Happy Father's and Sons Day

Well, I missed Father's day... so it's time to fill you in on the last two weeks!  In addition to Father's day last Sunday, there was also the fathers and sons campout this past weekend!  I took Grayson, and he was definitely the youngest son there.  We had a pretty great time, and I've got more photos to share.  We tried to go on a hike, and Grayson loves being in the hiking backpack, but unfortunately we didn't find a good trail by our camp.  We tried a few that ended up being really skinny and hard to get through while knowing I was going to hit Grayson with branches, so eventually we just headed back to camp.

Rolling back about two weeks we find Grayson lounging at the foot of the stairs on his little blue dog toy.  That dog barks and walks when you press it's back, and it walked into the stairs and Grayson just plopped down on top of it!

Don't worry, later in the day he really needed to find a specific toy under the coffee table, so he just burrowed right in there!

Grayson also loves to help Monica out in the garden!  I'm sure he's bent over because he's pulling a weed or something, not picking up the now empty bottle of bubble solution or something like that.

Grayson loves some sour cream!  At least I'm pretty sure it was sour cream, and not yogurt.  Either way, it's his favorite finger food!

The girls wanted the inflatable dinosaur out again, and I really don't think Grayson remembered it at all.  I helped him get on to have a turn bouncing around on it.  I think if we keep it around he should get some good mileage out of it!  Also, you may see his glove.  We put vaseline on his hand because his thumb that he sucks get's really cracked and dry.  He's a trooper about the glove too.

We went swimming at the rec center one afternoon and all had a great time.  I was really proud of Winry.  We haven't been swimming much recently, and I don't think she really remembers swimming at all and is really scared of water.  I got her to come with me into the deeper part of the pool with her floaties on, and we even worked on holding on to the pool wall, and just holding one hand, etc.  When she got in she only wanted me to hold her right up against me, and by the end she was even jumping in if I was holding her hands!  We were all over in the deeper part of the pool together, and Monica and Brooke were talking about going over to ride one of the water slides, and Grayson started shouting "AREA! AREA!"  He kept saying that the rest of the time were at the pool.  He just really liked the other "area."

Last Saturday we headed out for a family hike.  It was pretty breezy and cloudy which was nice, or else it would have been really hot!  We hiked a little over a mile in total, and we took a break at our turn around point to have a snack.  While we were stopped Grayson wanted to walk around a little too!

On Father's day we had French Toast for breakfast, and while we were eating, Winry asked for a piece of butter to eat.  Just plain ol' butter.  I had to take a picture for my mom, because one of my favorite stories about my mom is that when she was little she got in trouble for hiding behind the cupboard and eating a whole stick of butter!  Looks like it runs in the family.

I got great Father's day presents from everyone.  Winry drew me a bunch of pictures.

Grayson gave me candy and vitamins!

And Brooke made me a card and painted a craft!  All such wonderful and thoughtful gifts!  I have the greatest kids.

At church, of course the girls went up to sing for me!  Here they both are, showing off their excellent hugs!

For dinner that night we had home made Chick-fil-a and it was REAL good.  Chick-fil-a on a Sunday is an extra special treat, since you can't normally get it!

And after the kids went to bed, Monica made some frosted lemonades for us!  Yum!

This whole week I had been feeling pretty congested, etc.  I was still able to get out on all my runs and stuff, though I was feeling pretty bad on Tuesday and moved that one to my typical off day.  Come the weekend I was feeling good, though it appeared things had gone long enough that my sinuses were really swollen/sore/etc.  To try to get over this I was taking medicine about once a day to help with the congestion, and help with the pain if my sinuses were aching.  Well, Sunday night I took some Nyquil... at like 7:30 pm.  I've never known medicine to make me tired, but I also usually take medicine right before bed.  Turns out, Nyquil gets to me if you give it long enough, and it had about 2 hours before we got to the picture below.  When it was time to head to bed I was so tired feeling I really wasn't sure I'd be able to get off the couch, and then I just lost it and laughed for several minutes straight!

Monica and Brooke took a little break from running as everyone but Winry got sick sometime over the past two weeks.  Anyway, everyone was feeling better and they got back out for some runs this past week.  Even better than that, they have matching running outfits!

One night at dinner a song got turned on (not a terribly unusual circumstance) and the music just took Grayson!  He was dancing and there was no stopping him!  Also, he's picking up some new moves.  He used to just shake his arms up and down, and now he's got a real nice head shake going.

The girls have been getting back out on their bikes and riding around the neighborhood.  I think Winry has been enjoying her bike the most, and she rides it longer than Brooke, but it looks like Brooke helps her get up the hills around here.

On Friday Grayson and I headed for the mountains for the fathers and sons campout.  The weather was looking... lovely in the mountains while we were heading in...

While I contemplated setting up a tent in the pouring rain, the girls went to get their nails painted.

They needed something fun to do since Grayson and I got to go camping.

