Thanksgiving 2017

Going to Lawrence, Kansas for Thanksgiving has become a fairly regular thing for our family.  Kristi's family is there and now we also have Grammy and Papa living just a mile from Kristi.  So there is double the reason to go to Kansas.  Our kids are also blessed to have the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school, while Kristi's kids still have school for the first two days of the week.  With us having that extra time to travel, it just makes sense that we would go to them.  In 2017 we drove out on Sunday the 19th of November.  The trip is fairly quick (500 miles straight east on I70) and the kids are turning into great travelers so it's fairly easy.  On Monday we spent time with Grammy and Papa and then on Tuesday we had some errands to run in the morning.  Reid had forgotten a tie for the trip and since he needed it for Finn's baptism that was happening later in the week I let Finn pick a tie for him.  I liked his choice.

Later on Tuesday Kristi checked the kids out of school just a little early and we headed into Topeka to go to a Children's museum.  We had a great time and it's definitely somewhere we need to go back to.

I love this picture of our girls changing the tires.  And Bree's tutu!

Not only did we happen to be in town that week, but Meagan (Reid's oldest niece--daughter of his oldest brother) was also in town with her family.  Her husband was home on R&R from a deployment and they brought their family to Kansas City to play at Great Wolf Lodge.  They took an evening off from the water park and came out to Lawrence to see Grammy, Papa, and Kristi, and by extension, they saw us as well.  It was a large family gathering with lots of little ones running around.

Grammy and Papa on the right with all of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren that were there.

This picture added in the two children (Reid and Kristi), their spouses (me and Erik), and then Meagan's husband (Eric) and then all of our kids.  It was a chaotic and happy group that night.  I was particularly grateful that my boys really enjoyed playing with Meagan's oldest--Rhys.  He is their first cousin once removed.

The next day we all went to see Coco on opening day.  We really liked the movie and had a good time seeing it with the cousins.  It was during this movie that I finished up a transaction that I had started during our visit to the Children's museum the afternoon before.  An offhanded comment about a potential Christmas present for the kids turned into a serious discussion, and then a serious purchase.  The kids were clueless for a couple of days more.

Thanksgiving day 2017  Yes, it's fairly warm in Kansas even in November. Bree looks as these pictures and she says, "Me and Maci love each other."  I adore their friendship and hope they always remember their bond as they grow up.

This is what our boys like to do when they get together.  Two 10 year olds and 8 year olds in one room.

The day after Thanksgiving we held a joint baptism for Isaac and Finn.  What a blessing to be able to celebrate these two boys together.  Kristi gave the talk on baptism and she talked about Mary and Elizabeth being cousins and being close during their pregnancies and then eventually the baptism of the Savior by John.  Yes, the whole analogy turned me into a blubbering mess.  There were two additional children being baptized that day, they were convert baptisms, so I was trying to hold it together.

On Saturday we told the kids why we had extended our stay one day.  We had bought a puppy for them that was making her way from Nashville, Tennessee to us in Lawrence, Kansas.  The ward mission leader of Kristi's ward loves dogs, has no kids, and was heading to Nashville for Thanksgiving.  The situation couldn't have worked out any better than it did.  That puppy was meant to be ours.  We spent the morning on Saturday telling the kids and then going to shop for puppy items.  We were hoping to have her by bedtime that night.  Unfortunately the trip was delayed a bit and she didn't arrive at Grammy's until after 10pm.  But the kids were tired enough to go to bed and wait until the morning to meet their new puppy.  This picture is Bree and Maci saying goodbye on Saturday night.  They ended up seeing each other one more time the next morning when Kristi brought the kids over to meet the puppy.

Meeting their puppy for the first time on Sunday morning

Posing with their puppy on a bench at Grammy's house before loading in the car to drive home

The puppy, who we named Rosie on the drive home, was the perfect early Christmas present for our us.  

She's a tad spoiled!

Fall Break 2017

Each year in mid-October our elementary schools have a 4-day weekend.  The Wednesday before the break has evening parent teacher conference times and then the Thursday school is out and the day is reserved for conferences.  Friday all schools in the district are closed.  So, this year I scheduled our conferences for first thing Thursday morning so that we could take advantage of the 4-day weekend and go on a little trip.  We've been going to the YMCA for several years in a row now and Reid likes the tradition so we wanted to get in a trip.  We decided to try the YMCA at Snow Mountain Ranch instead of Estes Park just to see what we thought.  I will admit--this YMCA was out in the middle of NO WHERE.  Seriously, no where.  I knew going into it that it was a smaller YMCA and that there were going to be fewer activities but I had a hard time when we first pulled up.  I was very nervous we were going to have nothing to do and no where to eat.  There is a cafeteria on the grounds but prices are always super high and food is questionable.  The nearest anything is 20 minutes away on a state highway with maybe one street light between the YMCA and a Wendy's and a few other stores.  We ate at that Wendy's several times.  Good thing my kids love Wendys!  Anyway, here are some of the details of our trip.

