CO Springs - Day 1

At the end of June, Amy's family met together for a week of vacation-time in Colorado Springs. We shared a vacation rental home and found that this was the perfect way to spend time together with all our little kiddos. Each day, we went on one planned outing in the morning, returned to the home in time for naptimes, and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening hanging out at the home. It was a great balance for our little ones!

On our first full day together, we spent the morning at a neighborhood splash pad. At first, the splash pad wasn't open, due to water testing or something, so we played a nearby playground for a while.

Cody & Daddy and Andrew & Abby

Abby and Ryan

Matt, Abby, Ian, Andrew

Ian tackles the tough equipment!

Daddy & Cody swing next to Ian.

Thankfully, the splash pad opened after not too long of a wait. The morning was hot, so we were all ready to cool off! The littlest kids loved filling their buckets with water.

Ian took the bucket-filling to the next level and had a blast throwing buckets of water onto his aunts and uncles!

One of the kids' favorite water spots was this spraying rainbow. It sprayed a lighter mist compared with the other water structures, so it was ideal for all the 2-year-olds. 

Daddy runs through with both of his boys!

Kim & Cody take a turn with Andrew & Abby.

Jaden was all smiles in Aunt Kim's arms!

Ian tested out all of the bigger-kid water toys.

Ah.... what a relaxing day in the sun! :)

Grammy and Papa happily guarded all of our belongings and visited with each one of the kiddos as they took snack breaks. Thankfully, we found a great spot in the shade!

During the afternoon times, Kim, Sarah & I had brainstormed a list of possible kid-friendly activities (games, crafts, outdoor fun, etc.). We knew that all five cousins could only play happily for so long. It was nice to have ideas ready to go, rather than having to come up with fun ideas on the spot. The planned activities especially came in handy during that pre-dinner time. On day 1, the kids made tissue paper collages with contact paper.

As you can imagine, after a while, the tissue paper accidentally (?) got dumped out onto the ground.

It quickly turned into a confetti party! There was a lot of tissue paper throwing,

tissue paper blowing,

tissue paper dumping,

and lots and lots of giggling! 

In addition to the planned activities, each family brought tons of indoor & outdoor toys for the kids to use. We spent a large majority of our time outside. The backyard of this home was fenced in, so it was perfect for cousin playtime. Jaden and Cody especially loved this little sidewalk running down the middle of the yard. The boys would push their toys to the end of the walkway and then sit either on or right in front of this gate. They'd often sit in this spot for at least 5 minutes at a time (that's quite a while for our on-the-go boys!).

Often, they'd be joined by another cousin or two. We never quite figured out why this was such a popular spot.

Papa was a fun playmate for the boys outside.

He especially gave GREAT piggy-back rides!

Mommy jumped in to help so that Papa wouldn't have to have 2 boys on his back at once! This is Cody's expression, by the way, whenever we ask him to smile for the camera. Gotta love it. :)

Aunt Kim was also great at entertaining our boys. They had warmed up to her quite a bit during our recent visit to Texas, so her lap was familiar for storytime.

Here, Aunt Kim entertains all four 2-year-olds at once with bubble wands. What a mom! :)

At some point during the evening, a bunch of the adults were visiting. We happened to glance over to the side of the yard and discovered that Papa had taken it upon himself to pose all the kiddos for a picture. It's not easy to have all 5 of these kiddos still AND happy at the same moment. Way to go, Papa!

Ian, Ryan, Cody, Jaden, Abby

In the evening, we celebrated a belated birthday for Andrew. He had his milestone 30th birthday back in May. Mom had come prepared with all kinds of birthday decorations-- including the nostalgic "Happy Birthday" sign that all the Walquist kids had grown up with.

Happy birthday to a wonderful, humble, hard-working, fun, and faith-filled brother!

Little Abby helped her daddy blow out the candles on his birthday Blue Bell ice cream. Mom had brought some tasty homemade cookies, too. Can't beat that combo! :)

And what's a party without a few noisemakers??

After the kids had all gone to bed, the adults continued Andrew's birthday celebration. We played several Minute-to-Win-It competition games, although in honor of Drew's 30th, our time limit was cut to 30 seconds. The first challenge was to balance pencils on your wrist, toss the pencils in the air, and then catch them with the same hand. 

You started with 2 pencils and then increased the amount by 2 after each successful catch.

I think you had to catch up to 8 pencils within 30 seconds to succeed. It was hard... for everyone but Dad! He whipped this challenge out in no time! Just look at his great form. :)

The next challenge was by far the funniest to watch. Each competitor had to wear pantyhose on his/her head with a tennis ball stuck inside one of the legs. Then, the goal was to knock over a series of water bottles with this tennis ball.

It turned out that the biggest challenge was to muffle our laughter so as not to wake the sleeping kiddos!

Then, we all tried to keep 3 balloons up in the air, without letting them touch the ground, for 30 seconds. I'm pretty sure that no one succeeded at this one.

Next, we did the classic plastic cup tower-building.

And our final game involved throwing a few (3, I think) tennis balls into a bucket atop your head. This one seemed to be the easiest, as I think everyone ended up getting this one!

What a funny way to end the evening!