Father's & Sons 2014

Favorite campout all year--the Father's & Sons. My boys really love each other and love spending time together. It rained the entire drive up, but stopped when they arrived. Thank goodness there were no soggy s'mores. They got a slower start than hoped for, which meant dinner was pretty late . . . and there was rain as Nathan went to bed, but they stayed dry in the tent. The suburban definitely needed a car wash when they got back, so that equates to a success?
I think so.

So excited to haul around the backpack while getting ready to go

Ladderball and my favorite boys. The setting isn't bad either, is it?

Close friends

Nathan really loves cooking on a campout. While many of the dads are content with hot dogs (not to mention their sons), he wants to eat a real meal and goes the extra mile to make a tin foil dinner happen. I don't think the boys appreciate it now very much, but they might some day in the future.

We were camera-free, but I took the girls out to dinner and we got the "Muppets Most Wanted" from Red Box. Then in the morning we went to Hobby Lobby. I am used to going with Ed and trying to get out of there as quickly as possible, and without breaking anything. They, however, loved it and we stayed for well over an hour, walking up and down most every aisle just to see what was for sale.

Sportsmanship Award

Andrew played flag football again this year. He was delighted to make it on the team he's been wanting to play on for the past 2 spring seasons. It is the same coach he had for 3 years of tackle, and the boys he's known since arriving.

The team had a rough season but Andrew made a lot of progress in his game. He was catching balls and pulling flags with more confidence than we'd seen in years past. He scored 7 or 8 touchdowns, including one in the final (heartbreaking) tournament game, against the top seeded team. He worked really hard, walking straight from track practice to flag football. Track started right after school ended until 5pm, flag from 5:30 to 7pm. You can imagine the nights that he had Scouts at 7pm following that were long, long days.

His team won the Sportsmanship award, which was a free dinner at a local burger restaurant, a nice way to end the season.

Flood Update (Saturday Oct 19)

This morning Nathan took Andrew and the other 12-13 year olds to dig in the mud in Berthoud. They went to help a family whose property had been buried under feet of mucky mud.

The owner boards horses . . . well, used to until the flood. His corral was buried under tree branches, weeds, and mud that were swept along. He was able to get all of his animals out successfully, but lost a pair of chickens to the neighbor's dog who was keeping them for him.

The boys worked on clearing out 2-3 feet of mud from this shed. (Nathan estimated it was 15 by 20 feet).

Before--see the waterline?

Outside . . . see all the debris in the mud?

Part of the pile of mud they removed from the shed

It would have taken the family a LONG time to get it done, but the boys and parents who accompanied them were able to clear it out in 3 hours. The owner has been using a front end loader to clean up his property, but because of the small doors to the shed, the only way to clean it out was by hand, with shovels & wheelbarrows. The owner offered them lunch, but they'd brought it with them, so they worked and then came home. He thanked them many times.

Our nephew was visiting our family this weekend, and since he's in that age group he got to go along as well. It was a good experience for them, I think they'll sleep really well tonight.

They've made mention about keeping the cleanup efforts going until the really cold weather is here . . . we had a little snow (only an inch or so) this week, so we'll see. Several people we know have spent their Saturday mornings each week involved in the cleanup efforts.

Nathan said the property was beautiful, even with all the mud. The basement of the house was flooded, with three feet of water, but the main damage was to the barn, corral, and shed closer to the river.


Update: Sunday evening
Today at church they read some numbers about service hours. They said that over 2400 people from our stake have given over 8000 hours of service. 33 unique projects have been undertaken, 18 of them in Berthoud (one of the hardest hit in our stake). Quite a thing.

Flood Update (Tuesday, Sept 17th)

Took this from the Gateway Baptist Church's Website so you could see the water . . . which has receded even more than this photo shows

 Nathan works with the young men at church and wanted to use the weeknight activity for flood recovery. He used a link from Just Serve to contact the pastor at Gateway Baptist Church, Loveland, CO
to see if they could come help.
(Just Serve has different daytime shifts available for serving there, but the young men & leaders needed an evening shift).

Click on the link above to see some of the photos of their church building and the flooding.
They had at least 2 feet of water inside. Also, their church website found HERE: has a flooding update. They seem to be making steady progress--over 125 people showed up to help on Monday, and more today.

Tonight the deacons from our ward, and the entire young men's group from a neighboring ward, went to help. Other volunteers had brought the muddy, upholstered chairs, outside for cleaning. They were clean and drying outside in the sun when Nathan called, so the pastor said that the boys could help carry them in. He estimated there were 35 or so from our church who formed a fire line and brought them in and then hauled them upstairs. He said the ruined carpet is out, the subfloor is showing, and they've made a lot of headway, as you will read about on their flood update.

