Molly Piper

This past weekend we took the family to central Wisconsin for a few days away. Now that we have a school-aged kiddo, our time away has to coincide with fall breaks and such–still getting used to that.

We left Wednesday night and I drove while everybody slept. I typically do the lion’s share of driving on road trips. I don’t mind it, I can stay awake pretty well, and then I don’t have to be the one turning around every 10 seconds to hand something to a kid in the seat behind me.

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, which was just what we needed. No internet connection, friends. NO INTERNET CONNECTION! (Which I believe is directly responsible for us getting 9+ hours of sleep every night. Glorious!!!)

I found out that Orison’s a kid after my own heart, a true lover of Little House on the Prairie DVDs (which Morrow calls “House on the Fairy”). We watched a good bit of Season 1 together.

Funny about my love for Little House… I thought it was horribly boring as a kid and never watched it. But then after I was married and had Orison, Abraham went back to school full-time (and was working full-time). Needless to say, I had a lot of alone time that year and a half.

Since it was in the days of yore (pre-Netflix and streaming video, dontcha know), I had to busy myself at night with these things called DVDs. A friend of mine owned all the seasons of Little House and convinced me to take the first set.

I had no intention of liking it, but then how can you not shed a tear when the man who can’t speak makes a bell for the church with the help of all the children of Walnut Grove? Or when Pa makes a prosthesis for the girl with the limp? How does that not get you right.there????

Anyway, just thought I’d confess publicly that I’m a Little House junkie. And I’ve turned one of my sons into one, too.

(He’s kind of a sensitive kid, but I have to say both Abraham and I were a little shocked when he started openly weeping and lamenting during Stuart Little when Stuart decided to leave. He also laughed the hardest I’ve ever heard him laugh during the final wrestling scene of Nacho Libre.)

In other news…

-The twins went on their first hayride at the local pumpkin fest thingy.

-We played a lot in the yard because the weather was sublime.

-The kids went crazy in the open cinder block basement at night.

-And did I mention that I slept 9 hours each night?!?!

It was a super good weekend. Hope you all had a good one, too!

I snapped this one on the bus in downtown Denver. It’s so funny because I have about a billion pictures of Cadence with Whitsun. I have very few of one twin with one older sibling. Splitting up the set was pretty cute and Morrow loved riding with Cadence for a little while!

Abraham and I explored the area of downtown Denver called LoDo (which I think means “Lower Downtown”). What a blast! For you Minneapolis peeps, it’s kind of like a bigger warehouse district in looks, and more like NE Minneapolis in vibe. Super cool, basically.

We ate, we walked, we ate some more, then walked some more…

My favorite part of the night was discovering these little footbridges! They were lit with these blue lights, but then when you walked under them, there was a sensor that changed the colors and put little designs all over the ground! So cool!

This is how Abraham interacts with awesome bridge:

And this is how I interact with said awesome bridge:

I needed my little musical theater moment!

One night while we were in Denver we had a pretty insane amount of rain. Orison came bolting out to the garage, where Abraham and I were sitting to watch the crazy downpour. He was worried about a flash flood. We calmed him down, then asked him to sit with us awhile. He of course was very eager, because that meant getting to stay up after his bed time.

After sitting there for a few minutes watching the rain fall in sheets, Abraham said, “We’re gonna regret it if we don’t go out in this.”

So he grabbed his little sidekick and off they went running and jumping down the street. The water was flowing down the street like a river! Definitely memorable.

I love how vacation reminds you to lighten up a little. Let the kid stay up later. Enjoy the rainfall. Maybe even go play in it. I hope I can bottle up whatever that is about vacation and take it home with me!

[Instragram photo: Katie]

I told you I’d post more pictures, didn’t I?

Orison kept teasing me about how the water was warm and I should try it out. He loves playing tricks like that, and his face lights up when the person discovers the truth.

While I drove to the top of the world, I vacillated between excitement:

and pure panic.

Here’s my little mountain climber showing his muscles.

Katie somehow caught this one of me and Abraham at the top of the world.

And this one is for my girls (you know who you are).

[All photos via Katie]

For our Fourth of July celebration, we decided to drive down to Colorado Springs to do a little mountain exploration!

Funny story: on our drive here, as soon as we crossed the Colorado border, the boys were yelling, “Look! A mountain!” from the backseat. What they really saw were some slightly rolling hills, about 20 feet high. I suppose after driving across Nebraska, anything looks like a hill.

Anyway…after consulting with some Colorado dwellers, we decided to not go to Mt. Evans on the 4th of July (our original plan), because they thought the traffic might be horrible coming back. We took their advice and did Pike’s Peak and Garden of the Gods. It was an awesome day–really hot (but it truly is a dry heat, which I didn’t used to believe in, but now I do), beautiful blue skies, and amazing rock formations! The kids all traveled really well, too, so that always helps!

