Grandpa T & Grandma S Visit...

My dad, "Grandpa T," and Sandra, "Grandma S," were in town for the sale of their former home outside of Loveland, so they came over for a meal one afternoon.  The boys always love to show everyone their rooms, so that's what was happening in these pictures.  Gavin especially appreciates when people stand in awe of his many Lego creations.  Some days, we're lucky if there's even an aisle in Gage's room to get to his bed ;)  His usual idea of cleaning up entails piling everything around the perimeter of his room and stuffing some things under his bed.  Bless his heart, in his defense, he inherits about every other (junky/expired/useless) thing from his big brother and always feels obligated (and interested!) to take it.  Gavin's semi-OCD style of cleaning and organizing his room, on the other hand, would appeal much more to Grandpa T, whose motto for himself and everyone else is, "There's a place for everything, and everything in its place." Love you, Dad! ;)

British Soccer Camp

We always love British Soccer Camps for our kids.  This year it filled up extra fast and we were only able to get Gavin registered.  As he has grown older he gets to spend a bit more time playing some quality soccer with people his age.  He was put with a group that seemed to be a good match for his abilities with a few kids better than him and a few he was better than.  I was able to take a break from work and come snap a few pictures of him.

Here is a picture of the whole camp.  Gage, on the other hand, was with Skyhawks for a camp which had a general reputation of being alright.  However, after witnessing a few practices there we will never return to that camp.  There were two coaches for about 10-12 kids and these coaches were like drill sergeants and a case study could have been written about how not to coach kids on these two.  They lined the kids up and made them wait for what seemed like an eternity between doing anything all while berating them and putting kids in time out who dared to make a sound.  Keep in mind most of these kids were between five and eight.  It was terrible and we felt awful that Gage had to endure it.

Who Wants Some Lemonade?

These guys love a good lemonade stand and summer is such a perfect time to set up shop on a neighborhood corner.  They actually had a hard time knowing how much business they would generate and ended up having to make quite a few trips back and forth to the house because they were running out of product.  I stopped by to add to the sales and tossed in a nice tip.  

After business died down or they ran out of lemonade they came back to the front of the house to relax and count out their earnings.  We split the supply cost with them and they divided the profits up between them.

Dad Day with Gage

I have often been able to have a Dad and Son day with Gavin and I was finally able to get away for a day with Gage alone.  I asked him what he would like to do and heading to the Valmont Bike Part was the first item on his list.  It can be fairly busy there, but it was hot enough that I think most people stayed home.  Gage is a die hard though and here he is tearing up a fairly good sized pump track all by himself.

Just to give it some perspective, it is fairly large.  He was doing laps about every 60 to 90 seconds.  This continued for quite some time until some other people arrived and started going the other direction on him.  He had a blast while it lasted.

What better to do after a hot day at the bike park then head over to Eben G. Fine park to soak a bit in the icy water.  Here is Gage next to the river, which always makes a parent a bit nervous but he did great.

Up the river a bit is an area that has had some water diverted over rocks on the side and creates a great area for kids to play in without too much danger.  Gage was loving it.

He did start to get a little wild on the wet rocks and I told him to be more careful which promptly led to the above look, "What do you mean be more careful?"  If you know Gage, he unfortunately invents ways to get hurt so I have to try to protect the little man as much as I can.

Brainard Lake Hike

I (Brent) had some time off with the little men and I decided to take these guys up to Brainard Lake for a nice hike.  I knew it would be a lot cooler up there, even though it was pretty warm down in Boulder, but it proved to be even colder than we had anticipated.  Here is a picture of these guys from the parking lot.

Brainard Lake is just about a half mile away from the parking lot but is very pretty.  You can see the clouds already dropping in over the mountains in the background.  I had intended to take them up the bottom part of Mount Audabaun, but I actually ended up at the wrong trail head on the other side of the lake.

 

We still had quite a bit of fun exploring the trail that we did end up on.  These guys are checking out an ice cold river from shore and I am hoping they are not going to fall in.

These were some pretty flowers we saw along the way.  Everything was so green and the flowers were really a nice purple.

On the way back we stopped at this bridge to look over on this river.  I think everyone was quite cold at this point so we headed back down after a good hike together.  These guys really are in their element when they can be like little WildKratts and explore their surroundings.

Fourth of July Fireworks

Our normal tradition is to watch fireworks in the street outside of our house at night, however this year we also squeezed in a trip over to Amanda and Aaron's place before it got too dark to share in some fun and sparklers. 

It seems like these are almost the only fireworks that are still legal to light off on your own.  What a shame, but they still had fun with them and don't actually know any different.

Summer Day at the Bay

After a hot time at the parade over in Niwot, it was time to hit the pool.  We headed over to the pay with half of Broomfield.  It is a lot of fun with the kids being able to swim more competently.  Here is Gavin going down the water slide all by himself on a tube.

This a picture of mom and Gage coming down together as a tandem.  Gage isn't quite able to swim on his own but I am sure that day is soon coming. 

Here is Gage getting pummeled under the waterfall next to the kids area.  It's great that we have such a good pool that is close by to play at and we love that a summer pass is included with the normal yearly rec center passes we get.  We definitely get our money's worth!

Parade in Niwot

For the start of the Fourth of July festivities, we headed down to a fun parade in Niwot.  It was quite warm but the kids got to see lots of tractors, firetrucks, and other fun things.  Some of them even threw out candy to the kids. 

The highlight of the parade was the Niwot Chiefs Cool Cars Club.  Apparently, there are quite a few members in this club even though Niwot's a small town.

Even Grandpa Mike was in the parade with his GTO!  My mom and Bob drove by and threw a big handful of candy at us as we cheered them on.  It was lots of fun and these small town parades never seem to disappoint.  I think after this we all met over at a park for hotdogs and some drinks.