Our New Family Addition

Meet TRIXIE!

It all started a couple of months ago when Spencer brought his class pet home for the weekend. It is a gerbil; which I was scared of. So I started doing some looking on the internet to see what kind of pet would be good for our family. We've done the dog thing several of times, but we don't have a fence and I am not in the mood to want to house train a dog. I don't like cats, snakes, gerbils or hamsters; birds live too long and are noisy, and fish don't interact. So what were we left with? From all the reading on the internet, I kept seeing that guinea pigs were the best for young children. Guinea pigs like attention and let young children hold them. At work one day Jamey's cube neighbor asked him if he knew anyone who wanted a guinea pig because he had a friend giving one away. Since we have spent the last 4 months or so talking about getting one, I told Jamey to get it. So here we go...

Jamey surprised the kids one night after work. (Actually March 16th, but I got pictures the next day- St. Patrick's Day hence all the green shirts.) They were beyond excited, Jamison a bit more. He is our little lover in this house. Jamison chose her name- after a character in Speed Racer; I thought from the triceratops in Toy Story 3, but was corrected. (Funny side note: When I was telling the kids that we needed to come up with a girl name, Spencer quickly said, we could name her Jamie because that is a girl name. Jamey was not impressed.) So far so good. The kids are taking good care of her, feeding and getting her water. They are getting more comfortable with reaching into her cage. Every morning Everett needs to go into the boys room to say good morning. It has been good- now if we could just figure out how to keep the smell down more...

Keystone

A couple of days after Jamey started his new job the beginning of February, he got a call from the HR person who told him that the company annually holds a Winterfest in Keystone. Because he was now an official employee (he was offered and accepted the job back in November, but we had to wait on the government to finalize a part of his clearance) he and his family were invited. We had 2 weeks notice, I had to move a client but we made it work! My parents very kindly took Everett for the weekend so that we didn't have to mess with a little one. The company paid for a condo for two nights, all food on Saturday and an activity of choice. We chose to do the snowmobiling excursion. We left mid afternoon on Friday February 25th, and drove up to the mountains. It was so beautiful with all the fresh snow. That night we just hung out and ate at a restaurant in the little square. The boys loved watching all the snowboarders and skiers walking around. The atmosphere at the restaurant was very fun too. Saturday morning we woke early to get some breakfast before meeting at the shuttle. We drove for quite a while to get to the snowmobiling mountain. After getting outfitted and given a few instructions on how to use the snowmobile we were off. I am not an adventurous person and they put me at the end of the long line of people. Jamison was having a hard time with his gloves and goggles, which at one point went flying off. I had to stop and grab them which made the whole group stop. Nice uh?

We followed in a line up to a higher spot, mostly getting accustom to how to work the snowmobile. They stopped at a place where they had us practicing passing people and going in a circle. Also up there they had two kid snowmobiles. Both boys jumped on and had a blast!

Then we broke into smaller groups and got our speed on, or at least that's what we were supposed to do. Again, I was nervous and Jamey complained later that I went too slow. He was the one who choose to be behind me. After it was all over Jamison told me that he was scared. I wish I had known while we were on the mountain! It made me feel better that I took it slow. When we got back to the condo we had a few hours to relax, take showers, watch some TV and play pool before dinner. Dinner was at the top of the mountain. We rode the gondola all way up. It was so far we even had to transfer gondolas to finish the trip up. Once up there we walked into a very fun restaurant. It was a fondue restaurant. We got the kids (and us) all hot chocolates.

Walked around looking at the place and taking some pictures.

The dinner was so good, but it was absolute torture to our children. Three hours of eating and cooking your meal is not fun with an eight and five year old. Again I was feeling so grateful that we left Everett at home. We decided that next year all of them might stay home! On Sunday morning we planned to go tubing, but the kids were ornery, so we just packed up and came home. There were parts that were so fun, others not so much, but we are so grateful to Itec for the weekend away.

Our First Bobcat

Last Thursday night Spencer was awarded his Bobcat award at our Blue & Gold banquet.

Shortly after he turned eight, I sat down with him to work on some of the things he needed to pass to achieve this award. It was a NIGHTMARE! He and I just clash sometimes and this day was one of them. After trying to get him to work with me- his constant 'I don't knows', and lack of participation I closed the book and said I was not touching it with him again. I feel as his mother I have lots of battles to fight with him that are important in life, ie: homework, reading, chores, personal grooming, but this I did not see as one of them. So I told Jamey that if Spencer was to get advancements and awards in scouting then it was going to be with him. My mother is a huge advocate for scouting and after telling her of experience she decided that she would help Spencer with the things that she could over the phone and whenever she saw him. It took three months, but with the help of my mom and Jamey, Spencer very proudly received his Bobcat award. As he was pinning the mother's pin on me I felt incompetent. There was almost nothing I did to help him. I am so grateful to mom and Jamey for their support to Spencer. I wish they could have been the ones recognized. I am proud of Spencer- I am watching him grow and mature. The last 3 months have been the most growth I have seen in him in his eight years. I am truly blessed to have his boy in my care.

First Field Trip

Last week a local group of home taught preschoolers were going on a field trip to the Fiske Planetarium at CU in Boulder. I got an email inviting Jamison and I to attend, so I changed an appointment I had, to make it work so we could be there. I have never had the chance to go to a planetarium, so I was just as excited as Jamison to see what one was all about. When we first got there we walked around a bit looking at all the displays, Jamison took a turn looking through the giant telescope before we watched Kids in Space. We walked into the doom shaped auditorium sat in our seats ready for the trip through space. I wish I could have gotten a picture of Jamison's face as the movie started- his mouth and eyes were so wide. He was hanging on the chair ready to blast off into space. The movie was made in the 70's, music and graphics, so I struggled a bit. However Jamison learned tons! Close to the end he was ready to be done and asked when we were going to get to go back to earth. We learned that on the moon since the gravity is much less than the earth Jamison only weights about 7 pounds and I only weight 34 pounds. I would love to have that be my real weight here! :) Jamison also decided that Neptune is his favorite planet because it is aquamarine, but he also very much liked Saturn and it's rings. Everett was also with us- but he was not a fan at all of being there. He did lots of screaming, I even broke the rules and gave him a fruit bar in the movie to try to keep him somewhat quiet. We had such a fun morning- I am thankful for friends who thought to invite us.