Pictures From Our Fourth

Nala enjoying ice for the first time









Carter making frog legs














Connor hanging out and waiting for the burgers he made to be cooked









Bob and Nala snuggling at the fireworks






Con and Cart snuggling at the fireworks

Connor's Birthday

Con turned 12 this week. OMGosh, where did the time go? I blink and another year goes by. He is taller than me now. He is wearing a size 101/2 men's shoe. My baby is no longer a baby :) Connor got an XBOX for his birthday. He has been enjoying the Halo game a little too much, ha ha. Tuesday was our weekly park day with the homeschool group I started. We went to Exploration Park and taught the kids in our group how to letterbox. The box was a good hike up a baby mountain. It is one of our friends birthday this week as well so we shared cupcakes. That night we went to Memphis BBQ and Con stuffed himself full of biscuits and bbq. This weekend he is having some of his neighborhood buddies spend the night.

Leid Science Center

Wow, we were busy last week. Two park days, book club and the Science Center. Next week will be even crazier with Con's birthday :)
Look for more pictures soon! Click on these to make them enlarge.

Mickeys New Service Dog

Carter decided that Mickey needs a helper dog too. Build-a-Bear to the rescue again. I absolutely love the accessories that they have, including the dog cape and wheelchair. I crocheted the leash (yup, I did!)

Extreme Dodge Ball

Sorry for the down time lately. Between Carters staph infection (which is responding very well to all the antibiotics BTW) and the life changing decisions (don't want to say anything conclusive on this just yet ;) ) we have going on for the family, I just have not had the time. Anyway, we seem to playing a lot lately. The weather here is so beautiful and we have been trying to get outside and enjoy it before the heat comes. We had a lot of fun with our friends at Skymania on Friday. This is Connor's favorite homeschool event each month. The kids play dodge ball on huge trampolines. The moms hang out and talk on the sidelines. Carter likes to get up on the trampolines and be bounced by all the kids. It worked out this time that everyone that was on his team this time is also in one of our homeschool groups so I thought I would post it for all the kids to enjoy :) The quality is not that great because I have to reduce it so much for the blog.

The Boys Are Going Back to School!!!

This was an April Fools Joke people....

We are all so thrilled. It is rare to have one kid accepted into this program, but to have both boys accepted is a HUGE honor for our family! The boys will start school this summer at the Sandou Theatrical Circus School. Carter is hoping to train as a master elephant pooper scooper. Connor is aspiring to be the head trapeze boy. He really wants to earn his tights quickly. In order to pay for their schooling, I have taken on a teaching position with the school. I will be training the clowns to juggle and get in and out of the car. I was hired because of my immense experience in in this area. We are so happy and proud of our boys!



If you didn't guess already, April Fools!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Those tricky leprechauns somehow turned all the water in our faucets green this AM! The toilets flushed green water, too! It was a big mystery for a while but then the boys started to figure bits and pieces of it out. They guessed that the Leprechauns must have put green paint or something in the faucets. After a lot of fun and teasing I brought out the fizzy tablets from Steve Spangler that does this. They had fun mixing the colors...Carter did not know that yellow and blue make green...I just assumed he learned that in Kindergarten (maybe he was absent that day, lol). Connor remembered back to 4th grade where I taught him chromatography and made black with the primary colors. Thank you Leprechauns for the fun color reminder and for leaving us extra fizzy tabs to play with! ;)

Letterboxing at Red Rock

We braved the wind, rain, cold and snow (yes, Vegas got a light dusting in the mountains last night) to go out letterboxing again today. This picture looks like a painting doesn't it? This one shows the snow a little better. Notice the signature desert pink sky. Sometimes I am in such awe of the desert beauty. Because I have grown up in the desert my whole life (minus a few years on the East Coast that I don't remember well), I often neglect to look at just how marvelous it can be.














We picked Red Rock Canyon because there a several boxes out there and it was a far enough drive to be considered an "adventure". We first looked for one at Calico Basin which is just outside of Red Rock. As we did on Thursday, Carter stayed in the car with me. Bob is much tougher than me :) so he took Connor up to look for it. After more than an hour I was about to send the rangers up after them. I was scared to death that something happened to them. Of course, they find it hilarious that I thought something terrible could happen to them on this 'bunny hill', WHATEVER! Here they are hiking up for the first box.

The second box was not successful either. This one we are pretty sure is 'missing'. I contacted the owner of the box so that they can check on it. There was snow patches all over the ground on this trail. Sorry, no picture of that one.


Thankfully our last box was a success and what was great about this one was that 95% of the trail was accessible so Carter got to hike on this one with us. The wind had let up and we had a great little family hike.

Bob is hooked on this which was a big surprise to us all. He even suggested that we buy a hiking backpack with a compass and more supplies so that we can hunt for harder ones.


There are 4-5 boxes out at Calico Basin so we plan to go back there in a few weeks and hunt for all the ones in the area. There is a nice little picnic area right at the bottom of the mountain. If any of our friends are up for joining us, let me know. It would be more fun with some friends. We can grill at the bottom and have another fantastic family day.

Letterboxing and Chuckwalla!

We went today to find our first letterbox today. We went to the Hoover Dam to find Stephanie's box. Letter boxing is a little like treasure hunting. Think National Treasure meets boy scouting project and you will have the gist of it. It is an English tradition that began in the 1800's. Carter was able to stay in the car with my mom while Connor and I went hunting for it. We had an absolute blast and found it after a little while. We brought it back to the car for Carter to stamp.



After we found the box, Connor saw a big "lizard".I thought it was a gila monster. But when we got home Connor researched it and found out that it is actually a chuckwalla . So, we watched him (her?) for awhile before heading back home. It was HUGE!


The weather was beautiful and it was a perfect day.

Park Days

Here are some pictures of the boys enjoying the great weather lately.

C2 and his friend A trade pokemon cards. It was VERY windy today.

C1 and his friends discover the simple joy of climbing a tree.

C1 on his beloved rip stick which is a skateboard with two wheels. These things are very hard to balance on and he has earned a lot of scrapes and bruises on this :( I hate it.
It is nice to see him out of his chair everyone once in a while :)

German Beer Garden

So, when we last met, I promised a picture of us at the Hofbraus House. Here is it. I like this one because it hides how ridiculously fat I am getting. We are there with our good friends and neighbors. The boys got to try German food, which they loved, C1 had a huge sausage and C2 had some sort of noodles. The grown ups had lots of beer. C2 learned that a glass is called a stein and we all had a great time raising them to the music!