Back to School 2024

On August 1st, Tyler went back to school. Our district has Kindergartners, 6th graders, and 9th graders start one day before everyone else so they have the whole school to themselves for a day to get acquainted with it. I think it's a great idea. It helps with the transition, and he really enjoyed that first day. In fact, the first adult he saw was his 5th grade teacher. All the 5th grade teachers come to send off their old students and wish them luck. He gave her a big hug. 

That weekend Oscar's parents came to visit us on their way to see Emily's family in Missouri. The boys did a hike together and granny, Allison, and I went to the Palmer Park overlook and Olive Garden.

Granny also took Allison shopping and let her pick out her own birthday present. She was very happy to buy this dinosaur Lego set.

Nibbler often decides how long I get to play the piano. Once he wants pets, he'll get on the keys. Even if I pick him up and put him down, he jumps right back until I take him to the pet and give him some good pets. In the video above he stayed on my lap for nearly the entire song.

More sweet Nibbler pictures. Good thing there's a cover for the keys on our upstairs piano. This is a great sun spot for him.

Here are the kids doing a glow in the dark Solar System puzzle Tyler got for his birthday.

Allison and Oscar went to the Stake daddy daughter activity. One of their activities was a full size game of hungry hungry hippos. Allison also drew dinosaurs in the sand box and made a birdhouse. 

Oscar put up some lights on our pergola, and he saw hot air balloons on his run.

Here's some of Allison art and stories she's written at school. 

The kids love playing the game Sleeping Queens their cousin Alex passed down to them. Allison also drew a picture of the dragon on some of the cards.

I like how her art keeps getting more and more detailed and impressive.

On a Friday off school in August, I took them up to Denver for a fun day at the children's museum.

And since you haven't seen enough, here are some more pictures of Nibbler being sweet. His new favorite spot is under daddy's armpit getting his belly rubbed.

Allison had a fun day with Rachel.

And we went to the PTA Stem Night at Allison's school.

Here's Oscar in his cocoon hammock and the kids being sweet with each other.

On another of their days off school, we met up with Allison's friend Ryder at Skyzone. Here they are going down the slide and going up the warped wall.

And swinging on the zip line. I hadn't taken the kids to a trampoline park since we moved here because we now have a trampoline at home, but they had a lot of other activities to keep them entertained besides jumping.

Allison wanted to jump into the foam pit with Ryder. He let go the first time they jumped, and the next time she still jumped first but managed to pull him and his sister along.

On the 3rd attempt, they figured out how to all jump together.

Allison also jumped on the little obstacle course. 

I went to see my friend Rachelle sing later that evening then did a Nephi's Courage crossword with the primary kids the next day. Oscar did some trail running on our closest trail in Peyton, and we got to see a rainbow from our backyard. 

Allison did her Disney light bright and insisted I get a picture of Nibbler in the background.

On September 7th we celebrated Allison's birthday at home. It was a fun party with friends, though not the 34 kids we had last year. This was much more manageable.

Her cake request was mango, guava, and pineapple. It was super dense, but really tasty. Oscar made three separate batters.

She immediately started playing with her new presents after the party was over. She's getting really good at putting Lego sets together these days. Last year she would just use the pieces from each set to create her own thing, but now she follows the directions and puts it all together the way it's intended the first time.

Ryder was out of town during her birthday party, but he came over on her actual birthday and gave her two T Rex stuffies. Then she opened this dinosaur set from Grandma and they built it together.

After he'd left Allison opened gifts from us, Malia, and grandma. Tyler got to open a gift too since we'll hand down the dinosaur shirt to her whenever he outgrows it.

We had cheesecake and cheesecake cupcakes for her birthday. You can tell from the above videos that I'm pretty hoarse. That evening I took a test and sure enough, I was positive for Covid. Thankfully no one else in the family got it from me.

That weekend we used our AmazingCO gift card at Capitol Hill in Denver. Malia had given it to us nearly 3 years ago, and it was about to expire. We'd been waiting since their website says "Colorado Springs Coming Soon," but it's been saying that for 3 years now, so we figured we should go use it in Denver. 

A week later Allison did her fun run at school.

