Yay! I can get to my photos again!

 Celebrating Aunt Saralyn's birthday in a hotel room

 She's 8!  Birthday donuts with Aunt Saralyn before heading to Colorado

A DS from Aunt Saralyn=one very surprised and happy Basia

 Basia's surprise as seen on her cake:  Playmobil Coliseum, a dream come true for the girl!

 When we found out we were going to a wedding in Albuquerque right before Basia's birthday, we decided to trek the rest of the way North to Colorado to spend her big day with the family there.  Basia was so excited to get to go to her Grandma's for her birthday.  Grandma went all out, with party games, prizes, decorations, favors, bean burritos, and root beer.  Basia loved it all!

 Posing with cousins.  Oh, and brother.

 After opening gifts from us and Aunt Robin at home, stopping at Grandmothers and getting to open more gifts, opening still more gifts from aunts and uncles in Albuquerque, it was gift time again in Colorado.

 Yes, Wipeout for Wii--I think she liked it.

 It took a village to set up the Coliseum.  No one minded a bit.

 Here's Basia posing in her birthday gift from Grandmother.  The kids played quite a bit of Harry Potter.

 Here it is, in all it's glory.  Unfortunately, we took our tiny car to Colorado.  What were we thinking?

She's showing off new earrings from Aunt Jeanne.

This is what most vacation mornings looked like for Brishen now that he is taking some live online classes.  At least they are portable!

 We were taken to a really cool vintage arcade mall in a cozy Colorado town.  Basia wildly ran from game to game with Gretchen and I following her.  Brishen tried to keep his dad from using all his quarters.

The following images are from one of our brand new board games.  We hope to play it with some of our dear family tomorrow, so that's all I'm saying about it right now.

 The hike:  Jeanne always has a new area for us to explore on our visits.  This was no exception.

 A bouquet from my honey.  I had to take a picture because if I actually kept them, I would have fallen and injured myself severely on some of these rocks.  I'm sure it was my dad who taught me to keep both hands free when walking along river beds on big, slippery rocks that may, or may not, be wobbly.

 Can your body twist like Basia's?  Yikes!

 The view at the end!

Shall I add the sad story of getting rear ended in Grandma's car on our way back from this hike?  The story of a soccer mom who was in a bit too much of a hurry who ran us down and then felt so, so bad?  The story that ended up with me in Urgent Care getting my neck checked out (not too much pain left, thank goodness) and a couple thousand dollars' worth of damage to Grandma's car?  Naw.  I'll skip that story.

When we got to Colorado, Pike's Peak was in it's green, summer beauty.  While we were there, Colorado Springs got an all-time record rain for one day of 4.5 inches.  That translated to snow in the surrounding peaks.  It was a beautiful transformation, but we were happy that we only got rain where we were (Jon didn't pack a single long sleeve shirt or jacket).  It was still the beginning of September, for goodness sake.  I'll take a day or two of snow in mid January, but they can keep it to themselves the rest of the year!  It was a great visit to Colorado and a nice time with family!