Cheyenne Frontier Days

So. I've never been to a rodeo before (at least not that I can remember). Given that, we decided to try something new and head up to Cheyenne's Frontier Days this year. I invited some college friends and we picked a day. That day was yesterday. ;)

To start, we watched the fabulous USAF Thunderbirds. Yes, the fact that the Thunderbirds were performing yesterday had a great deal to do with our choosing yesterday as the day to go. (Let's just say that boys weren't overly enthusiastic about just watching a rodeo, lol.) 

In any case, it was an awesome show and did not disappoint. The boys particularly liked when a single plane would do a quick fly-by while your attention was elsewhere. (Fortunately, Micah is at the stage now where he thought this was fantastic and not back at the point where he felt loud planes were too loud...similar to the toddler in front of us who *freaked* out due to the volume, lol.)

(Insert note here that I opted not to lug my camera around all day so only took photos on my iPhone. Sorry. But, it was totally worth it not to have the extra bag/weight, lol.)

After we left the field where we watched the airshow, we grabbed some lunch (Thanks again, Marti, for your help in that department! We ended up at Two Doors Down and it was great.) and then went to the rodeo!

(For anyone who might be unfamiliar with this rodeo, like we were, we recommend definitely sitting on the west side of the arena...in the afternoon, you're in the shade and not looking into the sun. All good. We ended up in the balcony section of the B stands, opting for the assigned seats rather than general admission because there were eight of us and we wanted to be sure we'd be altogether. The east stands probably do have a better/closer view of the action, but we were perfectly content in our spots and using the big screen tvs when necessary.)

Back to my story...the bucking horse being ridden above was named Crazy Mary. We were all fascinated by the different events...the bareback riding, bull riding, steer wrestling, steer wrangling, colt race and so forth. We decided, though, that next time we may have to do a bit more research ahead of time so we'll actually know what we're watching, lol...not that that stopped us from applauding and gasping with the rest of the audience. :) Micah says his favorite was the bull riding, but all three agree (fortunately, lol) that rodeo is not something they'd want to participate in. 

And here's a picture of Molly, me and Melissa (taken by Mark) before the weather took a turn and changed from sunny and 80s to windy and pouring rain...

Given the weird weather, we did get a bit wet and ended up leaving the rodeo a little before it was actually done for the day. Since as soon as we were out of the stands the sky cleared and went back to sunshine (of course), we then got some desserts (we were at the fair after all, lol)...funnel cake, elephant ears and dippin' dots...and wandered some of the commercial exhibits before heading out. 

We ended up eating dinner together in Fort Collins (having called ahead from the car during the drive after discovering that the wait time in Cheyenne was about the same as the drive time from Cheyenne to Fort Collins), where Micah provided the final entertainment for the day by losing his other front tooth right into his mac and cheese. 

Yes, there was more drama and I had to take the boy to the bathroom lest he bleed to death (or so he thought). But. Molly had promised him $5 if his tooth came out before she left and the waiter felt a lost tooth deserved a scoop of ice cream, so the boy was delighted. 

And thus ended our pretty darn good day. :)

Ten on Tuesday.

Just ten random things... ;)

1. I realize it's belated, but we had a pretty darn good Fourth of July this year. Given the fireworks restrictions and the many cancelled city shows, we opted not to brave the throngs to see the one city show in the area and, instead, just stayed home with friends. The boys showed off their new bedrooms, games were played, girls were chased and plenty of food was eaten...including snow cones, of course:

So very thankful for good friends to share good times with! Wish I'd taken more photos...

2. Asher's been loving being on his karate Demo Team! So far he's performed at three local elementary schools and will perform at his own belt promotion later this week and at New West Fest next month. It's really rather impressive how quickly he picks up on the routines and how much he truly loves doing them. I'll try to take better pictures soon, honest. ;)

3. Due to the smoke levels during the High Park Fire and the distractions of redoing boys' bedrooms, there were a few weeks there that I mostly stopped running. I've been paying for it lately as I'm working on getting back to it before the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon that Molly talked me into running; it's in a few weeks. Oy. I'm being realistic and know that I was much more prepared for the Colorado Half Marathon that I ran in May so am simply hoping to finish this one. :) Wish me luck! 

