Sydney Fuller

I’m a Second Grader!

It’s that time of year again. No more sleeping in, swimming all day or just goofing off with your friends. Today Sydney heads back to school as a second grader. She once again has a really small class with only 12 of her best buds. So we expect another great year with tons of special attention from the teacher and lots of learning. I asked Syd what kids she wanted in her class again and she said, “I like everyone but I MUST have Madison with me.” Happy to say best buddy Madison will be partnering in crime with her again this year. Second grade focus seems to be on spelling and book reports, ugh! Her teacher, Mrs. Hoffman, is big on field trips so this year should be a blast.

Sydney got up early to her alarm and was dressed and ready to go all on her own. She was moaning over the last few days about going to school. But, this morning she couldn’t hide the excitement for school.

Oops, the crazies have set in already. Looks like we’re headed towards another year with “Silly Sydney” as her classmates call her. Hope Mrs. Hoffman can handle this…

Mommy is usually pretty excited about the kids heading back to school. But, no so much this year. I am losing my babysitters. Guess its time for Mom to get back to work too.

Long Lake

Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten a lot of family hikes in this summer. So today we had an open schedule and it was a perfect chance to drive up to Brainard Lake Recreation Area for an open ended hike. The parking lot was packed upon our arrival as expected so the majority of the start was walking down the road to get to the proper trails. However, once on the trail, they know how to find their way.

The girls enjoy being out and quickly find their groove. This mostly involves running 10 feet and finding the next cool tree, flower, rock, or sign. Sydney had her camera once again and made everyone pose by various natural features. When we would take a picture of her doing something, she would respond with, “Now take one with my camera!”. Not sure what she is going to do with all these pictures but she really enjoys taking them.

About 1/4 mile up the trail, Sydney made the first comment asking about how long this was going to be. I was waiting for the comment but figured I would at least get 1/2 mile in! Turns out she had a rock in her shoe and wondered if she should tough it out or not.

We made it over to Long Lake and Kayla started whimpering. When you just learned how to use your legs, I guess you aren’t much in the mood to be carried for too long.

I usually get in trouble for not taking pictures of the Mom with her girls. So I made sure to do this early so I wouldn’t forget!

So we setup camp next to the lake and ate our picnic lunch. It was nice and cool at 10,500 feet and the breeze came and went. The girls and I jumped around on the rocks, which is a common pastime for us at any destination.

Baby hung out on the blanket and got into everything we left. At one point, she stood up without leaning on anything and took a step. Unfortunately, it was onto a rock and she fell but that seemed like the first sign that walking is coming. Soon.

Wyatt got hot and hid in the shade.

He was flying earlier so he might have been tired.

After about an hour of sun and fun, we packed back up and headed back towards where we came from. Sydney spotted a “rock garden” down the trail so we took a detour for some more climbing.

On the return trip, Reagan started dragging a bit but once she realized that I had Kayla on me and didn’t have room, she gave up and decided it was time to trail run. About dying to running in seconds….acting! So Kim fired up the video camera to get some footage of these runners-in-training.

Hopefully, more hikes to come in the future!

View a slide show of this event.

Water World

Summer is almost over!

Chores

Random Ice Cream Video

Babysitting the Sandoval Kids

Our friends approached us last week about possibly babysitting their two kids for 4 days while they got away to Vegas. To be truthful, I was a bit nervous about doing this. But the more we thought about it the more we were sure it was the right thing to do. Everyone needs time away. So we agreed. Just two days later Brandon finds out that he will need to fly to California during the first two days we had the kids. Ok, a little more nervous now. But I can do this. I planned out activities for each day to keep the kids occupied. Happy to say we made it through the week fine. No incidents. All kids left still friends.

My kids were already enrolled in the Sunflower Farm summer camp for this week. So we all decided it best if Madison and Ale attended the camp as well. It was their first summer camp so they were really excited. And my kids were super excited to have friends with them in camp.

Here is Sydney, Madison, Ale and Reagan on the last day of camp.

Each day they would tell me all about their adventures. How they would play in the water. Feed the animals. Have mud and shaving cream fights. Happy to say they all really enjoyed themselves. Here they are in front of the silo. It was filled with dried corn for the kids to romp around in.

They all took turns posing with their favorite lunch buddy the turtle.

And then the goats.

And one more group shot.

We also got the kids a bunch of silly bands to trade. It took them a good hour to decide who got which bands.

We also made a trip out to the theater. Always a good way to quiet the kids down and relax. Can you guess what movie they picked?

We lined the kids up in sleeping bags in the basement. Then we would unwind each night with a movie on the big screen and popcorn. The time not spent in camp or eating was spent in the pool. Madison and Ale went home about an hour ago. I think everyone in this house and theirs is gonna sleep good tonight.