Philip's Triump

 Philip spent a lot of time at the pool perfecting his lily pad crossing.  The goal is to run across all the lily pads without falling in.  One evening toward the end of summer there was a small group of young dads at the pool.  They too, wanted to run across the lily pads without falling in.  As they waited in line they chatted with Philip and got his tips for success:  wait for the lily pads to line up, stay low and get a running start.  He warned them he'd only made it across twice this summer but they decided to let Philip go ahead of them so they could see him in action.  This happened:

It.was.awesome.

So We Saw Garth

At 7:30 the morning of the concert my friend Robyn texted:  "Darren got 4 Garth tickets for $25 each.  Want to go?"  And so we joined our 90,000 closest friends and went.  Other than being packed in like sardines, it was great.  Turns out Garth makes me nostalgic for high school (and let me tell you, not much makes me nostalgic for high school!).  Melissa and I may have listened to her Garth tape in the Citation 90,000 times on our many high school adventures.  And who doesn't feel at least a little pang for their high school love during Unanswered Prayers?  And although the experience cemented that I am not really a live concert person, I'm glad we went.  Thanks for the once in a lifetime experience Robyn and Darren!

 

Am I Ready?

That's what everyone asks when you have a senior.  "Are you ready?"  I never know how to answer.  How can you be ready and at the same time how can you not be?  I want to keep him forever but I want to send him off to discover how much more the world has to offer.  Every day of senior year brings us closer to the moment we've spent 18 years preparing for and ready or not, here it comes.

.Samuel- senior

Thomas- junior

Julia- 8th grade

Philip- 6th grade

Nicholas- 3rd grade

We started mask-less but by the 2nd day there were initial cases.  That means if more in the class get sick that class could be masking.  It's going to be interesting to say the least.

Last Day of Summer

 Always bittersweet.  The kids are always so happy just playing and being home on the last day of summer, no one fights or tells me they're bored and I try to just soak it in.

Coming Along

The new windows are in and the new siding is in boxes in the driveway.  Jeremy and the kids took the old siding off to save some money and speed up the process a little.  The house will still be grey and white.  They grey will be a little darker though and the white will be gingerbread scallops.

Green Thumb Year

We have the best garden we've had in a long time!  Corn, cucumbers, zucchini and cherry tomatoes are all flourishing.

My item of the year is refrigerator pickles.   I bought cool jars and everything!  I learned to make both sweet and dill and they are pretty delicious. 

If you need zucchini or cucumbers CALL ME!!!!

Fair Week

 We had two days after we got back to get things together for the fair.  Why oh why don't we ever do projects sooner than the week before fair?!  We managed to get plenty of things entered though.

The kids rode the rides on wristband night.  Not worth it.  It's really hard to get in enough rides to make the wristbands pay for themselves, especially if you don't do well with spinny rides.  Philip met up with a group of boys from school, Julia met Abi and Nicholas was supposed to meet up with Maclin.  Maclin's cousin's baseball game went waaaay long so Nick rode with other friends until Mac got there.  Samuel went with friends too...and may have ridden the Casino one to many times.  Oops.  Thomas went a different night but everyone had fun.

The parade was fun as usual.  The three littles don't really remember when Greta used to come with us but I always miss her at the parade.  We were a little too close to the beginning to hear the band playing.  They turned the corner before they started their song so we just heard a little.  I asked Sam if he was ready to do his first last thing.  He was not amused.

Thomas decided after having a week off for Leadership Camp and then one for our family vacation, perhaps he should go to work instead of compete at the fair.  That left just Philip for tractor driving.  Since we were gone the week before the fair he didn't practice so his ribbon was not as high as he would have liked.  

Nick can compete next year and I have good intentions of Philip taking the firearm safety class so he can shoot bb guns next year.

We went to see all the entries Friday (I think) it POURED rain for about 30 minutes, which delayed the demo derby which Thomas was at and trapped people all over the fair.  We were in the open class building so we stayed nice and dry and had PLENTY of time to check out the exhibits.

Everyone was pretty happy with their ribbons...and with the end of fair week the beginning of school comes barreling at us.

Colorado Trip Day 5

We checked out of our Airbnb on Friday morning and headed to the Western Museum of Mining.  It was a pretty good museum made amazing by the tour guide.  We just happened to be there at the right time for the tour and boy was he good!  He had an amazing knowledge of the machinery and had worked in the mines since his youth.  He also turned on all the machines, which was cool! 

After the tour we all got to pan for gold and came home with lots of tiny treasures.

We had a picnic lunch at the museum and then headed for home.  

We had one comical pit stop.  Farmer in a pickup drove past this scene laughing.  He knew exactly what was going on.