I asked Andrew about it and he said, "Their chairs are heavier than ours and they don't fold up." I asked if he had fun, and he said yes.

Labor Day Adventure

During the summer of 1995, I worked at a camp in New Hampshire. The story of choosing that camp is a long one, but a good one if you talk to me in person. It is called Camp Calumet Lutheran, and if you want to know more about it, click on the name earlier in this sentence.

Every three years they hold a reunion for the staff members who worked there in the 1990's. I was invited to attend and we decided it would be fun to take Andrew & Bryn there. The price of plane tickets and distance did not make it an attractive option to bring everyone. We enlisted my mom to help and made our reservations.

We left on Friday and came back Monday. It's a short time to go so far, but it was worth going.

Looking away from our tent

Road on the property

Family by the lake

Approaching Camp from the lake

Camp road

Memorial garden

Random granite or marble on our hike

Jackman's Ridge (a 10 min hike from Camp, owned by camp)

Hike

Bryn's footprint photo

Frisbee rescue attempt

Frisbee rescue success

Playing on the beach

It was nice to see people I haven't for a long time. We are all older, many with children, all with daily work, many with spouses. The site is beautiful. It rained about 5 inches while we were there--which illustrates why it's so green. We were very unprepared for that kind of moisture. Next time.

We enjoyed tying a quilt, playing frisbee, riding in a canoe, on a pontoon boat, playing basketball, attending a Lutheran service in the outdoor chapel, a gong meditation session [more than one member of our family may have fallen asleep during this], singing camp songs, and visiting with friends. Nathan won the 5 K race.

There were lots more photos, if you are interested, click HERE.

The view

We may or may not have surprised our babysitter.

99

Andrew's number at the temple yesterday.

This summer our temple opened the doors to the youth for baptisms. Between 7 am and 1:00pm on weekdays they are able to go with or without a group to do baptisms. This is a huge blessing because it is at their convenience and can be much more frequent than the 1-2 scheduled times per year. They have averaged 100 youth per day since making this change. The number 99 means he was 99th in line. 98 others came before him and a handful came after.

Yesterday my mom & I took Andrew. It was her first time with a grandchild in the temple, and my first time with one of my children, and Andrew's first time with both of us--a special day. (His FIRST time was earlier this year with Nathan). One of my nieces stayed with the other children so we could go.

One of my first spiritual experiences was in the Denver temple, when I went with my parents. I am not sure where my siblings were . . . . but it was a special time I will always remember.

I love the temple and am excited to share it with all my children. I feel happy that so many youth choose to spend their free summer hours in this way. Many of the young people were with their mothers. I saw one father and one bishop. Some came with siblings, others with friends, and some probably came alone. It was very inspirational. If it were closer, we would be there more often.

"Klondike-ing"

They left Friday and got back Saturday.

The slept on snow and tromped around on snowshoes. They had a blast and came home smelling like campfire.

Heaven?

Orienteering, fire-building, snowshoe race, (Andrew tied for first), stew and hot dogs, oatmeal, and hot chocolate, painfully long time working out how to perform a stretcher carry, and good old guy bonding time.

September Highlights

"Super Hunts"

The girls had a superhero themed activity night. They were to wear a modest superhero costume. We don't have any of those, so I bought cheap-ish t-shirts and white paint to make a stencil for the "Super Hunts." Nathan spent hours working on the stencils and the girls got to paint their own shirts. The white paint ended up being "Diamond" which turned out clear with lots of glitter in it. Nathan was a good sport about it, even though I am sure he'd have preferred white.

Churchill spends the day

Diana had her turn to bring Churchill, the kindergarten mascot home for the day. We took him on our morning walk/ride with us. I walk and Diana and Ed ride. Diana is on a bike and Eddie in the stroller.
Churchill got a ride with Diana the whole way, but only wore the sunglasses for this photo.

We taught our UT cousins how to play Hungry, Hungry Hippos. I think they loved it, but may have loved electronic games even more.

Sept. 22

Caitlin was baptized on a lovely afternoon in September. She sang "When I am Baptized" with Bryn as a special musical number. Her friend and her mom were able to come, as well as cousins and aunts from near and far. Both sets of grandparents made it for Caitlin's special day, too. We changed into play clothes when we got home and enjoyed the lovely fall weather outside. It was a great day.

