After our weekend at Colorado National Monument and then Black Canyon of the Gunnison, the girls couldn’t wait to just hang at the pool and talk talk talk with cousin IE. This year they talk about the babysitters club the most – the BSC books themselves and then they pretend to be babysitters and their princess figurines are babysitters, etc etc.

It was so great to be together and doing “normal” summer fun things. The hotel pool was really nice!

We loved all the flowers at the hotel (Wine Country Inn) and the breakfast there and the rocking chairs!!!

Ohh – my rocking chairs on my front porch are one of the few things I miss from our house. I have so many happy memories there.

Somebody in NC go right now and sit on a southern rocking chair on a southern porch to finish your reading! Do it now and enjoy for me! 😊

Palisade was such a cute town. We keep finding those! It is boxed-in by mountains and protected fruit orchards so there is a low risk of too much growth. We love that it will keep its small-ness even though it’s close to Grand Junction. There are orchards every.where! And the wine, peaches, and cherries were amazing. You really haven’t had fruit until you’ve had it fresh off the tree . They were sooo juicy and sweet!

At Palisade Basecamp, where we stayed, we had a little pool as well so some of the days we took a dip there. There was no shade so we had to get creative!

For those curious, that RV park was good. We were right on the Colorado River and had some great views… but there were also some eye sores on the other side of the park. Overall it was a good place to stay and they also had really nice bathrooms! The girls enjoyed playing on the mat and hanging around Woody together:

And 2 nights MM took all the kids and B and I had date nights!

The only out n about adventures we had for the week were the playground I posted of on my first post of the visit (what a great playground!) that we went to a few times and Bananas Fun Park. We saw they had $10 Tuesday with unlimited laser tag, mini golf, bumper boats and inflatables and it was a fun day! It wouldn’t have been worth it full price but for that deal it was great.

(Yay for IE and AB being willing to do laser tag with RR. A room full of big boys and they were the secret weapon and won!)

On our last night we celebrated RR’s bday early and enjoyed a happy dinner and singing to him. He got some great books legos and games from MM Pa and the Warners!

The girls slept at Woody the last night and I snapped these sweet pics of them. They are just too cute together. AB and E have always embraced IE like another sister! It is adorbs.

And don’t you worry about RR! He is used to being around all younger kids and girls haha. The girls and him are besties as well and they do a great job trying to do what he wants sometimes as well as their girl things. He had a great week and loves his cousin and special time with MM. MM and him caught an awesome sunset together the last night:

RR does wrestle with the yearning for a brother / best friend around his age like the girls have. But we see the Lord working things out in his heart and it’s all good so don’t you worry 😊. It’s a great faith-builder for RR to take his hurts to the Lord and trust God knows best. Although he struggles some times more than others, he always can see eventually the positive. Among other things: 1) he has amazing friends both on the road and in NC that he gets to spend time with. It doesn’t replace a brother but it’s a positive. 2) The girls do an amazing job of loving and including him and looking up to him. The way things are have made him who is he is today and are making him into who God wants him to be. RR is SO good with younger children and has many young boys that look up to him and love him dearly. He can often be seen with a small pack following him as he leads them in organized games or silly play. And there are other things. He knows he’s a blessed boy and Mommy Daddy really try to enter that space when no friends are around and the girls are doing girl type things 😊.

We do pray for more opportunities to play hard with older boys on the road… and we are so thankful for our friends back in NC that we will be with again soon enough! He’s truly a special kid and we know all things will work for his good because he is so loved by the Lord and he knows it.

Thanks for reading and your prayers for each of us!

We all enjoyed last week with our special girls so much. Everybody knows how much we love MM 😊. And we always welcome IE like she’s one of us and are so happy to have her with us!

Thank you so much MM for making this happen!