Fourth of July Celebration

For the Fourth of July we took a little family getaway up to the mountains. We stayed in timeshare/hotel in Fraser, CO. We had a great time fishing, swimming, and just spending time together as a family. One highlight for the boys was the continental breakfast each morning. The other highlight was the six rainbow trout fish that they caught. One of Carter's was even 15 inches! I enjoyed being in the outdoors and some relaxing time reading.

We also went to the local rodeo in Granby, followed by a great fireworks show. On Sunday we attended a local branch and then drove around Rocky Mountain National Park. It was beautiful! The elevation was so high that we could hardly believe that we were seeing snow right out our window in July! We were also able to see a lot of wildlife - moose, elk, and bighorn sheep. The Fourth of July brought more fun when we took the kids to the Granby parade. They brought in the full fire department, hoses and all, and threw out candy to the boys. It was fun to be in a small city and take in all the festivities including a BBQ in the park after the parade. We made it home later that day just in time to do our own fireworks. Below are the pictures from our fun trip.

Tanner's big accomplishment

Tanner's big accomplishment recently is that he is now potty trained! We made it into big boy underwear before the baby will be born. Tanner was our easiest child to potty train. He knew what it was about from the very beginning, the rewards of M&M's, Skittles, and Taffy helped as well. Another motivator for Tanner is that he has a Cars Potty Seat that he gets to sit on.

I know that some have a one day potty training method that they do, but that has never worked for our kids. It is a several month process to reach the point where they rarely have accidents, but then they are potty trained for good. We start with the little rewards like candy each time and then work our way up into bigger rewards. For keeping his big boy underwear dry for a week Tanner got a Leakless Car from Cars and for keeping them dry for a week he earned the Cars 2 shirt that he is wearing. As a reward for good behavior for all the boys we took them to Cars 2 the weekend that it opened. Above, Tanner is so excited to be at the greatly anticipated movie!

Carter - awards/end of school year

Carter was very busy at the end of the school year, so busy in fact, that we decided to take a season off from soccer. Besides his baptism and starting cub scouts, Carter was involved in Chess club. This ran for most of the school year once a week after school. Carter has become a better chess player and was able to participate in several competitions. The first competitions were very intimidating for him, but things seemed to improve with each one. His last competition was on the district level. Lamont spent the day with him at the competition. It was a good learning experience for Carter and he placed in the middle of his age group. He was very proud of the participation trophy that he was able to bring home.

During the end of the school year, Carter was also named Aurora Scholar. This came as a surprise to us, but of course we are very proud of him. The city of Aurora picks one child per grade at each school in the city of Aurora to receive this award. Carter represented the 2nd graders from Challenge School. Unfortunately, we were out of town when this award was to be presented to him by the city mayor and council, so it was presented to him at a later date from his principal and vice-principal.

Carter had a great finish to the school year. Here he is with his teacher Ms. Blakeslee. She is an awesome teacher that gets right down on level with the kids. She has been his teacher for the past two years. I know that I can speak for Carter when I say that she will be greatly missed this next year.