Celebrating 4th of July with the Family

We kicked off celebrating Independence Day with my family. We headed to Gigi's for a cook-out and fun in the pool - including letting the kiddos try out the new giraffe pool. Meredith loved it and we could hardly get her to leave!

Meredith and Landon loving the giraffe pool

We even let Jillian check out the giraffe pool too...

Once I knew she was okay with that, we tested out the big pool - she seemed to really like floating with mommy!

After swimming and dinner we headed out to watch fireworks at the Highlands. We had a really nice view and we were pleasantly surprised that Landon, Meredith and Jillian all did great even with the noise. Meredith wanted me to hold her at the beginning because she was a little nervous about it being "too loud" but she warmed up to them as they went on and loved guessing what the next color would be.

Looking a little nervous, but she really loved all the colors and the pretty sparkles.

Jillian's view of the fireworks.

Fun at our "Mountain home"

The house where we stayed was perfect for all of us - Meredith loved the bunk beds in her room and the VHS library of movies she had never seen! We brought lots of her favorite toys from home and Bubbie had alerted the "Mountain Fairy" that we were coming, so she visited every night with a fun surprise for Meredith. We had some great home cooked meals (courtesy of Bubbie, of course). Meredith and Bubbie scouted out several groups of deer (Neal and I finally got to see some too on a walk with the girls the last day we were there) and Meredith and Granddad loved putting out peanuts for the chipmunks.

Jillian loved sitting with Bubbie whenever she could. She would light up and just talk and talk and talk.

Meredith exploring the woods behind the house.
Even Coki got to go with us! She rode up with Bubbie and Granddad and their dog, Kendal.
Jillian enjoying the deck and the nice cool day with Daddy.

Helping Granddad with the grilling duties after they fed the chipmunks their dinner.

My three favorite people in the whole world.

More fun in Angelfire - horses, fishing, and the park

On our last day in Angelfire we decided to go exploring a bit - we took Meredith to a place that would rent horses for mountain rides. I would have loved to take her for a real horseback ride, but I knew it would be too tough on all of us to make it very far. Instead we went out just to visit some of the horses.

Meredith tried so hard to call the horses over - she was right by their water and she was sure they were thirsty.

After visiting the horses, we hit an even smaller lake than what we paddle boated on, but they still called it a lake, go figure. We brought a fishing pole out from the house we were staying in and showed Meredith how to cast the line and reel it in. This was fun for approximately 2 minutes. So we put the pole away and hit the really fun park!



We spent lots of time at this park during our trip. It had the tallest slide I have ever seen plus lots of other fun equipment all with beautiful views of the mountains. We laughed that we had to go all the way to New Mexico to go to the park, but now that it is over 100 degrees every day in Texas, this was the best park trip we are going to have for a long time!

Check out how tall this thing was!
A shorter two-lane slide was perfect for Meredith and Daddy races

Meredith's favorite version of a horseback ride
Beautiful view

Paddle boating in Angelfire

One afternoon we headed down to the "Lake" to rent paddle boats - Bubbie very wisely commented that in Texas, we would call this lake a stock pond. Even though it was a pretty tiny lake, it was plenty big for a paddle boat - especially with Meredith's help maneuvering it.

Meredith helping me to paddle

She loved to steer!
Luckily for my legs, we convinced Bubbie to go out for a ride too.
Jillian's way of enjoying the lake. I promise I had her covered except to take this picture - I learned my lesson the day before!
Check out Meredith and Bubbie's matching hats that we bought them out shopping. I really wish I had gotten a picture of them in them together...