I won’t even try to do justice to Garden of the Gods with the pictures I took, but will put some up later of the ones Katie (our nanny) took. (P.S.: Katie took over 500 pictures yesterday. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!)

But here’s a funny little video of Morrow playing on the rocks. He told me last night while I was getting him ready for bed: “I’m good at climbing mountains!”

Then after our time at Garden of the Gods we had a little picnic in Manitou Springs (crazy little cute town that it is!).

Happy Fourth of July from Cay-Cay & Widget!

After our lunch we decided to do the drive up Pike’s Peak, which is over 14,000 feet! I drove the entire way up, and am happy to report that I only had to do lamaze breathing a couple times! It was pretty freaky at times, especially knowing that I had six other people (who are everything to me) in the car with me.

It was so cool to drive above the timberline. That was at about 12,000 feet. The trees just start dropping off and the ones that are trying to grow are all puny-looking, just because they don’t get the moisture and oxygen they need to grow up there. So amazing.

I was also a little obsessed with watching the temperature drop. Our rear-view mirror has the temperature gauge on it, and it was fascinating to watch the temperature go from 90+ at the bottom to about 55 at the top. Loved it!

When we got to the top, I definitely noticed a difference in the air. I even felt a little nauseated. We brought plenty of water and snacks so we were good to go after a couple minutes.

I kept proclaiming loudly, “We’re at the top of the world!”

And here’s a good one of my man with half of his brood.

So any of you experienced in Colorado, tell me: is the Pike’s Peak drive comparable to the drive up Mt. Evans? Is the Mt. Evans drive scarier? I’m just curious and trying to weigh our options for things we should or shouldn’t do during our time here, especially with kids.

We’ve been in Colorado for a full 24 hours now. I’m happy to report that all has been without incident (aside from one vomit in the van from the 2-year-old and a little altitude-induced headache).

This is where we’re going on Monday:

[via Rob Reiter]

We’re going to drive up Mt. Evans, which is apparently the highest paved road in North America! The drive up there sounds really freaky (lots of crazy turns, no guardrails, etc.), but I figure… I’m in COLORADO! Bring it on!

I’ll try to post some pictures from our time there. Stay tuned!

So remember when I asked you if car toppers or car backpacks were preferable? Well, turns out God had another answer. I should’ve known better than to just give two choices.

By the way… isn’t it just kinda like God to color outside the lines like that? Kinda like, “Uh-uh, Molly Piper, I will not be bound to just two options for getting you and your family to Colorado. Uh-uh.” (Sometimes God’s a little sassy like that with me. Trust me, he needs to be.)

Turns out God had a hitch mounted cargo rack in mind! I didn’t list that as one of the options on the previous post, because, well…

1. I forgot they existed.
2. We didn’t have a hitch on our Swagger Wagon.

But God had other plans for that too! Many of you reminded me that cargo racks did indeed exist and testified to how great they worked for all of your travels, so I started looking into getting one. But then, someone offered to loan one to us! SCORE! So all we needed now was a hitch on the van.

Our friend Andy had just put a hitch on his Sienna, so he had the tools and the know-how, so he offered to help mount it. Turns out what we thought would be a one-hour job turned into a 3.5 hour job…but… Andy (his ever-patient self) made it happen. Thanks, Andy. You rock. Hard.

I’m just so happy that we’ll be able to pack most of our gear on the outside of the van. There’s something severely claustrophobic to me about riding long distances with the car packed to the ceiling and all around my feet. I hate it. So here’s hoping I can breathe a little freer this trip.

I’m just so thankful for small (huge?) provisions like that. We had very little money to spend on a packing solution, and this was seriously awesome. Hopefully I’ll feel the same after 14+ hours of traveling. Hey, at least I’ll have leg room! And I’ll be sure to bring my ear plugs!

So obviously we’re gonna need some sort of packing solution for our minivan for our upcoming trips. 7 people and all our gear is not going to fit, no matter how much swagger is in our wagon.

We bought one of those old boxy car toppers at a thrift store (we even got it half-off), but I’m a little doubtful that we’ll have all the pieces and/or be able to figure out how they all go together without the manual. I’ve scoured the internet for any instructions for the darn thing, but can’t find anything.

In the course of researching that, I found this:

It’s called a saddlebag, but I prefer to think of it as a backpack for our van! So cute!

Why I think I might get it:

• better gas mileage without something on the top of the car.
• Stores in a very small space when you’re done with it because it’s collapsible.
• It’s much cheaper than most car toppers.

Do any of you have one of these? Do you think it’s a good purchase? HELP!