This post is so overdue, but better late than never, right? We've had a great summer so far and can't believe it's going by so quickly. We decided to send our kids to a charter school next year and it starts on July 25th! Less than a week of summer left and I haven't even posted end of year pictures. Here you go - picture overload begins now documenting May and June!
Here is Logan with two of his buddies (Liam and Devon) from Kindergarten. I wish I had taken a pic with his teacher, Mrs. Bingham, but of course I didn't think of that at the time. The day before this picture was taken, the boys had gone for haircuts. Eric had convinced Logan that shaving his head was the way to go for a summer "do," but after the cut he got in the car and cried. He hated it! He didn't know it would be so short. He begged me not to make him go to school the next day, he was even willing to forgo the end of year party in order not to have to show his face at school with the new haircut. Mason was making it worse with comments like, "maybe you could wear a hat," or "you could wear a sweatshirt with a hood." He was really self conscious when he first got to school, but after a couple compliments he was all smiles again.
This is Logan with his friend, Joni. Joni loves to look for bugs and lives just a mile away so she comes over a lot to play with Logan. Logan loves to play with her, but somewhere around the middle of the school year, the boys in the class started to make fun of Logan's friendship with Joni. I was so sad to see Logan turn "too cool" for Joni. One time Logan was supposed to ride the bus home with Joni because I was gone somewhere, but Logan didn't get on Joni's bus with her because he was being made fun of. He got on his own bus and when the bus driver got to our house to drop him off, I wasn't there! He had to ride the route all the way back to school and my babysitter had to go pick him up! He refused to smile for this picture in case anyone was watching. Paige, however, gave me one of her super goofy smiles. Don't worry, there are more of these great smiles to come!
Here is Mason with his buds during field day, Jack, Aiden, and Oliver. Halfway through the school year Mason started pretending he couldn't see things very well in hopes that he would need glasses like Oliver. A trip to the eye doctor confirmed better than 20/20 vision. Mason was so disappointed. He was also disappointed when Eric got braces this year and he did not. He always asks when he'll be getting braces put on. He's so funny!
One of the first weekends of summer we went to Denver for a Rockies game. We decided at 10 pm on a Friday night to go to a 5 pm Saturday game in Denver and convinced our friends, the Brown's to join us. Logan and Jaden were ready to catch some balls all night, but none came their way (big surprise).
Shauna had to leave with Bradli and Hudson after a long 30 minutes at the game. They were both sick and not happy to be at a baseball game. Bradli kept yelling "I hate the Rockies!"
Paige was in heaven at the game because there was a never ending supply of treats. This girl has the worst sugar tooth in history!
We had a
super windy spring. One day I came home to find our trampoline on our driveway (see it's normal spot over on the gravel next to the swingset)...
and our glass/iron table thrown 20 feet! See the chairs all in disarray and the table off to the side? The table was originally situated nicely between all those chairs. The umbrella got snapped in half and there was glass
everywhere. It was a disaster to clean up. We still find little pieces of glass now and then and it happened over a month ago!
In May a friend named Marge turned 70. She is incredibly fit for a 70 year old woman, so I wasn't surprised when she decided for her 70th birthday she wanted to do a 70 mile bike ride. A group of 15 girls showed up to support her, but only half of us actually rode the 70 miles. A good number of us young pups (including me) only rode 35, but the women over 50 stuck it out with Marge and rode all 70 miles. I like to think it's because the older women have more time on their hands to get out for looooong rides while us young moms have too much to juggle to make time for those distances. But the truth of it might be that Marge is actually more fit at 70 than we are at 30 something!
Halfway there (or done in my case)! It was my first ride of the season and it worked me. But it was so fun to bike with such a crew!
Here is another one of Paige's super pretty smiles captured while we were camping at Mesa Verde. Eric's brother Adam came up with his family to roast marshmallows with us but they did not spend the night since they live 10 minutes from Mesa Verde.
The kids had so much fun camping for the first time this season and the weather was perfect!
The next morning we went to the see the Indian dwellings. We planned to hike around a little more than we actually did because Paige woke up with a fever. I hadn't packed any ibuprofen and there were no stores in the park so I finally went up to a mom with several kids and asked her if they were traveling with any fever reducing medications and she happily shared some with me. Paige was much more pleasant once she was drugged up!
The dwellings were so incredible. I loved imagining these ancient home buzzing with activity 2000 years ago.
The boys thought it was so cool to go down this ladder into a kiva, which is basically a big underground room. It was pretty amazing construction.
Here a view of another dwelling that can only be seen by taking a tour. Feverish Paige wouldn't have tolerated a tour so well so we didn't pursue this, but isn't it so amazing how they built their homes right into the sides of cliffs? Up close you could see what they call "hand and toe" trails that lead from the dwellings up over the overhang of the cliffs to get up on the flat mesa above. Up on the mesa is where they would plant crops so they would literally free climb up using little grooves carved in the cliffs for their hands and toes. I wonder how many people fell to their deaths on those hand and toe trails!
