Summer Wrap-Up

It's hard to believe the summer's over for the Thomas family!!  We start back to work next week - YIKES!!!  It has been awesome getting to enjoy time as a family.  Here's what our summer has looked like in a nutshell.... (get ready for a crazy amount of pictures!)

Church:  We go to an AMAZING church here in Lafayette, which we all absolutely love.  Aliana helps me twice a month with a little 5 year old boy who is hearing impaired.  I sign to him a little and Aliana plays with him a LOT!

Father's Day:  We had a nice brunch out with Brian's parents for Father's day.  There was a girl making balloon animals, they were awesome!

Colorado Springs & Florida:  Brian and Carson went to Florida with some students that Brian had been working with for over a year on a project that was taking a rocket ride to the International Space Station.  The boys had a wonderful week of NASA tours, Wet & Wild and Legoland.  Aliana and I took a girls trip to CO Springs for a night.  Aliana raised money (thank you grandparents and great grandpa) to buy baby items for the Springs Rescue Mission.  She bought the items from Walmart and then we got to drop them off at the Rescue Mission.

Nana's visit: My mom had a conference at the end of June, so we enjoyed having her stay with us before the Denver conference and then visiting her in the city as well.  She and Aliana made the beautiful flower arrangement in the back of a photo inside of a wooden cradle that my great/great/great grandpa made!!

Soccer & Gymnastics:  The kids each chose a summer activity - Carson played baseball (which Brian helped coach) and Aliana did gymnastics classes which she absolutely loved!

Cousin time:  The kids love spending time with Sydney and Bryce who live about 15 min away from us.  They enjoyed many afternoons playing and on this day set up a lemonade stand to earn some cash.

4th of July:  We enjoyed fireworks put on by our city over a local lake.  The kids both fell asleep while waiting for them to start, but after we woke them up enjoyed the show!

Camping at Brainerd Lake:  Right after the 4th we camped with Brian's brother/wife and kids.  Have I mentioned that it always rains when we go camping?!?!  It poured the entire trip so we cut it a night short and had a cookout in Jason & Melissa's backyard the last night.

Texas and the Sand Dunes National Park:  Our big family trip of the summer was to Texas and the Sand Dunes at the end of July.  We had a WONDERFUL trip!!  We went to visit my grandpa, cousin and uncle who live near Austin.  The kids had such a great time in TX visiting with my family, playing at the local park, train, and children's museum, and spending a day at the local water park.  On our way back from TX we drove through the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado which was also amazing!!!  We camped there an had such a fun time hiking, playing in the water and visiting a random alligator farm that was nearby.

We are sad to say good-bye to our easy schedule, relaxed days spending time together as a family, and playdates with some very special friends!  Brian has been busy working on the house (finishing the basement, tiling and constructing our entry way) so that we have some nice places to enjoy on the weekends once the school year gets rolling! I have loved my "stay-at-home mom" time - it's going to be a shock to the system to go back to work!  Bye-Bye Summer!! You were the BEST!!!

Camping Trip - Estes Park

We've been enjoying summer vacation the past few weeks!   School ended with Aliana having head lice, so that was some excitement the first few days of summer!! We have since moved on and have been enjoying going to the pool, having playdates and spending a couple nights in our new tent at Estes Park!  We had AMAZING weather.  Usually when we camp it POURS rain (I am not kidding), so the fact that it was sunny about 98% of the three days we were there, was nothing short of a miracle!  We went on two hikes, explored in the woods, rode our bikes and sat by the campfire!

Carson reading on the first morning

Elk on day 1

Pancake breakfast.... yum!!

Dream Lake

Nymph Lake

Playing on the river bank, which then turned in to Carson playing IN the river.

Kiddos!

Glacier Basin Campground where we stayed

Annie performance for Mother's Day, Easter and Spring Break

We headed to downtown Denver this afternoon to watch the Annie Broadway-musical performance with Brian's family and Melissa's mom who was in town for Mother's Day.  It was AMAZING!  We all really enjoyed it.  Aliana has been sick since Tuesday (home from school with a fever but not much else) so we were very thankful she was feeling better and able to go, praise God!

Going back a few weeks... we enjoyed an Easter visit from Nana & Grandpa John!  The kids always enjoy making treats with Nana and getting lots of laughs from Grandpa John.  We don't do the Easter Bunny, but still had a fun egg hunt with a surprise at the end!  Carson got a new bike from Walmart and Aliana got a hand-me-down Jeep from one of Brian's co-workers.  The kids were pumped!!

And going back a few weeks before that... we were home for Spring Break this year, which gave us some time to head to the mountains.  The kids each had a day to ski with daddy -- then Brian and I spent a couple nights in Glenwood Springs to celebrate our anniversary a couple of weeks early (thanks to Brian's parents who kept the kids!!!)

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all the moms, grandmas and moms-to-be out there!!!  Much love to all of you!!

Ack! It's been a while!

Well, I have not been updating the blog these past few months... time to catch up with some highlights!

Thanksgiving in Los Angeles - we flew to CA for Thanksgiving this year to visit my brother & his family and also spend time with my mom & stepdad.  As our Christmas gift from the grandparents we spent a day at Disneyland!!  The kids had a blast together!

Aliana (5), Kiki (4), Carson (7), Kepler (2)

Christmas in Colorado - we enjoyed staying home for the Christmas break and getting to hang out with cousins Bryce & Sydney, Brian's brother/wife and Brian's parents. Brian's cousin, his wife and their 4 kids came out from MN to ski.  Brian's mom found a great place in the mountains for us all to stay - there were 18 of us all staying in one house and it was a great time!!

The crew skiing!

One of the big excitements over Christmas break was that Aliana got her ears pierced!

Since Christmas, we've been enjoying skiing a few times with the kids and have been busy at school. My caseload continues to grow... and it's supposed to be even bigger next year!  Brian leads the robotics club at his school and he is taking a group of students to NASA in Houston in about a couple months to test a project his students designed to send to the International Space Station.  I started volunteering twice a month at our church as a Sign Language Buddy for a little guy in the 4 year old class.  Carson played Rec League basketball in January and Aliana enjoys her gymnastic classes 1x/week.  Both kids start soccer next month!  Can't believe it's almost March!!  Happy soon-to-be-spring!!! (I hope!)