4. Our kitchen table set recently decided that it's had about enough. It's an antique actually (from the 1930s) but just isn't up to the squirminess of certain young boys. So. When Nathan and I went to IKEA to pick up supplies for the boys' bedrooms, we also looked for a new kitchen table set...one where the chairs wouldn't literally fall apart when Asher sat at it, lol. But. We didn't find anything we liked. Instead, we decided to make our own using a bigger slab of butcher block than the ones Nathan used for his desk and Micah's. Nathan put on the last coat of finish last night, so I'll have pictures soon. For chairs, we're letting each family member pick his/her own chair (though I, of course, have final veto power, lol) to give it an eclectic feel. So far, we've only found one chair but are working on finding more. Stay tuned...

5. Molly made me join Pinterest. ;) I love it but Nathan's decided it's really just a new form of "honey do" list, lol.

6. I'd love to learn how to whistle...you know the type of whistle where you stick two fingers in your mouth and get a lovely loud sound? Anyone know how to teach me that?

7. As campaign season is upon us, let me take a moment to say:

I made this little sign to hang just outside our front door recently. Been meaning to for awhile now and am pretty happy with how it turned out. ;) (I picked up the small, blank chalkboard sign and beaded chain at a local store, Feather Your Nest, and then painted the text on there with white paint.)

8. Asher and Micah have truly been enjoying swim lessons this summer! We normally only do one or two sessions each year, but this year went ahead with three because Micah asked. Given that until this summer we still couldn't get the boy to put his face in the water without freaking out, that was saying something and we decided we'd best take advantage of his enthusiasm, lol. It's been going well. As an added bonus, Asher's last instructor would toss the kids at the end of class:

9. Yesterday was my last post as a member of the Ormolu Creative Team. It's been a fabulous experience that I've truly loved...but it's time for a new team that will start later this year (after the shop owner's maternity leave, lol). Thank you, Kaitlin, for such a lovely opportunity!

10. Don't hate me, but I just have to say that I'm not a fan of potlucks. One, I prefer events with kids to either avoid meal times altogether or to be picnic-style where everyone's responsible for their own food. I just find that very much simpler...particularly when you have children who won't eat just anything if you know what I mean. ;) And, two, I'm so very introverted that group outings like this are work for me. I'm not at ease in large groups, particularly so when I'm not familiar with most of the people there. I don't do well at putting myself out there and meeting new people. 

But. For the sake of my children, I find that I do put myself out there more nowadays than I did before kids. Case in point...last weekend we went to the boys' karate school potluck. Though I was outside my comfort zone for sure, the boys had a blast...literally. There was a raging water fight between the younger kids and the black belts:

I think they all won in the end and I was glad that Nathan talked me into going. :)

Okay, whew. I think I'm pretty much caught up now. Can't believe it's almost the end of July already. How's your summer going?

Alternate title

I was just realizing that my previous post really should have been entitled "Brought to you by IKEA and Home Depot." ;) Not sure what we would have done without them, lol. Here are the things we got at IKEA:

NOAH

• duvet cover and comforter
• wire display hanging thing (Noah's has the around-the-corner piece, too)
• desk tabletop & legs
• chair
• curtains & window treatment hardware

ASHER

• wire display hanging thing
• desk tabletop & legs
• curtains & window treatment hardware

MICAH

• table lamp
• wire display hanging thing
• desk tabletop & legs/base
• chair
• curtains & window treatment hardware

Most everything else was brought to you by Home Depot...the paint, electrical stuff and light fixtures, in particular. Oh. And the shelving in Noah's closet. (The shelving in Micah's closet is stuff we'd done before and we recycled wall shelves from the yellow room to make shelving in Asher's closet.)

So. Thanks, IKEA and Home Depot. One of these days we'll get around to redoing our own bedroom and we'll definitely see you again... ;)

(PS In case you were wondering, the boys keep their clothes under their beds in drawers.)

A tale of three bedrooms

I'm thrilled to announce that our summer bedroom project is now pretty much done. Woohoo!

So. If you recall, here's where we started from. And here's where we're at now. 

First, I'll show you Noah's room. Once we got all the "stuff" out of the room, it went pretty quickly (though the purging and reorganizing of all that stuff was a ginormous task that I really don't want to deal with again, lol). The left column is "before" and the right is "after."

