In January the kids played with their new Christmas toys.
In February our sweet Fry cat passed away, we attended Tyler's "rock concert," (a concert all about rocks), the kids had a fun Valentine's Day, we took a trip to the zoo, and Oscar and I got Covid.
In March I took the kids to "Jurassic Quest" on my birthday, and Allison celebrated 101 days at school by dressing up as a dalmatian.
Click here to read more about January/February/March
In February we also took a trip to Houston to celebrate Oscar and my anniversary - our 17th on the 17th! We visited the Space Center, the aquarium, the children's museum, and the science museum. Read more in Houston Trip Part I.
We also played at Pleasure Pier in Galveston, the Kemah Boardwalk, and the Houston Zoo. Read more in Houston Trip Part II.
In late March we took a trip to Utah for the kids' spring break. On the way there we stopped at Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, visited a friend of mine in Montrose, toured around beautiful Colorado National Monument, and stopped at the Dinosaur Museum in Fruit. Read more in Utah Trip: Part I - Western Colorado.
Utah got something like 24 inches of snow while we were there. So much for "spring" break! The kids played on the snow hill in grandpa's backyard, we met up with most of their Utah cousins at Seaquest, Oscar and I got fish pedicures, we had dinner and games at Julia's, and once we felt safe on the roads we drove down to Mike's house to go bowling and play glowgolf with Jinks cousins. Read more in Utah Trip: Part II - Snow and Sea.
And for the last part of our trip we visited the Ogden dinosaur park, spent several hours at a giant indoor play area with big slides even I could do, went back to the bowling alley with Jinks cousins for half price day in their arcade, visited the Draper aquarium, visited the church history museum, went to the Bountiful temple, celebrated Grandma Flinders' birthday, and finally got a nice enough day to play outside. Mike taught us how to play pickleball in between sessions of Saturday's General Conference, then we took the kids over to the Wild West Jordan park and ate at Pizza Pie Cafe. Read more in Utah Trip: Part III: -Dinosaurs, Playgrounds, Arcade, Aquarium.
Back in Colorado the kids went to a community Easter egg hunt and met the Easter bunny, we had our own Easter Egg and Easter basket hunt at home, we attended Allison's 1st Grade Showcase, the kids rocked it at their school talent show, we went to Elitch Gardens, the kids got nasty stomach bugs that landed Tyler in the Children's Hospital ER, we celebrated Oscar's 40th birthday, concrete was installed in our backyard, I chaperoned the 1st grade field trip to the zoo, we celebrated Tyler's 10th birthday, and Oscar worked hard on building a pergola in our backyard. Read more in Spring 2023.
Once the kids were out of school we had a few beautiful days and then had 3 weeks of much colder than average temperatures. We went to parks on the few nice days we had. Our landscapers did some beautiful work on our front yard, and we took the kids up to Denver for a primary temple trip. On the 3rd week of June we took a trip to Missouri where we went to "Science City" and took cousins to Worlds of Fun. Read more in Summer 2023: Part I - Worlds of Fun and More.
The 2023 Vocal Arts Festival started the last week of June, so the kids went to Space Camp and YMCA camps while I attended "singing camp." Emily's family stayed for a night on their way to Utah and back, we saw the Falcon fireworks, celebrated the 4th with our neighbors, and I went hiking with some friends from VAF. Read more in
Summer 2023: Part II - Summer Camps and Vocal Arts Festival 2023.
After the VAF was over we finally had nice enough weather to spend a day at Water World. We took Tyler's friend, Luke, to Elitch's, and Marcus and Martha brought cousins to us on their way to and from Missouri. The oldest Anderson boys spent a night with us, and Marcus and Martha brought Mary and Bonnie to us on their way back from Missouri. Oscar, Tyler, and Grandpa went to the top of Pikes Peak, and I took the girls swimming nearly everyday of their trip.
In addition to swimming we took the girls to Lost Island mini golf, went hiking at Helen Hunt Falls, and went to Elitch Gardens. We also celebrated Bonnie's 9th birthday, and I flew them home to Missouri. I stayed there a couple days and went to the Kansas City zoo with them before flying back home. Read more in
Summer 2023: Part III.
