This is Logan’s last “off-track semester” until he graduates and because of that, we decided he needed to see a little bit more of Colorado while he wouldn’t have to miss school!! Plus, I missed this part of my Fowler family!! We scheduled the trip around being there for the twins 9th birthday and to surprise all the kids. Our 9.5 hour drive went quickly listening to Harry Potter and talking about different things going on in our lives. We don’t mind car rides like this- it gives us time to talk through situations, ideas, and make plans! Our plan was set to surprise the kids after Katelyn and Kylie’s volleyball practice at Wendy’s. They were supposed to go into Wendy’s first and we would come in behind them and stand in line until they noticed us. We watched them pull in and the kids run across the parking lot to go inside. We stealthily made our way to the door so they wouldn’t see us, started recording on our phones, waiting for the grand reaction of surprise we would get from them. Kylie saw us first, jaw dropped and a big smile across her face. Katelyn was next- she looked at us in disbelief and confusion. Mason saw us and stared for a minute before saying “Hi!” and smiling at us. But Tyson, noticed us last; when he finally looked up to see us, he quickly looked down at his feet, embarrassed, but he quickly came to Logan and said, “Dude, you should sit by me!”

The next day we went to Loveland Laser Tag to celebrate a little early birthday party for the girls. We were there for 7.5 hours!! And it was SO much fun. There was a ropes course, bumper cars, rock climbing, laser maze, laser tag, and arcade games. Logan and Troy beat the entire Jurassic Park arcade game- it only took them $15 of arcade money 🙂  In the laser maze, if you did each level in a certain amount of time, you got prizes! We ended up with $15 more dollars for arcade games, free a”tickets” for a prize, and 3 free slushies. The most impressive thing from the laser maze was when Katelyn did EXPERT and finished in 20 seconds. A group of adults was watching her on the TV in amazement!! I won over 3,000 tickets from the arcade games and when Mason pointed out the Star Wars Operation game, we happily gave all our tickets to get it for the kids; we spent the following days listening to R2D2 squawking when you hit the sides with the tweezers.

Our time there went so fast!! We made so many memories while we played Monopoly Deal with Troy and Carrie at night, Logan played Monster Legends with the boys a lot (Carrie, tell Mason Uncle Logan is still playing every day!), we went swimming, babysat, went to IKEA, played TopGolf, made cake pops late at night, and celebrated Katelyn and Kylie’s birthday. For their birthday Logan and I took them to Lucky Fins to get some crab the night before their birthday! We surprised them with that, and I thought Kylie was going to hug me forever from being so excited. While they were away at school, we decorated the van and made it the birthday van. It was complete with window paint, streamers, and balloons. The girls just about died from embarrassment when we pulled up to pick them up. That night we played the saran wrap game where Tyson, realizing there was a dollar bill in the middle, grabbed his moms face and said, “But we want that one!!!”

We know that this season of life for us and this Fowler family, won’t be like this for too much longer (not a pregnancy announcement) and we are so glad that we were able to go spend time with them!! We miss you guys! Can’t wait to see you next month in Idaho!

Truly, this could my favorite picture from the entire trip. It makes me laugh every time!We watched the girls at volleyball practice and they made me one proud aunt!!! They were learning to overhand serve that day and they ROCKED at it!!And then they learned about spiking! They have so much potential!!What the brothers do while the girls practice…Mason scored on Uncle LoganAnd seconds after he kicked the ball, Tyson fell backwards into the wall
Birthday breakfast!The birthday van!!