We had pack meeting last night. It was held at a local park that has a splash pad so the kids could play in the water. Before the meeting began, the leader had a water balloon tossing game for the kids to play. Ethan and Brennon did well but Courtney and Jamie (one of her favorite babysitters, and Brennon's older sister) didn't do so well because Courtney kept jumping back from the balloon instead of catching it.
Thanks to Ethan's love of swimming and a wonderful swimming teacher, he completed the requirements for the Cub Scout swimming belt loop and pin. We had pack meeting last night and he got his pin and belt loop and ... a beach ball for being so "on the ball" with his requirements.
Then the kids ate Popsicle and played in the water at the splash pad. They were also given some bubbles and spent quite a bit of time trying to hit us with bubbles because the wind was blowing.
It was fun and now Ethan is motivated to work on more of his requirements. Yeah!!
Happy Pioneer Day everyone!! We woke up bright and early, I finished decorating the kids bikes (they want them decorated but don't have the patience to do it...like I do!!), loaded the bikes into the van, drove to Tuacahn to pick up our Bountiful Basket (if you haven't done it, you are missing out! www.bountifulbaskets.org , then drove down to the center of Ivins for a pancake breakfast sponsored by the Fire Department. It was actually a pretty good breakfast.
Then the kids and Bryan got ready to ride in the parade. Our ward's entry was the "Stroller Brigade" and the dads were supposed to push their kids in strollers while the older kids rode bikes. They all were supposed to wear red shirts and blue shorts. It worked out pretty well but there weren't a whole lot of kids who showed up. But they had fun. I sat in the shade and watched just in case a child (Courtney) bailed before the end of the parade. But they all rode great. The weather actually cooperated and it was overcast and not too hot.
Biking to line up: Passing by:
When the parade was over, we drove home to clean the house. We then went swimming and it wasn't crowded at all. Now we are going to run to my parent's house for a BBQ this evening. Fun day!!
Well, after a week of having sketchy A/C, we think it may now be fixed. I hope I'm not jinxing it with this entry, but we'll see. Last Thursday evening at 6 p.m. it started working but nothing was cooling down. By about 11 p.m. it was cooling again. The next morning I called a company who said that we were low on freon and had a leak. They put more in and went away. Friday afternoon at about 2 p.m. it started getting hot and took hours before it began cooling again. Saturday the company came back out and told me that it was again low on freon and we had a huge leak. "We can fix it for $5,000." Okay right! So we spent the weekend watching the thermostat go up and down and finally spent Saturday night at my parent's house with A/C. Monday a guy came who couldn't figure out what was going on but told us we should probably just get a new unit. Tuesday morning Bryan called our builder who called the company who put in our A/C to come out. They told us it was too charged with freon and took some out and it began working again. Wednesday it quit again and the company came back out to tell us that they had no idea what was going on so we didn't have A/C. Thursday they came out, took the entire thing apart, couldn't find anything, but put it back together with some more space in the filter for air to flow and it's working. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
It goes out each July so we are used to it but we hope it will make it through next year!
Yesterday was the last day of swimming lessons for Ethan and Courtney. Both are pretty sad because they love to swim and it's been the highlight of the past two weeks. I told Ethan that he could join a swim team that would practice 4 days a week and he said, "What?!?! Two days without swimming?!?!" He's a little fish and Courtney is trying her hardest to catch up to him. They both passed their levels with flying colors (it was even the first time in the class for Ethan).
Last month Ethan took the Advanced Class and Courtney took the Beginner class. This month Courtney repeated the Beginner and was a pro at it. She doubled the amount of time she could stay under water and even got her American Crawl stroke looking better. She is really feeling comfortable in the water, which is good and bad. Sometimes she forgets that she isn't really a mermaid!
Ethan moved to the Swimmer class (it was supposed to be Advanced but she switched it based on the abilities of the kids who signed up) which is a life guarding basics class. Ethan's class didn't work on strokes as much as they worked on how to life guard. He loved it. He was the youngest in his class but wasn't a bit behind.
One of Courtney's best friends had a birthday at the beginning of the month while we were in Colorado. They didn't have a party for her because it is a crazy time of year and Courtney felt a little sad for her friend. So I asked her what she wanted to do. Her answer shows that she wants to be a little older than she really is..."Let's take her out to a nice lunch." So we did.