Our room was really nice.  It was actually nicer than the lodge room we got at Estes Park the one year we did that.  So that was a pleasant surprise.  Unfortunately we were on the 2nd floor and the people on the first floor and one room over were grumpy pants.  There was one night we came in about 9pm from dinner and the kids had to go potty and brush their teeth before climbing in bed.  It took us about 20 minutes to get everyone settled and in those 20 minutes the people below got up and banged on the ceiling (our floor) about 4 times.  Reid thought it was the sound of the door to the bathroom closing that was bothering them.  I'm not really sure.  We weren't being super loud and we were well within the range of normal hours (posted quiet hours were from 11pm to 7am).  And honestly, it was just the normal sounds of 3 kids in a hotel room getting ready for bed.  The next morning the grumpy people left their room quite early (about 6:45).  How do I know?  Because they intentionally slammed their door as loud as the could in an attempt to wake us up.  They did it once and then opened it up and did it again for good measure.  Seriously!  They must have been having a really rough weekend.  Anyway, that was a long side story.

Because of the season and location, the mornings were often a bit chilly and so we used that time to go to the craft cabin and let the kids work on a craft.  Kai chose this wooden snake and he worked hard on getting the right colors and making sure it was well done.  He did a great job and it looks fantastic.  It took him several paint sessions over the weekend to get it done.

Bree chose to color this stuffed turtle with fabric markers.

Finn opted for a wooden alligator.  He also took a great deal of time to get the details just right.

As the day finally started to warm up we headed on a hike to a waterfall.  When we got to the parking lot we were only the 2nd car there.  After we finished our hike we returned to a completely full parking lot.  It was a good easy hike with beautiful scenery and we went at just the right time.

The destination of our hike.  I like the juxtaposition of the water, the snow, and the green moss.  It was beautiful.

Kai was helping Bree out a bit.  She's still working on her hiking endurance.

The next morning we went to a presentation about sled dogs.  It was really interesting.  These dogs are alaskan huskies and are used in Iditarod-types of competitions.  The man who gave the presentation has been racing for many years and had trained under some fairly well known sled dog racers.  These dogs work at the YMCA during the winter giving sled rides to guests and they also live right near by.  It was interesting to hear about the races, but also about the dogs.  They live outside and aren't housebroken (because they are racing dogs and have thick coats).  The weight between 30-40 pounds and have a tough training schedule that involves pulling a trainer on a snowmobile for miles and miles at a time.  Kai in particular was fascinated by the dogs.  His favorite was one named Moose and despite that fact that it was utterly freezing outside, Kai kept going back to the dogs.

The kids all got to do a sled dog craft.

I took this picture from the safety of the cabin where the presentation was given.  Kai had wandered back outside again to be with the dogs.

And then Bree and Finn followed.

Lunch at Wendy's

That afternoon we signed the boys up for some archery time and rock wall time.  They started getting decent after an hour of this mostly by themselves.

Bree and I had to sit and watch as she was too young to participate.

Rock walk climbing.  Finn made it to the top while Kai is still working on his fear of his feet getting too far from the ground.

Reid gave it a go as well.

Finn is in the blue helmet and Kai is in the red.

One thing we don't have pictures of (only video) is the rest of the inside of this particular building.  It is the activity center and one of the main areas is a roller skating rink.  My kids begged to go roller skating every time I turned around.  If you may remember, we'd tried roller skating once before and it didn't end well.  But with not much else to do, I caved and let them try.  Finn actually got to be decent, Kai was doing ok, and even Bree was making progress.  We skated all three days we were there.  On our Friday night there was a movie and popcorn night and they showed the movie Up.  The kids liked staying up late to do that.  The last night we were there Kai and Bree wanted to go swimming so we went to check out the indoor pool while Finn and Reid headed to the activity center. They did a bit of skating and then played some ping pong.  It turns out Finn was doing pretty well with that, too.  He also did a short tennis class one day (despite it being horribly windy).  Finn's definitely athletically inclined and he'd love to get back to tennis.  The problem for him is trying to decide what one sport he wants to do at any given time because he has so many interests.

Overall, our 3 days were fun.  I can't say that we won't go back again but there are definitely things we really like and missed about the Estes Park Center in comparison to the Snow Mountain Ranch center.  It really wouldn't be fair to try to direct compare the two because the feel of them are both so different.  This year we'll head to Estes Park.  If we do decide to do Snow Mountain Ranch again, it'd probably be in the summer when the tubing hill, canoeing, and other outdoor recreation is open.  We were definitely there in the off-season and there wasn't as much to do.  But we had a good break and it was nice to get away for a bit and see some new areas of Colorado.

