First fall gym meet of 2011

Kaiya had her first USAG meet of the season last weekend. Now that she's a level 6, the judging is getting harder and she has her work cut out for her to make it to the state meet. This is the last level before she gets to start doing "optionals", meaning she and her coaches create all of her routines. Check out these cool action shots!

She gave us a little scare on vault when she messed up her approach and almost crashed. This gal is getting so tough, though--she went back and did a second vault just fine.

Her bar routine was awesome, but the judges were ruthless.

The biggest surprise of the night came on balance beam. The beam has always been Kaiya's nemesis, but she went out there and rocked it! She had her highest score of the night on beam with an 8.30.

Cute pic of Kaiya and her lone Level 6 teammate that day, Courtney.

Overall, it was a great first meet and now she has a bit of a break until her next meet in mid-October.

Our first adventure in family camping

I'm late posting this, but it was still blog worthy. We are not a camping family unless you consider the times the kids sleep on the floor in each other's rooms. My idea of camping is a nice hotel near some open space. But, Doug has always wanted to take us all camping as a family and he got his wish when we were invited to join a group of friends for the weekend near Grand Lake.

We got lucky and the weather was perfect all weekend. We did a short hike up to Adams Falls, which was gorgeous, had a nice fire each morning and night, played games, swam in the lake, cooked some great meals and just enjoyed hanging out. The kids all got along great and our girls cried as we left because they didn't want to go. The kids (19 in all!) had all built a fort and a whole 'city' near our camping spot. With no electronic devices, TVs or anything of the sort, they were just kids for 3 days. Cooper got his fix of fires and the girls loved being helpers to some of the little girls.

All in all, it was just a great weekend and we are looking forward to it again next year! I know . . . I'm actually thinking camping wasn't half bad after all!

What a great venue! Nice work, Tirsa!!

Coop and his little man, Ezra

If it resembles a raquet, Ben will find it

This is the fort the kids built all weekend (complete with a floral entry, thanks to the girls)

Canoeing in the lake

I think Carli and I missed the memo on wearing a plain, solid shirt.

Balancing on a rock while taking a family photo was not easy!

One of the great things about living in Colorado--gorgeous!!

Quality time in the tent

Snuck up on Tasha to get this shot.

Kaiya cannot get enough of this cuties