Halloween & Wolf

Alex officially became a Wolf this week!  He really enjoys scouts and has a good group of boys that he hangs out with there.  I even got a little pin to show that I helped him :)

We were lucky enough to have a BEAUTIFUL half day off of school.  So, we went to Anderson Farms and picked pumpkins, got lost in the corn maze, petted goats, and went on a tractor ride.  It was gorgeous.

We have a friend who grows giant pumpkins!  Here was his PR, weighing in at about 1200 lbs.  They decided to get it professionally carved, and it looks awesome.

Dorothy and the Scottish man got to dress up a little early for a church party this year.  Alex was very much in character using his best scottish accent.  

Happy Halloween & Happy Fall!!!!

Kids

I love my kids :)  Dave and I would love to have more... not just because we love holding little babies, but because we absolutely and truly enjoy being with our kids.  They are fun to be around and make us laugh all the time.

Alex has been sleepwalking lately.  He does it around 9:30 or 10 every night (that we know of).  Usually it consists of him getting out of bed and coming downstairs (to where Dave and I are).  He tells us he loves us and then we help him get back into bed.  He doesn't remember anything the next day.  Last night he never came down, so when Dave and I went up to bed we found him totally asleep on our bed.  It was so cute!  I almost took a picture :)

Lydia wants to be a rock star or a teacher when she grows up.  She has been practicing singing and making up her own songs.  I will NEVER tire of those made up songs!  She usually sings about us or how much she loves her family.  A lot of times she sings about God.  I should probably record her songs so that she can show her millions of fans how she started :)

Italian quinoa football

Festival Italiano!!!  Alex was singing "O Sole Mio!" all day (his unique version :).  We love this festival, it was a REALLY hot day so we waited till evening to go, but we still made the grape stomp.

"O Sole Mio"

After the HOT week of 95 degree weather, we had a HUGE rainstorm.  It rained monday night through friday morning!  I didn't go outside for four days (unless I HAD to).  On friday afternoon I went outside and noticed that we had some sprouting quinoa on our back porch! (backstory - we grew quinoa this year and harvested it on our back porch because it was MESSY!  we must've missed a few grains)

Alex is also playing flag football this year.  He really likes it (it helps that it's fall and colorado is crazy over broncos)  I've been impressed with his throwing and aggressiveness.  They all think they play just as well as the broncos.  I even saw one kid do the "finger shake" after he made a tackle (like "not in my house")  I died laughing!

Because it's YMCA football everyone plays every position.  Here's Alex as quarterback :)  What a stud :)

Camping

We went camping this weekend at Dave's (and mine) favorite camping spot.  We invited my parents and my sister, but at the last minute my sister couldn't come, so luckily a friend from Dave's work came.  The Phipps were able to join us for the night and my kids were in heaven (the Phipps have 5 kids :)

My parents brought the canoe, and although the fishing wasn't good... we got plenty of time with a pole in our hands

My parents brought my sister's older two girls, so we had 8 kids total.  My dad would paddle them all around :)

These rocks were the favorite place

First day of school

School started today!  I usually love the first day of school, everyone is excited and we always get up early.  This is my first year with both kids in all day school, and it was fairly bittersweet.  I'm excited for them, and hopeful for some new opportunities for me.

Alex, 8 years old, has Ms. Ehrhart for 3rd grade.  Alex is really smart and good at making friends.  His best friend, Torin, isn't in his class this year, but he'll still see him at lunch.  Alex loves to play with legos still and is started to get into science creations.  He still is the best big brother ever and plays with Lydia.

Lydia, 6 years old, has Ms. Vanlandingham for 1st grade.  She was a little nervous about lunch this year, not sure that she'll sit in the right spot.  Her best friend, Piper, is in class with her.  Lydia really took off in reading this summer and she's excited to have her own desk this year.  She's a great combination of princess and sporty, and she has no fear.

Aspen walks them to and from the bus each day (with me, she's not THAT awesome :).  We're glad that school is here, and a little sad that we can't have summertime play anymore.  Last friday they both tried to waterski for the first time!  They didn't get up but boy are they getting big!  I love these kids.

Color Me Rad

Lydia wanted to do a color run this year, and we are so glad we did it!  It's a very slow race, if you're serious about running you shouldn't participate :)  We ran some and walked some, and I'd say 75% of the people did the same.

Here is our before picture... so fresh and clean! (notice our RAD tattoos)

After... not clean at all!  Lydia wanted her hair to be totally dyed for the first day of school, but it washed right out...

Starting line

Lydia after the race

Alex close up.  My mom came and took pictures, we couldn't touch anything... too messy.

  Overall it was super fun and we'd definitely do it again.  Lydia could have stayed dirty all day, and Dave couldn't wait to get it off :)

North Carolina!

