Part 1: Michigan

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We spent the majority of June on the road visiting various midwest favorites: Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri.  We started by driving to Michigan for my cousins’ wedding.

We’ve found our rhythm for road trips: I drive and listen to audiobooks with the boys (finished Penderwicks in Spring and Hatchet on this portion), while Mike works (and apparently sometimes naps when his schedule allows).  He does all the directions, getting gas, and deciding on food.  It works well!

We arrived in Michigan before the rest of the family, so we enjoyed a quiet evening with my grandpa which was definitely a highlight for me.  I’m not sure I’ve ever had hours of chatting with only him like that.  Such a gift.  This was Ethan’s last night as a 9 year old, so I took some pictures of our evening.  The boys are still working towards their goal of reading aloud for ten minutes for 275 days of the year (I think that’s the goal…I should have written it down somewhere!!).

The following day we celebrated Ethan’s birthday a bit and went to the wedding.  I have a few favorite memories from that day: Eddie dancing with Ger at dinner, Abe and Ivan crushing the dance floor with their moves, and Ivan calling Aunt Dawn a princess when he saw her waiting to greet us, Salina giving kisses to Micah, all the boys teasing Uncle Brad, etc. etc. It was a fun day!

The following day we went to church and then had a picnic in the park.

After the fun, we drove to Wisconsin for the next part of our trip.  Michigan was short, but very sweet!

Before the big trip…

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Just thought I’d do a quick “catch all” post from before our midwestern tour during the month of June.

Brothers hanging around the house together.

We had a random snow storm right after my Dad left, so we had to have some hot chocolate and treats since it was May and snowing! =)

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We finished another year of school and I managed to take end of year pictures to compare. Woot.

I went to my cousin’s graduation from High School (he was 10 months old, I think, when I first came out to Colorado for college!) and got some pictures of some of the brothers celebrating. =).

Family bike ride to a favorite park a couple miles away:

A couple birthday parties and a play date during which I got in some snuggle time:

Next up: travels to the midwest.

Grandpa’s Visit

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Mikey had a long business trip in India back in May, so we requested to have my parents come out to help and keep us company.  My Mom was busy with a wedding shower and some family time, but my Dad was up for it!  The boys and I were SO thankful to have him.  He was a great help, but also just fun to have around!

We spent most of our time outside doing various activities (biking, scootering, playing sports, etc.).  We can thank my Dad for sparking a biking fire in Micah.  Now that he feels confident, he can’t get enough of it:

We did spend some time playing games, looking at my Dad’s pictures, and eating yummy food:

We visited the Rocky Mountain Arsenal:

Grandpa got to watch a soccer game of Ethan’s and took some great shots of that.  Those of you from my side of the family may have seen those in a dropbox email recently, so I’m just posting a few.  (Sadly, Micah’s football game was cancelled due to rain.)

We also got out for a nice hike:

Thanks, Dad, for coming out!!  We sure loved having you!  You are a gift.

Random Catch All Post

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And finally, in an attempt to officially catch up to this past week when my Dad was in town, a post of random updates.

My aunt Sally was in town visiting her sister (and us) and the boys were thrilled.  They could not get enough of her!  She came over for dinner one evening and the boys were asking all.day.long “when will she get here?!?”

This was Micah making some apple dip before her visit:

On Mother’s Day we went to church and then headed over to see Matthew as Simba in The Lion King.  SO cool!  This was our favorite of his plays thus far.  He did a great job!  That evening we headed out to one of my favorite spots for a picnic, but we found that it was quite changed now that there are fences everywhere.  It was still beautiful and I was thrilled to have some pictures of me and those sweet boys of ours.

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Wrapping up the school year

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We’ve had a sort of bizarre wrap up to our school year.  We still have a few things to finish before I can officially say we’re on summer break, but we’ve definitely lowered the intensity of our workload already.  We had to hit it pretty hard in April, so May has been a slower pace.  We also often do various school-related things throughout the summer, so I’m okay with a more calm ending to the school year.  But I haven’t taken any official final day of school pics. haha!

Ethan had his first standardized tests and did really well on them.  He took them with a bunch of other CC peeps at our church, so that helped to make it a good first experience for him.  Meanwhile, Micah and I went over to a nearby rec center and did school there. Afterwards they all played basketball and ate lunch together.

We had our final day at CBS and Micah “sang” with the kids at the opening.  We also had our final lunch with cousin Matthew before he starts school at DC in the fall.  They had their final piano lesson together recently, too. It’s been SO much fun being with them every week.

The boys earned two new books for their read aloud challenge – they read EVERY day of the month of April for at least ten minutes each.

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And we had our end of the year party with CC.  We celebrated all that they learned and did a little showing off by singing the timeline.  This was also the evening that my new role as the Director at CC began – pretty overwhelming and exciting all at the same time.  Mike wasn’t in town, so I only got the picture of the memory master gang (featured in a previous post) and this one of Micah’s class.

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See You Laters

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Mike’s sister and her family moved to Georgia at the beginning of this month, so much of April was spent trying to soak up some time with them.  We had a few dinners together and they were able to come watch one of Ethan’s soccer games.  We also had Caleb sleep over so that Ashley could get a bunch of cleaning done more easily around their place.  We loved all the time with them!

It was a pleasure to have a few years living in the same city and we were really bummed to see them go.  But we’re hopeful and prayerful that they will really enjoy Atlanta and the adventures that await them there.

Further Catching Up

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Ethan’s been loving playing soccer this season.  He’s found his favorite position – stopper!  He absolutely loves playing defense and has even managed to score a few goals from back there because he’s got quite the kick!  And Micah is a fun fan. =)

Micah started playing flag football through the rec centers here.  He’s loved it and definitely improved over the few weeks that the season ran.  I was out of town for his first game, but Mike took lots of pictures and videos.  They watched some game footage to help teach him about the game before his second night of games.  And then his final games were cancelled due to weather, so we’ll see if he gets to make those up later.  He prefers to play center, but he did get a couple running plays called for him and snagged at least one flag!  Woot!

Ethan worked SO hard on his Memory Master challenge this year and was able to get the official title.  This meant he had to memorize every fact for all 24 weeks of 7 subjects.  He had to recall this information 3 different times.  We opted to do one with Auntie Mel (SO thankful to live by these guys again!!).  Then he was quizzed by a tutor at CC and then by the director.  It was a pretty arduous process, but he loved it and was super excited by the challenge!

Micah began going to Speech therapy and is making great strides there already.  He seems to enjoy it okay and is pretty determined to do his homework!

And Ethan played the prelude in church again – In Christ Alone.  Another fun bonus to going to the same church as family, Aunt Mel took a video! =)

He also had his final piano recital of the year – he played two pieces (In the Hall of the Mountain King and something about pirates).

And Micah is wrapping up drum lessons for the year.  Here’s one of the latest pictures I took when one of his friends from church wanted to sit in and listen.

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