weekend in the mountains

we were in keystone this past weekend for an overnight stay. jerry had company meetings saturday afternoon and a company bbq that night.

marianne and i had lunch on a patio overlooking keystone lake with our very good friend, brianna, while the guys were in the meeting. brian + brianna often keep marianne for us. she ADORES them and we feel so blessed to have them here. they are our family away from family!

after lunch marianne and i took a stroll along the lake before nap time.

spotted an ant and was emphatically saying "bug"

just about the only photos i get with my baby are self-shot so i always have goober smiles. oh well - everyone's looking at her anyway, right?

poser (ugh, that hair. i mean, will it ever grow out?)

hand-in-hand with dada and brian. marianne thinks brian is hilarious and she follows him around doing everything that he does.

shortly after dinner, we discovered there was a bounce house at the bbq. marianne and i recently had a playdate with some new friends. her friends, twin 3-year old boys, have a mini bounce house instead of a swing set which they had aired up for the playdate. the three of them had an absolute ball jumping and bouncing all afternoon (pictures to come) and marianne actually held her own with both older boys—even after getting body slammed twice. must be all that time at daycare in a classroom full of boys, i guess. at any rate she loved it and when she saw the bounce house this past weekend, we couldn't get her in there fast enough.

she ran, tumbled, flopped, jumped, bounced, tripped, and skipped all over this thing. she has really been working hard at her jumping skills lately. she bends at the knees and pumps her arms, yelling 'jum, jum, jum' (read: jump, jump, jump) and then launches forward one. foot. at. a. time. so she hasn't really gotten air yet, when attempting a jump from a standstill but she actually did get off the bounce house floor a few times.

a down pour ensued shortly after we finally pulled her out of the bounce house. brrrrrrrrr...we were stuck under a tent until it let up enough to make a run for the car. luckily there were entertainers making animal balloons. one of marianne's other FAVORITE things. balloons.

of course she was pretty worn out (from all of the jumping) and tired from the long day so she practically had to force herself to play with the balloons.

she actually popped this yellow balloon on the rocks. i thought she might lose it but she just sulked for a few minutes.