When we got to the campsite it would seem the rain just missed where we were staying.  The ground wasn't super wet, and it wasn't raining there either.  It was raining like 5 minutes down the road while we were driving in though.  When we got in I put Grayson in his seat and gave him some pizza to eat for dinner.  While he was contained I set up our tent and got all our sleeping things arranged.

Once we were all set for the night, we went over to the fire pit to see what was going on with everyone, and Bro. Smith brought a gallon bag of PEZ!  Grayson was very excited by this, and quickly had 4 to play with.  I don't think he knew what was inside, he just found a great camping toy.

Back in civilization Monica and the girls headed to Panera for dinner.

It was supposed to get down in the 40's for Grayson and I at night, so I had to bundle him up.  He had footie pajamas on, he always sleeps in a sleep sack, and we have this little baby sleeping bag like thing too.  Either he had too many layers, or he's a little too tall for it, so I had to leave the bottom open and let his legs spill out.  I also brought a pack-n-play for him to sleep in.  Also, I wish I had a full picture of the tent set up.  To the right of the pack-n-play there are some camping chairs set up with a blanket draped over the backs of them so Grayson couldn't see the other half of the tent.  My sleeping bag was set up over there, so we had some separation, and he couldn't see me in the night if he woke up.  Grayson ended up begin a sleeping champion and slept all the way through the night.  Doubly impressive as a slack line got set up right next to our tent and the kids were out playing on it and screaming until around 10-10:30, but Grayson slept through it all.

In the morning Grayson woke up to me getting dressed and putting my shoes on.  I was trying to sneak out to get his bottle ready for when he woke up, but he caught me first.  Once we were both ready to head out we went to see the fire, which Grayson really liked.  He really wanted to touch it, so I had to hold him back.  I spent most of the rest of the morning trying to get Grayson to eat breakfast.  He didn't want to sit in his chair again, and he was way more interested in walking around through the trees over eating.  I did manage to get him to eat some fruit leathers, but that's not much of an accomplishment.

Between our tent and car there were these 2 trees that were leaned over.  I had Grayson in the hiking backpack while I tore down the tent and packed everything up.  While we were making trips back and forth to the car to load everything up, every time we walked by these trees Grayson would say "uh-oh trees" or "trees fell."  He really liked these trees.  Once the car was loaded I got him out of the backpack and he went over to say hello.

I spent most of the morning following Grayson around as he'd pick new places he wanted to walk to.  He wanted to walk to the stream, the logs, the bathroom, or in any random direction.  I tried to keep a hold of his hand for the times when he tripped.  Eventually he stumbled upon the camp ground sign and thought that was fun to see.  I was hoping that after everything was packed up we could go find a proper trail and go for a little hike, but Grayson woke up early enough that at 8:30ish when we were all packed he just wanted to head home.  I'd say "Grayson, do you want to go on a hike?" and he'd say "Go home."

So we did.  He fell asleep on the drive home, and I'd say he woke up about 2 hours earlier than usual, so I let him get a little nap on the way home.  He still took his normal nap later in the day too.  We had a lot of fun on Grayson's first camping trip!

I think that's everything I've got for the past two week.  Hope everyone is doing fabulous!

Together Again

Oh my, I can't believe how few pictures there are from this past week.  Monica and the kids drove home on Monday and it's nice having everyone back together.  That said it's been a blur of a week, and I've felt unusually tired all week (as of today I think I'm getting sick).  There were some highlights though, like when I was reading Winry her bedtime story and Jelly had the natural instinct to know that the book was the best bed in the house.  So we took a little break and petted Jelly instead.

On Monday the crew stopped in Grand Junction for their half way point.  There's a really awesome park there and they saw turtles at the pond!  After they left Grand Junction they ended up driving through a fire!  Monica said that while she was driving, the road was completely covered in smoke and she'd drive into it and not be able to see anything for a few seconds, then come out and be able to see for a few seconds, and then back in.  Pretty crazy.  The road was still fully open when she went through, but they did close one of the lanes for a while that day.  Glad they made it through safely!  Glad the road wasn't on fire!  Monica and I were talking about I-70 while she was out in Utah, and I was telling her it just always seems to have a problem.  There has been wild fires, a mud slide across the freeway, and even a truck full of carrots that caught fire!  I told Monica that at this point I'm not sure God wants a freeway through the mountains in Colorado!

Grayson has found a new favorite spot in his room.  Somehow this corner has attracted all the extra pillows in his room, and he loves to dive back in there and snuggle.  He usually laughs really hard when he's in there too.  Oh, speaking of Grayson, he went to the allergist on Tuesday to see if they could find anything for his skin.  He's allergic to!... drum roll.... Cats! :(  We've been giving him nightly baths and lotion right after and his skin is looking a lot better.  He's also been taking Zyrtec every night.  The odd thing is his skin was really bad in Utah and he wasn't sleeping well there either, and that was cat free.  I think he might be having seasonal allergies as well.  Anyway, we're doing what we can, and Jelly is hypoallergenic, so things seem to be working out well enough.

