Almost the end, and our first family fourteener

It is almost the end of what I have lovingly dubbed the "Suite Summer of '11."  Glory hallelujah!  The home inspection went ok, the appraisal went ok, now we just wait for the current owners to get out of dodge (I mean that in the kindest way) so we can close and move in.  Yay!  We are so looking forward to it.  Although, truth be told, we will miss being able to go swim and play in the hot tub whenever we please.  We will not, however,  miss having to pay $90 for breaking the glass in the giant picture frame over the couch.  Doh.

The kids have been to a week and a half of school now and they are loving it so far.  Caleb's teacher is really awesome and seems to be a good fit for him, so we'll keep an eye on things as the year goes along and make sure he's still doing well.  He joined Kids Running America with a new little buddy named Matthew, which is a program where they run after school a few days a week until they get to 25.2 miles; then every kid in the Denver Metro area who has done it meets at Elitch Gardens theme park one Saturday in October to run the last mile together and get a medal and t-shirt for running a marathon.  Fun!  He can't wait to get his t-shirt.  He also loves that he has reading and spelling homework games on the computer.

Ella has fun at kindergarten and likes her teacher.  She will actually be moving to an afternoon kinder class in about a week, as the three current classes have 28 kids each.  28 kindergartners!!  They advertised for a new part time PM teacher, and as of Friday had 55 applicants.  Holy Cow!  I think it will be nice being in the afternoon class for her; she has the hardest time waking up in the morning, and for me it means she will be at school while the two younger ones sleep...what will I do with myself?!  Oh, I know, I will scrape popcorn ceilings.  Any advice for me, Rebecca and Brian and John?

Rachel and McKinley are doing great.  Rachel is a little lost playing at the park without her older brother and sister to run around with.  She tags along with any other kids that show up, unless it's a big day care group or something.  She won't go down big slides without Caleb and Ella, even if I hold her finger.  Once Ella moves to afternoon kindergarten, I'm sure the two of them will have some fun together in the mornings.  Mckinley is pretty happy tagging along everywhere and watching everyone.  We are blessed with happy babies. :)

Last weekend we went down to Gypsum to do some work on the house (we are landlords, after all!).   The garage door had buckled, I can't believe America's Home Partners had such cheap quality!!! (Laced with heavy sarcasm)  We had it replaced with a - hopefully - better door and we needed to paint it to match the house as per HOA rules.  Only trouble is that the rest of the house has been in the sun for 6 years, so even though the paint is the same color, the door doesn't really match the house.  Oh well, it's better than white, I guess, which we were told was "unacceptable."  So we painted and pulled up irises that needed major thinning, fixed a broken oven handle and a sinking front step, and after 6 years finally put a 2x6 across the last side of the back deck for a hand rail.  Whew!  It was very fun visiting with the Allens and very satisfying putting in a good hard day of work.

This weekend we wanted an adventure, so we decided to climb an easy fourteener (mountain that has a summit over 14,000 feet).  We read about Mount Sherman that was relatively close by and listed as one of the easiest in Colorado, suitable for children and beginners.  We got up early and made the drive south to the trail head, and ohmygoodnessgracious.  It was certainly an adventure, and WAY harder than we realized.  Apparently we are not children or beginners, even.  It was 5+ miles round trip over rocks with a little snow, and quite steep.  We took pictures with the sign and flag at the summit, ate and made our way back down with the help of some people Kip just happened to know from Grand Junction (Well, fancy meeting you here!).  We are all sunburned and sore, Caleb got a little altitude sickness and barfed at the car, but now we can all say we climbed a fourteener!! Yay us!! 

Our new ward doesn't meet until 2 pm, and even though that messes with Rachel's nap, I have to say that I am a fan of sleeping in and having a lazy morning without rushing and shouts of "Hurry up!  Get dressed!  Eat!  We need to go!"  Not that that ever happened at our house, I'm just sayin'.  It's nice not to have to hurry anywhere sometimes. :)