Bear Lake 2011

For Charlie's birthday we spent the day at Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Nice views all away around the lake!

Cute moment

Brandon...

Emily being cute

Caleb needed me to carry him towards the end of our hike!

Cooling off by the river.

Emily Turns 3

Our sweet little girl turned 3 this month.  Yes, it is so hard to believe that our baby Emily is actually 3 years old.  This year she said she wanted an Elmo birthday so Taylor and I (with a little help from one of her new friends) baked and decorated a cake.  We celebrated with cake, ice cream, family and a few presents.   

Emily with her Elmo Cake

The Cake

Emily blowing out the candles

The girls

Emily with one of her presents

Opening gifts - she was so excited about everything!

Dr. Charles Couch

It is now official-on July 12th, Charlie successfully defended his dissertation.  After five and half years of reading, writing and research he is now Dr. Charles Couch.   He has earned a PhD in Education with a concentration in Leadership for Higher Ed Admin from Capella University.  It is hard to believe that it is actually over.  This has been a long journey filled with lots of ups and downs.  This accomplishment places Charlie in a very small minority of folks – less than 3 percent of the US population (age 25+) posses a degree at this level.   Even though the kids don’t understand the magnitude of his accomplishment they are overjoyed to hear that dad is done with school and they will no longer hear “Sorry but daddy needs to work on his paper tonight”. 

Charlie was so excited to eat the Oreo Ice Cream cake that he started to cut it before I could get a picture! 

4th of July Weeked Family Fun!

 Our weekend of fun started with a night at the Drive-in to see Cars 2 in Fort Collins. 

As you can see we had lots of fun!   

  

 On Monday we went to my sister, Bonnie's house to watch the Fort Collins fireworks from here back yard! 

We all had a great time -- good food, fellowship, and fun family time!

Watching the fireworks!



All the kids - Emily, Justin, Makenna, Taylor, Caleb & Brandon!