Colorado

We made it home safely from a week in Colorado. What fun, but it sure is good to be home. Luke stayed with Mom for the week, and he barely recognized me!

The trip started with a flight out on Frontier. It was scheduled to leave at 8:45, and we came wheeling into the airport about 7:30. Matt dropped us off curbside (unfortunately Frontier doesn't have curbside check in) and headed off to find a parking place. The boys and I got all our stuff, including 2 car seats, and headed to the ticket counter, the boys were still in their pajamas. We really thought we would get to the airport earlier. I noticed a sign that said no check in less than 45 min prior to flight time. Uh-oh, where was Matt? He called and said the parking lot was full so he was heading to a park and ride. I told the check in lady that my husband was coming, so she printed out his boarding pass, otherwise they wouldn't have let him check in! Once Matt finally met up with us, it was about 8:20, so we went through security and headed to the train to take us to concourse D, the last gate! As we were running down the concourse, we hear over the loud speaker "Ward party, this is the last boarding call for Frontier flight to Denver". We start running faster and fly into the gate where the attendants cheer for us. I told Matt that we could definitely do "The Amazing Race". Hats off to Frontier, they have TVs installed in the back of each seat, so for the small price of $5.00 the boys got to watch cartoons for the whole 3 hours! It was great!

We picked up our rental car and headed to Colorado Springs. There, we met up with Julie and her girls at Garden of the Gods. The area is beautiful, and it was great to see her. We spent two nights with them and saw most of the sights around there including a drive to the top of Pikes Peak, the Cave of the Winds, Ghost Town Museum, and the Royal Gorge. Matt got all three of his tomahawk throws in the wood thanks to the guidance of the Mountain Man.

The boys show off their southern charm by giving the girls a carriage ride. :-)

Joshua prepares to throw a snow ball at the top of Pike's Peak.

We headed off to the real reason for our trip, Matt's conference in a suburb of Denver, Westminster. He worked Tues, Wed, Thurs while the boys and I went shopping, napped, visited the Butterfly Pavilion where they held a tarantula and drank coffee (me) and chocolate milk (them). When Matt got off work we managed to find time to swim, rock climb, ice skate, play at Dave and Buster's, and eat lots of wonderful food. We celebrated our 9th anniversary by going to a Brazilian grill where Joshua got to eat all the steak he wanted. Our last day, we walked around downtown Denver and made a quick jog back to Colorado Springs to visit the Focus on the Family headquarters and the Air Force Academy. It was sad to say good-bye to the beautiful mountains, but it's good to be home.

What a morning!

Background:
Matt's cousin Chris is living in Mimi's rental house. It's the same house that we lived in while we were building our house. It's just on the other side of the pond. Chris has a puppy, Grace, that showed up at his house a couple of weeks ago. She is a sweet dog, just very jumpy and nippy. The boys have not yet learned to push her down when she jumps on them.
Joshua's version of the morning's events:
One day, Joshua and Caleb went out around the pond to look at a log and when we went there, Chris, my daddy's friend, his dog attacked Caleb, although it didn't know that it was hurting him. It didn't try to hurt him, it was just playing. And, it scratched him open on the ear. He went to the emergency room and saw Dr. Hamilton. Caleb got scratches on his arm and one he had to get glue on it too.
My version:
Joshua comes in screaming that Caleb is bleeding. Normally this means a small drop of blood. Today it meant blood on the shirt, the ear, the arms. Pretty scary sight. The boys told me what happened, and I cleaned off Caleb's ear. The wound was open enough that I thought it needed to be seen. I called the pediatrician, and they said to go to the ER and they could call a plastic surgeon if needed, gasp! Thankfully, the Dr. just felt that it needed some glue and we were done! Thank goodness for Dermabond (made by Ethicon, so I'm still supporting my former employer). No stitches needed! I managed to get a picture of his ear while he was taking a nap this afternoon, because Grandma is at Danny's and I know she wants to see how it looks!

Taking after his big brother?

Luke has started pulling up and climbing. Today, I had a flashback to when Caleb was one. While Caleb looks like he got caught, Luke is really enjoying the moment. What does this mean for the things to come?

Summer's here!

I think someone told my boys that it is officially summer. They have been quick to light my fuse, and recently, it has been short. I've been trying to figure out why the past two weeks have been the most tedious of the past 7 months since I've been home full-time. I have decided that since we got out of "school" that we have been thrown off our routine. We were committed to starting school at 9:00 and finishing around 11:00 which took up most of the morning. Now, we goof off most of the morning and by afternoon, we all have cabin fever. I find the cabin fever comment funny to myself, because we have only stayed home all day twice in the past two weeks. Anyway, we are still in a rut! I am thinking of letting the boys go to vacation bible school next week in the mornings so that I can try to get my act together. We have plenty of stuff going on, so it's not like we are truly bored...I just can't figure it out.

We have been swimming at Mom's neighborhood a couple of times. We have been to the library a couple of times. We spent 2 1/2 hours at the local super wal-mart, ugh. I thought it would be better to make one long trip instead of several mini-trips. The jury is still out on that one. We even had to stop for a snack/potty break halfway through. We've been to the park, and last weekend, we went to Andrew's birthday party. He's 9 now and just 2" shorter than me. He's a big boy. Let's see...oh, we've also been to the local free movies twice already - Garfield 2 and Open Season.

Matt has been working with a friend on finishing the sheet rock in the basement. Joshua is so excited that they are working on it. He has already picked out a room that he wants to move into. I guess the bunk bed with Caleb just isn't cutting it. I don't really think he'll make it one night in the basement without Caleb, but that bunk bed isn't moving very easily! Joshua is always making Caleb touch the bug first or go into the dark room first, etc. And Caleb is usually right up to the challenge, poor kid, he doesn't even realize that he's being manipulated!

For the rest of the summer, we have a vacation coming up, swim camp, soccer camp, and vacation bible school at our church. Not to mention, two very important nieces that we are expecting near the end of July! We just hope that we don't get the calls on the same day, because we can't be two places at once, and that will make a tough time deciding whose birthday party to attend in upcoming years.

Jean has finished round 1 of chemo. She was able to complete the every three weeks chemo at full strength and on time for each round. The doctors say that is very unusual. She went to Houston to see her doctor last week, and he said that she is ahead of the game, so to speak. He was very pleased at her progress. Although she had been praying for the cancer to be all gone, the doctor was very encouraging. She is now in round 2, taking a weekly chemo treatment of taxol here locally, which is very mild on her body compared to what she was taking. We were able to have lunch at her house after church today on what would have been her "down" day following the other stuff which was nicknamed "the red devil". She has to make a trip to Houston in the middle of July for a checkup and following 12 weeks of the taxol, they will schedule her mastectomy. A few weeks following that she will have 22 days of radiation in Houston. She is tired quite often, but she appreciates the prayers that she knows are going up for her.

Welcome to a new little one!

Mike and Kathleen (Cook) Wise are very proud to announce the
arrival of their little girl, Lindsey Joy.
She was born 5/31/07 at 10:02 PM. She weighed 6 lbs 13oz,
was 19 in long and has a full head of dark hair.

Congratulations!