Back to School 2025

In July we started a big Lego organizing project. 2 years ago we gave Allison an $80+ Lego princess set for her birthday, but she never put it together. She just took the pieces she liked out of it and built her own castle. I told her I wasn't going to buy her expensive sets if she wasn't going to follow the instructions and build them. I'd rather buy her generic Legos if all she cared about were the pieces. She's a better builder now, and capable of doing large sets, so I told her I'd like to see her put her Princess castle together. We had to put a LOT of work into sorting and organizing her pieces by color, but she was able to find all her pieces and got it put together. I was proud of her! 

Oscar was invited to run a Ragnar Relay in Minnesota with our friends Nigel and Bernice. Here's his first day flying in. He started at 7am the next day.

In total each team ran the distance from Minneapolis to Duluth. Overnight they slept in a high school gymnasium, but they had to bring their own bedding.

There was some pretty interesting weather and cloud patterns back at home.

Oscar took Tyler on a camping trip and a hike to Rainbow Gulch.

Allison got invited to a birthday party at AirCity 360 where she thoroughly enjoyed the Zipline. 

I loved this bumper sticker I saw on a car in the neighborhood with pictures of dinosaurs that say "gone but not forgotten."

We got several nice photos of a beautiful sunset at home.

Just a week later Oscar went to Philadelphia for a big work conference.

In late August I bought season passes for Allison and I to Elitch Gardens now that she's several inches taller than the last time we were there and can do all the rides. Her new favorite was Brain Drain. She rode it 3 times and really loved it. Technically she was tall enough for it on our last visit, but it's not one that the rest of us care for, so we never wanted to wait in line for it. There weren't many lines the day I took her up, so she was able to ride multiple times with only about a 5 minute wait each time. 

Another new one was Mind Eraser. It's a 52 inch requirement, and she was not even 51 inches with shoes the last time we were here 2 years ago. Now she's about 57 inches barefoot!

Sidewinder was new to both of us since it was closed all of 2023 when we had season passes. There are only 3 coasters like it left in the world, and it took a long time for them to get replacement parts. Both of us really enjoyed Halfpipe (though I only got this one terrible photo). I'd done it before, but this was the first time lines were reasonable enough for me to do it multiple times. We also did Twister 3, which is incredibly shaky, but we were able to sit in the front, which slightly improved the shakiness. We ended the day getting a yummy giant pretzel with our meal plan before driving home. It was about as much as I could handle since Elitch coasters are so rough. Half-Pipe is my favorite, but even that makes me a little queasy towards the end.

We watched the live action Lilo and Stitch when it came to Disney+, and Allison put on all her Hawaiian stuff afterwards. 

I made excellent cordon bleu, there was a beautiful sunset ,and there were lots of birds congregating on the grass in our backyard. 

On the 11th we celebrated Allison's birthday at home. I told her I needed a break from planning big parties. Oscar made her a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting and sweetened strawberries and strawberry sauce on top.

She got a lot of great gifts, mostly Lego. She was especially a fan of the Maleficent dragon, and within a couple weeks she'd built everything she was gifted. 

She also put together her Ariel castle. Tyler and the other Deacons learned how to change a tire at their young men's activity. 

Oscar and Tyler ran the D4.9k race again this year.

In late September Allison rubbed her eye and we couldn't get it to stop bleeding unless it was tightly bandaged. It was difficult to bandage because it was so close to her eye, and it would start bleeding again immediately after we would take the bandage off. We took her into the doctor a couple days later where we were told it was a benign vascular legion. They put pressure on it for 10 minutes before bandaging it and recommended we use pimple bandages in the future. They also recommended having it removed, which we're still working on. For now it's too big for a laser to take it off, so we're giving her a medicine in the hopes that it will shrink down enough for the laser to work. If that doesn't work, it will need to be removed surgically.

Tyler had a band concert with his friend Jack then they crashed the girls' activity.

Here's Tyler being silly with his shirt and building a giant Rubix cube tower.

On the last Saturday of September we went leaf peeping up in Woodland Park and Cripple Creek. We also hiked out to see the Thomas Dambo troll and did a night sky defenders Jr Ranger program at Mueller State park.

There was a fun Troll sign and it was already on an established route, like the other troll we saw in Breckenridge.

Here she is - lovely Rita the Rock Planter. 

I had to go up to Denver the next week for an appointment. Since I was already traveling that way, I also went to the temple and found a hike not too far from the temple. Here's a beautiful view from Daniel's park.

Nibbler remained cute. I went to a fun fall gift exchange party and got this lovely blanket, which he took to immediately. 

Tyler got a haircut and the kids did a good job being responsible helping us get the kitchen cleaned up. 

The kids built a big Lego Coaster together, and they built the Legoland set Allison got for her birthday. 

Early in October we went to our ward party. Tyler made and wore his creeper head there. We also started getting some fall colors in the neighborhood.

In mid-October we took a trip to Florida and went on a 4 night cruise during the kids' fall break, which I'll blog about after this post. When we came back our nice full tree that had just started spouting a few fall leaves had changed dramatically. 

Oscar found cheap full size candy bars at King Soopers, which made us popular with the trick or treaters, and our sprinkler blowout failed due to this white piece breaking during the overnight freeze of our 1st night back. Fortunately they were able to replace it and take care of it a week later. 

And we celebrated Halloween at the ward trunk or treat and trick or treating around our neighborhood. Allison looked cute (and was nice and warm in her Cheetah costume) and Tyler made his own creeper costume. It took him a LONG time and fell apart not long into starting his trick or treating, but it was well received by the people who saw it. When it broke he decided to just trick or treat with the creeper face. Next year he's determined to use better materials and make it even better. I'm proud of his ingenuity!