Summer 2010

Hello Friends, It has been a wonderful summer and now we are getting ready for back to school next week. We started the summer with a trip to Missouri for my sister, Deanna's, graduation. We piled my mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, sister, her husband, and 5 kids under 7 years old into two vans and drove 14 hours to Columbia, MO on Friday, saw my sister graduate on Saturday and drove 14 hours home on Sunday. Yup, insane. The biggest story was a tick in Callum's ear. We pulled over somewhere in KS to let the kids out to run for a few minutes and a tick managed to crawl into Callum's upper ear. We were sitting down for dinner at a restaurant and I looked over a saw it. So, Melanie grabbed a cigarette lighter and I grabbed his head....we tried to make it hot enough to make the tick come out, but not burn Callum, be we were unsuccessful. Finally Mel just started aggravating the tick with a toothpick and it finally pulled it's head out. My grandma grabbed it in a napkin and by the time we were done we had the whole restaurant looking at us. Callum was amazingly calm and had a great time boasting that a tick was in his ear "sucking my blood." Other than a few missed exits, the trip went very smooth. It was exciting to see Deanna graduate. In June we had Sarah's first birthday. It was a beautiful day at the park and she ate a lot of chocolate cake. She has enough shoes to open up a shoe store and she loves wearing every one of them. She opens her shoe drawer finds a matching pair and brings them to me to put on her feet. She loves shoes. We spent the 4th of July up in Breakenridge at my grandparent's condo. We got to see fireworks on Friday night and Sunday night. We went to a wonderful concert in Dillon and then saw fireworks. On Saturday the boys went fishing and I think that over the course of the weekend, they caught over 30 fish. The boys (including Tom, my dad, and grandpa) were thrilled!! For my dad's birthday, he took us all to Lakeside Amusement Park. We started the evening in kiddie land and the kids loved the rides. After dinner, the bigger rides opened up. We rode a couple of bigger rides, and Ashlynn kept saying bigger....faster.....bigger....faster. I was the only one who would go on this ride that swings you upside down. All of the kids wanted to go on it and they had to have an adult go with them, but it is only a two seater ride. After three rides, I couldn't do it any longer. :-) We then moved onto the roller coaster. It is a big old wooden roller coaster that shakes you till you are crazy. Well, even Callum was "tall" enough, standing very tall, to go on the roller coaster and each adult took one of the kids. We got off and the kids were ecstatic!!!! Alex has been begging me to go again every day. We spent a weekend in mid-July on a camping trip to the Ironclads. It was an awesome weekend of four wheeling and rock climbing. We got the boys a climbing harness and they were amazing, expecially Alex. The last couple of weeks have been spent in swimming lessons and visiting with my friend, Marta. Callum loves the water, and poor Alex froze everyday, but he was so brave and improved everyday. With Marta, we went to the mountains and hiked Chicago Creek, went to visit some old friends, and I tried Indian food for the first time. She is headed to The Congo to be a medical missionary and I will miss her very much. Other news....Tom is working toward a drafting job at Freelance. He is trying to get a new edgebander trained, but the machine keeps running off any potentials. I am no longer doing child care and have decided to go back to waiting tables at Village Inn. Thankfully, I was able to get the job pretty easily and I'll have my days to shuddle kids back and forth to school and keep up with Sarah. Alex is starting 1st grade and Callum will be in afternoon preschool four days/week. Tom is also taking three classes this semester and is hoping to transfer possibly to Metro State next year. I hope and pray that this update finds all of you well. I pray God's grace and blessing on each of you.