This first one I forgot to get a picture of the cover… but it’s called “We Don’t Eat Our Classmates.”  Hahaha!  Shout out to Kylene for telling us about it.

Every time I mowed this summer, I noticed a little bit of rock in the front yard (near the road) sticking out of the grass.  It’s not bothersome to mow over, since it’s very low, but I started to wish grass would actually start growing there and realized that I would need to get rid of that rock in order for that to happen.  So.  I dug it up.  Which was actually TWO large chunks of asphalt! No wonder the grass wouldn’t grow there!

Whoa.

It’s October.  Eeeks!

Instead of getting overwhelmed with how long it has been since I posted regularly, I’m going to simply post a picture every weekday instead of writing.  And if I have time to sit down and write more about each picture I will, but if not, then I’ll just slap a picture up here.  Easy peasy.  Nothing like setting my standard nice and low to get myself back into the swing of things, right?  😉

So, here we go!  Today was crazy hair day for Homecoming week!

She has been anxiously awaiting her turn to get to go to school for months and months… and today was the day!

Chloe & I walked her into her classroom and helped her hang up her backpack and find her name, and then I whispered, “Ok, Maddie, I’m going to go now.  Ok?”  And without even looking up or any hesitation, she said, “Ok, Mom!  Bye!”

As I was walking back to the car with Chloe–noticing that no other parents were even remotely close to leaving their child, I expressed my concern that maybe we should have stayed longer.  She simply said, “No Mom.  She was SO ready.  She won’t even notice you’re gone.”

Truth.

Part Two:  (Monday)

Monday morning we decided to go on a hike up the mountain near our condo called McCullough Gulch.  Up here in the mountains it is quite chilly in the early morning (35 degrees at 6:00 am) so we wanted to be on our way up the trail by 7:00.  The full trail was around 2 miles to complete the lower part of the trail (called McCullough Gulch lower), and then of course, 2 miles back…  We started off all together as a big group.

As the hike continued, and got more intense small groups decided to turn around and head back.  There were only a handful of people that made it all the way up and back.  The altitude change proved to be quite challenging.  Stephanie did buy a can of oxygen to help those who just couldn’t catch their breath.  Chloe turned back first with Grandma Patsy, then I came back with Allison and Kailynn, then Stephanie came back with Logan, Josiah and Jennifer, and Kieren, Kristen, Jeremy and Ryan made it to the top.  (Tim, Maddie, Levi and Earl stayed back home)

I was really impressed with Josiah.  He made it a lot further than I expected him to.  I was nervous he might overdo it because he so desperately wanted to keep up with the big boys, but he actually did it!

After everyone made it back from the hike we cleaned up and made our way into Breckenridge again to ride the Gondala up the mountain.  It was a 13 min ride to the top–with 2 stops where you could get off if you wanted to along the way.  We rode it to the top and got off to look around for a bit then hopped back on and rode it back down.  Tim was worried that Levi would cry but he actually seemed to enjoy it!  For the most part it stayed pretty close to the ground so it wasn’t crazy scary.

After the Gondala we broke into smaller groups to do different things.  We made our way back to the Condo to get the Littles down for naps and others went to lunch while others shopped again.  At the Condo the kids enjoyed having a heated pool in the building so we made a point to try and get down there every day–it was the absolute highlight of Maddie and Levi’s day.