#12

Time sure flies when you're having fun! On August 16, Jen and I celebrated our 12 years of marital bliss with a weekend trip to Steamboat. We wouldn't have been able to make the trip without the help and support that weekend from our nanny Laura and Jim and Janet. So thanks!

It was a great weekend of walking the downtown, enjoying the farmers market, hiking, biking, coffee drinking, and eating out at some new places. The waterfall we hiked to was actually the model for the original Coors beer can! We also took the gondola ride to the top of the ski area and enjoyed the view and a $6 Fat Tire from Sun Deck. The weekend was capped of by a quick stop in Laramie for lunch with mom and dad!

Day 1

It is like deja'vu all over again. Didn't we just do the first day of school photos like 364 days ago?? Here are the boys before their first day of school at Frontier Academy 2009. Hard to believe Noah is already a 5th grader, Andrew a 3rd and Nathanael a 1st grader. I feel like I'm getting older for some reason. They are a good looking group of boys, aren't they?

One funny story from the first morning was Nathanael. All year last year he was the last one out of bed, the last one dressed, and the last one out the door. Wednesday morning he was awake, dressed, and lunch packed by 7:05. He was 45 minutes early. I guess he was ready for first grade. The question is, is first grade ready for Natedogg?

Happy #7 Nathanael!!

Nathanael turned 7 this past Thursday. He is one lucky kid since he will have his birthday on the first or second day of school every year. He also started his first day of first grade on Wednesday. Jen brought cupcakes for his class on Thursday then we had a small party on Thursday night. The party with his friends was on Saturday, then another party at his grandparents that night. Life is good for Nathanael!

Summer 2009

Hello to my two faithful readers, my mom and my brother. Campingdad is finally back and better than ever after a short 3 month break from the blog. I hope that my many other readers will now return and make Campingdad a regular part of their internet reading.

It was a crazy busy summer in our family. Some or all of us were in three weddings in June, the Fat Tire Classic in July, a 2300 mile round trip with Noah and Andrew to Glacier National Park, and 12th Anniversary trip to Steamboat with Jen, two big chip holidays to get through at Frito, and now the beginning of school and birthday season!! WOW!!

I don't really know where to start as far as the blogging goes, so I guess I will start with the most recent and work backwards??

Enjoy a review of the summer. Spread the word to your friends that Campingdad is back and blogging once again!!

Wes & Kim

We are so excited for the big wedding in South Dakota on June 6th! Kim has been such a blessing to Wes, and is going to be a great addition to the Roth family. We will soon count our number at 11 when we are get together! They recently had their engagement photos taken and sent us a copy of all of them. What a cute couple!

Sarabeth

It was Sarabeth's last day of school on Friday. She learned so much this year, and had such a great teacher in "Miss" Stacy. For the last field trip of the year, the little class headed to Denver and the Butterfly Pavilion. They had a great time touring the area and seeing the thousands of butterflies. I couldn't make the trip because of the new route, and Jennifer was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with Andrew's class, so Stacy sent me some cute pictures of the trip. Geeze that's a huge spider.

AWANA Awards night

It was a great final night at AWANA last week. All four kids received awards for the hard work they had put in memorizing scriptures and working through their books. What a blessing the AWANA program was to our family this year. For Andrew and Nathanael, this was the first award they had ever received for something they had done. Noah was mentioned has one of the better joke tellers in the T and T class. Sarabeth's teacher mentioned her love of shoes. I am so proud of the kids and the great work they did.

Art Show/Andrew

Each year at Frontier, the art teacher runs a once a week morning art club for the kids. All three kids wanted to sign up this year, so we allowed them to. Each week, Jen faithfully got everyone out the door on Monday morning at 6:45 so Andrew and Nathanael could attend, then on Thursday I good Noah to club.

Finally last weekend we were able to attend the yearly Art Show and Sale at the school. It really was amazing. The hallways are completely decorated throughout the building. The lunchroom is turned into a auction area, and the library is used as the space for the Book Fair. We are so proud of the great work all three kids did throughout the year. Here are a few of the pieces that were selected to be displayed.

Noah

These are several of the art pieces Noah had at the show.

Nathanael

Here are the projects Nathanael worked so hard on this year. We didn't make it in time to bid on his vase, but we were able to snag his clock!

Colors

The bigs end of year musical was also several weeks ago. It was really neat. Awesome actually. Each class was assigned a color to do an interpretative dance, a poem, and a song to. Amazing what these kids can come up with. Andrew's class danced to the color red as Chinese dragons, and Noah played a musical instrument on the color dark. After the big production, Grandpa Jim took us to Wendys for a celebratory cheeseburger.

Sorry again for the poor photos. I just can't seem to take good pics at the Civic Center.

Prom

Laura had Prom a week or three ago. She attended with a large group of friends. Jennifer was so sweet in making all of them dinner before the big dance. Here is a group shot, Laura and her bff Brit, Laura and the kids, and Laura with her "father-type-figure."

Break

Sorry to my 2 faithful readers for the lack of blogging these last 2 1/2 weeks. At the same time Frito-Lay moved all the routes around, my soon to be swing quit, and there was no one else (???) to run the route on my days off. So guess who got to work? Yep, 16 straight days, almost 134 hours worked in those 2 weeks. Ouch. I think my new route is going to be great, it just needs a little TLC. My new days off now that I actually have them, are going to be Sunday and Monday.

So the last several weeks have also been crazy busy with all the end of school year activities, Prom, field trips, and school projects. Here is a recap of the last several weeks!