Colorado, Part 1

The several days of our trip were very very busy. Since I had never been to Colorado, we wanted to get in everything we could, and we did a pretty good job of it! I'm going to fill you in on our trip in two very long posts, get ready!

We arrived to Denver and acquired the rental car around noon on Friday, and headed over to Golden. After Golden, we traveled to Breckenridge, on our way to Crested Butte. We spent all day Saturday in Crested Butte, hiking and attending Mark's cousin's wedding. Sunday, when we woke up to rain, we headed over to Colorado Springs to see the Garden of the Gods. Monday, we intended to go to Pike's Peak, but the upper elevations were closed due to fog so we headed towards Denver and saw Red Rocks Amphitheater and the Coors Distribution plant in Golden. After dropping off half of our crew at the Denver airport, Mark and I were exhausted! Here are some photos from the first half of our trip!

Obviously, the slide had to be used to view the river in Golden, CO.

Checking out Golden.

Double Rainbow! On our drive from Golden to Breckenridge.

We had to stop at the continental divide!

Our hike in Crested Butte.

Crested Butte Hike: We took a lot of photos together... To make up for the lack thereof in the past several years.

All cleaned up for a beautiful wedding in Crested Butte!

On our hike through Garden of the Gods.

Us Again!

The Rotman men and Garden of the Gods at sunset!

Red Rocks Amphitheater. 

 Look who it is!

I Like to Dance, Dance, Dance

I shared the video below on social media, so since many of you don't participate in Instagram, I knew I had to share it here as well.

Often during the day, I will put music on through Spotify. On Spotify you can choose a song you like and then start a "radio station" from that song. I have a few based off of artists like Taylor Swift, with the intention of listening to appropriate music with Anna Kate that won't drive me nuts. A song came on I had never heard, but it was catchy and had a good beat. I turn around to see Anna dancing her little heart out with the biggest smile on her face. Apparently when she hears music she likes, she just can't help herself, the girl has to boogie. Fortunately, despite our lack of dance moves, Mark and I can keep up with her dance style these days...

We're Back!

While I try not to advertise too much online that we are traveling, many of you know that Mark and I took another wedding-cation. This time around, we headed to Crested Butte, CO for Mark's cousin's wedding and took in a lot of cities, scenery, and fun along the way. We were out there for six days, and Anna had a great time at Gigi and Ru's house, even though we missed her terribly! I'll be sharing parts of our trip with you over the next week (or two, it's going to be a busy week here!), but until then, here is our favorite girl!

Nothing like some island reading. Although, a tropical island might be better...

Throwback Thursday

Since we shared Anna feeding her doggies yesterday, I figured a throwback to how Anna used to "feed" her beagles was in order. Look at the little baldie! This was around 4 months old.

Keeping everyone in order.

The daily stand-off.

"Man, Emma can EAT!"

"I'll just be over here eating my hands, guys!"

Feeding Doggies!

Would you believe we threw Mark a surprise 30th birthday party and didn't take any pictures? Well, believe it. I brought Mark to the party, and didn't want to seem weird bringing in a camera, and never went out to get it. But, use your imagination, because, with the help of Robert, Laura, Nana, Grandpa, Lisa, & Ben, Mark was very surprised!

On to a post for today...

Anna is entering the stage of copying and "helping". For a while now, she has been great about helping get the dog bowls out at feeding time and putting them away when the dogs are finished. One evening, while I was away tutoring, Mark informed me that she could also "fill" the dog bowls with food. I tried letting her, and ended up with a huge mess. Could be that it also coincided with the week she learned she could pour a cup of water on her head, but I digress. Yesterday, again while I was at tutoring, Mark helped Anna to "feed the doggies". Supposedly they got to eat a lot of dinner because she just kept pouring them little portions. I can only imagine how excited and terrified Emma was at this proposition... Lots of food, but from the scariest toddler in the house?! Poor Emma.

Proud little helper!

(Ignore the lovely rug... The vacuum likes to eat it. And no point in getting a new one until we MOVE!)

Notice Emma is not in a lot of these photos. When she is nervous, she likes to "hoover" the food and run away to eat it..

So happy to watch her pups eat!

"What do you mean they've had enough? There is still food in this bucket!"

She even cleans up her spills. Little does she know the dogs would happily eat it from the floor too..

Eighteen Months!

Wow! Here we are, at a year and a half! After 18 months (I missed 17!), I will more than likely just do some yearly/six month updates.. mainly for our family memories than for your enjoyment. Unless you enjoy them, then it is by all means for your enjoyment reading facts about our little Anna Kate. I do this all for you. (I know, grandparents, you do think I only blog for y'all!)

So at 18 months, Anna seems to again be hitting a stride of development. Spending a week at the lake where she got to hear more than just Mommy has really increased her vocabulary. I doubt I can even remember all of the words she knows now. At the doctor they asked me if she was stringing phrases together... the only one I could come up with was "juice box", oops. She seems to know some of her colors, although she is shy about performing any "trick" whether it be pointing/picking a color or just talking and waving. I know that when I ask her, "what does the cow say?" she can answer with the cutest "moooooooo", but it is rare that she shares this or any speech with others. It will be interesting to see if the shyness is a phase or an ongoing personality trait! She does have the cutest "no" with a head shake... she isn't shy to share that one.

