Nothing Bundt Cake and the 24th of July!

As most of you know the 24Th of July just happens to fall on my birthday... ha ha. It has become a tradition in our circle every 24Th that all the kids from our neighborhood participate in a little circle parade. Now of course this is not just any parade.. It is something Tyler looks forward to all month. He clearly remembered the parade last year and was so excited to get to do it again this year!

We invited some good friends and family and I think everyone had a good time. Good food, good friends and good fun.

We celebrated my nieces and my birthday on the 26Th at my parents home and I was in charge of the cake. A while back while visiting one of my favorite stores "Costco" they were having a bunch of vendors out front doing little demo's.. Well, one of the vendors was "Nothing Bundt Cake". They offered me my free sample and I gladly excepted and took the tasty little morsel of chocolaty goodness out to my car.

OH MY GOODNESS, this was one of the best cakes I have ever tasted. I had to have more. Ever since that day I have wanted to try to duplicate this cake that tasted so yummy.

I typed into google "nothing bundt cake recipe" and wallah, there it was. My favorite recipe blog that I often visit and use already had a recipe and I didn't even know it.

So on Saturday I made not one but two cakes and they turned out great! It tasted just about the same, cream cheese frosting and all. I even tried to decorate it the same way they did.

It was a huge success at the party and I think this will be one recipe I will be using again and again.

Colorado!

On the last week of June and first week of July we headed to beautiful Colorado for a wonderful trip. We started our vacation in Mesa Verde National Park. We spent two days there and were able to see most of the Indian ruins. Both Tyler and Sydney did great. Sydney was a trooper in the carrier and Tyler hiked most of the time without complaining. The weather was great and we found a beautiful camp spot in the camp ground. We took our trailer out for the second time and loved it!
Next we headed into Silverton, Colorado. If you have never been to this area, it is beautiful and there is so much to see and do. Silverton is a very small old mining town and this was our third time there for the 4Th of July.
We were meeting up with friends later in the week and they had told us where our camp spot was. They said it was beautiful but a little tricky to get to...
They said there was a river crossing that we would have to pull our trailer through to get to our great spot. So with us being the first ones to our camp we had to do it alone.
We started down the dirt hill and as we got closer I asked Braden "are you sure we can do this"?
He said he was 80% sure we could make it..
WHAT??
So after about 30 minutes of me telling Braden where to drive, him getting wet up to his knees, digging a trench for our tires to fit in, stacking rocks to create a bridge of sorts... We finally made it. PHEW. "I will never do that again", he said.
Well we had to do it one more time to get the stink'n thing back out, but we were there. It was a great spot and we were well hidden in the trees.
Over the next few days we did several mountain passes with our Dodge and saw some neat old ghost towns, mills and cabins. We partook of the most amazing funnel cakes and watched the old town gun fight. We traveled to Telluride and Ouray which are also fun places to stay. We swam in the Quray hot springs and saw the Box Canyon waterfall! On the 3rd or friends finally made it to camp and we had a great time around the camp fire. On the 4Th we went into town to watch the parade and the fire-fighter water fight. After that we did another dirt road and then came back to eat and go watch the best fire works display ever! Sunday was the day we headed out.
With careful planning and some work on diverting the river we were able to get through the river in one shot! Thanks everyone for the help!.
It was a great trip and we can't wait to do it again.

Our camp spot in Mesa Verde.

Sydney and Braden on one of our many hikes.
Some of the cliff dwellings we saw.
One of two family photo's we took.
Tyler playing in the dirt..
There were lots of places we needed to climb ladders and Tyler was an expert by the end.

Tyler going into a Kiva.
Okay, so this is the river and I didn't get a shot with the trailer because there was to much going on at the time.
One of the many mountain passes. We saw lots of snow.

This is just one of the houses we went through.
This is an old mill.
Eating ice cream in Silverton.
Box Canyon Falls.Some of our fabulous friends.

Sydney and the dandy lion.
Playing in the snow.