Catching up...

Sorry it has been so long since my last blog.

We (Karis and I) have been talking for a while about getting a couple fruit trees and we finally got them today. We bought a Red Delicious apple and a Mount Royal plum tree. Both these types of trees are supposed to do well in Colorado, so we will see. The plum tree had several plums already on the tree, but, unfortunately, they all fell off but one during the transportation and planting. Bummer! We planted them on the east side of the house so we can still use the long section of the back yard for soccer, throwing a ball, etc. Hopefully there are enough similar trees in the area for pollination.

Last Saturday Corban went camping in Estes Park with Jonathan and his family. He was gone both Friday and Saturday night. He was pretty proud that he was not too afraid while sleeping in the tent.

Meanwhile, Karis and I went bouldering up at Camp Dick. Camp Dick is up in the mountains near that great coffee store in Ward. Speaking of the coffee shop, I have not seen it open all summer. I wonder why?!?!? Anyway, I wanted to go up there to check out the camping as well as try the bouldering site. It was a 3 mile hike in and took us just about 3 hours to get there :). It was a long, slow hike in! I thought for sure we must have passed the 3 mile marker, but alas, we were just going eternally slow. I sure was wishing for a GPS device on that hike so we would have a good idea of how far we had been walking!

We finally made it there and I was not too impressed with the climbing. I won't go back unless I can take the 4-wheel drive road and forgo the hike. Karis, though, was having a lot of fun playing in the dirt, eating her snacks, brushing the rock for me, and making an ant farm out of her tic-tac container. She was actually catching ants and putting them inside! Several times I asked her if she was ready to go and for a couple hours she was not ready to leave yet.

The hike out took probably less than two hours. I never really know because I don't wear a watch. The path was slightly downhill and I was pulling Karis along pretty quickly. She kept saying, "Why are we going so fast?" We ended up getting home around 7:30 after a brief stop in Lyons for our after-climbing treat, espresso and hot chocolate. Before bed, Karis got to have her medicine (Ibuprofen) so her legs won't hurt during the night. She will often wake up in the middle of the night sobbing because her legs are hurting so much. It sounds like growing pains and the medicine before bed has worked well. She loves taking the medicine and often will say that her legs are hurting so she can get some medicine :).