Well said...

I think I summed it up pretty well here. Aside from the fact that I did already (though still belatedly, lol) mail John's package, it's all still true and good. So. I'll just add these three pictures of the dads in my life:

(Still missing you, Dad, on this sixth Father's Day without you...)

(Taken this last December...boys, Nathan and John. Looking forward to more time altogether in September!) 

(Keeping the tradition alive!)

Happy Father's Day to all!

The last few days...

...have been full ones. ;) 

So. My lovely friend Molly got married last fall. (Woohoo!) They decided to celebrate, though, with a party this past Saturday (which was awesome...more on that in a minute). Given that, our mutual friend Sarah and her two girls came up from Texas for the party and stayed with us, and we all got together with yet another mutual friend, Melissa, and her three kids. (Melissa and her kids live here in Colorado.) We all went to undergrad together and have been friends ever since. ;)

Anyhow, Sarah & her girls arrived last Thursday. (The boys and I managed, therefore, to finish up the week's worth of schoolwork in the first three days of the week.) We picked them up at the airport, met up with everyone else, grabbed some lunch and then hit the Denver Museum of Nature & Science for an afternoon of exploration and (for the kiddos) getting reacquainted. As we were leaving, we made all eight kids line up by age and say "Noah, smile!"

(Hee hee. Yeah, Noah felt a bit out of place among the two almost eleven year olds, the almost nine year old, the three almost eight year olds and the almost seven year old. Yeah, they're also all summer birthdays except for Noah, lol.)

After that, we had dinner (with a surprise birthday serenade and cake for me!) and parted ways for the evening. 

Friday (my birthday) started out with just Sarah, her girls and us. We took them to the archery range for some shooting and had a grand time before getting lunch and meeting up with Melissa & her three kids at Fort Fun for a round of miniature golf (letting Noah be in charge of the "older boys" group and having us moms keep the younger four going, lol). I didn't take any pictures of miniature golf but got this one at Rocky Mountain Archery:

(See Noah in the background and Micah talking to Jane?) After Fort Fun, we headed for a local park with a water feature (after a quick detour for hydration, some changing of clothes and dropping Noah at home as he resolutely refused to get wet or enjoy a park, lol) where we spent a lovely afternoon chatting and letting the kids run and play. 

Saturday, then, was Molly & Mark's party. It was at an awesome party area inside of Golden Gate Canyon State Park and ran from about 2-9pm...with the limited close family and friends coming and going as worked for them. There was giant Jenga, where Noah beat Mark:

...and plenty of food...

(We made the kids (for the most part, lol) sit and eat before they could have cake or cupcakes or handmade chocolates or smores. Yes, I said handmade chocolates and smores. Dude. Yummy.)

...and there was plenty of playing...

(The girls were so delighted to have each other...and had become BFFs pretty much instantaneously, lol. Poor Abigail (in the middle) usually has to hang with her two brothers and my three boys when we get together.)

Speaking of boys...all five boys hung out with Nathan and tried their hands at horseshoes, volleyball, hiking, throwing things in the creek, tossing various balls and squidgies, and other boy type things.

Meanwhile, Melissa, myself, Molly & Sarah gabbed and posed with the photo booth goodies:

Yup. Good times!

Sunday, we headed up to Estes Park with Sarah and her girls, where we had lunch and rode the aerial tram up to feed peanuts to chipmunks. (Gorgeous day for it, though the chipmunks were more shy than in years past. Still. The kids had fun.) Then we washed the peanuts from our hands so as not to kill Melissa, lol, and met her and her kids at the giant slide nearby for a few turns at that. We then "hiked" around Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park (nice, easy and short walk considering the number of us, lol) and played another round of miniature golf before heading to dinner.

And, after dinner, we obviously had to get homemade ice cream:

And then we went home. :) 

Monday, Melissa & her kids had various summer camps starting so Sarah, her girls and the boys and I met up with Molly and Mark at their place. Molly, Sarah and I took the kids over to the neighborhood park for awhile, where we chatted. Mark and Noah happily stayed back and watched the Apple conference presentation thing. ;) (Mark, Noah is forever grateful to you, lol.) Then we all went to lunch before taking Sarah and the girls to the airport to bid them farewell. Sigh. :)

And now we're back to schoolwork and household chores...which aren't nearly as much fun. ;) (Have already been for a morning run, taken Asher to a demo team performance, done four or five loads of laundry, edited a number of pictures and done math, spelling, world history, science and guitar today...)

Here's hoping we can all get together again sooner rather than later...

Recap.

Just quickly as I'm still going through vacation pictures and notes...