In August the kids went back to school, we attended the Black Forest Festival, we went to Elitch's with Oscar, and Tyler had fun making a rocket and launching it at the Fathers and Sons activity. Over Labor day weekend we went to the Royal Gorge Dinosaur Experience and went to the Zoo with friends.
In the last week of August and first weeks of September, we did tons of work to get ready for Allison's Princess Peach themed birthday party. I hiked 7 bridges and 7 falls with Erica, and mom and dad and Marcus and Martha came to visit for Allison's baptism. I hiked Castle Rock after dropping mom and dad off. Read more in
August and September 2023.
The day after mom and dad flew home, we drove to Utah for Uncle William's wedding. On the way we stopped at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park and Dinosaur National Monument. Read more in
William's Wedding Trip.
Back home we had landscaping done in our backyard, Tyler and Oscar ran the 4.9K, we attended our local rec center's Harvest Fest, we went up to Elitch Gardens for Fright Fest, and we took one last zoo trip before our annual pass expired. We had our first significant snow in late October, meaning we had to watch for icy driveways while trick or treating. In primary activities the kids were able to participate in a pinewood derby. Read more in
Fall 2023.
On Friday we swam at Typhoon Lagoon and played a little mini-golf. On Saturday we spent our first day at Epcot where we met princesses at Akershus.
On Tuesday we spent our first day at Animal Kingdom and had a delicious character lunch at Tusker House. Allison ran into a friend from school in the dinosaur play area. Read more in
Disney World 2023: Animal Kingdom Day 1.
On Thursday we went back to Epcot where we finally got to ride Cosmic Rewind. We also ate at Space 220.
On Friday Tyler was feeling sick in the morning, but he felt better a few hours later. We decided to split and have the girls spend a day at Magic Kingdom and the boys go back to Epcot. At Magic Kingdom we ate at Tony's for lunch then took a bus over to Animal Kingdom for a delicious dinner at Sanaa. Read more in
Disney World 2023: Epcot days 2 and 3 and Magic Kingdom Day 2.
For our final days in Florida we moved to the HGVclub Sea World hotel and took the weekend off the theme parks. We still went to Disney Property in the afternoon to swim at Typhoon Lagoon on Saturday, and later went to the Polynesian resort to eat dinner and watch the "Happily Ever After" fireworks show. On Sunday we did the Fantasia Gardens mini-golf course, then Oscar took the kids back to the hotel to play in the activity center while Jenny and I got lunch at Disney Springs. On Monday we had our 2nd day at Animal Kingdom where the kids earned their Senior Wilderness Explorer badges, and on Tuesday we swam and played at the resort before flying home. Read more in
Disney World 2023: Animal Kingdom day 2 and Final days in Florida.
Shortly after returning from Disney World, my dad had a fall and was hospitalized. His health had been deteriorating rapidly for weeks, and he went into hospice care at my brother's house after a week long fight at the ICU. Malia and I flew in to say our final goodbyes to him the day before he passed away.
I flew home to Colorado then drove back to Utah with the family the following weekend to attend dad's memorial and spend Thanksgiving break with our families. Read more in
Dad's Passing and Utah Trips 2023.
In December I flew up to Seattle to see my sister and sing for the Arlington Nativity Festival. I also visited friends, went to two fun Christmas parties, saw Evergreen Church lights, and saw the new Christmas lights at Tulalip resort. Back home Allison and Oscar attended the daddy daughter ball, the kids got cookies with Santa, and Tyler competed in his first swim meet. After I returned I took the kids to meet Santa at the YMCA, we saw the lights at St Michael's Episcopal church, and we drove up to Luminova at Elitch Gardens.
We continued our Christmas Eve tradition of bowling and arcade at Main Event
And we had a great Christmas at home where Oscar spent weeks making me a Settlers of Catan board that can be played on the wall. Read more in
December 2023.
