Saturday a couple of my friends and I hit up Six Flags in Maryland for Freddie Mac Family Fun Day. Missy's dad works for Freddie Mac and gave us his tickets so we could enjoy the rides for free! I was perfect! Short lines, free food, free rides, and beautiful weather!

It was a long day and when we did have to wait in line, we were not very happy...

Sunday morning, I woke up bright and early to catch a 7am flight out to Denver. Unfortunately, my flight was delayed as we were sitting on the runway for an hour and half. Luckily, I had been upgraded to 1st class so I was able to easily sleep through the delay and the entire flight. I then proceeded to sleep through my next flight as well and probably got a good 5 hours of sleep. I got into Denver at about 1pm and headed down to Colorado Springs to see Stephanie. She is doing very well and so is her husband Jon and baby Samantha.

After spending about 5.5 hours there, I left for my trek up to Estes Park (about a 2 hour drive). I'm up in Estes this week (and maybe next) working on a project for the National Park Service. We are looking at their water systems and waste water systems for Rocky Mountain National Park. Basically, we are just taking pictures of valves, wells, pump stations, etc, writing down a little bit of data about each asset, and capturing GPS coordinates of each asset. Its pretty mindless work and a nice change from staring at my computer in my office! Here are some views from my "office" this week....

OK... I'll stop posting pictures of Kate. However, I just had to show off Mom's bedding, her magic touch that got Kate smiling in her dreams, and then just another picture of an awake & alert Kate. Well, she finally fell asleep in my arms while I was going through some pictures, so we are off to bed now. Hopefully for several hours! She still seems to sleep better during the day!

She's already getting bigger. She was a week old yesterday and I had to take some pictures of her in Mike's hands to record how little she started. I haven't had time to go through very many, but thought I would post this one right away. Mike is really enjoying his little girl. He was great with the boys, but it is funny to see him with Kate... he is SOOOO into her. He loves to hold her and just can't get enough of her. I guess it is the daddy/daughter bond.

She's just TINY! That little stuffed animal is only about 5 inches... who would have thought that Riley and Garrett would be considered GIANTS next to one of our kids?!?!??! :)

She's here! The boys have been really cute with her. Parker was quite nervous at first to meet Kate in the hospital. He was so excited about her arrival, but when Nema and Hepa brought the boys down to the hospital, he was not quite sure what he was supposed to do. However, after a little while, he warmed up, and we caught him walking over to her on the bed and talkking to her. He was telling her that he's her big brother, he'll take care of her, and it will be OK. I guess those are the moments that make motherhood worth it! :)

Ryan just loves Kate... he gets so excited when he sees her, wants to constantly hold her, and loves to give hugs and kisses. He actually is quite good with her, but gets a little excited. Hopefully Kate will survive her big brother's love! We'll have to keep on eye on him.

I know this is a little late in coming, but I thought I'd fill everyone in on my Labor Day Weekend at Rohobeth Beach. A few of my friends and a few people I didn't know all went out to stay at his guy's beach house out in Delaware. It ended up being a great group of people - about 20 of us, and we had representation from each singles ward in Northern Virginia. For the most part, we just relaxed on the beach, spent way too much money at the Outlets, and hung out around the house.

It was quite interesting because Rohobeth Beach is also known as "Rohomo Beach." The house across the street from us had a party one night that included none other then a drag show and we had lots of fun being surrounded by guys in speedos and the like.

We also had a nice surprise while we were on the beach. My friend Amanda and I were asleep and all of the sudden, we heard this lady say "oh no! oh no! oh no!" All of the sudden we felt water coming up on our feet and before we knew it, it was almost up to our waist! Luckily we jumped up very quickly and grabbed all of our stuff (I didn't know I could get up that fast!) before our bags got wet. It definitely made us rethink falling asleep on the beach!

I didn't get any pictures of me since I was taking all of the pictures, but here are a few anyway...