End of Summer, Back to School!

Summer officially ended for the Thomas family last week, and we are all Back to School!  Even though I felt like this year I was a little more "ready" and excited to go back to work, when the first days of professional development and teacher work time came, it was really rough!  But now that we've had students for a couple of days, I think I will survive! :)  I have some REALLY sweet new kiddos on my caseload this year, and I am VERY excited to just have Kindergarten-Third grade students this year! (last year I had K-5 and it was nutty!)

 

(Left:  Carson and Aliana, First Day of School!)

(Right:  Mommy, First Day of School! ...along with two of my beautiful 

special education teammates)

*Not sure why we don't have a picture of daddy!

Girls / Boys Weekends!  We started a tradition when Carson went into first grade that every summer the "boys" and "girls" would have a weekend together talking about the Thomas Five!  (Love God, Live with Integrity, Walk in Wisdom, Work Hard, Treat Men and Women with Love & Respect).  The boys had their weekend at a camp ground in Wyoming with other dads/boys from Church as part of the Resoration / ManMaker project and the girls had our weekend at home this year (per Aliana's request!).  Last summer the girls we went to Colorado Springs and the boys camped in Estes Park.  It proved to be another wonderful weekend for our kids to learn about the will of God in their lives and His amazing love that He has for them!

                                                   

                                 

                               

                               

*As part of our girl's weekend, Aliana completed a summer service project and made bead jewelry to sell for Learn for Life Kenya... thank you for all of our lovely family members who supported her :)

The summer wrapped up with Brian finishing the deck project (he built a roof, and built BEAUTIFUL furniture!).  Carson finished up Archery and got to give his sister a little lesson, Aliana is still loving dance and will continue into the fall, Brian and I had a fun date night in Boulder and of course the kids have been continuing to enjoy playdates with their Besties!!!!

HAPPY FALL!!!

It's Mid-July! Summer Has Been Great!!

A few weeks left of summer for the Thomas family! We have really been enjoying our time off from work, time home with the kids, and a slower pace for these last 6 weeks!


Olympic Distance Triathlon:  Two summers ago I competed in a Sprint Distance Tri, so this summer I decided to try the Olympic Distance!  The swim was 0.93 miles, bike was 23.5 miles and a 10K run. The swim and run were great and the bike was awful :(  I had a low (read flat) tire for over half of the miles so my time was slow.  But I'm still glad I did it!

Visit from Luther Friends:  Blake, Jen and their 3 sweet kiddos came to visit from Iowa!  We had such a fun visit!  The kids were stacked: Bo (5) Ali (6) Brady (7) Carson (8) Caitlyn (9) - they played SO amazingly well together!  We camped in Rocky Mountain National Park, played at the pool, visited the Science Museum, hiked in Boulder and ate LOTS of yummy food!

Trip To Alaska:  What a special trip we had to Alaska in June over summer solstice. We love AK in the summer, especially in June! The weather was perfect.  The kids were in LOVE with their cousins - we had so much fun with Grammy, Grandpa Michael and Zach, Margaret, Willem (5) and Sophia (1)!  Again, we ate lots of yummy food (we have been on a new workout program the last couple of weeks to make up for our June eating, lol), watched animals at the Conservation Center (which we got to ride in the back of Zach's truck in true Alaska fashion), carved sticks, had target practice with Grandpa's gun, made a quick trip to Healy to visit our old stomping ground, ate dinner out with my BFF from high school, and held baby husky puppies at the Iditarod Trail HQ.

Palmer travels...

 

 

Weekend in Healy....

Dinner with Darcie!!

Fun Times With Friends:  The weeks we have been home, we have enjoyed lots of pool time and playdates!  Carson has been playing baseball this summer with a few buddies, Aliana had a cheer camp at Brian's high school last week and Ballet starts for her on Thursday!

 

                                           *Carson at catcher :)

Thankful for all of our blessings this summer!  Goodnight!!