Sarah's Blog

After 3 solid days of storms and grey skies, Monday brought blue skies and sunshine and warmer temperatures. I am thankful. We don't take too kindly to grey weather around here. We love our Colorado blue sky days!

Well, since Friday, the temperatures have dropped into the 40's (as highs) and we have gotten some crazy weather. Lots of thunder and lightening, lots of hail, lots of rain, some sleet, and snow at least to about 10,500 ft. We live at 9750 ft., so we don't have accumulation on the ground for the most part. We do have piles of "snow" from all the sleet and hail.

It has only been 2 months since we had significant snowfall and even snow on the ground! We are sad that summer seems to be over, but I think it will only last for a little while, and then summer will be back.

This is early even for here. Last year, though, we did have snow on the peaks on August 23rd., so August 15th is early. It is very cold, and very yucky outside. It has not stopped the gloominess for a solid 2 days and we're now going on 3. We are forecasted to not get better weather until tomorrow.

Oh well, several people in our family aren't feeling that great anyway, so we are having a great weekend relaxing, cleaning the house, playing the Wii, and getting projects done around the house. I am on a roll, which usually happens before I switch gears to something else (in this case school)

I'll post some pictures of the crazy weather soon.

Andrew has been saving up since the release of Alien Defeat in February to buy a Wii. He is SO excited that today, with all his birthday money collected, he had JUST enough money to buy one! He called our local Target, and they had many in stock, so after he asked very nicely, we all got in the car and drove to Target.

They now have it set up, and are playing until bedtime.

Good job, Andrew!

Can you see the excitement on his face?

What Andrew likes... (in no particular order)
• computer
• programming
• video games, Mario, Battlefront, Halo, etc.
• LEGOS
• anything sweet
• card games or board games
• Star Trek
• camouflage
• applesauce
• his lounge pants

Today our baby turns 13! He is growing up and has been looking forward to this day for a long time. We are doing family activities today and his big swimming party is tomorrow. Now off to get breakfast and to hide presents for his present hunt!

Breakfast began with a Mom-mom & Pop-pop treat.

Andrew was very excited about his gifts. He got several LEGO sets, $50 in one dollar bills (to add to his savings for his Wii), and Battlefront Mac game. He played Battlefront all afternoon. :)

Andrew chose a cherry pie for his birthday dessert. It was still warm, and he didn't want wax in his pie from melted candles, so we stuck them around the outside of the pan. He also commented that he had a lot of candles.

I guess he's getting old. :)

For Breckenridge, we have had yucky weather. It was overcast and humid for the last 3 days! We don't understand humidity here because it only happens once in a blue moon. Anyway, we spent the time with Mom-mom & Pop-pop going to the museums in town. My parents went on a cemetery tour to learn some history of Breckenridge. On Saturday, we all went on a mine tour and yesterday, the Frisco museum park which had multiple old buildings moved to one spot displaying different things from the history of the area. Very interesting.

The girls were excited because Pop-pop made them shelves for their stuffed animals, and they got to paint them yesterday. Today we hang them! They have been wanting these shelves for a long time, but mommy never got around to doing them. :)

The girls have enjoyed having Pop-pop around to get piggy-back and horsy rides from.

I have not been updating my blog as I had hoped, but I am finally getting the pictures off my camera for the last 2 weeks. Please make sure to scroll down below and see the pictures I've added for Camp Big Red, fountains, zoo, etc. Thanks!

We have lived in Breckenridge for over 5 years now, and really haven't explored so many parts of the town we live in. We have hiked all around here, but we haven't done the in town things, like the museums. So, with my parents coming in town for Andrew's birthday, we are taking advantage of the museums we have right in our own back yard. Today we went to a few (but they were closed), but we made a plan for the weekend. Tomorrow we are going to try to do at least 1 mine tour in town where we can even pan for gold.

Should be fun!

Anna shares Mom-mom's love of puzzles. Anna, Mom-mom and Andrew worked on the Star Wars puzzle, and completed it in record time!

Pictures from the Washington Mine tour...

She has been so funny about these grasshoppers. She took care of this little guy for a VERY long time. She even fed it some grass, and it grabbed it with its little hands and put it in its mouth! Amazing.

We are trying to start school one of these days, and this year we are going to study flying creatures using Jeannie Fulbright's (Apologia) Exploring Creation with Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. We are excited to begin, but summer is too nice to do much inside book stuff. Our dilemma here, though, is that we only have flying creatures when there isn't snow. And there is snow about 8+ months of the year. So, I started gathering supplies and putting up bird feeders. We have had so much fun watching the birds this week. They have eaten almost all of the seed in both feeders and made a huge mess of our porch. They don't clean up after themselves very well. Oh well, we have had many beautiful visitors that we can admire as we eat our breakfast. The children have tried to identify the types of birds we have using various field guides.

We are looking forward to getting back into school full swing in the next week or so.

Just in time to go on vacation for almost 3 weeks in September!!! (I bet you'll never guess where we are going)

The girls and I have been having fun this summer yard sale-ing together. We have gotten some great deals, and the girls are able to buy things they want with their own money. They have even learned some bargaining skills. We all look forward to our time together a couple of Saturday's a month.

A couple of weeks ago, the days hunt was for snow shoes. I want to go snowshoeing as a family this winter, but to outfit a family of 8 can get pricey. We aren't sure we will like it, so I thought yard sales would be a great place to start. Within 15 minutes (at the first 2 yard sales we went to), I bought 6 pairs of snow shoes for $5 a piece! Someone even commented in a negative tone, "Weren't you at the LAST yard sale buying snowshoes?! Why do you need MORE!" Most of them are on the larger size (for adults), but my little children will only get bigger, and my soon-to-be teenager isn't that much smaller than myself! We are going to go out tomorrow and we are going to hunt for children's snow shoes.

It has been fun giving stuff away, selling stuff, and finding things really cheap that we can use. I really am getting rid of more than I've acquired, which is good.

"...poop is not." - Jacob

Straight from the mouth of a 2 year old who always has a lot to say. He makes me laugh often.

This week is filled with another "camp". "Music Maestros!" is an introduction to grade school children to different instrument, rhythm, and music. It is a new (at least to me) and "free" camp available in our community. This is the 4th straight week of VBS's, camp, and music camp. We participated in the last 2. Four in a row was a bit much for us.

So far, the girls are enjoying it.

Bill was asked to speak at a satellite iPhone Dev Camp in Denver on Saturday. He took Andrew with him and made lots of good contacts and enjoyed the time with Andrew as well as other iPhone developers.

While they were at the Dev Camp, I took the rest of the kids to the zoo and to play in the fountains. Our air conditioner in our car has been broken for many months now, and hasn't been fixed because we never need it unless we go to Denver (and we don't think about it unless we go to Denver, and then it's too late). Well, it's been hovering around 100F this week, and Saturday was no different. So, we went to the zoo in the morning since it was a tad cooler then... only 95F :) followed by the city park fountains next door.

What a great way to spend a hot day outside!

Isabel fell asleep at Home Depot!

Last week the kids had a great week at Camp Big Red. This year the camp had a racing theme and they made a go cart throughout the week to race on the final night. The teams earned tickets by winning games to buy stuff to decorate their car. They were able to "buy" paint and a police light. The Jr. High groups started from scratch and built the cars from the ground up. The pre-schoolers got to decorate an already built car.