Before hitting the road

Posted on August 8, 2021 by jlcleve

…we had a final piano lesson for the boys (during which I went for a nice long walk), a dentist appointment for Ethan (and he sat in the front seat because he’s old and heavy enough for that), a final walk to the pond (where I saw a coyote), and our last krav maga class (before taking two weeks off for our trip).

…we had a birthday to celebrate! This guy brings so much joy to our lives. Every one of us likes to sit and chat with him and give him lots of hugs. We each drew him cards to celebrate him. I’ll bet you can guess who drew which card.

The following day we hit the road for our two weeks in Wisconsin. We stopped in Des Moines on the way and had incredible pizza (thanks, Mel and Joel, for the recommendation years ago that still remains a delightful treat!) and took a nice long walk. Micah requested that we take those four pictures of the two of us. Ethan did not. =P

Next up…Wisconsin!

Turks and Caicos

Posted on July 3, 2021 by jlcleve

The long-awaited birthday trip to celebrate Grandma Cleve finally took place at the end of June. It was cancelled and rebooked at least twice, so you can imagine the thrill of *finally* getting to take this trip together! Grandma Cleve flew to Atlanta and traveled with Ashley’s family and then we all met in Turks and Caicos for a week of relaxation and gorgeous sites!

Pictures won’t do this island justice. So many of these shots look like we photoshopped ourselves into them. Unreal. I’ll start with some pictures of time at our home-away-from-home on the beach.

We enjoyed playing Bocce at the house…

Working hard to open up some coconuts…

And going snorkeling at the beach:

We ate lots of fantastic food (including the best crepes of my life!!), some all together and some on our own.

We ordered in and bought some cakes to celebrate the birthday girl one of the nights there:

We spent some time exploring the island and various beaches. I especially loved the exploring we did on our last day there. We found some gorgeous spots unlike any other place we had seen before:

Our crew took a kayaking tour of the mangroves and saw loads of sea turtles and a few baby sharks. Such a highlight!

Ethan snapped thousands of pictures and I selected a few of my favorites:

And, of course, we got a bunch of group pictures:

Including this hilarious montage (Caleb is SUCH a ham and it’s just so much fun!):

And the best group shots (done by Ethan):

Clearly this was not a trip soon forgotten! =D

Florida

Posted on March 26, 2020 by jlcleve

Mike needed to spend a week in India, so we scheduled his trip to coincide with our Spring Break from CC so that the boys and I could fly to Florida. Obviously, much changed since the day we made our plans. Mike flew to London (without any wi-fi on his flight) and found out when he arrived that India had closed its borders and he would need to fly back to Denver. Meanwhile, the boys and I had already landed in Florida to spend time with my parents.

Our week there started much like we had hoped, with various plans in place, but we slowly took more activities off our agenda when it became apparent that we needed to practice social distancing.

We had a wonderful time there. It had been years since our last trip to Florida and we hadn’t seen their condo, yet. Micah was struck by how much Florida was like a jungle/rain forest. Ethan was enamored with the opportunities to take lots of pictures with his Grandpa.

Some condo highlights included lots of time reading, scootering, and playing in the pool, as well as piano-playing, game-playing (milestone alert – Ethan and I played our first games of scrabble), worksheet-making, and picture-editing.

Some outside of the condo highlights included the rodeo, the beach, a boys’ only kayak trip, my Dad’s band concert, and lots of walks to see wildlife. The boys took a bunch of great pictures, which we will hopefully eventually do a post about on here. My dad taught them how to edit them, which was a fun new skill for them.

Obviously, time with our family (and the fun overlap with Mr. Rick!) are the things we cherished the most. Thanks for hosting us so graciously during a strange and uncertain time!!