Friends in Town

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Our dear friends from Georgia took an RV trip across the country and we were bound and determined to see them!  We were supposed to join them camping, but we had to bail on that plan when Ethan got the staples in his head.  So, instead, we drove to the Fort Collins area for an afternoon (after the staples were removed) to spend time with them.  Both Ethan and C were apparently “nervous” about seeing each other again, but they hit it off like usual.  It was so sweet to see!!

The boys hadn’t seen each other, I don’t think…since we moved back in January of 2016.  I see Katie every time I go to Atlanta to help my sister at the trade shows.

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Also, nice to see that the big boys are still a lot alike even after a few years…

We’re big fans of this family!

Random Happenings

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You know this family is all about the book reading by now, right?  This summer we are doing a few reading challenges.  Each boy is working on reading/listening to about 30 books for their at-home challenge.  For this one, they are coloring the posters I made for them.  Ethan is also working through a challenge given by a local bookstore.  Originally he was just going to do 5 books for that to fill out this bingo sheet, but he decided to try for every book to *hopefully* win a $50 gift card to the store.  This one is causing him to read some different books than he would normally pick out.  Also, both boys are doing a reading challenge put on by our library.  It’s basically reading at least 8 books and doing a few activities (i.e. making a creation, playing a new game).

Side note: I also included a mini picture of my goodreads goal for the year.  I had set it for 40 books (knowing that a lot would be kids novels), but I reached the goal in June.  So, I’ve made my new goal 75 by the end of the year! =)  This should make my parents feel really good since they have been hoping I would like to read one day… 😉

Mike and I are hoping that if we start doing lots of ridiculous dab moves, the boys will find it super weird and stop doing it.  It’s not working…

We had the opportunity to meet my friend’s new baby, Zion.  He’s absolutely darling and Micah LOVES to hold him.  Fun side note – my parents got to meet him a good week before we did because Gina stayed in their condo in Florida during the adoption process…waiting to be allowed back in Colorado. =)

I stained my table box and I love it.  Thanks again, Dad!

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Ethan got his staples removed on Sunday.  He was nervous, but it didn’t end up hurting too badly!

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And Micah circled all of our ages…and that’s whenI realized Mike is turning 35 this year!!

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Last, but not least, we have baby bunnies running around the neighborhood and I want one for my pet.  One got a little confused when we were outside watching it and it actually ran across my foot.  I restrained myself from grabbing it and taking it inside with us.

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Ethan and Daddio’s Cadet Campout

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Cadets is a boys’ program Ethan has been participating in all year through our church.  It’s for guys in 1st grade through 8th grade, so next year Micah will participate, too.  Anyway, every summer they have a campout with the dads.  My uncle is one of the leaders, so he played a huge part in organizing the event and two of our cousins were there participating this year, too.  I heard nothing but wonderful things about it!  One of the traditions of the Cadet Campout is to do some sort of mission project at Long Scraggy. This year they put up a playground.  Mike took a pic of E by it knowing that we’ll have a few years to keep snapping this same shot of him (and his bro).

After the car was all packed up and they were about 5 minutes away from their departure, Ethan fell backwards when playing with his buddy.  A picnic table corner broke his fall and he ended up with a pretty sizable gash in the back of his head.  They cleaned him up and bandaged his head and Mike drove out of the mountains to the closest Urgent Care facility.  Our brave guy got two staples in his head there and will hopefully have them out already this Sunday.  We are all super thankful that I wasn’t a part of this campout.  Mike had to warn me via text about it before they arrived and I still had to sit down just to hear about it!  Eek.

This was the first medical issue we faced with this boy!  We’re pretty impressed to have made it until he was 9 before he had anything serious happen!

Micah and Mom Weekend

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Micah and I had the opportunity to spend a whole weekend together and let me tell you, he had some plans for us!  We decided to make a list of the things we’d like to do one the weekend while the other guys were camping with a church group.  We crossed everything off our list by the end of the weekend!

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There is one draw back to making a list with my guy.  He didn’t want to do anything unless it was written on the list, so we really had to tread carefully all weekend to be sure we were only doing things listed.  And, after something was off the list, but we still had time to spare, we were in a bit of a predicament.

Here are some pictures from our weekend around the house:

And here are a few from our 4 mile bike ride.   The bike ride was quite exciting and I know some of you have already heard about it.  Let’s suffice it to say that he had a few falls (always jumping right back up again) and one of them ended poorly with a very, very flat tire.

Loved spending time with this guy for our weekend solo!  We were both glad to have the other guys back again, but I sure enjoy Micah’s company!

Ethan turns 9!

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They say the days are long, but the years are short.  That’s exactly how this season of my life has been.  Feels like Ethan was born only days ago, but the lego Micah put on his ice cream cake says he’s 9!  Because he left on his birthday for his first cadet campout, we celebrated a bit the day before and a bit the morning of his special day.  He requested Greek-style turkey burgers for dinner, ham and cheese buns for lunch, and pancakes for breakfast.  He also wanted an ice cream cake.

He loved all of his awesome birthday gifts, videos, and cards.  He was pretty thrilled by everything, as you can see:

Micah gets VERY excited to give gifts to people.  He was the one asking if it was time for Ethan to open a present every other day.  E preferred to wait until his birthday, but Micah could hardly contain his excitement about giving his gifts: lego sets (one that had previously been a share set, and now he wanted to give it to just Ethan; one that we bought at the store for him); pictures and gum.

We’re super proud of the young man Ethan is becoming.  He’s kind, smart and super hard-working.  We appreciate the leader he is around the house and what a good big brother he is.  And I especially love to play games with him!  Love this guy so much!  =D

Summer Life

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I think it was only last week that we had some sewer/pipes/draining work done at the house.  This was not the most fun way to spend money, but it was necessary.  The boys had a blast watching it all and we’re glad to have the problem behind us.  Now to get some grass…

A more fun way to spend some money was in preparation for our upcoming camping trips. We’ve been spending some time looking for sales on our gear.  Each boy now has a sleeping bag and we have some pots/pans/dishes and a camping stove!  Snapped these rock-climbing pictures outside of REI downtown and another of Micah testing out his sleeping bag at home.

It’s been a pretty hot summer thus far, especially without any mean of cooling the house currently.  Rest in peace, swamp cooler.  You were good while you lasted.  I still try to get us outside for bike rides and time at the park, but it’s hard to go get extra hot when we don’t have a good way to cool down afterwards.

Micah lost another tooth (that brings his total to 3, I believe).  And he went to the dentist. One of his front teeth has been dead since an epic fall back in our Georgia days; it’s on its way out this month by our hands or it will need to get pulled.  We’re working on it!

Ethan still spends time every day playing the piano.  He can’t get enough of it.

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And we played game 15 of Risk as a family.  I thought my chances to win were good…until everyone wanted me eliminated.  But, I’m glad to say that I held on.  Ethan won the game and now no one gets to write their name on the board anymore…alas, my name will never be on it.

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Biking

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The boys and I have officially set a biking goal of 50 miles during the summer break.  We made a fun poster to track it.

My dad taught Micah how to bike without his training wheels and Micah has been eager to go on a ride with E and me.  We did our first 4-mile ride the other day.  It wasn’t the most relaxing or enjoyable ride this particular time…but I’m optimistic we have some great rides ahead of us! ;D