While Eban and I were in Florida, Ryan and Jack bonded. They went to a parade in Superior and a pancake breakfast with the firefighters. He loved the pancakes and sat on our friend Charlie's lap and gulped down O.J. to boot.
As far as other little stories about the boys: 1. They repeat each other all the time. One says "go with you" and the other says it. One says "Starbucks coffee" and the other says it. I really love when Jack says it as he has a limited vocabulary yet Starbucks coffee is no problem! 2. Eban can't say his "f"s. So coffee = copy. Fun = pun. First = pirst. 3. Jack is picking this up and saying punny instead of funny. 4. Eban learned the word weiner somewhere and to our delight (or our horror), now Jack says it. Unfortunately Eban says it and he pronounces it like WEE-NAH. Jack can say it perfectly for being 22 months old. Fabulous. I really enjoy this in the grocery store, so I hope you can hear my sarcasm with this bit. The second weekend in July, we headed up to Estes Park, Colorado. It's one of my favorite cities in the Colorado and I simply love it. I even love the smell of it - there's a distant scent in the fresh, mountain air. 
We piled everyone in the minivan - including the two dogs. We drove up and went to the Holiday Inn in Estes. Talk about a dirty room and dingy...we knew we didn't want to stay there another night and then I rememberedthe YMCA of the Rockies. We called up and they had a cabin available the next night. We checked in and immediately fell in love. Seamus loved it too as he was off leash (he's so lazy that he didn't go far) and Harriet was off lead for a second and off she went. She tore off running down the road and it was terrifying to see her little, red body zoom away. The kids were screaming for her and I chucked the keys at Ryan and off he went in the minivan. The kids and I cuddled in the cabin and Eban was very sad and wanted to know why Harriet would run away. I started to call animal control as I was terrified that we had lost her in the first month of her life with us when I heard a car coming up the dirt road to the cabin. Ryan was waving from the window and giving me the okay sign. He later told me that he followed her in the van as she ran up the mountain near Rocky Mountain National Park. She ran roughly 2 miles beofre tuckering out and then hopped in the car. Thank God she stayed on the road as I can't even fathom what would have happened had she run up the mountains into la-la land! 
The one thing the kids loved about the weekend jaunt was horseback riding. 
We went to the YMCA's livery and rented two ponies so that the kids could ride them on a trail. It was so cute. They each picked out helmets and were so proud to have them on. Each picked out a pony and Eban had Star and Jack chose Shortcake. 
Ryan and I led the ponies (with the boys happily riding them) around a path in the mountains for about 20 minutes and they LOVED it. In fact, when we asked the boys to return their helmets they both were yelling, "NO! NO! NO!" 
We went swimming at their indoor pool, we played on their playsets, we almost did an art and craft in one of their designated arts cabins, and we just had fun. We went into town and got caramel apples, popcorn, and just walked around. It was really neat!! I look forward to going again and doing more activities. 
As I think I shared before, Jack has an arm made for baseball. His strength and trajectory are spot on. He recently got mad at Eban and hurled a Matchbox car at his head as hard as he could and Quincy didn't know if it would need stitches. Sascha put a hospital strength bandaid of sorts on his eyebrow where it clobbered him and he talked for days about the "boo-boo" that Jack gave him. Nice. 