At the doctor, here is how she measured up!
Height: 33 inches, 85th percentile
Weight: 23lb 4oz, 59th percentile
BMI: 15.02
Head: 48.3cm 93rd percentile

She is growing directly along a perfect little curve, as her stats have hovered around these percentiles for over a year now. This month I did manage to get her to sit down for some pictures. It is crazy doing these photos now, as I can ask her to sit down in the spot... and she does it! She even thought it was a little fun!

She doesn't look like she is having fun at all, huh?

This still stands as the best way to get her to look at the camera... "Anna, where is your tongue?"

Pondering life as an 18 month old...

Anna did this. Obviously all objects in the room deserved a photo shoot...

And That Lake!

So after spending a weekend at the lake, we decided Anna obviously needed to spend more time on the lake (read.. we were jealous and wanted to go to the lake too), so we headed to Grandpa and Nana's lake lot to play and swim while a team of men worked on building the house behind us. Next summer it won't just be "the lake lot" and there will be a house there! Anna wasn't phased by the construction, but the rest of us were pretty interested!

Helping Daddy rake the beach!

Playing fetch with Allie! Note the Orange "ball thrower" in her hand- she loved it!

Wait... my child just smiled for the camera?! No way!

Kickin' and splashin' with Nana and Daddy!

"Hey Grandpa, how did you get up there with my Bailey??"

Matching neon swim buddies :)

This Lake...

Anna has been quite the lake baby lately. Over the holiday weekend, she headed up to Gigi and Ru's lake house for some fun with her family. The lake has been hit or miss with her over the summer- sometimes she loves the water and sometimes she won't go anywhere near it. We can't quite put our finger on the "why", but I'm just going to blame it on her being a toddler. Since I was off having fun with Aunt Lisa, I got frequent reports and photos of what my sweet girl was doing, so I thought I would share those with you. You can also check out Avery's blog for a few more pictures of the girls at the lake.

Upon arriving, Anna found her stuffed Elmo and Elmo book Gigi bought at the consignment sale and cozied up... Rumor has it she high tailed it to the tent after this..

Coloring with my bestest cousin, Avery!

Gigi brings lots of toys for her girls. They aren't mad.

Elmo was definitely watched a little bit. So I am told. 

My lake girl!

Gigi taking her girls on a paddle board ride. Looks like they're getting some good speed...

Anna apparently also learned to "swim" in her puddle jumper like big cousin Avery!

Up next... another Lake adventure!

Happy Friday!

I'm sure no one will read this on Friday, but Happy Friday! We have had an interesting week recovering from our vacations and work-cations (Mark, obviously). Before heading out for a long weekend in Savannah with Aunt Lisa and her friends, I threw my back out for the first time. Why share this little detail? Well, it has meant that Anna and I have not visited the gym since then... which makes for an interesting time keeping her entertained at home. She is usually okay at home for a fairly long time, but once you have hit up all the outdoor play equipment, the baby pool, chalk, bubbles, Elmo, the ball pit, rode every moving item in the house, all before 10AM... well, someone gets cranky. I won't tell you if it is me or Anna...

So, after a couple mornings at home and Mark working late one night, I decided it was time to get out and go somewhere. I have had an itch to go to either Zootastic or the Lazy 5 Ranch lately- both are very close to our house and have lots of animals for Anna to see. Being that Lazy 5 is best driven through or on a hay ride, I opted for Zootastic. Daddy was sad he couldn't come along, but there will be more visits! Zootastic is about ten minutes away, and I was blown away when we turned in and saw that there are wild animals so close to our house! Overall, the setting wasn't super impressive, but they were doing construction, because as the owner told me, "they are between summer crowds and school groups". Oh, and we were one of two visitor groups there, which meant we got to practically pet a baby lion. I think Anna thought it was a pet, but since it was running around the gift shop... who is to say it wasn't?

Okay, enough words, more pictures...

"Oh, hey Tiger!"

"Did you know there was a playground over there?"

Just hanging out next to a giraffe... No big deal.

She really wanted to touch the goats. I blame Richard.

"What's up Camel?"

We also took a field trip to the library! Before we left the house, I asked Anna if she wanted to go to the library to read books, to which she replied enthusiastically, "YEAH!". Much better than the adorable but trouble "no" with a headshake that she has used as her answer for everything the past week. She had a blast, and kept going back to an Elmo peekaboo book... surprise!

Cutest little reader you have ever seen!

Picking out her next book. I kept putting Elmo away and she kept going to get it...

Signing and saying "More!"... As in, I'm in this awesome rocking chair, get me some more books, Momma!

"But seriously, more books!"

We had to leave after this photo... she really wanted to pull all the books off the shelf. All. The. Books.