The beauty that surrounds us

It sure has been an eventful week! Emerson's first tooth popped up, as well as her second, we bought her first little swimming pool for the backyard, she tried some cotton candy, and she went on her first hike! And sadly, Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, suddenly passed away on June 25th. Although Emerson did not grow up during his prime time, I am sure she will hear about him or his music one day and being that I would like to make a book out of this blog, his passing is worth mentioning!

Being that her teeth have only barely popped up through her gums, you can imagine that I have yet to capture a picture of them. However, I did get other pictures of her throughout the week. I bought a little baby swimming pool and we tested it out a few days ago. However, she seemed to have more interest in climbing OUT of it rather than staying IN it!

This past weekend our church had it's bazaar also known as Journey Days. We absolutely LOVE our church so we went both evenings to the festivities. Emerson was in awe of all the people, noise, and cotton candy! She seemed to enjoy it as well as a few bites of my grape sno cone (but not too many for I am OBSESSED with sno cones!).

Sunday was one of those days that started out with no real specific plans and ended up being such a wonderful day! It began with all of us going to mass which was outside in the beautiful sunshine. We then came home, changed clothes, grabbed a few things, headed to Starbucks for our drinks of choice, then drove up to Estes Park and into Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove around the park awhile looking for hiking trails but could not find any with open parking spaces for everyone else seemed to have the same thing in mind for the day! We eventually found an open spot off the side of the road and began a 1.7 jaunt upwards in the mountains to Bierstadt Lake. We ended up getting a bit more of a workout than expected but it was entirely worth it for the views were breathtaking. Here are some photos from our hike.

Emerson was a trooper and Joe was an even bigger trooper after carrying Emerson most of the way after recently throwing out his back (again)! We feel so blessed to be surrounded by such beautiful landscape and to live within an hour of such beautiful nature and stunning views!