We visited Papa Gary and Grandma Christine in North Carolina this past week.  It was so nice to relax by the pool every day!  I found out that if we had a pool I'd never see Lydia... and I probably wouldn't get much work done myself :)

We went to the NASCAR hall of fame.  It was really fun.  I don't know anything about NASCAR except for what I've seen from the disney CARS movie.  Which is surprisingly accurate (except for the talking cars :)  The hall of fame made me want to see a race though.

We took a quick trip to Myrtle Beach, it was fun to be in two oceans in one summer.

There were also rocking chairs all over the place, airports, museums, etc.  I guess it's a southern thing.  At the children's museum they had kid rocking chairs.. pretty cool

Before our trip we dyed our tongues with snow cones at the zoo...

And celebrated pioneer day...

4th of July

Happy 4th!  A wonderful neighbor organized a kid parade for the afternoon.  Lydia and her friends planned it for two days... Alex jumped on a baby tricycle about 2 minutes before (the difference between girls and boys).  The little girl in green was throwing out candy :)  There were about 10 kids in the parade and about 10 spectators... 

We had a family BBQ at my parents.  My brother and his family are living with them now and so my brother smoked his famous ribs, they are really good!

A little backyard firecrackers before we headed to Stenger to see the BIG fireworks

California road trip (part 2)

Disneyland!  Dave loves disneyland and always plans a great trip for us.  Alex's favorite ride was Star Tours, Lydia's was the Matterhorn or Space Mountain!  I love it all, and Dave does too.  My parents were willing to trek around with us for most of the morning, which was really fun.

We ate lunch at the Blue Bayou, it's a restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and it's wonderful.  Calm, cool, dark... and mint juleps...yum!

At California Adventure we rode the Tower of Terror.  We didn't pay for the picture after, but we did take a picture of the picture :)  Alex is scared of heights, so this was a tough one for him.  Lydia barely screamed.  I, however, screamed the entire time.  

We also went to a princess lunch, and there are so many pictures I couldn't pick one.  It was fun to see all the princesses, and the food was really good too.  We stayed later and watched the water show "world of color".  I was taking a great picture of the kids when the announcer said that the show was going to start and both kids could care less about me from that point on :)  It was a cool show.

I know this picture is small, but this is what got us out to California.  My father's family has a big reunion every four years... this is the picture from the party.  I only know about half of the people, but they are all so nice and it's fun to meet so many great people.

After leaving California we went to Vegas and stayed at the Golden Nugget Hotel.  This is the giant golden nugget.  It's real, and was found in the dirt behind someone's trailer home.  He wanted to remain anonymous, it's a cool story.  The pool there was awesome, with waterfalls, a swirly slide, and a giant shark tank in the middle.  Unfortunately, it was also 115 degrees, so the pool was crowded and you didn't want to be anywhere else.

Finally, we stopped at Zion National Park, it was probably 113 degrees.. so we only did one hike.  It was the river walk, right before the narrows hike.  It was beautiful, and maybe we'd like to go again when it's about 80 degrees :)

That's the trip!  We had so much fun and I feel like we're much closer as a family now.  Now back to the real world.

California road trip!

We are back from an awesome road trip!  Dave and I realized that we didn't really like the driving part, but you can't beat seeing so many different things... so it's a good trade :)  I gave the kids millions of things to do, and snuck in their math books too just in case they said they were bored.

We first stopped in Pueblo and did the River Walk, it was beautiful!  No one was there, and we got to see little baby ducklings!

We drove to Albuquerque and spent our first night there.  We ate dinner at El Pinto, which is a HUGE restaurant that used to be a HUGE hacienda.  Very beautiful, this was the front porch.

The next day we visited the Grand Canyon, it's grand!  I still can't believe how big it is.  The closest thing I can compare it to is when you're at the top of a ski mountain, and you can see lots of mountains... but that doesn't even compare, it was remarkable!  We rented bikes and rode along the rim and it was really fun

Dave's grandma lives in Arizona, so we met up with her for a day.  Jaynie was visiting at the same time, so we got to see her too :)  We went to a place called Slide Rock, which is a river that has smooth rock that you can slide on, like a natural water slide.  Very fun, very slippery.  I fell and landed on my cheek so hard I was afraid I broke something.  That night we slept at my cousin, Jodi's, home.  It was awesome to see her.  So awesome that I forgot to take any pictures...

Tuesday we finally got to California.  We met the Rozeski's and my parents at the beach and had a great time exploring the tide pools and trying to body surf.  It was SO relaxing!

Rodeo

Who knew that I'd be so busy with all the time in the world!  Summer has been crazy so far, I can barely keep up with food, and I have no idea what we've been doing!

The kids did get to spend the night and Grandma Jaynie's last week.  They made mini donuts... intense concentration :)

We also went to the Elizabeth Stampede... voted the best small town rodeo (or something like that).  It is a small town :)  We had a blast, and were able to visit some friends that lived close by.  Alex liked the bulls, and Lydia liked the clown.  Alex was bummed when he found out that he was too big for mutton bustin'

Hope everyone else is super busy doing nothing this summer too!