Camping/Jeff's Birthday

*****WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD!*****

Without Jeff knowing, I booked a campsite so we could spend his birthday camping.  We hadn't been camping since our trip to the Royal Gorge over the 4th of July and we were all anxious to get out a couple more times before the weather turned cold.  We went to Colorado Springs and had such an amazing weekend!  We made it to the Springs around dinner time on Friday night, so we got the camper hooked up, had some dinner and watched a movie.  (No, we don't really rough it when we camp!) 

On Saturday, we were up early and since I had bought Jeff's birthday present at least 3 months prior, I was super excited for him to open it.  I am pretty sure he opened his card around 7:30am (I had waited long enough!).  His present was 2 tickets to see his most favorite band, Linkin Park.  The beautiful parts of the gift were that 1 - he was surprised and hadn't seen the charge come through and 2 - the concert was only 2 days away!!!  He loved the gift and I got major cool wife points.  Woot woot!

After breakfast, we wanted to go exploring or hiking or something.  We had planned to go to Seven Falls, but it was closed due to the wildfires from last year, so we ended up at the Cliff Dwellings.  The kids were excited to go back since they had a great time there a few years ago with Grandpa Pete and Grandma Carol.  It was a cool place!

 

After exploring the cliff dwellings for awhile, we headed back to the camper for a quick lunch.  Alex ended up with a headache, so he stayed at the camper while the rest of us headed to Cheyenne Mountain State Park for a hike.  Since it was Jeff's birthday, he picked our hiking trail.  We did a 3.5 mile loop, but in order to get to that trail we had to hike over 1 mile to get there and then another mile to get back afterwards.  It ended up being a really great 5+ mile hike, but somehow we didn't manage to wear the kids out.  There was a little grumbling along the way about being hungry or this hurts, but other than that, it was the perfect hike!  Josh was a total trooper, too.  Before we even started on our hike, the kids wanted to play for a couple minutes at the playground near the restrooms.  Josh took off running and scaled this curved ladder to get to the top of the playground, but didn't notice the horizontal bar that was in his way and he about concussed himself.  Poor thing.  He powered through the hike with a big goose egg on top of his head! 

After a busy day, it was time to cool down.  Everyone enjoyed the pool and hot tub.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize the pool would be so warm so I hadn't even reminded the kids to pack swimsuits.  The boys were fine, but Mattea had to make do with her tank top and shorts. 

After swimming, we enjoyed dinner at the camper followed by yummy homemade cupcakes in the flavor of Jeff's choice... yellow cake w/ chocolate frosting... just like always!  For fun, I brought along some candy eyeballs and lips and we decorated the cupcakes with funny faces!

After dinner, we spent some time at the arcade at the campground.  They had tons of great games, old school pinball machines and a pool table.  We had a great time doing what Jeff loves to do!  What a fun weekend!!!

 

Student Council

I would like to introduce the newest member of the fourth grade student council...

Practice makes perfect

Mattea has been working really hard on some new skills so that she can move to the optional level for gymnastics. Check it out...

Round-off, back handspring, back tuck

Back walkover on beam

And I saved the best for last...

Press handstand

First Day of School

All of the kids went back to school on August 18, 2014.  Alex is a sophomore at Grandview High School, Josh is in 8th grade at Falcon Creek Middle School and Mattea is in 4th grade at Rolling Hills Elementary School.  Here are the pictures I took before each of them left for school.  There are a few extras of Josh and Mattea since I drove them both to school.

Regionals

Mattea competed in Regionals today for gymnastics and she knocked it out of the park!  First, a little background.  Mattea had a fantastic season this year.  She did well in all of her events in most of the meets and ended up with high all-around scores which earned her the title of "Super 3".  Super 3's are gymnasts competing at the Compulsory 3 level that earn an all-around score of at least 34.00 twice during the season.  She was the only Super 3 from her gym, Achieve Gymnastics.  During the season, she competed against the other 9 year old's at the Comp 3 level.  At Regionals, since she was a Super 3, she competed against all of the other girls that earned the Super 3 title no matter what their age.  There turned out to be only four Super 3's out of the roughly 195 gymnasts that competed at Regionals, but it was a competitive group.

Mattea's scores from the season so far...

