4th of July in Pagosa Springs

Okay, I'm starting on the long process of catching up from the summer! Expect a lot of outdated posts for the next little while!

I lived in Louisiana from 4th - 7th grade and my best friend there was Kim Peart. For years her Dad, Dave, talked about building their dream home in Pagosa Springs, Colorado when he retired. Well, Dave is a man who knows how to set a goal and reach it, and he made his dream come true. He and his wife Becky spent a few years building a BEAUTIFUL mountain home. And I mean, they built it themselves. It's pretty impressive. Anyway, whenever he was working on the plans, I'd tell him to be sure to build a room for me. I was told numerous times that they had indeed built me a room (it's really a guest room with a New Orleans theme, but it's sweet of them to indulge me) and that I needed to come visit. So a few months prior, Kim and I planned a rendezvous in Pagosa Springs for the 4th of July. She and her husband drove in from Utah and we drove down. Her sister, Kelley also came down with her two kids who are the same ages and genders of my kids and her brother, Rodney and his family live there, so it was basically a Peart Family Reunion (minus their oldest son) plus the Watabes. They were so sweet to make us feel right at home and like we were part of the family. And let me tell you, these people are FUN! We had a great time!

Pagosa Springs is a small town, so it had all the great aspects of a small town 4th of July.

A carnival.






Complete with crazy people who get in the ride with four innocent little children and make it spin as fast as possible, scaring children and parents half to death.

A parade. Complete with a fly over, including none other than Mr. Dave himself.

It was so cool to see them flying in formation and knowing that Dave was up there. He's not even my dad, but I was so proud of him. And in my pregnant state, I got a little choked up when they successfully did the peel off. Something about the patriotism, and the concentration, team-work, and courage it takes to do things like that really got to me. (Dave's the one in the black-bottomed plane.)

Here we are at the parade with Kim, Me, Miss Becky (She's just as hip and skinny as her daughters! I love that woman like a mother.), and Kelley.

Elizabeth just sat there and clapped through that whole parade. It was so hot and sunny, but that didn't stop her from clapping away. I think the candy helped.

A little rock band in the afternoon to pass the time!

Then we had a fabulous BBQ, and Kim and I had to take a picture of us eating corn for old time's sake. We were a couple of goofy girls growing up and we loved to get really silly when eating certain foods and take lots of pictures in the process. Corn was at the top of the list!

After the BBQ, Dave was so nice to take Nate, Harrison and me up for a little flight over Pagosa Springs.

For a little boy who has always LOVED airplanes (used to have to sleep with one in each hand), this was quite thrilling!

I think it was pretty thrilling for a big boy to get to sit in the cockpit and be co-pilot too!

Here's one I took from the runway, showing how close their house it to the little airport.

Here we are right after we took off, looking at the house down below. It's hard to see, but everyone was out on the back porch, watching us take off and waving to us as we flew over.

Here's one Kim took of us from there.

And here's the happy, little passenger loving being up in the sky!

That night we went to watch fireworks. Kim and I are still great friends despite being rival alums!


Here are Kim and Mr. Dave. They are so cute!

At first Harrison wasn't sure what to think of the sparklers, but then he loved them.

Elizabeth loved them too!

The next morning we went to church.

And it wouldn't be a Michelle and Kim get together without some good old "modeling pictures." Let me just say, if we'd had digital cameras and Facebook back then, there would have been no stopping us with our modeling endeavors. We used up many a roll of film back in the day, with no way to display them for the world to see! :)

Thanks so much to Kim and her amazing family for a wonderful weekend! We really had such a blast!