Grampa T & Grandma S visit from Arizona

It was after Thanksgiving when Dad and Sandra were in town and spent the afternoon with us.  Sandra brought the boys some of that new "mess-free" sand, and it was a lovely Colorado day to play outside. 

Grampa T brought us some lemons straight from his trees, and I'll take those any time!!!  They have a beautiful lemon tree right in their back patio area, and it yields more lemons than they know what to do with.  Apparently, it's pretty common to see boxes of lemons and grapefruits left out in front of people's houses during citrus fruit season.  I would be all over that!!!

My dad cracks me up!  He likes for pictures to be "natural," so he's more and more opposed to staged shots, or even ones in which people are looking at the camera.  Notice, please, that he's the only one NOT looking at the camera in the above shot.  Oh, Dad, you make me laugh!

Winter Football

We certainly watch enough football during the fall and winter, but these guys have never really played any organized football before.  That didn't really stop them from breaking out a pickup game in our back yard against each other.  Here above is Gavin starting out with a snap to himself and Gage is on defense.

Although Gavin is still bigger than Gage, the day is coming closer where he can hold his own.  Here Gage is with a full on tackle on Gavin to prevent him from getting past.

Gage seems to have taken the headlock approach and is riding him down to the ground.

No tackle is complete without a full pancake job to seal the deal.  Although I can probably guess this eventually ended up with someone crying or bleeding, I do remember them having a great time playing together.

More Painting...

As noted in an earlier post, we also ended up painting Gage's room.  We even turned him a bit loose on the walls with paint and a paintbrush.  I think we quickly realized that this would have to be a highly supervised painting experience for him, but he did great and was super excited to help.

I am sure those are my huge muscles rippling out from my rib cage and not just a picture exposing my skinniness.  I think this picture actually spawned some new inspiration for lifting weights and putting on some of my pre-cycling muscle and weight.  In any case, we also painted the kitchen and wrapped the paint around into the pantry which is what I am currently trying to paint in this picture.  It actually tuned out looking pretty good in the end.

Brent's Soccer at Boulder Indoor Soccer (BIS)

After quite a break from playing indoor soccer, I (Brent) decided to give it another go.  I had taken a break from competitive bike racing because I started coaching Gavin's team and I really wanted to find another way to get some good exercise in some competitive environments.  I ended up joining a random team that needed an extra player at Boulder Indoor Soccer in a B level co-ed team.  It was pretty, however I think those 11 pm games feel a lot later than they used to.  I was thankful the boys and Tara could come out and watch a few games, though I don't think we won too many of them.

Painting Party

One of the projects we undertook over the winter was to repaint a significant portion of the inside of our house.  We started with the kids rooms that we spruced up with new and more mature colors.  Gavin got an older shade of blue and you will see pictures later of Gage's room turning a bit darker green.  They both loved their new colors!  Thankfully we hired good professional painters to help us.  You can see my Mom and Bob doing the hard detail work around the edges and corners.  They actually help do a whole lot more than that, so thanks for all the help making the house look so fresh and new again!

Andersen Farms - Part 2 of 2

After we got done with the corn mazes, or maybe before we started, they had these metal barrel trains that kids could ride on that were pulled by a small tractor or lawnmower.  They actually went pretty fast and this driver (who looked like some high school kid) would do doughnuts and figure eights all over the place at top speeds.  The kids obviously loved it!

As the sun was starting to set, we went on some sort of hay ride or tractor ride that toured the entire farm grounds.  Apparently on the south side of the farm they had this pumpkin-chuckin' gun which is basically an air cannon that shoots pumpkins something like 3/4 of a mile in the air and across a field.  We stopped to watch this spectical, which was fairly entertaining.

After all of these festivities we reconvened around a campfire with some of my coworkers to roast some hotdogs and marshmallows.  What a great idea for a work get together.

This picture is a bit darker, but I kind of like the campfire lighting and the marshmallow roasting that was taking place.  We stayed a bit longer, but then headed home before the kids turned into little pumpkins themselves.

Andersen Farms - Part 1 of 2

My (Brent's) work decided they wanted to do some family team building time, so we arranged a trip to Andersen Farms in Erie, CO.  We hadn't ever been there but had heard really neat things about what you can do there.  When you walk in, the first thing we ran into were these pedal powered go-carts.  The kids immediately jumped on and started driving around the course.  Here is Gage plodding along in the #7 car.

There was a slightly larger size cars to pedal around for bigger kids and adults.  Here I am showing Gavin how it's done.  You can see Gavin getting dusted behind me.

Eventually, Gavin and Gage wanted to both ride on the same cars so Gavin jumped over to Gage's track.  They had a great time racing against each other and all around the other kids.

There was also an enormous corn maze on site.  They had four or five different paths you could go on with different lengths (0.5 miles, 1.0 miles, 2 miles, 4 miles, and 6 miles).  I can't imagine undertaking a 6 mile corn maze route while the sun is setting and its getting darker and darker.  Maybe that is for the truly adventurous.

Here is a family pick in the corn maze.  They kids had a great time and it was actually a beautiful evening to be running around at the farm.

Soccer Season Finale!

This is the season finale picture with Gavin's Fall U7 boys soccer team.  It was a fun season for all involved and I think they all even learned a bit about soccer along the way.  The Broomfield Soccer Club provided huge medals for everyone involved.  Across the top is Isaiah, Isaiah, Kaio, Toby, Gavin, and Marcus.  Across the bottom is Liam, Jack, Finn, and Caden.

Here is another picture with Josh joining in on the fun and the team without the medals we had above.

This is a picture of Gavin and I after the final game.  I think Gavin really enjoyed me taking time to be the soccer coach.  We even managed to win a few games, which is a bit more than I can say for my Dad when I was a young guy.  We are so proud of Gavin and how he did in soccer this spring.

This is a picture of Gage's team after his final game of Spring soccer.  There are a few kids missing but they all have their medals around their necks and snacks in hand.  Gage really had a great season and we are so proud of him.