Our Trip to Colorado

At least it wasn’t as scary as last year’s trip when Mum broke her leg! We left very, very early Sat. morning which would have worked out well except for Ken didn’t sleep well because he was too excited (about photography, not the trip). This was the first time we attempted to take Buddy but not only did he travel well, he loved hiking (hopefully he lost some weight while he was at it!)! We arrived about lunch time which gave us another half day to play in the mountains. There was rain Saturday afternoon, a good chunk of Sunday, and even Monday, thanks to remnants of Hurricane Dolly. We still managed to hike to Sapphire Point twice, Lily Pad Lakes, and Old Dillon Reservoir along with swimming in the pool, shopping at the outlet stores, and enjoying Pizza on the Plaza. It was a refreshing break! The pics below are primarily from Sapphie Point where the kids fed chipmunks.

Power Lab VBS/X

Our church’s VBS was held this week and I helped out in another aspect of it, VBX (Vacation Bible eXtreme), for the 5th and 6th graders. This was Taylor’s last year doing any of it and he really wanted me to volunteer at VBX. It was great seeing Taylor enjoy VBX and an added bonus was spending time with him! We had a very, very busy week but boy, did we have fun! Here are a few pics from our week.

Megan, Jocelyn and Wesley pose by one of the props on our last day.

Taylor and Calvin pose by one of the inflatables. There were inflatables on our last day and the VBSers got use the wet slip-n-slide!

We had daily games. This one turned into a water ball fight after we were done!

It’s getting closer!

I think I’ve mentioned it before but I love back to school time.  The smell of fresh notebooks, clean paper, and freshly sharpened pencils. Yum.  I’ve been getting more and more anxious about my classroom and my own school.  In fact, last night I ended up getting up because I couldn’t sleep and surfed the ‘net looking for ideas for lesson plans/themes for my room!  I began my morning early emailing the secretary to see when I can finally come to school to start working on my room and she said I could come TODAY!!  I couldn’t wait to get lunch in the kids after VBS so I could go!  You may remember that I’d told you earlier that I had to move classrooms and it’s not as nice a set-up as I was used to.  Heck, today I realized even my bulletin boards weren’t the same size!  But nevertheless I feel better with my bulletin board fabric and borders up, my desk in an area although the computer isn’t hooked up yet, and the student’s desks in some sort of an arrangement.  Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to rest!

My dog is fat

or so the vet says.  I took Buddy to the vet today to get his distemper/parvo shot before heading out to Colorado next weekend.  Contrary to this photo, you can’t feel Buddy’s ribs or his vertebrae, both bad signs for doggies.  Apparently he shouldn’t be eating quite so much (oops, table scraps from the kids?!) but recommended frozen green beans and carrots as alternatives.  He’s a whopping 73 lbs after gaining 2 lbs since December.  Looks like a good romp in the mountains will do him good!

Yeah for Summertime Fun!

Ken’s twin brother Keith and his family came to visit for a few days and we had such a lot of fun hanging out with them!  From the hamburger cookout to Cowtown to the Keeper of the Plains to Sedgwick County Zoo to Riverside Park to McDonald’s and swimming every day, we were hoppin’, hoppin’, hoppin’!  The children had a blast playing together and there were tears when we said our “see ya laters”.  Only a couple of bad things happened during their stay.  Taylor fell into the bat cave wall and scraped up his elbow and wrist which ended up with a trip to visit the First Aid Station at the Zoo.  I got a tummy bug which put a damper on the Talliano’s pizza buffet and my camera fell from the chair at the pool onto the concrete, rendering it useless.  Here are a few pics that I did get!

All the kids at Cowtown.                                            Amy and Deb at Cowtown.

Amy and Keith at Cowtown.                                      Handsome hubby Ken on the wagon ride.

Keith and Ken stand in front of the jail as Konner and Wesley run away from “robbing” the bank!

We spent a lot of time at the Tara Falls pool.  The kids liked to do a domino jump!

And another one says goodbye. . .

Today we learned that yet another one of our pastors at church is leaving. We’ve had quite a few leave rather recently, or so it seems. Today’s announcement was German, our youth director. A couple of weeks ago we lost two executive pastors, Greg and Tim. Earlier in the year our contemporary worship leader Zack left. We lost three people in the Kids ministry, Kathleen, Laura, and Chris. I love our church and I know change is good, but it makes you wonder what God is thinking leading all of our great pastors and crew away!

Webkinz have invaded our home!

It took awhile but since Wesley got one for his birthday, my children can’t get enough of them! Wesley got the Gecko and cousin Zach was nice enough to give 2 to Taylor (1 code and one animal – a cat, I think!). Today we were at the mall and Wesley bought another one, this time a retired leopard lizard. Kinda cute, really. Well, apparently Taylor got jealous that Wesley bought another one (with his birthday money, I might add) so he took back his Nike shoes so he would have money to buy one himself. So that ended up with a trip to Superior where not only were they cheaper than JCP but there was a much larger selection. He ended up getting the last retired black and white Cheeky dog and couldn’t wait to get home to get him registered. So now they’re all fighting over the laptop with the bigger screen to play their Webkinz games so that they can be the best Webkinz parent they can be. Geez. At least the games that they play online aren’t bad!  I must admit though that some of them are really cute!