Today at Regionals, she was super consistent scoring 9.5/9.6 each on floor, bars and vault and then had a little bit of trouble on beam, but ended up scoring 8.5/8.55.  She placed 1st on floor and vault; 2nd on bars and 3rd on beam.  Her all-around score ended up being 37.2 which is quite phenomenal!  We kept our eye on one other gymnast today that we assumed was a Super 3 because we had been impressed by her in earlier meets.  Jeff nicknamed her "Fierce".  We knew she would be great competition for Mattea and she was!  Her and Mattea were neck and neck (Jeff kept track of her scores during the meet), but I am immensely proud to say that Mattea took 1st place in All-Around which basically means that she beat out every other gymnast at the meet and she's going to STATE!!!  (That also means that Jeff nicknamed Mattea "Super Fierce"!)  It was so awesome watching her compete today.  She was focused, determined and pretty much amazing!!!  The State competition is next Saturday, so we are hoping to have a similar report for you next weekend!

Driving... he is DRIVING!

A week after school ended, Alex went to driving school for a week. He recently got his permit in the mail.  YAY!  We took him out driving last night. He is a great driver and I'm pretty calm sitting in the backseat while he's driving. Last night, Jeff, Mattea and I went out with him and we ended up in some neighborhoods in a more rural area. We saw lots of deer which was good practice for him to make sure that he is paying attention to everything around him. No deer were injured in the filming of this video.

Camping in Canon City

We had such a great time this weekend camping in Canon City.  We stayed at the Royal View Campground.  They had a pool, Frisbee golf, mini golf, basketball & volleyball courts plus walking paths.  We arrived late Thursday night, got set up at our site and hit the hay.  I woke up early on Friday and took Cody for a walk before anyone else was awake.  It was glorious!

For most of the day, we hung out at the campground.  We played Frisbee golf, swam in the pool, took Cody for a walk to the Royal Gorge lookout and Mattea even found a beam to practice her gymnastics!  On our way to the lookout, we spotted this crazy looking cactus that we were sure Grandpa Pete would love!  We headed into Canon City for dinner & ice cream and then we drove as far into the Royal Gorge Park as we were allowed.  It was sad to drive through and see all of the burnt trees from the wildfire that had spread through the area.  When we got back to camp, we sat around talking about our favorite memories of Indy since it would have been his 17th birthday that day.  We totally miss him and I'm sure Cody misses his buddy, too.

 

 

On Saturday, we had a busy day planned.  First, Josh and I took Cody for a long walk before everyone else was awake.  I love having one-on-one time with the kids.  Later, we had lunch aboard the Royal Gorge Railroad.  We spent most of our time in the open air car.  The kids thought it was great to be able to be outside while riding on the train.  Obviously, it didn't go as fast as a locomotive, but it was still really cool.  The scenery was amazing and when we first saw the Royal Gorge bridge, we were all amazed.  After the train ride, we headed back to the campground to grab Cody for our next adventure.  Unfortunately, we had locked ourselves out so Jeff had to pull a McGyver move and bust into the camper.  He picked the lock like a pro!  Well, not as fast as a pro would have, but fast enough to completely impress the kids.  I was just glad we didn't have to call a locksmith or break a window.  We headed out to this place that rented out Segways that you could drive on a moto track.  The owner gave instructions and then took us out to the dirt track which had hills and bumps or bypasses if you wanted to go the flatter route.  The kids were absolute naturals and quite fearless, so there was no bypassing for them.  I had a hard time getting my Segway to go over the hills without spinning around and going back down.  It was quite comical.  We ended up letting the kids ride twice since they had such a blast the first time.  Jeff and I enjoyed watching them.  Alex had permagrin pretty much the whole time as he whizzed past us like a boss.  Josh covered every square area of the track including all of the tough hills.  Mattea was not to be outdone by her brothers and totally held her own doing whatever they did.  All of the kids had at least one wipeout, but successfully bailed off the back of the Segway like the owner had instructed.  Although the kids wanted to ride "just one more time", we decided to quit wanting more.  After some burgers at our campsite, we headed inside to watch a movie since the wind really picked up and the weather was a bit sketchy.  We all had such a great time camping in Canon City!