Family Fun Fall 2017

This is a collection of random pictures from the fall that won't make their own blog posts.  They aren't necessarily the greatest pictures and you may not see my kids' faces in many of them, but they document some of the things we did and places we visited.

We really love the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  This was a trip in August before heading back to school to see one of their traveling exhibits "Nature's Amazing Machines".  The kids and I really enjoyed this exhibit.

We spent quite a bit of time exploring this exhibit.  There was even a spinning office chair where they gave you "wings" and you could flap them and make yourself go in a circle.  There was a good line for that but all of my kids took a turn (but I only have videos).

No trip to the DMNS is complete without a trip to the Discovery Zone for Bree to play.  This particular day they had a wind tunnel with scarves to make fly.  Bree loved it!

Just a couple of days later we had another last minute summer trip, this time to Sky Zone.  

I love how you can see Bree in the background of this picture.  And look at just how much taller Kai has become in comparison to Finn.

Painted rocks have become the trend in our area and Finn was excited to find two right next to each other outside of the Children's Outpatient Specialty clinic when he went in for his late August CF clinic visit.

Over Labor Day weekend we finally made it to the new Briargate Park, John Venezia Park.  The kids love this spinning "Christmas tree".  It terrifies me.  See Finn in the orange shirt on the outside of the ropes?  Yes, he climbs all the way to the top whenever we go to this park and he does it on the outside of the structure while it is spinning and the kids are yelling "Faster, Faster"!  Ahhhhh!

There is a fun sand area that Bree enjoys playing in at the park.

And the splashpad is awesome--even if the water is really cold!

A trip to the zoo in September let the kids meet the tree kangaroo up close and personal.  Isn't he cute?

And who doesn't love watching the Grizzly Bear go fishing in his pond?  See Finn knocking on the glass??

Kai really liked the moose.

Our Cubmaster this year planned some amazing pack meetings.  This was his first ever pack meeting and he arranged for the Flight for Life team from the hospital he works at (as an ER doctor) to fly into the church parking lot and talk to the boys.  It was exciting for sure!

The last weekend in September we attended the JDRF walk in support of our friends, the Gearharts.  They often walk with us at Great Strides and we have been wanting to join them and we finally got to.  This picture may not seem like much, but this is Finn actually high fiving someone dressed in a costume!!  He has been terrified of characters and costumes since he was a toddler and so we have been worried about taking him back to Disney while he still struggled with this fear.  Reid offered him some money to reach out for a high five and we walked by and Finn took him up on the deal and ended up realizing that characters and costumes aren't that scary.  It was a major breakthrough.

Also at the walk was our good friends, the Burnhams.  They have a little boy Finn's age that has type 1 diabetes.  Finn and Keene were in Pre-K and Kindergarten together but I doubt they will ever be put in the same class again simply because of their health issues.  But Keene's little sister Evie has become a friend of Bree's.  They were so excited to see each other at the walk!  Looking at this picture, I can't believe how big Bree's shirt was on her at this point.  So funny!

On a trip to the brand new Dollar Store in Monument Bree found a painted rock.  It was an awesome find for her!

This.  This is the face that she makes at me when she is coming to ask for something.  Seriously.  How am I am supposed to say no to this face?  And the thing is, she knows it!  I'm going to be in so much trouble as she gets older.

The Friday before Thanksgiving I checked the kids out of school early and took them on a surprise.  We had tickets to ride the Santa Train out in Royal Gorge (about an hour and a half from out house).  It was a lot of fun.  There were games, hot chocolate, cookies, and of course, Santa.  Remember Finn's discovery just a couple of months earlier?  Well, it paid off here when he happily greeted and spoke to Santa for the first time in his life!  In this picture they are anxiously working on their Christmas Lists.

There is a "North Pole" set up along the route and we went out on the open air car to get a good look.

Presenting their lists to Santa.

Family Picture taken by one of the fun elves.  When we bought the tickets they tried to sell us a dinner package.  It was overpriced and not a lot of food my kids would eat so we declined.  What I didn't realize is that half the fun on this trip is eating.  Everyone else was ordering food, drinks, etc.  We had just stopped and McDonald's on our way and filled up so we didn't need anything.  I felt bad because the elves were our servers and I'm guessing they were hoping for a tip from our two tables.  But um....yeah.  Not paying $25/person for food after already dropping serious cash on the tickets themselves.  Oh well.  We still had a great time, I just felt a tad guilty.