About 9 pm we were still three hours from home.  We had planned to stop at a hotel but Sam and I really didn't want to stop.  Jeremy, who was driving, kind of did.  At this point we made a deal.  "If we don't stop can we use the money we saved on a hotel for the TV I want?"  Yep.  Everyone was a winner in that deal.

We got home around midnight.  This is as far as Nicholas made it before crashing.  

It was a great family trip!

Colorado Trip Day 4

Day 4 we were smart.  We went to Manitou Springs first thing, while everyone else was going up Pike's Peak.  The penny arcade there was hit, although the games mostly took quarters, not pennies.  Not a big deal but Julia had brought a big bunch of pennies and had to carry them around.  We did a little souvenir shopping too. Julia found a wallet, I got cute earrings and Thomas bought some shark jerky.  Don't ask how much it cost.

For lunch we met my Dad's cousin Norma and her husband Jim at a BBQ restaurant in Old Colorado.  We spent a fun couple hours catching up with them.  We hadn't thought to get a hold of them before we left, but Norma saw Jeremy's Facebook post ("Dodge, when will you put a Hemi in minivans for hauling teenagers up mountains?"), guessed we were in Colorado and messaged him.  It was great to see them!  Our other favorite part of Old Colorado was a funny restroom with a big printed mural on it.  We thought it was a monument or something because people were standing in front of it looking at it.  Turns out they were in line for the bathroom!  

After lunch we headed back to the Garden of the Gods then toured the Cave of the Winds.  The Cave of the Winds was cool, but after our exceptional experience at Jewel Cave two years ago in SD, we all agreed it kind of fell flat.  The cave is not as well lit, the formations are a bit less spectacular and our tour guide, while punny, was no match for the cave-loving tour guide we had at Jewel Cave.

After packing all that fun into Day 4 we enjoyed dinner, the outdoor kitchen, a puzzle and the hot tub at our Airbnb.

Colorado Trip Day 3

We drove up most of Pike's Peak because Jeremy and I are not the types to think of buying train tickets days before we want to go.  There's construction at the very top so you can drive to mile 16 and then take a shuttle up to the top.  Except you needed a mask on the shuttle and we forgot to bring ours that day so we called mile 16 good.  We picnicked on the way back down while waiting for our breaks to cool.  

That afternoon we tried to go to Manitou Springs.  Us and every other person who had gone up Pike's Peak that morning.  So we spent and hour or so at the Garden of the Gods instead.  Then we heard some rumblings of thunder and headed back to the Airbnb for dinner and relaxing.  We went back to the Garden of the Gods to explore a little more the next day.

 

Colorado Trip Day 2

We went to Helen Hunt Falls and did an easy hike (by Colorado standards).  It was pretty and, after having worked in landscaping all summer, Thomas was impressed by the retaining walls along the trail.

Our afternoon stop was the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.  It was a nice zoo!  Thomas just grumbled "I knew you'd ask me that" when I inquired if these elephants were related to Aquinas.  It has been many years since Thomas' imaginary elephant lived with us.  Philip and Nick were excited to do their penguin impressions.  We did refuse to go to the farm section, let alone pay a dollar to feed chickens.  But we enjoyed the rest of the zoo!  A baby hippo was born the day we were there but it was far too new for us to get to see it.

After a fun day we checked into our Airbnb in Colorado Springs.

Colorado Trip Day 1

We took the kids to see the mountains this year.  We headed to Denver the first day.  I rode in the back because I have much shorter legs than Samuel and Thomas (and I cause less trouble back there).

We stopped by this botanical garden to shake off the long car ride grumpies before having dinner with my old room mate Jessica and her family.  It was fun to see her house and watch the kids play with each other.

That's all there was on day one!
 

Bike Ride Bribe

Nick didn't want to do any more bike rides after wiping out two rides in a row.  I convinced him.

 

Happy Wedding and Anniversary All at Once

Jeremy's last cousin got married during the Covic lockd own in 2020.  The three littles, Jeremy and I went to their one-year-later-reception in KC.  (Samuel was at a Stubenville retreat and Thomas was still at Leadership Camp.)  We had a nice time at the party...but have no pictures of the bride and groom!

We pray you have a long and happy marriage Adam and Kaylan.

We stayed over with Bob and Melissa who took us to a fun park to run off some energy and made us a delicious breakfast and lunch before we headed home on Sunday.

Around the House

We got new windows on the ground level.  Siding is next.

We also bought two love seats for down stairs

 And due to Samuel and my desire to drive home from vacation without stopping for the night, Jeremy got this ginormous TV with the money we saved by not staying at a hotel.

Why yes, we have spent A LOT of money this summer...

Camps

 Julia went to the Kateri Games and had a wonderful time.

Philip went to Knights Adventure camp and became Sir Philip.

Thomas was a counselor at Leadership Camp and had a marvelous time as usual.