The kids had earned some coupons for free kids meals at a new restaurant in town (actually, it probably isn't so new, but it was a new to us) called Iggy's Sports Grill. It was a best place ever and the kids loved it!! In the middle of the restaurant there is a jumbo-tron like in a basketball arena. It was playing the British Open and so Ethan was entranced. They had a great kids meal with a huge ice cream sundae at the end. And the prices weren't bad at all. Courtney loved being able to make her friend happy.
After the train museum, lunch, and chores around the house, we decided to go to the park. Grandpa went with us and it was a lot of fun. Grandpa brought a bigger bat and we grabbed a bigger lefty glove for Ethan to use and he did great! He really hit the ball! One time he even almost took out Bryan. Bryan pitched one to him, Ethan hit it like a shot...right back at Bryan's head. I heard the crack of the bat hitting the ball, saw it fly back to Bryan, saw Bryan put up his mitt and then hit the ground. I was so afraid we were going to have to call the ambulance but Bryan got up laughing and congratulated Ethan for a hard hit. Ethan was pretty nervous that he was going to be in trouble for killing his dad, but when he saw that Bryan was fine, he felt a lot better.
Ethan is left handed and throws that way but he prefers to bat right handed. Bryan kept trying to get him to try it lefty but he would only try a few balls (hitting them pretty well) before he would slyly slip to the other side. Grandpa told him to keep trying to do it left handed so he could be a switch hitter, but we'll see.
Courtney even got in on the action and his some balls. She is determined to play little league next year with a pink glove, but we'll have to see.
It's a tradition for us to go to the Denver Train Museum when we come to visit. The kids love it. They love going through all the trains and seeing the models in the basement of the station. This year we went on a Saturday and they had train rides, so we got to go on that too. It was pretty fun. They even had a small Thomas the Train going around the outside model train set so Ethan had a picture with him.
The kids wanted to go to the park and so we took them on Friday afternoon. We took some baseballs, baseball bats and mitts. Ethan and Courtney hit baseballs for a while and then they went over to the playground equipment to play on. They had a great time!
When the sun came up Thursday morning we were glad we had stuck it out because it was blue skies and gorgeous. A line was hung and things were put out to dry. After breakfast Grandpa took the kids fishing and it was fun to watch Ethan cast. He is pretty good. He didn't catch anything but a few rocks. Grandpa even helped Courtney reel in the line. We could see fish swimming in the water and jumping but none of them wanted to bite.
We cleaned up camp, Grandpa bagged the fish they had caught on Tuesday so we could take them home and we started back home. It was a good hike. Ethan was a champ with his backpack and Courtney walked on her own the entire 2 miles back to the cars. They are such troopers!
We then drove into town and Grandpa treated us to ice cream. On the way home we even saw a moose and a fox. What a great trip!
The kids loved it and Ethan says that he wants to go again. I'm glad they liked it because I wasn't so sure when we started out. We do have to buy some more gear because we didn't have rain stuff sufficient for us all....or pjs for Ethan....or socks for Courtney...but we had a great time!
We woke up to rain and low clouds, got ready, loaded up and took off to meet the boys at the trailhead at 9 a.m. The boys were going to hike down, meet us and help us bring out stuff back up (translation: they were coming down to help us take Courtney back up because we weren't sure how well she would do on a 2 mile hike).
Well, after a 10 minute delay in Arvada then a 40 minute "we got lost" delay, we finally made it to the trail head at about 9:45...and the boys weren't there. Since it was raining and didn't look like it would let up soon, we debated whether or not we wanted to hike at all. We had left them a voice message on Grandpa's phone to let them know we were late, but knew they would have to drive a while before they got service. We hiked around the parking lot and waited for them to show back up. It was only about 30 minutes before they got back. Courtney was the deciding factor. Ethan didn't want to hike back up but she wanted to be like the boys and go on a hike, so we loaded up and began hiking to the camp.
It wasn't too bad of a hike. It took a while to get Ethan smiling again and even Grandpa's "Billy Roundup" stories weren't enough to get him smiling at first. But then I snapped him out of it and he was begging Grandpa to tell stories. Grandpa is a huge champ and so creative!!