Thought I'd mention a few numbers:

• 14 days (with four of those being mostly driving)
• 15 states traveled through, plus the District of Columbia
• 24 sites visited
• 4424 miles driven
• 16 magnets added to our collection (we weren't able to pick one up at every site for a variety of reasons but we'll call it good, lol)

Sorry, it's really tricky to take pictures of shadow boxes without getting glare and reflections in this particular spot. ;)

Yup, got our new magnets added and now we need a new shadow box. (Yay, us!) I actually have one that I picked up at the same time so that it will match...just need to find metal for the backing and paint the metal to match.

A few lessons I discovered as I was placing this last batch of magnets, though...

• magnets with full backings don't like to move again after being placed (I think this also has to do with the paint on the metal)
• Mt Rushmore is tarnishing something awful ;)
• trying to hot glue a magnet to the back of a plastic/rubber keychain doesn't work well at all
• one should avoid battleship shaped magnets if possible, as they're hard to work into the design, lol

Okay. That was all for now. Busy weekend coming up with friends visiting and a party to enjoy... :)

Because it's worth noting...

I love all three of my boys. Honest. I love them each in different ways and for different reasons. Today, though, I simply must share with you why I stinkin' love Micah lately:

1. During our vacation, he was totally put out that we didn't get to tour the White House or meet the president. Rather than dwell on that, though (or get irked that his brothers decided it was then entertaining to constantly point and say things like, "Look! There's the president!" lol), he decided that he'll simply have to become president so that he can see the White House. His plan was to become president and then have a big party (which *I* as his mother am invited to) for all previous presidents who are still alive. (This way, he figures, he'll get to meet them.) They'd go to the basement where he'll have converted the bowling alley into an archery range and they'll have a tournament, and whichever ex-president is the oldest gets to be the judge.

2. After touring the Biltmore Estate, though, he totally changed his mind and decided he no longer needs to become president. He'll just get rich and buy Biltmore and have his party there. Same deal with the ex-presidents and archery tournament. ;) 

3. Shortly after we returned from vacation, he wrote me this note and asked me to save it so he won't forget:

It says: "I want to go to a high school where I can get a bachelor's degree then go to Stanford and get a PhD in science then become a science teacher (professor). On my off time, I'll conduct experiments to make a holodeck (like from Star Trek, folks) then open a company called Projections of the Future. My students could get jobs in the company. I would make people's lives better." 

He has whole heaps of elaborate details that go with this like doubling up on classes in high school and college to get the degrees faster. Oy. (I suppose before we get to that, though, we'll maybe work on handwriting and spelling a bit more, eh? lol)

4. While he's not planning decades into the future, he's completely delighting in being seven and learning the joys of riding a bike through a puddle:

5. And he's still adorable enough that he can coerce his twelve year old brother to race him around the cul-de-saq:

Yes, Noah even did the race on foot while Micah rode his bike. :) And look how happy both of them are. :)

And those are just some of the reasons... ;)

A cycling sort of weekend

Well. We *meant* to just buy a new bike for Noah. ;) Once we started taking down the other bikes to tune things up for the new season and shuffle ownership, though, we somehow ended up buying bikes for both other boys. Oy. But, we now have three new bikes (that should last a good while) and three happy boys. 

Also, it should be noted that as of Sunday afternoon, Micah had never ridden a bicycle without training wheels. By Sunday evening, this is what we had:

Yup. That's one determined boy. ;) I'm sure it helps that he's been able to watch both of his big brothers learn (as both were older when they finally tackled two-wheelin'), but it was really just such a delight to watch his progress. He would give himself pep talks and continually tell us about how his karate instructor told him about perseverance (thank you, Mr. Yee!). So, after just a couple hours of working at it, he was riding on his own around our cul-de-saq on Sunday and on a family bike ride to the neighborhood park by Monday. Woohoo!

Meanwhile, both brothers were enjoying their new rides as well, though not with as big of smiles as Micah. ;) Noah's delighting in actually having a bike that fits, and Asher's adjusting to having gears. All three are pleased that the colors worked out so well. ;)

That top right picture is all of our bikes in the grass at the neighborhood park, where we took a break for Nathan to try his hand at flying the new kite he bought himself in Boulder when we got Micah's. ;) 

And. Because I'm like that, I made the boys pose for a re-creation picture to show you what a difference four years makes:

Aren't they cute? ;) 

(Yes, we haven't been an overly bike-oriented family...very much just taking our sweet time about learning and all. That picture four years ago was really the start of actually enjoying riding bikes (after waiting three years for Noah to finally decide to try riding any sort of bike and then getting a bike & trailer for me) and it took more than a year from that top picture before we ditched any of those training wheels...then another year before we ditched Asher's training wheels. And we'd been in a bit of a stall since then, taking occasional family bike rides but never very far and using the trailer for Micah. Now that they're all riding on their own and have gears, though, we're very much looking forward to traveling further. Yay!)