My little brother David returned from his mission to Peru this month and so Annabelle and I went home for 10 days. Mike, Adam (my older brother) and his wife Trudy {who is pregnant - hip hip hurray} were all able to join us for the weekend that David spoke in church. We had a great trip, spent lots of time with family and it was cool enough I even put on my sweatshirt a few times (rain in 60 degree weather). Here are some highlights:David coming home of course was the main event of my time spent in Colorado. At first he seemed to be a little uncomfortable around us, I think because we are a lot louder and rowdier than the polite Peruvians he has been living with but he got used to us and caught up on sleep (due to layovers and canceled flights I think he traveled for about 30 hours).
Annabelle warmed up to him after a few days and asked me a few times if he was going back to Peru or not. I was glad to inform her that he was not, his plans now are to return to BYU and work on a degree in Bio-informatics (sp?).
My grandma, Nona if you have met her, came up with the idea of taking Annabelle to the North Pole. The North Pole is a little amusement park up in the mountains west of Colorado Springs. It is perfect for younger kids with fun rides and no lines. And because it is in the mountains the temperatures are nice in the summer and not too crowded.
Although Annabelle wasn't afraid of the crazy fast and twirling rides or even the ferris wheel (the world's highest, by the way) She wouldn't sit on Santa's lap! And they had a really good, white bearded, blue twinkling eyed Santa available. Oh well!
Over the weekend that the ENTIRE McKean family was in town we went on a hike to a spot we have hiked to since I was probably only a year old. And of course had to take the opportunity to get some professional family pictures taken.
Went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo . . .
And of course we had some good down time to play with Grandparents. At the McKean house that meant eating ALL of the raspberries out of the garden each morning. And at the Sherwood's that meant either reading dozens of books or taking a quick little dip in the fountain with Papa Zeke.
