Madison's Camping Trip

Madison went to  Pine Lake in Eldora for her trip with Greg.  They enjoyed walking the trail that goes by the lake.  The canoe rental place was out of business so she was not able to canoe.

What a beautiful breakfast casserole.

Since they were not able to go canoeing they went to twister park in Eldora to play on Saturday morning.  After playing they went to Waterloo to the Phelps Youth Pavilion.  She really enjoyed playing at the pavilion.  There was a room that was based on books.

The Necklace and Tall Chief  were two of the books they had activities for.  She was able to string beads to make a necklace and then Tall Chief is about an Indian princess who becomes a famous ballet dancer so she is dressed up for that.
She really enjoyed her trip, but was tired when she got home.

Madison's Birthday

We celebrated Madison's ninth birthday on Friday August 12th.  She really wanted to have baked zitti for dinner and a spice cake with mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert.  She got an ipod speaker that also included an alarm clock and radio.  A picture of a ballet dancer and a suncatcher scratch art kit. 

Jonathan's Capming Trip

This year Jonathan went to Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt.  He really wanted to go canoeing and this was a great place to do it.  While he was there a couple let him use their fishing pole.  They go to Chichaqua bottoms to catch bait and then come to Marshalltown to the Iowa River to catch catfish.  Jonathan was able to catch a fish.

Here he is helping to get a fire ready for to cook dinner and just relaxing.

They found lots of frogs on this trip.  On Saturday they enjoyed canoeing for a while.

After canoeing they went to Train land USA and looked at the model trains.

They also stopped at a Geo cache.  Here he is going through the cache to find something to trade.

He really enjoyed spending the time with his dad and seeing the model trains.

The First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for the kids.  I met the day with mixed emotions.  I was more than ready for them to go back to school, yet I had to admit that they were growing up.

Madison started middle school today and is in fifth grade.  She decided she needed new clothes because she was no longer in elementary and needed to look like she belonged in middle school.  She is so tiny that this was not an easy task.  I stuck with the nice capri/ shorts and button up tops as much as possible.  In middle school they require all the students to carry trapper keepers of some sort.  Madison got a nice one for her birthday from my parents.  It is purple and has a shoulder strap for her to carry it.  I have learned from others that this is essential in helping carry the trapper and books to class.  Well her trapper is as big as she is and weighs about as much as well.  She also gets to experience changing for P.E. class.  She is not looking forward to this.  She said thankfully they didn't have to change today.  She is also learning to play flute for band.  This is one thing she is really looking forward to.

Jonathan is in second grade this year.  In a school that is k-2 he is now one of the "top dogs" in the school.  He hasn't really said much about school so I really don't know how he is feeling about it.  He teacher is really great and someone I would love to learn from. 

Andrew started kindergarten this year.  Boy how time flies.  I am excited to get the chance to see him learn and grow this year.  By time he leaves kindergarten he will be reading and doing basic math.  Hopefully his speech will be better as well as the problems with his fine motor development. 

Here they all are ready to leave for the first day of school.

Colorado Tip Days 4&5

On day four of our trip we headed for home.  We opted for shorter drive so we headed back to North Platte.  We took the kids to Cody Park where they have a couple of locomotives on display. They have a UP diesel and a UP Challenger steam engine.  You are able to walk through the trains and sit in the locomotives themselves.  This really got the kids excited.

Day 5 we spent driving from North Platte to home.  It took us what seemed like forever.  We spent the better part of 5 days in the car and home never felt so good.

Colorado Trip Day 3

On day three of our trip we spent the morning at Rockey Mountain National Park.  Went hiking and saw some amazing scenery.  While we were hiking around bear lake we were lucky enough to spot a moose taking a swim in the lake.  The kids were really excited to see it.  We also took a drive on Trail Ridge Road.  I didn't enjoy being able to look out my window and seeing the side of the mountain below me.  I did much better going back down because the mountain was next to me.  On this drive we took the kids up above tree line.  They were also able to play in some snow.  For them snow in July is unheard of.  They really enjoyed it. 

This is the only time I would let me children play in snow in shorts and t-shirts.  After we left the park we went to Estes Park for the memorial service for Greg's Grandmother.  We were really tired by the time we got back to our hotel in Fort Collins that night.  The kids swam for awhile then we called it a day.

Colorado Trip Days 1&2

We recently had a really fast trip to Colorado.  Greg's grandmother passed away and we decided to go as a family to Estes Park for the service.  The trip took us five days, two days to get there, one day there and then two days back.  Because this was such a long trip we thought we would make it as fun as possible for the kids.  Not to mention this is the longest they have ever been in the car before.  On day one we left our home in Gladbrook and headed for North Platte Nebraska.  It took all day to drive there.  We left about 8 and got there by dinner time.  So all we did on day one was drive.  Thankfully we were staying in hotels and we made sure to reserve rooms at ones that had pools so the kids could have some time to relax. 
On day two we had a much shorter drive so we spent time in the morning at the Golden Spike Tower.  This is a look out tower where you can look at the world's largest train yard.  What better place is there for rail fans!  The kids really enjoyed watching all the trains.

These are flags below us.  We are on the open air deck and there is still another closed deck above us.  One of the kids took this picture to show how high up we were.  The kids really have fun looking for Geo Caches.  While at the tower we started a two part cache.  There were things on the closed deck that you needed to count to get the location of the second part of the cache.  The second part took us to one of the fire stations in North Platte.  When we got there they were working with the National Guard to do a practice drill.  We were able to find the cache and then spent time watching the fire department do their thing.  The Fire Marshall came over and talked to us and explained what was going on.  Then we were asked to back up a little because they needed to pull in their ladder truck.  Boy was Andrew excited to see this.  Then they raised the ladder to put their  hoses away properly.  One of the fire fighters came and talked to us and then invited the kids to look at the truck and sit in it.  By this point Andrew was so excited I thought he would float away.  They were really great about talking to the kids and making us feel welcome at the station, even in the middle of a training day.  The fire fighter also gave the kids badges and post it notes and a magnet to remember their visit.

After our stop at the fire station we grab lunch and headed for Fort Collins.  We got their about dinner time so it was about half the drive as the day before.