really amazing weekend...

it is glenn's birthday on tuesday.  for his gift this year, i got him some time alone together with his lovely wife in the mountains.  we loaded up the lil' loafer, dropped the girls off with the ever-incredible patty, and headed up.  it was fabulous.

we went for a great bike ride.

without the girls there, olive got a lot of special attention.

we brought our instruments and played a lot of music around the fire.  bees knees has three shows in june!  we never seem to find the time to practice at home; it was so nice to just chill out and  play.

we camped right in a beautiful aspen grove.

the flowers on our hike were amazing!  (rachel, please feel free to tell us what each of these are in the comments section.  i know the wild iris and the firecracker columbine, and, of course, the dandelion, but not the others.)

there is no place glenn is happier.

then we picked up the girls and headed up to mesa verde with patty and larry to check out the eclipse last night.  so cool!

we got there a little too late to get our own pair of special eclipse glasses, but folks were very generous and everyone shared.

this lady was teaching hazel how to use the little pinhole viewer.  she was fascinated by the whole thing.  she loves anything that has to do with science.

i put the glasses over my camera lens to take this photo, near the start of the eclipse.  it then went on to look like a crescent sun, which was so awesome, and finished with a "ring of fire", where the moon was centered inside the sun, with just a red ring around it.  amazing!

there were so many people there; it felt like we were all gathered for some kind of rally.  everyone was so excited to see what would happen.

the eclipse was casting crazy shadows on this car.

i have a very vivd memory of my dad waking me up in the middle of the night to go see haley's comet. i was nine years old.  he didn't wake up any of the other kids, just me.  we drove to a field and sat on the hood of the car and watched it.  i felt so special, sitting there with my dad, knowing this was such a major event.  i'll never forget that.  although june's probably a bit too young to remember, i am hoping this experience was something like that for hazel.

and maybe for olive too?