Sept. 22

After the baptism was over, these "twin" cousins were ordained deacons. Both of them helped pass the sacrament the following day. A great day for our family to receive ordinances together. We had 25 family members for dinner that day--good thing we have lots of chairs!

View from our home--Longs Peak in the distance

This view shows one of the reasons we love where we live. That lawn out there is playground central most afternoons at our home. The kids ride scooters, rollerblades, and bikes around and around. They raked cut grass in the summer before the lawn crews could come back for it. This week they took out all the snow-shovels and piled up leaves. That photo does not do justice--my camera can't capture how pretty the view really is.
Life is good.

Fireside

More September candles this week.

Ordination coming soon--it will be fun to watch him pass the Sacrament soon.

His Primary teachers brought him this great poster:

Today one of the girls said, "Mom, you're getting old, you have a son who's getting old."

I hadn't really felt it until tonight . . . . when I dropped him off for his first fireside.
Maybe I am old.

Swimmerick (a limerick about swimming)

I am going to swim
But I am slim
I'll have a ball
Unless I fall
I am going to swim.

(During the summer my children can earn $10 for completing the Summer Bridge that corresponds to their grade level. While checking books today, I found this poem and loved it.)

MVP

Another sports season concluded today . . . . spring flag football is over. This season we had a great coach who really knew how to win games. He was also very good at encouraging boys. Andrew improved a lot this season and scored several touchdowns and extra points. (He has a complete tally in his personal journal). He got to play running back, and told his coach in the thank you note that it was a blast.

After the game was over, his coach told them in the huddle that if he had to choose an MVP, it would be Andrew. He appreciated his hard work, attitude, never got down on himself or others if he/they made mistakes, he earned it for work on and off the field.

Every boy needs a (neighbor's) dog

For the past several weeks, Andrew has had a job walking our neighbor's dog, Tucker. Nathan went with him the first time to show him the ropes. Since then, he's been on walks with the dog three times a week. Many times he is accompanied by a sister--one at a time.

Today it was my turn to go. We got Tucker, his ball, leash, and trash bag and walked to the park down the street. Andrew played fetch with him for a few minutes and then we went on a walk through the neighborhood. It was impressive to see how comfortable Andrew was with him. Tucker is a good dog, and didn't bark at a single dog or passerby. On our walk we saw the neighborhood fox--but he was running the other direction. I've loved this chance for Andrew to grow and help our neighbor, and to experience pet ownership without the responsibility of owning a dog ourselves.

While we were out, Andrew asked me if I wanted to hold the leash.
I declined, explaining that I was on the walk to see what it was like.
"Don't you want to hold it once? That's all the girls do when they come with me, is ask me for their turn to hold the leash," he said.
I smiled about how different it must seem to have me along instead.

Holding on and letting go

This little pony has been in our family for over 8 years. Sadly, he's broken and will not be making the trek north with us. The longest walk I made this week was out front to the garbage can to put him in. I miss the little boy who rode this horse. But I love the 9 year old who has replaced that little boy one day at a time. And thankfully, there is another little boy who's found a place in my heart.

Scouting Builds Men

My little Ed helped me retire from Cub Scouts, at least for now. It is a bittersweet change.

Scouting includes all the skills I want my sons to have, and is an organized way for them to achieve these skills. I love the memories I created with Andrew and his friends. At one point, half my scouts came from single parent families. These single mothers are great heroes.
I learned to be ready for the meetings 30 minutes before they started, because that is when my first scout(s) would arrive. The activity pictured above was in December, when Nathan spent the first few minutes teaching them how to tie a tie. Some of my favorite activities: kickball in our cul de sac, Day Camp 2009 (I thought I would never live through this in the 100 degree heat with morning sickness), field trip to the fire station, charades, marbles, woodworking, and the opening and closing songs from each meeting.

We sang:
I am a Child of God
Teach Me to Walk in the Light
America
Love at Home
How Firm a Foundation
The Star Spangled Banner
Choose the Right

Boundless energy and potential sitting behind those ties.
Sam, Brenton, Trent, Spencer, Andrew, Dakota, Ricky, Connor, Seth, Mason, and Austin

The Boy in the Shirt

Andrew earned his Wolf badge! These are a few happy memories and lessons learned during his first year in scouting:

Fun
Learned a lot
How to tie a square knot/overhand knot
What to do when someone tries to kidnap you
How to shoot a BB gun
How to shoot arrows
Went to the fire station
Building bookends & a message board

He wasn't the only scout to advance at our pack meeting. We had 3 others become wolves and one earned the webelo. We set up the same number of chairs as normal and had to add to them. Our scout group is growing! Fun to see since it all began with 3 boys at my home.