Things we did in Noah's room:

• Removed all that stuff. (This had been the storage room for most everything. It was overflowing, lol.)
• Had the carpet re-stretched. (It was pretty wrinkled from poor installation and we were fortunate to find someone willing to come stretch just that one room for not much at all.)
• Painted the walls grey and the ceiling and closet a slightly lighter grey. (I absolutely refused to paint either black, which is what the boy wanted. We also refused to paint the trim black, as requested.)
• Changed out the light fixture. (We ended up just getting fixtures to match the one we put in Asher's room back when we first moved here.)
• Removed the closet doors and added some shelves...black, of course.
• Changed out all the outlets and switches...to black with brushed chrome covers. Because the boy talked his dad into it. ;) (In the end, all three boys ended up with all new outlets and switches and covers. Noah's are black with chrome, Asher's are white with covers painted to match his walls, and Micah's are off-white with wooden covers. Nathan let them pick. I'd have picked what Asher did, lol.)
• Changed the window treatment. (We took down the battered mini-blinds in all three rooms and installed IKEA drapes instead.)
• Added a desk (black again) and chair. 

We also hung display wires in each boy's room, identical to the one we have hanging in the hallway with boys' artwork. I figure this will work better than having boys put up posters and such over the years and having a gazillion holes poked in the walls. Plus, I love how tidy it looks. ;) Right now, Noah has all his medals and ribbons hanging on his...plus an old cover of a Mac laptop that he and Nathan took apart. 

(Yes, I was surprised, too, that Noah hung those colorful ribbons in his otherwise colorless room, lol.) Still working on some artwork to hang in all three rooms (have a couple Star Wars prints on order, lol). It would be nice, too, one of these days to get an actual headboard and such for the bed, but the room is complete for now. (Noah thinks the room would be more complete with the Macbook Air he's got his eye on, lol.)

Next is Asher. His room required the least work.

 Here's what we did:

• Removed two of the beds (and two of the boys, lol).
• Repainted one of the blues. (It's hard to tell in the pictures, but there are three shades of blue in Asher's room. We repainted only the lightest blue...basically the same color but ever so slightly lighter. We also repainted the inside of the closet to be the lightest blue instead of the medium blue.)
• Added a desk. Rather than an office chair, Asher chose an exercise ball...which better suits his active personality anyhow. ;)
• Took out the rain gutters in the closet and added shelves for Asher's legos. (The closet already is larger than the other two and has shelves, but Asher can't reach them all, lol.)
• Changed out the window treatment...mounted near the ceiling for nice long lines.

And. For his birthday, we got Asher a comfy "reading chair" for the extra space he had in the corner:

He's pretty delighted overall, and the chair actually is rather comfy. ;) Still on the lookout for a lamp that Asher approves of. So, that's Asher's room.

Finally, we have Micah's room. His took the longest. :) Again, the before pictures are on the left and the after are on the right:

Micah's room involved:

• Removing all the legos (which took a good bit and required much shuffling to keep everything "organized" by boy, lol) and existing wall shelves and drawers.
• Painting the walls green and the closet brown. (We convinced him to leave the ceiling light yellow.)
• Replacing the window treatment, just like Asher's but green. :)
• Replacing the light fixture. (This actually became quite a headache, as we couldn't figure out how to get the old ceiling fan/light down (even after asking at Home Depot)...so then we accidentally busted the ceiling getting it down and had to have Nathan get a new fixture box and crawl into the attic to switch it out.)
• Adding a desk and chair. The desk ended up also taking longer. We bought all three boys' desks at IKEA...the modular dealios where you can get the tabletops and then choose your legs/base. Micah, though, didn't get a standard size, ready-to-go top like his brothers. He wanted an "L" shape and he wanted it to look like Nathan's. (He can be a little demanding, that boy, lol.) So, Nathan obliged and got the same butcher block countertop. He cut it and sanded it and finished it and mounted it to the desk mounting system IKEA had. Those legs are adjustable so the desk can grow with Micah...love that! (Incidentally, Asher's desk legs are adjustable as well.)

Here's a picture of that desk:

And that, friends, is our bedroom project for the time being. ;) 

(Yes, I'll admit to making the beds before I took these pictures, lol. Other than that, though, the boys have actually kept their rooms pretty tidy for a couple weeks now, as we've been finishing little touches.)

Joint birthday party.

Okay, before I get even further behind, let me quickly post that Asher and Micah had a fabulous joint birthday party last weekend. We had it at Rocky Mountain Archery and all 12 kids present had a great time shooting at targets and balloons and, in the end, a piñata. (Everyone used recurve bows to keep things fair, but toward the end, they let Asher and Micah show off their compound bow skills, lol.)

(The piñata was pulled open after the kids had all shot at it twice. They thought it was awesome how a number of the suckers inside had been broken by the arrows, lol.)

Then, we all went upstairs for pizza, presents and cupcakes. Good times! 

Will catch up more soon, really! ;)