Ethan hiked without a problem and Courtney hiked 2/3 of the way on her own. Bryan carried her the last part of the hike. But I was very impressed!
When we got to camp we were right next to a snow drift and it was beginning to rain. So we all got into our tent, tried to organize things and took naps. That was easier said than done. The kids played around for quite a while before they fell asleep. We all felt better afterward.
The rain would let up for little bits at a time and we would be able to get out and look around. Ethan, Bryan and Courtney were even able to go fishing but they didn't catch anything. (Bryan caught 2 fish on this trip and the last one was 10 inches long!)
It was a gorgeous place that I thought would have been better without the rain, but it was nice. Most of our time was spent in the tent though and the kids got stir crazy. After a while we realized that the tent was dripping from the top and leaking from the bottom. We really debated whether or not we should pack it up and hike back home. But it was raining when we were talking and we didn't want to take everything down in the rain. So we waited it out. It was cold out but the kids slept great!
We girls had a busy day on Tuesday! We woke up, ate breakfast, got ready and went to the Library for a Yo, Ho, Ho Pirate Magic Show. It was great. The woman pirate had some great tricks and she juggled some amazing things! Courtney loved it. After the show we sat and Grandma and I took turns reading stories to Courtney.
We then went to McDonald's for lunch and then went to a flower shop to buy some more flowers (we bought some on Monday too) and go home to plant them.
When we got home it was too hot to plant outside so we went inside and Grandma and I took wallpaper off the walls of one of the bedrooms (we didn't get finished though) while Courtney watched a movie. When we got as far as we could until someone moved some heavy furniture, we went outside to plant.
The rain clouds rolled in and I finally took Courtney in for dinner and put her to bed. Then I went back outside to help finish up the planting. Then we all went to bed in preparation for our hike the next day!
After the boys left on Monday, we girls made a list of all the things we wanted to do while they were gone. Before we could begin the things on our list, Courtney had to do some "High School Musical" karaoke.
When she finished with that it was time to hit the things on the list. First on the list was to feed the ducks at the elementary school. It rained really hard on Sunday so there was a lot of water in the pond, but we went to try. Grandma gave Courtney some bread and we were off. But the ducks weren't cooperating with our plans. When we first arrived at the pond we could only see one duck who was sleeping. Courtney threw out some bread but didn't get a response. We had to walk over to the shade of a tree and wake up some ducks before they would begin eating. Then they weren't very hungry. We fed them for a while but then Courtney went to the swings before we went back home.
Then we went swimming for FHE. There is a nice pool in Arvada that has a kid area and then some slides and things. Courtney went down the slide in the kids area and got off saying it was "way too fast!" We went over to the big slides, grabbed a tube and went down. It was a FAST slide and I was nervous that Courtney would hate it but she LOVED it. We went down that slide for a long time (I lost count of how many times) and Grandma was great at taking her down!
When we got back home, we got ready and went to bed. We were tired!
On Monday (July 5th) the boys left early to begin their backpacking trip. Ethan was really excited to be one of the boys and to have Dad and Grandpa Pack to himself. They had a 1 1/2 hour drive to get to the 4th of July trailhead. Ethan was most excited to go fishing at to get out.
We went to Arvada to hang out with Bryan's parents and do some backpacking. We got there early on Saturday morning (July 3rd) so we were in plenty of time for the Giants vs. Rockies game. After running errands to get ready to backpacking, we loaded some food into backpacks and headed to the ballgame. It was a great night and we only were sprinkled on for a few minutes. And after the game there were fireworks. I was afraid that the kids would be upset by the loud noises, but they did great. We put earplugs in, which helped a lot.
Grandpa and Grandma Oman took Ethan to make his own fishing pole. They went and cut a reed to make it; bent up a paper clip to make a hook; rigged up the line; and then went fishing. He didn't catch anything but he had a great time making his pole and using it. He has a cool Grandpa who knows how to do things like that.
Courtney's dance group had a performance scheduled for a parade on July 3rd. The only problem was that we weren't going to be in town. But she wanted to practice anyway so she could get some pictures and her costume. She loved it and they are supposed to have more parades scheduled for later in the season.
