8:55

This week was her third and final race of the cross-country season. She definitely went out in style. She ran the mile in 8:55.

9:48

Ok. So this kids is fast. This week she ran a mile in 9:48. I have problems running a 10 minute mile and she's running faster than that!

10:20

Lolo ran her first cross-country meet tonight. Her age group had the option of running 1 mile or 1.5 miles. She chose to run 1 mile. She has two more meets and will run the 1.5 at one of those. This was a true cross country meet. She has run 3 marathon miles. During those runs, they run on fairly flat courses. This course had some elevation changes. She said that the up-hills were dificult. She was still able to run 1 mile in 10:20. That is pretty good for such a little girl.

The Greatest Gift

I love my father
I really really do
But I can’t find the perfect
Gift for him from me to you!

I looked in all the stores for it
I really really did
But I couldn’t find the perfect
Gift with money from a kid.

I even tried a frog and I even
Tried a dove but today I learned
A lesson that the greatest gift
Is love!

Author Campbell L. Brown

Operation Relaxation!

After our onslaught of visitors over the summer and our camping trip, we were ready for a nice relaxed weekend. That is what we did this past weekend. We went out to breakfast and walked through a nice outdoor shopping center with our coffee on Saturday morning. While the boys napped Saturday afternoon, the girls went out to lunch and did some shopping for some wonderful mommy/daughter time.


Sunday we all slept in and just spent the day around the house. We did some cleaning. Aaron mowed the yard. We also started getting Aaron's stuff ready for him to leave next weekend. He leaves Saturday morning to go to Rhode Island for Officer Candidate School. It was nice to have a relaxing weekend with just the four of us.

Labor Day Weekend

Ok. I know I'm a week late on this one, but we have been busy.

Over Labor Day Weekend this year, we went camping and hiking near Winter Park, CO. Some friends of our went as well. We had 4 adults and 3 children camping in tents. It was really a lot of fun.

Our friends had been to the campsite before and suggested it. As it turns out, this site is not a marked site. It is just a spot in the woods. We went up the night before our friends and it took us a bit to find the site. The problem with finding it was that the road that was marked on the map didn't actually exist. We took a nice "scenic" drive up the mountain in th dark. Luckily we ran into some guys who were leaving the mountain. They explained that we were way out of the way of the campsite. To make a long story shorter, we eventually found the site and set up our tent via headlites.

The best part of the site was that it was completely in the woods but only about 5 miles from town. We were able to get up and go into town for a warm breakfast and coffee. After our breakfast we went back out to the campsite where we reset our tent (in a better location) and unpacked and organized. Then we went on a lovely 2 hour hike. By that time we were ready for lunch. We had lunch in town that day. We also walked around the shops in town. Our friends weren't scheduled to be to the camp until around 5 so we were just killing time. We were even lucky enough to get a nice nap in the woods.

That evening we went to a local rodeo. This was a very small town so the rodeo was definitely small town rodeo. It was reminiscent of the rodeos I went to every summer growing up. Campbell even got to participate in the rodeo. She entered the "Calf Scramble". The object of this was to pull a ribbon off of a calves tale. All children aged 6-12 were able to participate. They ended up with about 50 children vs. 10 calves. It was quite hillarious to see these kids running after the calves. Campbell did not get a ribbon but she got a t-shirt prize anyway. I guess she was just too cute in her skirt running after the calves. Her first words to us as she came back were "I got knocked over by a cow!"

The rest of the camping trip was your average camping trip. We made pancakes, eggs, and bacon over the fire (after roasting marshmallows for the first course of breakfast). Aaron made Frogmoore (sp?) stew over the fire during a rainstorm. We went on a couple more hikes. (We hiked about 16 miles over the course of the weekend.)

We had a fantastic weekend! Though we did learn that while all four of us can fit in a three man tent, we really do need a slightly larger tent to be a bit more comfortable. The kids had a great time and really enjoyed sleeping in the tent. It got very cool in the evenings but we came prepared for that so all was good. This is definitely something we will do again!

And it only took us a week to get everything put away!

There is something fishy going on here.

When we moved from SC a year and a half ago, we promised Lolo that we would get her a fish. Both kids have been asking for a puppy. In fact while we were in MT we went to the local fair. An old friend of mine put Caleb up to asking me to buy him one of the puppies they had for sale. I quickly shot down that request.

At this point Aaron and I are not interested in having pets. We did decide, though, that we could get the kids some fish. We went over to the local pet store this evening and picked out our new fish. Campbell chose a Betta fish. She named him "Snowball". Caleb got three small fish. He named them "Spaceship", "MonkeyMonkeyMonkey", and "Tree". Both kids are really excited about their fish.

Hopefully I don't jinx myself

I'm hoping I don't jinx us here, but I think we can say that we are done with diapers. Dubba-Do has been mostly in underwear for the last week or so. He has not had any accidents. Even when we have had him in pull-ups he asks to go potty. While on our camping trip this last weekend, he refused to use his pull-up. He insisted on "pee in the weeds". He has a hard time getting his pants down and/or getting up on the potty by himself; but he tells us whenever he needs to go so we are happy to help with the process. What a big boy he is!