A Drive Into The Heat For A Shed And A Wedding

Last week the Colorado Tepen's hit the road for a quick trip to St. Louis. Our original intention for the trip was to attend the wedding of Chris' Goddaughter Ann. In planning for the visit, we learned that Grandpa Tepen needed a new shed, so Chris went to work on some plans for a shiny new one. Grandpa Tepen went and got all of the supplies, and the very next morning after our arrival, Chris and Ron set out to tackle the project. Uncle David and Uncle Brian arrived as soon as they could and began working on the shed too. And, in typical St. Louis in July fashion......the weather was hot and miserable. The guys all worked really hard, and by Sunday, Grandpa Tepen had his new shed.

I, on the other hand, avoided the shed like the plague. Uncle David deemed me "supervisor", and besides being inconvenienced a couple of times to help the guys move some stuff , I pretty much stayed indoors, as any good supervisor should. The kids entertained me and Grandma Tepen by playing in buckets(pic below). Wes also went to battle with an ink pen, on the day of the wedding no less......the pen won (pic below). We also got to spend some time with the newest addition to the family, baby John David. He was all smiles with Wes and Mia. Super cute :) Grandma Tepen and I also managed to take the kids to a nice park near their house. The park has a big duck pond and Wes and Mia fed the ducks and played on the swings and slides. I just got emailed some pics of our park adventure last night, but have yet to transfer them to our computer, when I do I will post some more snapshots of Wes and Mia goofing around.

Then we went to the big wedding on Saturday. A beautiful church and a beautiful bride. Ann and Chad made a picture perfect bride and groom. Ann's mom and dad, Jean and Dennis, were proud as peacocks. We were glad to steal a few moments with them after the church at one of the local bars before the reception. Thanks again for buying us a few cool ones Dennis and Jean, we had a lot of fun hanging with you :) It was great to see all of the family.....you are all welcome to stay with the Colorado Tepen's anytime.

Thanks again Pat and Ron for letting us invade your home for a few days......I know it must have looked like a tornado went through it by the time we left.

Enough rambling......enjoy the pictures :)

Thanks Arlene

Many weeks ago a friend at my work brought in a huge bag of children's puzzles for Wes and Mia. All she asked was that I take a picture of the twins doing one of the puzzles so that her granddaughter, the original owner of the puzzles, could see who was taking new ownership of her stuff. So Arlene, a big thank you for all the great puzzles.....sorry it took me so long to post a picture :)

Also I included a couple of pic from this weekend that I snapped of the kids playing in the backyard.

Singin' the Blues.....

Recently we purchased a totally awesome water slide from Craig's' List. This thing blows up in under 2 minutes but provides hours of fun! We christened the slide on the 4th of July. The kids were a little afraid of it at first. Mia, as usual, warmed up to the new toy in seconds. After her first slide down she was hooked. Wes took a little prodding, but when we broke out the slide again this weekend, he went down like a champ. This is definitely one of our cooler Craig's List purchases. Below are a few pics.....















So about the title.......Our daycare has different fun events every day in the summer for the kids. Every Thursday is "Messy Day". You send your kids in crappy clothes that you don't care about, and they let them do all manner of sticky, slimy, super fun stuff. Recently I came to pick the kids up on a Thursday and they were still on their cots sleeping. The daycare staff informed me that the kids had a lot of fun doing messy day. this statement was followed by lots of laughter. A few minutes later, Wes and Mia awoke......then it became clear what all the fuss was about. My children looked like smurfs! I mean they were stained blue from head to toe. I hope the pictures come across so you can see for yourself......it was a good laugh.