Ram Welcome

Thursday we had work and homeschooling and classes at CEC as usual. I made a quick run with some stuff up to Noah and dropped that off with him between his scheduled events. In the evening, we all headed up to campus for the Ram Welcome dinner and carnival. First, all the students were in Moby Arena for a convocation gathering. Then, they joined the rest of us on the fields for a box dinner. We managed to snag a table for us and Noah's roommate and his parents, so we enjoyed chatting over dinner then took some pictures...

Here's Noah and Ethan. 

All the students had on this shirt (handed out during check in). The back had the lyrics to the fight song...lyrics which were supposed to be used during convocation but which were apparently ignored to great extent, lol. 

Then we took some more group shots...

And then we parted ways to enjoy the carnival. Ethan and his parents headed over to the booths with games. We wandered the bouncy things and watched people on the climbing wall and zip line before following people with popcicles to get some for ourselves, lol. Then we ended up in the long line for this ride:

My guys all agreed that it was maybe not worth the wait...as the experience would have been much better if the ride duration hadn't been as long. (And the line would have moved quicker, too.)

After that, we walked Noah back to his dorm so he could head up and get some rest before his early scheduled breakfast the next day. He'll have lots of fun scheduled events over the weekend (apparently he and some new friends enjoyed a great magician show last night) and will start classes on Monday. So, now he's off... :) 

Move-In Day

Wednesday was move-in day. 

Well, technically, it was early move-in day at CSU...with only a quarter or so of the 8100 on-campus students moving in a day ahead of the rest. Due to being in the honors program and in the engineering specific dorm that he's in, Noah got to move in early. 

We'd been collecting things in a pile in our front room over the summer and loaded most of it into the van the night before (after enjoying a nice dinner out with Noah's new roommate and his parents). Honestly, I was surprised at how much extra room we still had. :) In any case, we went to sleep Tuesday night feeling pretty ready...aside from the fact that Nathan still wasn't back from his last minute business trip. (His flight was delayed, and he ended up getting home around 1 am.) 

Wednesday morning, I got up and went to boot camp then came home and woke everyone. We all had breakfast and headed out the door...a little later than planned but just fine on time. We arrived to a less-crowded-than-anticipated drop off lane and got Noah checked in and unloaded up to his fourth floor room. Though assured that there would be plenty of CSU helpers to carry everything for us, we ended up carrying all of Noah's stuff ourselves (and by "ourselves" I mean Nathan, Asher and Micah primarily, lol, as Noah and I stayed in the room and started unpacking as things came up...it's good to bring your own crew). Nathan says he noticed that girls unloading seemed to have many more helpers, lol. But, it was all fine, since we didn't have too much anyhow. :) 

After getting everything upstairs and moving the cars out of the unloading zone, we unpacked everything and Nathan, Asher and Micah assembled things in the hallway. We had Noah's part of the room mostly done in about two hours and had even tested the microwave by making some popcorn, lol.

This was our pile at home and in the vehicles and then checking in and the early stages of unpacking. (Yes, we bought and brought our own dolly to help with the mini fridge and it was handy. We're sure it will get more use over the years.) Here's what it looked like after all that:

As you can see, it's one of the newer buildings and is pretty sweet as dorms go. The two roommates have their own sink and bathroom. Both boys opted to have their beds lofted and put stuff underneath.

And here are some other pictures we managed during the day:

(Nathan's a little more sad than I am...)

(...though maybe not as sad as Micah.)

After getting Noah mostly situated, we all enjoyed lunch at the nearby dining hall before Nathan left to take Asher to his CEC classes. Micah and I stayed to walk over to the student center with Noah to pick up his pre-ordered textbooks and supplies, then said our goodbyes as well so that Noah could get to scheduled events and Micah and Asher could get to karate. 

And that was Wednesday...  

New West Fest

Okay, here's my annual post about Asher and Micah performing with the Karate West demo team at New West Fest. Here's the group picture at the beginning:

They were missing three members but did fabulously...

I still haven't figured out how to load videos here, or I'd share the two that I took. :( (I may, actually, be looking to change blog hosts, as I also know that leaving comments here isn't working currently but haven't been able to sort it out.)

In any case, the weather was beautiful (unlike the last two years that were a bit wet) and everything went great. After the performance, this year, we skipped the food booths and went in search of actual food...which worked out better for us.  

Pending...

Whew. This past week has been a little bit full. I've shared some photos over on Facebook and am working on getting stuff up here. Really. In the meantime, I'll ask you to hang tight and remember that this is (some of) what my past week has involved:

THURSDAY: Asher's first day (ever) at CEC...Asher's weekly parkour session

FRIDAY: Asher to CEC...boys to karate and demo team practice

SATURDAY: met a friend at the gym...took boys to demo team practice...weekly chores...Asher's first experience with homework, lol

SUNDAY: Asher and Micah performing with the Karate West demo team at New West Fest

MONDAY: me to boot camp...Nathan leaving for a last minute business trip...it was also Nathan's birthday, btw (we may celebrate this weekend??)...started our homeschool year...Asher to CEC

TUESDAY: Micah started his First Lego League season with a four hour session with his team...Asher to CEC...homeschooling (with some extra to make up for knowing we wouldn't do any Wednesday)...met with Noah's roommate and his parents for dinner...finished all of Noah's packing and loaded most things up

WEDNESDAY: Nathan's plane was delayed and he didn't get home till about 1 am Wednesday morning...I went to boot camp...we loaded the last few things and headed for CSU to move Noah into his dorm...Nathan and Asher left after an early lunch altogether, to get Asher to CEC...Micah and I followed after going with Noah to the bookstore to collect his textbooks...boys to karate that night

THURSDAY: had a sprinkler repairman out to fix a leaking line (fortunately a simple fix)...homeschooling...took some last items up to Noah...picked up Asher from CEC...rescheduled Asher's weekly parkour so we could all go enjoy the Ram Welcome dinner and carnival

And now we're finishing up our homeschool week, Asher's home from CEC, we'll have karate and demo team practice later tonight, and we're *really* looking forward to the weekend and getting into a more routine routine. :)  

First day!

Asher started classes at CEC today! I took the opportunity to take first day of school pictures of all three boys. :) These were taken after we'd all gone out to breakfast in Old Town to celebrate the start of the school year, so they were happier than they had been earlier in the morning. (You can click on them to make the photos larger.)

Sniff. They're growing up. Just for comparison, here are their first day pictures from just two years ago:

And if you want to really go back in time, check out this first ever "group first day of school photo" from 2010:

And compare it to this year's group shot:

See?! They're getting so big!!

For the record, then, here's how this year looks:

MICAH will be homeschooling with me full time as an 8th grader. He'll be on a First Lego League team again and continues to do karate and karate demo team. We're still sorting out what else might be included in his year. We'll officially start our school year on Monday.

ASHER will be taking classes at CEC part time as a sophomore this year. He'll also be homeschooling with me part time. (I'll update our curriculum lists on the left sometime before the end of the month.) Meanwhile, he'll still do karate, karate demo team and parkour. He'll also get his driver's license later this fall.

And NOAH is off to CSU next week. He'll be listed as a freshman, though he has his Associates already so won't need to do most any of the general ed stuff. Classes start August 20.

That's it in a nutshell. Whew. I'll leave you with this small sample of the outtake photos I got this morning when I asked them to stand together and let me take a nice picture:

(This one (above) is because I said "get your heads closer together.")

And, in the end, this was my favorite:

Because it's genuine. :)

Yup. Those are my boys. They're growing up, but they're still mine. 

And now I need to wrap this up to go pick up Asher and find out how his first day went...