By the numbers...

37 years. That's how old my lovely husband is today. We don't have any big plans but I'll try to take a picture later today. So very thankful he was born and that he's MINE. :)

1 happy boy...having performed with his Karate West demo team on Sunday at Fort Collins' New West Fest:

Asher was in five different routines (of the dozen or so that were performed) and did a fabulous job. The team was awesome to watch! I'm continually impressed by how many routines Asher (and all his teammates) can keep straight. :)

13.1 miles completed. Molly talked me into doing the Georgetown to Idaho Springs half marathon on Saturday. We ended up taking our time and chatting (a lot, lol) so didn't set any sorts of speed records but got to spend a wonderful morning together...at 8000+ feet with some gorgeous scenery. So, that makes two half marathons for me...and everyone knows that one half plus one half equals a whole, right? ;) 

That's all for now. ;)  

Five on Friday

1. For the record, I think if Olympians tie, they should get to tie. Enough with the convoluted tie-breaker dealios. (Yes, I'm talking to you, gymnastics!)

2. My lovely staycation wherein I sit at home and avoid people and just watch Olympics with the occasional outing to take boys to karate is coming to an end. Sigh.

3. I know this because this afternoon I'm headed to Idaho Springs to stay with a friend so that in the morning we can both run a half marathon because we're crazy like that. ;) (The goal here is simply to finish, as neither of us has done the best of jobs of training this go round, lol. But. We'll be together and it'll be fun.)

4. Meanwhile, Nathan will be manning the fort here and will need to get Asher to the four practices he has between now and Sunday afternoon when his demo team will be performing at New West Fest downtown. Come watch if you're local! (They'll be on at 2:30 at the Kids World stage at Library Park.)

5. Next week it'll be time to start planning the coming homeschool year. Well, okay, I have plenty of plans already. ;) Next week will be time to start figuring out how to make them all fit. As I figure it out, I'll try to share here...I know I love reading other homeschoolers' plans. ;)

That was all. :)

Hiding out...

Just so you know...we're still here. We're just too busy watching Olympics to be posting here. ;) 

A week or so ago, we finished up our "official" school year with our every-other-year state testing requirement. Mailed off the scan-tron sheets the day the Olympics began. ;) (I could write an entire additional post about this, but I'm choosing not to just now, lol. I may address this after the Olympics...when I'm also hoping to do some posts about our chosen curricula for the coming year.)

On Thursday of this week, we finished up our last session of swim lessons for the summer (for Asher and Micah). They made great progress this summer and were delighted with the lessons, but we opted not to do the last session of the summer because, hey, we could use a break. :) Between swim lessons and karate and karate demo team and trying to still get some regular archery practice, we've had someplace to be pretty much every day this summer, except Sundays. (That's obviously not counting the fact that we were also doing schoolwork until recently and were trying to visit with friends more and were redoing bedrooms and celebrating birthdays and all that, lol.) So, now we have two fewer things to do each week. :)

Oh. And, yes, we signed up for those fun runs again. Asher and Noah did the first one way back in May. June's was rescheduled due to the fires. We opted not to run the ones in July because they conflicted with Asher's demo team practices. But, all three ran again this morning. They were sleepy and not so thrilled about it. They were even less thrilled when it became apparent that the race course was not marked as expected...such that most of the kids missed the turn-around point (and even the parents who were running with younger kids) and, thus, ended up running more than a mile. The race officials had to send someone out to redirect the kids when we all started wondering why no one was coming to the finish line. Apparently, the official caught up to Asher in time to turn him around before he'd gone too far past the turn around...but didn't get to Noah for a good bit, as he was well ahead of Asher. Hence, Noah was grumpy and ended up running closer to two miles. ;) Micah, too, ended up going about a half mile longer than anticipated but seemed happy just to have finished and proud of himself for just following the kids in front of him (even though those kids likewise missed the turn, lol). (Yes, Micah originally declared that he wasn't going to do any of these fun runs. Obviously, I know the boy better than he knows himself, lol.)

Anyhow. ;)

So. We're taking it easier in August and are quite happy to simply be sitting on the couch watching the Olympics. So there. ;)

Blue Belt

Just so you know, Asher earned his blue belt last Friday. He was pretty stoked and we continue to be so very proud of him:

He's actually wearing his demo team uniform in this picture, since he also performed that night during the promotion ceremony. I really have taken pictures of him doing that, but they're just not great. The demo team will be performing at Fort Collins' New West Fest soon, though, and I promise to take better pictures to post then. :)

Seven.

Just quickly so I can get back to watching the Olympics, lol...

My baby turned SEVEN today. Oy. This boy. He seriously keeps us on our toes and entertains us and drives us crazy. Life would be boring without him and he knows it. ;) Seven quick thoughts about him:

1. He's still content to be my baby...still gives hugs and waves at me from classes.
2. His attention to detail is freakin' amazing (scary almost). For example, as we've all been watching the Olympics, at most any given time we can simply turn to Micah and ask him for stats. The boy knows what size shoes Missy Franklin wears, what everyone's scores were in gymnastics, whether we're watching a semifinal or a qualifier and how many more heats remain...you get the picture. (For what it's worth, I'm fairly certain that a portion of the time he's just completely making stuff up, but he does so with such conviction that we just never know, lol.)
3. He's adorable with his missing front teeth. ;)
4. He recently switched to boxer briefs and is hilariously proud of how he looks in them.
5. He's so proud of the progress he's made this summer in his swim lessons. (Mind you, he's made more progress in his attitude about swimming and in his own little head than in actual technique, but it's definitely progress, lol.)
6. He has few friends his own age, preferring friends his brothers' ages...as he thinks of himself as older anyhow. 
7. He's recently decided he looks best in sleeveless shirts, which makes keeping him dressed tricky as he only has two. (He's also fairly picky about what makes a suitable sleeveless shirt, lol.)

We've already done the party and all, so tonight is just low key, but the boy's pretty dang impressed with himself:

Sigh. ;)