Aurelia and her family were back in town this weekend!  They were getting new windows in their house, so they were here for the weekend and the girls have been loving it!  They're over there right now in fact.  I'm glad they visited so soon.  Hopefully it's not too much longer before the next trip.  Oh, and Aurelia actually talked to me!  That's a pretty big deal!

Goodness me, yesterday it got up to 97 degrees!  It hit 100 in Denver, so I guess we were "lucky."  Also, I grilled chicken for dinner last night and the grill caught fire (like, the random drippings from things, etc.) and the fire definitely was hitting the house before I pulled the grill further away!  A little scary, guess I'll learn from this and keep the grill further away when it's on.  Maybe there's a reason you're not supposed to grill within 10 feet of your house.  I think that's all the excitement I've got for this week.  It's too bad I didn't think to take a picture of the grill... dang.  Anyway, I've got a headache and need to go do something about it, have a wonderful week!

A Week Apart

Why hello!  This week on Tuesday Monica loaded all the kids into the car and took off for Utah, so it's just been me, Jelly, and the polies around here.  Things have been good, but unusually quite.  We were all here on Monday for Memorial day, and we went for a hike together.  We ended up going on the trails close by our house and going on some of the dirt paths we don't usually walk.  Here we all are together at the start.  Grayson LOVED being up in the hiking backpack.  It was pretty easy to carry him in there as well.

While we were out we saw llamas!  The girls wanted to see them closer, and when we approached the fence one or two of them started coming closer.  This caught a dog's attention that was on the trail, so he came over to see too, and the llamas flocked over to see the dog!  The kids loved it so we stayed for a while and watched.  In total our hike ended up being about 1.8  miles.  I think everyone had a lot of fun, though Winry was pretty tired by the end.

We took last day of school pictures on Monday as well because we forgot to take them on the actual last day....shhh don't tell.  The girls got dressed like they were for their last days of school.  Brooke dressed for field day.

And Winry's last day was a pajama day!  She was really excited for that.  She actually asked her teacher if they could have one.

On Tuesday, first thing in the morning, I helped wrangle the kids and get them into the car and collect final items (like baby monitors, noise makers, things needed over the night).  Everyone got packed in by around 6:15 and they were off!  I followed their progress throughout the day on google maps, and of course it had recently snowed in the mountains!  It's only June after all, not one of those hot no snow months like November.  From what I was told the drive went great with no problems.

While out in Utah, they visited a park next to Monica's parents house.  There were ducks there, which obviously drew their attention.  Hopefully the ducks weren't too scared/annoyed at being chased by Grayson...

Audrey's family lives out in Provo a few blocks away from Monica's parents, so Brooke, Winry and Audrey spent all week together.  Michelle and her family also came out, and part of why Monica wanted to go out was to surprise them.  While out there both Jack and Audrey had their birthdays, and Audrey's birthday part was on Friday.  She had a fairy tea party, and it looks like it was a lot of fun.  Look at these cousins having a great time!

I've been dutifully checking on the roly-polies every day this past week.  They really like to hang out behind this rock, and usually don't come out in the day.  One morning I looked back there and there were at least a dozen of them.  They burrow pretty quickly when you move their habitat, so this is all that was left.  I saw 6 different Dalmatians though, and those are the hardest to find.  They definitely hide the most.  Also, if you look through the dirt you can see at least 3 babies!  Oh my...

Saturday was such a day here in Colorado.  I had an 11 mile run in the morning, and then it was chores chores chores.  Of particular note I weeded all along our back fence and put down mulch that we bought last weekend.  We didn't buy enough to make it all the way to the corner, so I stopped weeding as soon as I ran out!  I spent basically the whole day running around the house doing things (including finishing last weeks blog post that I thought I wrote last Sunday, but didn't actually finish).  By the end of the day I was exhausted, and today I'm still feeling pretty drained.  I think I'll have to take a nap.

On Saturday out in Utah, it was time to hit the pool!  Thankfully I had already returned from my trip to Texas so that the girls would have their new Buc-ees swim suits!!  Oh yeah, lookin so good!

Grayson's swim trunks were still a little big, so he just wore something boring, but Monica told me he had a blast at the pool.  He was walking around saying "swimming, fun."  Later in the afternoon it started getting a bit windy, and he started to get cold and said "done, cold, snowing!"  He's still just saying one or two word sentences, but it's pretty awesome how much he can communicate about things.  He also typically just tells us unprompted too.

Last night I went to the grocery store to get a few things, and I wanted to make hash browns for breakfast and didn't know if we had any.  I had definitely remembered it was fast Sunday yesterday, but never put 2 and 2 together till this morning when I woke up, thought about it being fast Sunday, and then realized I bought hash browns for today... Oops.  My day is going well so far.  Things are a little slow being the only one around.  It'll be great when everyone makes it back tomorrow afternoon/evening.  Can't wait to see them all again!