There has been a lot going on this summer that required individual posts, so I just gathered all The Bits into one LOOOOOOONG Bits. Acutally, it's not that long. OK. It is. It's The Summer 2017 Bits!
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| Sometimes difficult to get myself hyped for "optional" activities when I have so many things that are "must dos" that I have to get going for. I am grateful for a few things on the calendar this summer that almost felt like a "must do," so I made sure to go, but in the end were so much fun and allowed me time with awesome ladies to recharge my friendship battery. Like dinner with my Ragnar team to plan the race, Incline mornings and the baby shower for my friend Ramona, where we played a cute game to the effect of "did she do it or did he do it?" A fact about the couple was shared, and we voted on who the fact was about with these chocolate lips and mustache. It was one I hadn't played before! |
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| Tommy's best friend from kindergarten, Kate, moved away last summer, but came back to Colorado for a visit in June. It was fun to see them reconnect, even if it took awhile for them to warm back up into their old friendly comfort zone. |
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| Summer cuts! |
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| Stormy skies. |
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| Luke attended a great STEM Cub Scout Day Camp at the Space Discovery Center! |
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| Backyard Movie Night for Josh and his cute bunch of pals. He hates going too long without seeing them! |
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| Josh and Luke spent a fun-filled day with their buddies, Jack and Sam Cloninger. So grateful for their awesome mom, Heather, and her help breaking up the summer boredom with some hilarity! |
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| The boys each got to pick one summer movie to go see--on me. There were so many good ones, but we had to make some choices so we didn't break the bank! Tommy chose Despicable Me 3. Bob joined us, too, but fortunately, because he is a Minion, he was free. |
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| Rainbow at sunset. |
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| Zac had his Patriarchal Blessing given at the beginning of July. It was beautiful and wonderfully his, and it was a gift for Adam and I to witness it. |
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| I love this guy and the kid who still lives inside him. |
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| Home and tagged from our travels! |
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| I love Colorado's monsoon season. It's my favorite! |
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| Tommy and I took a beautiful hike on the Lovell Trail with our friend, MaryLynn Falkenstein--even at 70, she is the queen of hiking! She showed Tommy a mama aspen so big it took both of them to get their arms around it, a quartz quarry and the view of Pike's Peak. |
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| Incline Morning #2 for the summer! I don't love getting up early, but I love getting it done with awesome ladies! The yolk-yellow sunrise was my favorite thing of all the beautiful things I saw on this visit. |
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| Zac attended a week-long STEM camp at UCCS sponsored by Northup Grumman. His group and their lessons focused on cyber security. Zac loved that his teacher continuously clarified, "Now, I'm going to show you how to do this ONLY because hackers do it and you have to know in order to fight against it." Haha! Their final project was to take a computer that had been all messed up with viruses and spyware and fix it. Pretty cool for a free camp! |
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| We told Tommy that he could get a new hamster when we returned from our summer trip, and he held us to it! This is Luna (yes, we had Daisy, then Daisy Two, and now we have Luna--which happens to be the name of Ben's old rat from when he was 8, apparently we aren't too creative with names around here!). Maybe this Luna will have better luck than her rodent predecessors. Not to be left out of pet ownership, Luke picked out this pretty betta fish--Fred Fish. |
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| Born of Boredom: Ben |
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| Adam was called in to sub on a friend's softball team one night. Although the team lost both of their doubleheader games, he had a great time reliving his Little League glory days! |
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| Born of Boredom: Luke |
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| Luke and his buddy, Ashton, spent a week at School in the Woods learning all about survival skills during their Survivor Camp. Luke loved being out at SITW again and hanging out with Ashton, plus, he can now tell you three ways to get water if you are lost in the wilderness. |
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| Incline Morning #3! Hiking those steep stairs fuels the body, but time with these awesome ladies fuels the soul! The lifting mist from the valley below was my favorite thing of all the beautiful things I saw on this visit. |
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| We had a lot of fun petsitting Chewy and Bella for a week this summer! The boys all miss these two cute pups and would like them to come back. |
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| A bird built a little nest in our hanging planter and hatched her three little baby birds. |