The outing to the scout store was more than a little chaotic--I purchased 85 items. My goal for the next time is to fax them a list of what I need in advance. It is too much to keep straight--even when I have it written down. Our scout store is about 40 miles away, which adds to the fun.

I am willing, however, all for the boy in this shirt.

Nine

What happened 9 years ago changed our lives forever!

We had a great day together. His celebration started early with cornflakes, blueberries and yogurt for breakfast and ended late with vanilla cake and Bluebell's "Birthday Cake" ice cream. He also asked for Chili and Cornbread, and his sisters set the table to give him a break.

Only a few photos . . . .

Great tunnels for his new RC car to go through.

While putting away dishes in the kitchen he said, "Birthdays are so fun!"
His plan for his birthday money: "Buy a Nerf gun."
His favorite part of the day: "Opening presents!"
We love you, Andrew!

Heard at the Hunts

Andrew: "Everybody party on the bed!"


Certainly the first bunk bed night in our household is worthy of a photo. We've had them for a little while and Nathan and the kids set them up tonight. I am nervous about the proximity of little heads to the ceiling fan . . . but we are proceeding anyway.

It will probably only be a party with 4 on St. Patrick's when we hold our traditional family sleepover. We've held a couple and missed a couple, so here's a 6 month reminder that it's coming. Andrew offered to let me have a spot on the bunk beds that evening. Now did he say top or bottom?

Here's a photo of Nathan's dorm room at the University of Michigan. He had the room to himself, but rearranged the beds into bunk beds anyway so he'd have more space.

He said, "It would have been easier to put them up with 2 people."
Somehow, he managed by himself.

Finished Woodworking Projects

The lowest grade I ever received was in 9th grade woodshop. The reason? I never finished my final project. I think my teacher was generous with the grade he gave me. At some point during the class, I got scared of the tools. I don' t know how I spent my class time--because I obviously never finished my stool. Wonder if my dad has that wood sitting around somewhere . . . ? Hope not.

In Cub Scouts, (at least at Andrew's level) some woodworking is mandatory. I approached it hesitantly, but am happy with the finished project, seen here. Nathan talked me through it from shopping at Lowes all the way to the last screws. Thanks to him--it's done. And thanks to Scouting, I can now say that my most recent woodworking project is a finished woodworking project.

The Webelos and Bears made this toolbox, the Wolves boys made bookends. Each boy got to use a handsaw, measuring tape, C-clamps, and screwdriver. I think they had fun, too. One finished toolbox left my home tonight, two in varying stages, and two more stayed here because they need quite a bit more work. Three sets of completed bookends and one more than halfway done. Oh how I love a finished project!

I also enjoyed working with wood growing up. My dad had a box of scrap wood that he let us use without needing to ask his permission. I don't remember making anything spectacular out of it--anything for that matter--just fun to use my imagination and my hands. I remember practicing driving nails and pulling them out again. Dad also made the wood blocks we played with, which he did keep for his grandchildren. They are a treasure.

I almost forgot the best part of this project. The first day I cut wood, Caitlin came out into the garage, watched me pushing and pulling the saw back and forth and burst into laughter, saying, "That's funny. A mom working?!"

Andrew stayed home from school today with a headache, so he spent several hours working in the garage with me getting wood ready for tonight. Hopefully he will remember that we were together the first time he used a saw, because he's my unfinished project.

(p.s. I am giving this toolbox away, but will be building another one with Andrew when he's a Bear. Thanks to grandparents, he already has tools to store in it).

Tradition: Father's and Sons

Last night was the Annual "Father's and Sons" campout for all the men at church. Andrew has attended since he was still in diapers, about 20 months old. A couple of years it was cancelled in Chicago, so he was very excited to get to go with Nathan this year. Didn't have a great photo op at the campsite, so here they are with the tent in our backyard.

More details if you want them: They cooked their own hot dogs and marshmallows and played "Capture the Flag." At the fireside they sang "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" and "Ye Elders of Israel," and read the First Vision from someone's I-phone. Andrew said, "It was a meeting about the Priesthood." Another boy from our scout troop went with them, and they ate breakfast burritos this morning. No one used their jackets or sweatshirts.



Girl's Night In: While they boys were away, here's how the girls did play. After a quick trip to Walgreen's for supplies, we painted lots of little nails pink. The girls watched Barbie: Princess and the Pauper while I worked on an upcoming sewing project.