Whoa! Where went 6 weeks??

Okay, I promise that we are safe and sound and have some great photos to share with you all soon!  How can we have gone from a post every 3 days to no post in 6 weeks???  Yikes!  Well, we've been busy! 

The kids are growing and are awesome- Maya is already 5 months old!
Erin's still getting her masters and has been doing her "internship" this summer, including a trip to London through a tornado
Gran Jen came out to visit and help with the kids while Erin was away
Jake has been training hard for a half ironman (really, just a half?) which is coming up next weekend!
Jake has been traveling a bit for work
Erin  has started a business instead of getting a job, but of course isn't paying herself yet (really?  in this economy?)
Kids have started daycare, but only last week, after we realized that even with money tight, Erin really can not maintain this pace and stay healthy- 3 full time jobs is too many.

Okay- each of those is a post, or two, and we owe it to you!  We know!  In the meantime, just know that things here are great and we are blessed with a glut of opportunity and blessing, and that is the reason we haven't had time for our dear readers!

Summer is Play Time

 Summer is time to play, and Xander has had a great time this summer.  There's nothing like hanging out with your buddy eating watermelon on a hot day!

It wouldn't be summer in Boulder without hot air balloons.  We had one right over the house recently.  Xander is quite fond of balloons and thought it was great to be able to wave to the people in the basket.

Of course, playing on the slide and climbing in and out of the toy box are favorite activities too!

Watering the garden is lots of fun, but it can be thirsty work .  It is so hard to get the spray just right!

 

The good news is that you can always play in the sprinklers too!

Xander has also been really enjoying the neighborhood pool this summer. He is fearless jumping in (I'm afraid of when I won't be there to catch him!) and he loves to hold onto the noodle and kick in the big pool. He is getting pretty good at swimming around the big pool that way. The kids pool is also always fun, with friends to play with. 

Xander likes to ride his strider bike and is getting quite quick on that little bike.  His balance is getting very good and he is starting to really coast on it for some distance now.  Of course with all the miles he's putting on that bike these days it needs a tuneup every once in a while, and Xander is excited to do that too!

Xander doesn't get to have all the fun though, Maya has been enjoying her summer as well, although admittedly it is a bit less active!  At 5 1/2 months she isn't crawling yet, but manages to roll and wiggle enough that she can move around pretty well.  She is curious about everything and loves to pick things up, and then typically sticks them in her mouth.

 After all the playing is done, it is time to clean up.  Xander is quite fond of washing his hands, sometimes with LOTS of soap, and Maya loves her baths.

Of course all this activity is enough to wear these kids out.

 

 Once the kids are off to bed I get a chance to sneak in workout number two for the day on the trainer.  Then it's off to bed for me too! 

4th of July in Crested Butte

We managed to escape to Crested Butte for the 4th of July holiday this year. We have been so busy that a little bit of down time was greatly needed. Of course, down time means something different these days then it used to. I am still ironman training so I'm working out many hours each day, we still have 2 kids to look after, and Erin can never quite be rid of homework and working on her business plan. Oh, we hadn't mentioned that yet have we. More to come on Erin's business venture. Anyway (see how easily that happens, I was talking about vacation...) it was still great to get away and enjoy the beauty of the mountains in the summer.

 

Turns out that the town has a 4th of July run from Gothic over Mt Crested Butte down into town.  It is a 1/3 marathon, and although I had done a really tough bike ride the day before, I needed to run that morning anyway, so decided to do the race.  It was fun, although the amount of downhill was brutal!

Of course it wouldn't be 4th of July in Crested Butte without the kooky town parade.  Always a must see.

It was time to leave way too soon of course.  Sadly it looks like this may be the only trip we get to CB this summer, given busy schedules.  Oh well, we certaintly did our best to make the most of it.

Erin Goes to London and Gran Jen Comes to Visit

Erin headed to London for a few days for a school project so my Mom flew out to help take care of the kids while Erin was gone.  It was great to have some help and Mom and the kids had lots of fun!  There was swimming and walks with the kids in the chariot and all kinds of fun playing.

Erin's London trip was much more of an adventure than a quick hop across the pond has any right to be.  Her Denver to Chicago flight was easy, but from there turned into one of those nightmare flying experiences.  I think in the end she was more than 36 hours delayed in Chicago, with many many hours stuck on the tarmac.  Although the trip was shortened a bit due to the flight delays, she had a good set of meetings and even managed to have a bit of fun while she was there.

Bi-Annual McParland Reunion and Beach Vacation

Growing up in a close-knit Irish family, I take for granted that my 3 sisters and I tend to get into all the messy details of each other's lives. I know when my sister has a cold, or when her kid did something adorably embarrassing, or when she's annoyed at her neighbor or had a hard day at work. Even with the distance, regular phone calls, blogs, facebook and the good ol' fashioned family grapevine have maintained our closeness. That being said, there is nothing like being together, all at once and in the same place. We try to make this happen every two years.

This year we almost didn't succeed. It'd been a tough 2 years financially for all of the households, I'm still taking classes full time and traveling, my brother-in-law was expected back from Afganistan during the same time (alone time for the still newly-wed Jess and Shane would have trumped family beach time!), there are three toddlers now and a baby that would have to travel, work schedules were tight and conflicted, etc. etc. etc.

It was Mom's sheer will that pulled us all out of our respective cocoons and forced us to prioritize this past week. I'm so glad she did!

It was amazing to get to know my now two-year-old niece, "Ella Bean" and nephew, Morgan. They are becoming such interesting people! Ella has an amazing exuberance about her, a tough, don' mess with me attitude, loves to sing (and can do so quite well) and draw and explore. Morgan remains the fearless daredevil in the family, but is also the sweetest kid- he has no trouble sharing and is super easy going, and has a wicked sense of humor. McKenzie is now a precocious (there is simply no better word!) 4-year-old who reads comfortably, is learning to dance, has opinions about everything, loves to learn, and is anxious to please. Lastly, but certainly not least, my nephew Nate, the eldest at 7, simply did not get enough attention in a house with so many little children, but didn't complain or act up or show jealousy... although I think he must have felt some. Nate is also an amazingly easy-going kid, funny, artistic, confident, smart, kind.... All of these kids are growing up beautifully and I'm blessed to get as much time with them as I can.

As for my sisters.... wow! We couldn't be more alike and more different. We'd make a great sitcom. Jess is taking on the world as an industrial engineer while emotionally supporting her husband Shane, who has been deployed in Afghanistan. They barely had any time together before he left, but he is on his way home as I type, and I am so, so very grateful for his safe return. I remain grateful to all the service men and women who are still deployed, and their families who are not yet as lucky as we are. Somehow Jess still finds time for lots of exploration and hikes. Kate is an entrepreneurial labor and childbirth educator who is somehow also a full-time mom, master gardener and tamer of the floods. http://conceptionforward.com/ Meg also owns her own marketing firm http://impactmarketingllc.com/ and does in 30 hours what other's cant do in 60. So it's really no wonder that I am also trying to have it all- family, school, work, start-up business....

Okay- that's us- plus assorted husbands and two amazing parents who look after us all. Cram us into a single house for a week (and add two cousins, Nikki and Hannah) and what do you get? Well, we sure got a lot of work done, considering it was vacation, but we also got plenty of play time and giggles with the kids. 14 loads of laundry. $600 in food. A few of temper tantrums (not always from the kids). A house of built in babysitters so the parents could steel a few moments for a date- even if it was just a 45 minute walk. Oh yes, and a vicious 12-hour stomach bug and fever, which got pretty much everyone at some point.

There are no words to describe how lucky I am to have the family that I do. So, here is a collection of photos which will say it for me.