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| It was so neat to witness them go from eggs to bald babies to fuzzy babies, and then, one morning, to find the nest empty. The night before they all flew on, one was startled out when we watered the plant (which we had been doing oh, so carefully), but it wasn't fully flying yet and was stuck on the ground. So we carefully captured it with gloves on and put it back in so it wouldn't fall victim to the neighborhood fox or cats. The next day they had all found their wings. |
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| Incline Morning #4! Ben joined us and killed it up there in 29 minutes and 57 seconds. Oye! The pink-orange freckled dawn light on the stairs was my favorite of the beautiful things I saw on this visit. |
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| Before and after! Josh is the latest Conlin to fall victim to orthodontia. He does look so cute and grown up though! It was pretty awesome that Baskin-Robbins 31 Day fell on the same day his braces went on--$1.50 scoops! |
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| Luke, Tommy and I putting in some sweat equity at our school weeding the verges and cutting back trees. |
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| Luke got some crazy bad stomach bug. We almost had to take him in for fluids when he finally stopped throwing up. Thankfully, he was the only victim of this germ--it was a doozie! |
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| All checked in and ready for their Junior and Freshman years of high school! I'm just fine! No, really! I'm fine. Completely fine.... Totally...fi.... Waaaaaaaaaahhhh! |
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| And this one is set for 7th! Stop growing up, guys! Now. I mean it! |
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| It's nearly time for me to go back to school, too! PTO Pres: year 2! And I finally feel like I know what I'm doing. Here's the pretty rainbow printing, all ready for our back-to-school meet-the-teacher Ice Cream Social! |
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| Born of Boredom: Zac. |
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| The last Incline Morning (#5) of this summer. I am so grateful for my friend Diana (far right) for planning these, because there is no way I'd be up before dawn on my own (4:40am for a 5:15 meet-up) to knock out these workouts before the heat of the day. I think it has made a huge difference for my Ascent training! I am also grateful for all the quality women I've had the chance to crush it with on the way up and talk with on the way down. These hike/runs have been a highlight of my summer! |
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| Ben spent three days at the RHS XC Altitude Camp and came home happy, hungry and talking all-things-running nonstop! Obviously he was inspired. It sounds like he's got an amazing group of upperclassmen mentors to lean on. I know it is going to be every bit as great of a season as he dreamed of for the last year, knowing this was coming. I am thrilled for him! |
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| Born of Boredom: Tommy |
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| Ice Cream Social success! The first of the big PTO events of the year is done. Unfortunately, I was so busy, I forgot to take pictures of Luke and Tommy in their classrooms, but they have great teachers and I know it is going to be a great year! |
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| Born of Boredom: Josh |
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| We spent an enjoyable night catching up with some of our first Colorado friends. We thought we'd try to get a group picture of the 20 kids among us, but it would have been like herding cats, so instead we tried to recapture the 1990's high school dance group pose. I think we're out of practice. Ha! |
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| Zac, Josh and Adam attended an Elders' Quorum activity called "Bros, Brats and Bullets." Adam and I aren't really gun people, we don't own one, nor have we ever had a lot of interest in them, so our boys' gun exposure has mostly been through Scouting, but all three had a great time firing several different types of guns and hanging out with some great guys from the ward. They learned a lot about gun use and safety, and we had some good talks about the purpose of gun ownership and responsibility. |
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| Ben spent the last Saturday of summer break celebrating his friends' Emma and Hailey's August birthdays. |
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| We love our new park and the great splash pad there. It would have been a nice way to cool off, but we rode our bikes down to the park and arrived just before the afternoon clouds rolled in, so it wasn't hot anymore. That just meant we had to do a lot of running and chasing to stay warm! I'm thankful for Adam, who took some pictures to prove I love to get in there and play too, and am not always just on the other end of the camera! |
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| It was a big Sunday for these handsome guys! Zac gave an amazing talk during our sacrament meeting about the High Adventure activity (shared in that post), Josh was given his first leadership role as Second Counselor in the Deacons' Quorum Presidency, and Ben spoke to ALL the youth of the stake about examples of strong youth in the Book of Mormon during a stake youth fireside. Way to be, Conlin boys! |
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