I made sure to put lots of stickers on it so we didn't have last year's mix-up when Allison accidentally drank from another girls' water bottle.

When the race was over, they slimed the principal.

Tyler had his quarter 1 band and choir concerts and did a great job!

Oscar and Tyler ran the district's annual 4.9K. Oscar said he definitely improved his running time from last year. 

Nibbler got in some good daddy loves, and I was so thrilled to find Eggnog ice cream sandwiches again. I'd had two leftover from last year, but they got ruined by onions. Oscar cooked a bunch of onions, put them in a Ziplock bag in our freezer, and the smell ended up ruining any other food that wasn't in an airtight container. I remember trying them and thinking "gross. Onion Eggnog flavor!" By then it was past the Holiday season and I couldn't buy them anymore.

Oscar and Tyler had fun at Spirit Halloween and ended up purchasing this jumping spider for a Halloween porch decoration. 

Tyler had attempted to get contacts at the nearby America's Best, but it didn't work out. He wasn't able to figure out how to get the contacts in. I remember it took me a really long time, but I was more motivated since my glasses were big 80's granny glasses. His glasses don't bother him, but we were hoping he'd be able to wear contacts so he could ride rides at theme parks without needing to take his glasses off.

In late September Oscar and I went to a yummy primary appreciation dinner, and in early October we had our ward Chili cookoff. I'd brought my own chili since I hate onions and wanted to know there was a chili I could eat. I somehow won "Most Original Chili" with a recipe that's easily googled. It's a White chicken chili in the crockpot I've been making for years that uses cream cheese and ranch seasoning mix. The only changes I made were using chicken thighs instead of breasts, and using roasted corn and roasted Rotel. I also chopped three avocados and brought them as a garnish, all of which got eaten. Allison accepted my award for me since I'd left to go to Ascend choir rehearsal. 

On the first Saturday in October, we went over to the Harvest Festival at the Rec Center.

This year they had a bull riding inflatable. Tyler did really well. I got a video of his first attempt, and he did even better on future attempts. Allison and I both fell off as soon as the bull moved.

Later that week I woke up early and took a walk around the neighborhood. It's fun to see people's Halloween decorations.

We went to Schubert Farms the following weekend. This was their first year offering a pumpkin patch and other activities. There are farm themed inflatables, a 37 ft inflatable slide, a giant jack-o'-lantern jumping pillow, a bucket train, a corn maze and more. Adults can go in the inflatables with their kids, and you get to pick your own pumpkin off the vine from their pumpkin patch all for $16. Here are the kids on the slide.

I did it too. It was really fun!

They had a giant jack-o-lantern jumping pillow just like the one from the farm we used to go to in Lake Stevens, WA. We were having a lot of fun, but it was hot and sunny and we tired out quickly. Hopefully next year we can come on a cooler, cloudier day.

We went on the bucket train and hay ride. 

And we explored the corn maze. It needs some sort of scavenger hunt since there were just those few little markers. Hopefully they'll add more to it in future years. I'd love to find more decorations within it, like the skeleton wagon in this picture. That was just at the start of the corn maze, but it'd be fun if they had other decorations to search for all throughout it. They could also stand to sell some fall goodies. They had drinks and other merchandise, but I would have loved some pumpkin donuts or something to really get into a festive mood. 

We took advantage of several fun photo ops before we went to select our pumpkin off the vine in the pumpkin patch.

The kids each picked a pumpkin, and I got a giant Cinderella pumpkin. Unfortunately all of them were rotting by the time we got back from our Florida trip at the end of the month, but they were included with our admission, so no big loss. Oscar helped carve a lynx in Allison's and a Minecraft creeper in Tyler's. I was just hoping my pumpkin would be good for cooking when we got back (Cinderella pumpkins have pretty tasty flesh), but even mine didn't last. Maybe next year I'll make soup with one as soon as I bring it home.

Rachel came over for a play date, much of which was spent cuddling Nibbler.

And just before we left on our trip, I took Allison to use a gift card for Swirly Cow she'd gotten for her birthday. Since we were going to Sea World, she themed her frozen yogurt to sharks swimming in the ocean, intentionally getting blue yogurt, gummy sharks, eels (sour worms), and chocolate rocks.