Jardons: PPIR & Sand Dunes

Adam and some of the kids have enjoyed going to the Pikes Peak International Raceway event every year before the big race to the top of Pikes Peak. This year he took just the older boys and they came home with a loot of goodies and had a great time seeing all the race cars and dirt bikes doing tricks.

Then we took our sort of annual trip to the Sand Dunes. We have gone many years in the past over Father's Day weekend and the last year the water was all dried up so we discovered Lathrop state park and their beautiful lake. This year we had so much late snow that the end of June still had a lot of water at the dunes. There were more people there than we've ever seen in our life! It is quite a feat to make this day trip as it is a 3 hr drive from home and once you hopefully find a parking spot you have to carry all of your stuff down a little walkway and through the sandy/water of the dunes to where you will land for the afternoon. Fortunately this year we had lots of helpers with the whole Jardon/Romero family meeting us down there so it didn't seem to take such a toll on us.

Adam and the big kids shoveled out a little baby pool for Evie girl... she sat here for soooooo long just scooping water and then later we found she was drinking quite a bit ; ( it upset her belly a little later that night but I bet she'd do it all over again!

Evie and Benny in the background

Isn't it beautiful with the mountains in the background!

Adam and his mom

Jo in his pool!

Josh

Benny... and here you can see Evie and Lydia lying on their bellies in the background

Cuzzy Jolene!

Jo and Benny... these two are our first back to back same gender siblings and they are 1 year 10 mos apart. I feel like I notice some differences in their friendship/rivalry compared to the other sibling pairs that are boy/girl, etc. They will have some great moments where they are best buds and I was thankful to see and capture this moment of brotherly love!

Me and Luna girl... we haven't taken her out on too many adventures yet so this was one of her first ones and she had quite an adventure. So many sights and sounds and tons of other dogs. She did pretty good and enjoyed digging to her heart's content in the sand... something that's a big no no at our house for sure!

Eating lunch! It's always tricky eating lunch at a "beach" "sandy area" and not eating a few grains of sand! Hello Cuzzy Rae!

Thank you Uncle Mitch for bringing the grill! We've never been so pampered at having hamburgers and hot dogs at the dunes... it tasted really good!

Here's our display! Quite a set up for an afternoon but it's for sure worth it to have all the shade and be able to relax for the afternoon.

The gang... don't mind the Chargers tent... it's not from bloodline ; ) Uncle Mitch!

Before we left Adam took the 4 older to hike the dunes and try to slide down the sand...

It was a lot of walking for these little legs!

At the top of the Dunes

Enjoying the view!

We had debated on making this a day trip or staying the night. It's always tricky for us since we're such a big family to pack up for the night and we're hoping in the nearish future to have a trailer camper to help ease this dilemma but for the meantime our tents are still serving us well... here we are in Meema's backyard!