Friends, Honey and Boating!

Well, here are the rest of our pictures from our trip to Colorado. For those who don't know, we lived in Colorado for 6 years prior to moving to Texas in 2003. We loved living in Colorado and built many friendships while there.

Above is my friend, Kim Peters. She and I used to get together with our children and have lunch, chat and watch our kids play outside. I have spent many afternoons with Kim, laughing and enjoying her homemade bread. She is full of energy and I love that about her! She greeted us with arms outstretched and a whooping holler, "The Lodi's are here!!"

This is Kim's daughter, Leandra. I didn't realize just how much she resembles her Mom until I saw this picture! Leandra and Olivia are the same age and are growing up to be so pretty.

Lauren is Kim's youngest and she is adorable. I'll never forget the time she crawled up on my dining room table and began eating grapes out of a fruit bowl. She was about 2 yrs. old. The only problem was that they were fake!

I love this picture of the boys in front of the wood pile! Colton on the right is Kim's son. He is AJ's age.

One of the many highlights of our trip was seeing our old neighborhood, including our former neighbors! Our backyards connected and we both didn't have or want a fence in-between us. Bob and Claudia have one son, Andy. He is 1 year older than our oldest, Olivia. We would sit on either of our back porches and watch the kids play on our swing-set. Or we would sit in their hot tub and visit.

Claudia taught me how to cook my first turkey for Thanksgiving! She also came over in the middle of the night to babysit our children when I went into the hospital in labor with both Julia and Reece. She would come over when they were infants and ask if she could take them for a bit. She loved to snuggle with them then and now!

This is Bob, her husband. Rich and Bob would hang out and talk after doing yard work. We have so many memories with them. They are the best neighbors we've ever had!

This is Andrew (Andy). He is 15 now. Wow!

Who is this jolly character?

Why, my husband, of course!

I love this picture of Olivia. We cut all that beautiful hair off the day after we returned from Colorado! I love her hair long and short!

We had the privilege of getting together with my two cousins and their families while we were in Denver. My cousin, Dan and his new wife Jennifer, were able to meet us for dinner at a park. Dan's brother, Jim and his family were also able to come. Jim and Linda have 3 teenage boys who joined us. I was so impressed that as teenagers they wanted to be there and visit with us.

These pictures do not do the day justice because they were taken in the dark. We ate at the park and visited while the sunset over the Rocky Mountains. It was gorgeous. The temperatures were nice and cool so we all decided to take a walk around the pond.

Robby in the background is holding their dog up in the air for the picture!

Next to him is Michael and then Adam on the right. Remember that you can click on any of these pictures to see them up closer.

I think making a goofy face for pictures is a Sawyer/Richards tradition! It is fun!

I was in a Bibly study with these two ladies. Vonnie on my left and Judy is on the right. We had a wonderful time telling stories. It's always a good time listening to these two when we get together! Vonnie has a great sense of humor and loves to make fun of herself.

Here is Judy again, me and then my girlfriend, Peggy. I love this picture. We had just come from church and were eating out afterwards. Peggy hosted our family for almost a full week! We are so grateful to her for letting us crash with all our junk at her place! Peggy is one of my closest friends.

What a beautiful smile

Olivia and Molly (Peggy's daughter). Molly has become a lovely young lady! They are both only 14 but are so mature. Olivia and Molly have been e-mailing each other almost every day since we've been back!

Ok, on to Ft. Collins! We stayed with Jim and Christi Douglas the last 3 days of our trip. Jim has taken up a new hobby since we last saw them. Bee Keeping! This was fascinating to observe and I'm so grateful Jim took the time to talk to our kids about it and answer all our questions. In this picture above he is getting his smoker going to help calm the bees since we are about to disturb them!

AJ getting suited up in all the gear it takes to not get stung.

Reece in his sting proof suit!

The Honey Bee Man! Jim Douglas

A quick pose before opening up that hive in the box next to Jim.

Jim now has 6 hives but not all on his property. This is the only one in his backyard.

Bee Keeping 101

Jim is checking each frame of honey and showing the boys how the bees make honey. He really loves this hobby so he was a wealth of information!

Ok, that's a frame full of bees! Wow! I think if I was standing that close, I'd have the "heebie, jeebies" ! AJ was really interested. He wants to be a bee keeper now. We'll see if that might pan out some day.

Julia getting "bee proofed" before observing up close!

Rich and Julia got to take an up close and personal lesson with the bees also.

This is a frame of honey that we harvested while taking our bee-keeping class. The Honey Man says it weighs about 8 pounds with all the honey, the comb, and wax!

We ate spoon fulls of fresh honey right off the comb!

Julia is not showing her enthusiasm but she is in heaven with this much "sweetness" in front of her!

The kids played volleyball most days we were there in the Douglas's back yard. This is where Olivia was stung by a bee later that day that we opened the hive. She stepped on it and so the poor bee did what it should, let her have it! Neither of them were very happy about the incident!

The last day we were with them, they took us out on their boat for some tubing! What fun we all had! This is Olivia and Julia taking the ride of their lives.

The beautiful, Christi Douglas. She made sure her husband did not drive the boat too fast or too wild. I miss Christi already! She is so easy going that I was hoping some of her "love for life and the Lord" would rub off on me.

Her are 3 of her boys with one of mine. From Left to Right:

Marshall, AJ, Joe, and Pierce

What a shot of Olivia with the water in the background!

She thoroughly enjoyed herself, even though her foot hurt from that bee sting she got the day before! The cold water felt good on it.

Micah cracked us up in this life jacket! He had no neck in it! He was so mellow on the boat.

Just chillin' !

That's all folks!