Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

This year Natalee and Brady are on the same soccer team.  That makes it really nice for us!  Instead of keeping up with three different soccer teams, we only have two this year.  They have both been really enjoying soccer.  They've been improving a lot. A friend from church takes a lot of pictures during her granddaughter's games.  She takes pictures of everyone.  Here are some of the pictures that she shared with me. Natalee with one of her best friends, Grace.  Brady did score a goal.  I can't remember if it was at the time of the picture above or if it happened later.  

Todd and Kristin got married last Saturday in Frederick, MD.  It was a gorgeous site.  More importantly, there were a lot of lovely people involved in this wedding. Amie was extremely excited to go to rehearsal and meet the other flower girl, M.  She remembered Justin and Meredith's wedding and all of the fun she had with those flower girls.  She told me later, "I knew she would be fun!"  The weather was just perfect.  The day included bright blue skies, a few puffy clouds, low humidity,  and a nice temperature. All of the children were honored and thrilled to be part of this special day.  Natalee was a junior bridesmaid, Brady was the ring bearer, and Amie was a flower girl.  They could not wait for this day to arrive! You can see how thrilled Amie was to be part of the wedding.  Brady was wanting to wear the same hat that he wore in Justin and Meredith's wedding.  He intended to wear it to rehearsal, but forgot....

Our last morning in Colorado was spent back at the Great Sand Dunes.  Our "hotel" was only a mile or so from the entrance to the park.  We had an awesome views all around from our "hotel". The morning view looking toward the the sand dunes from our "hotel" was spectacular:  I suppose that our "hotel" met the standard definition of a hotel.  It just seemed kind of funny to call what appeared to be a duplex a hotel.  We passed right by it not realizing that was where we were staying. This was our "hotel".  We had two rooms.  One was a completely enclosed porch/sitting area and the other was a bedroom.  We ate breakfast at our hotel and then went back to the sand dunes.  We were there by 7:30 because the sand was cool and there were less people.  That was the beauty of staying so close to the dunes. This creek was very cold in the morning!  It made my legs cramp.  We started our walk to some of the higher lines...

Our last stop in Colorado was an adventure to Great Sand Dunes National Park near Alamosa.  This was really far off of our route, but it was gorgeous, fun, and worth the drive. We stopped first in Colorado Springs at the Focus on the Family Children's museum.  Then, we went to the Garden of the Gods (which is another place that I love to visit).  However, when we got there, it started to rain a lot.  We ate our lunch in the car.  It did not appear like the rain was going to stop any time soon, so we drove on to the Great Sand Dunes.  You can see that there were still some dark skies hanging around.  All of the kids were praying for no more rain so that we could sand sled in the morning. If it rains, the sand is too sticky to sled.  It was a lot of fun to run up and down the dunes.  On this night, we only ventured out onto the lower dunes.  Someone left a piece of wax and a broken sled on one of the dunes.  We took it ...