumped around the kitchen pretending to be rabbits.

This is a shot from our pumpkin patch. I'll get a better one with more pumpkins later. I love growing pumpkins. We go out and count the pumpkins several times a week, so far we have ten growning. After we look at them the boys want to go in and read the Bearnstain Bears and the Giant Pumpkin.