Great Grandma Alma Grace Sexton Gordon

Great Grandma Grace passed away June 8th. We found out shortly after making it home from our family road trip. She would have been 97 next month.

We went to Utah Friday afternoon and returned Monday morning. The funeral was Saturday.

We stayed for Father's Day that Sunday and then came home. It was a quick trip but it felt so long because we had just been gone. 

Where did we disappear to?

So we had no travel plans for the summer even though we wanted to get away, but there is just so much going on between school ending and summer work/school/sports beginning. So instead for Mother's Day we got Elitch garden passes for the family as a way to have fun when there was time. Except Nathan still needed to just get away so on Monday morning when he woke up he said that we were going on a road trip to Chicago. 2 1/2 hours later with the house cleaned up and van packed we were on the road. We booked hotels on the road and looked up what to see and do while driving to Omah, Nebraska....

Council Bluffs, Iowa....

Chicago,Illinois....

Milwaukee,Wisconsin....

Keokuk,Iowa....Nauvoo,Illinois....Kansas City, Missouri....

and Topeka,Kansas. 

More posts and details to come :)

Nancy learns to ride!

This morning I woke up with the kids and took them bike riding. It's part of my plan to stay healthy and strong through the summer (and tire them out so when it's too hot to be outside they will chill and lay down for quiet rest/ nap time).

Well the plan was to ride to the lake, go around twice and ride back, but Nancy insisted that she ride her bike without training wheels. So by the time we made it two blocks to where the school is I decided we would just ride on the playground since school is out. What happened next I did not see coming.

Nancy was determined to be a big girl who could ride without training wheels, so while I was watching Moroni on the playground she rode in circles and practiced riding until she could do it!!!!

She taught herself to ride and then Elaine came over to give her pointers and they rode together working side by side. Now Elaine has just learned herself a few months ago how to ride with just 2 wheels, so she knew just how to help her little sister.

Matt watched Moroni for a few minutes so I could take pics and videos of her. Then we went home to wake Nathan and show him. He was sad he missed her doing it and learning. He usually teaches the kids to ride.

She struggles to ride on the narrow sidewalks but got really good at the elementary school big open playground. So proud of her!! 

Kids Fishing Derby @ Waneka Lake

Caught 2 rainbow trout at the Jaxs kids fishing derby. Matthew's sized in at 10 inches. Elaine's sized in at 11 1/4 in. The largest caught at the derby was a 12 incher (that got 1st place).

Kinda sad that we didn't pre register right away because for the first time they were giving out really nice Shakespeare kid fishing poles. :( always next year. 

It was HOT!!!! But the kids did well. We saw lots of friends there with their families too. The event had a good turn out. 

We also had Matthew's baseball assessment that morning. First time. He hit two of the three balls pitched on their pitching machine. But at the other station where he catches grounders and pop flies he got hit in the face. He got a bloody nose, but was big and brave about it.

Spontaneous fishing trip

Nathan had been told by another fisherman that there was another kid friendly lake he could go to near by. We normally just hit up Thomas Res in Erie and have good luck all the time. But I mentioned how I wished there was a playground and nicer bathrooms and this guy with his little ones mentioned a lake just up the I-25.

So maybe a month or so later Nathan decided that today our family would go to check it out. WOW :) It was indeed a nice lake with a playground, nicer bathrooms, picnic tables and grass everywhere, horseshoe rinks, basketball, and a trail. We had a good time just fishing with the kids new poles they earned at the Erie fishing clinic earlier in the month.

Nathan helped the kids catch 5 nice sized city lake rainbow trouts. We had such a good time we ate pizza for dinner there at the lake and continued fishing till just after 7pm. Will definitely go back again! 

 Matt

Elaine

Nancy

Never gonna catch up

So this is my second blog site I have created after our family grew and I wanted a new title. I failed to keep the first one up to date and I fail at doing it with this one. There is no way I am ever going to be able to back track through everything that has happened during the past....what... year?  So I am just going to start with the past weekend.

It was Memorial Weekend and we went down as a family to Colorado Spring, Colorado on Friday. Nathan's sister lives there so we stayed with her family. The traffic was horrible getting down to CoSprings from Lafayette. It should have only taken an hour and a half but ended up taking double!!! We got pulled over once for speeding but were let go after the officer asked then actually listened kindly to our story of how yes we were speeding but were trying to get away from another vehicle that was causing trouble on the roadway. Thank you!! We made it safely finally and unloaded. The cousins had the best of times hanging out and being together. We adults had fun making food, chatting, and resting (that is when we weren't chasing Moroni).

We went to the park, climbed on rocks, the kids rode bikes and scooters, everyone learned about disk golf. The men went a played a few disk golf courses (Nathan liked it so much after Jim brought him along for a game that he went out and bought his own playing set). We hope to play it some more on our dates or as a family. Its fun! In the evening of Friday we babysat so Julia and Jim could go out to dinner and then Julia babysat for us the following afternoon so we could go out to lunch. Don't eat at the Ultimate Buffet. It looks nice and tasty but the food is alright and nothing I care to go back for. It was reviewed by the local newspaper to be good so we thought we would try it and then regretted it. oh well. We made up for it with Sees Candy later. mmmmmm, now that's good stuff!

On Memorial day we gathered together with Nathan's brother and sister at Cottonwood Creek Park. At that point we had 6 adults to 14 kiddos. Lucky for us 4 of those kids are old enough now to help with the younger ones. We had a picnic lunch, let the kids run around on the playground, then went out to the field for some soccer, disk golf practice, running around, and croquet. The weather was nice and the park not overly crowded. Making for a great afternoon.

We left in the later afternoon and were blessed with very little traffic. So when we go back to Lafayette we went to Redbox and got the kids the Nut Job and the adults Pompeii and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. A great way to wind down after a long weekend away.