Neutered

Foo Dog had to get neutered.  On national Dog Day go figure.



He was not happy about the cone of shame.  In fact, he was so unhappy, he was not speaking to us.




We figured he could do without the cone--I know I couldn't sleep in that thing. We tried a onsie on the lad and we seemed to reach a compromise.

Gretchen's Birthday

Gretchen turned 10!

We went out to dinner to the Red Iguana




We tried to make homemade alfojores but they didn't go so well




 I dared her to wear her darth vader mask out to dinner with her grandparents for the entire meal and she did! The waiter was cracking up and gave her the biggest piece of dessert.



Happy Birthday Miss Greti! You are one unique, fireball, lovin' , awesome child

First Day of School Pictures

Meet our newest middle schooler.  Becket will be attending Butler Middle School in the 6th grade.



School locker and everything!



These two are still at Canyon View, Gretchen in 5th and Micah in 3rd



Micah's class is stacked with awesome kids and a great teacher.



We also found moldy raspberries in Micah's lunch from last year.  Ooops.





The teachers got a kick out of our T-shirt making skills

A Few Hikes

Mat and Becket had their own Father and Son.  They backpacked up to Red Pine, camped, fished, did man stuff.  They also ran into Alex Honnold world famous rock climber. He was stashing some stuff for a future climb.

Then the kids and I hiked up to Cecret Lake with some friends

What a week!

Let's start with our how our 17th year anniversary (not complaining, we just spent a week together in Argentina)

Mat participated in the ultimate challenge



meet his buddy Tim



Becket, Gretchen and I were having fun in the VIP box blowing the horns and ringing the bells and trying out the booths. Mat did really well and felt pretty good.







Gretchen and Micah fixed us an anniversary dinner



Mat then flew off to Haiti with his brother



Anyone need a 1 stop shop?



Early the next morning I'm driving to Colorado to Miss Avery's baptism for lots of cousin time!



These girls are so darn cute!



Aunt Nancy trying out the newly installed zipline



Hanging around



Table for 11 (11 and under)











Anyone need a water buffalo?



At the end of the week, we topped it off with The Red Tent weekend where nieces and aunts get together for a say anything and ask anything.  We wanted our girls to know that we are all going through similar things and that no matter you always have family.







Oh wait! One more event to add to the week....We also picked up Mat from Haiti and headed to the Fallen Officer Memorial Ride. Mat rode his Dad's bike for the first time! We had a lovely picnic with the family on the capitol lawn.

Post Argentina and Uruguay

When we got home we found our trees and our house had been started.





We also got this girl baptized!



hence Micah in her under construction uniform



A friend drew this for Micah at the baptism



Micah got her ears pearced!

1,2,3....





We stopped at the Lego Store and literally built ourselves.



Then we built our house





And we realized Becket wasn't going to squeeze into a size 7 shoe any more and graduated to size 9!



Gretchen won the game of clue on her very first guess and only guess of the game!