Appreciating the view from a far. It really was an incredible sight. If you ever have a chance to go see Mesa Verde you shouldn't pass it up!
Logan and Mason both did several camps this summer. Mason did basketball, but since Logan wasn't old enough for basketball (only ages 7 and up) I enrolled him in a "Bug" camp. He LOVED it! He learned all about bugs and then at the end of the camp they made their own bugs with recycled materials. I was so impressed with Logan's grasshopper. It was by far the most detailed and realistic bug that I saw anyone in his class make. Logan loves projects, so this was right up his alley. It sat in our garage for weeks (after being moved from my kitchen counter, which is where Logan wanted it displayed for all time), until I convinced him that we could throw it away if we had a picture to remember it by.
They also did a science camp together where they came home with all kinds of awesome projects. They did have homework, though which I wasn't too thrilled with. One day they had to make "snow machines" with some polymer material they brought home. I wasn't helpful at all, but they did it all on their own out of shoe boxes and straws.
Their other project was to make a rocket that was to be blasted off with pressurized air with a raw egg as a passenger. Eric took the project pretty seriously and came up with a great design with the help of his friend Aaron. Our boys helped put it together, made the fins, and decorated it. Their rockets flew the highest and farthest of all the kids, but the eggs did not survive the crash back to Earth. Here are the rockets with the smashed eggs inside. The boys thought it was the coolest thing EVER.
Logan turned 6 on July 2nd and all he wanted was to go camping for his birthday. We went up into the mountains above Monticello, UT and had a great time camping with some friends.
For some reason this picture wouldn't stay flipped, but hopefully you can still see how cute his cake was. He told me he wanted a camping cake with a tent, fire, trees, lake, and dirt. I think Walmart did pretty good coming through with all of his requests!
We decorated our camp site with balloons and a happy birthday banner and Logan loved basking in all the attention.
I think Logan had the perfect birthday - tin foil dinners...
cake...
fishing...
smores and campfire stories...
and more fishing!
Good thing I have my little girl to hang with me on the shore. But she thought fishing looked way more fun. Eric took her out on the boat a couple times with the boys but she didn't like the fact that there wasn't a fishing pole for her. Maybe next year Paige will be reeling in the fish with her brothers!
The next day we drove to find a place called Newspaper Rock. On the way we stopped to have a picnic lunch and found this awesome stream to play around in. The kids had so much fun wading around and getting wet. With 95 degree temps, the water felt so good!
And here is Newspaper Rock. A huge cliff face covered in petroglyphs. Pretty cool to see. My kids especially loved the image of a boy shooting a deer with an arrow.
After Newspaper Rock, we continued on to find a place called Indian Creek Waterfall. The waterfall is in a stream that has a series of little waterfalls and then one big (?) waterfall.
This is the "big" waterfall. Not quite what we were expecting from the description we had heard of the place, but fun nonetheless. The water was super warm, which is not usually the case with streams and waterfalls in Colorado, so it was fun to play in.
The pool underneath the falls wasn't exactly deep. Perfect for kids though.
The waterfall swimming hole was kind of crowded with a big family party so we headed downstream to make a dam and our own swimming hole, but the stream was so shallow we never really got the effect we were looking for. But it was a cool spot in the canyonlands, with beautiful red rock scenery so the drive over there was worth it.
A couple weekends later, Eric took the boys to Antero Reservoir. It was Eric's dads favorite place to fish. They took the kayak to the spot Ken used to love to hang out in and sure enough, they caught fish! I'm sure that made Ken smile from up above.
Mason's biggest catch with a funky tail fin...
And Logan's "tank." That's what he kept calling it. A pretty nice cutbow for sure. These fish made us an awesome fish dinner that night. I love how much these boys love to fish with their dad!
Checking out a cheetah.
Mostly happy kids (except Zack).
Eric fishing in Juncalito...his idea of paradise!
Chris going for a dive.
Beautiful Juncalito cove with all the kayaks lined up. The guys have given up taking my dad's boat in favor of kayaks since kayaks don't have motors that can break and ruin a trip!
The luxurious accomodations.
After the guys got back from Baja, they took the kids down to La Jolla to kayak around. From the kayaks they saw leopard sharks, stingrays, garibaldi, and seals. The kids thought it was so cool! And I was impressed with the men for being willing to get back in the kayaks after being in them for a week already! Everyone had a great trip and the kids were so sad to have to come back to GJ to go back to school. Mason thinks we should split our time equally between GJ and San Diego and I have to say I agree!
