Trip to Minnesota

We just got back from our 2 week visit to Minnesota.   We had a great time and it was really nice to see so many friends and family.  Thank you to all for you hospitality.  Here are just a few new pics.

 

We celebrated my grandma's 90th birthday.  This is a pic of her with her grandkids (great grandkids not included). 

 

 

Great Grandma and Sophie.

We spent a week at my grandma's house just relaxing.

 

 

 

The Monday after we got back was Sophie's first day of public school.  I was more nervous than she was.  She had a great day though.  She said "It was awesome!".



A couple of pics

Here is a picture of my beautiful sweet pea at Easter.  We had a nice visit with my mom and Duane while they were here too.

Notice anything different about this picture?  There's no training wheels on her bike!  She's such a big girl now.  She picked up on riding without them really quickly.  I didn't have to do any running behind her bike.  Yeah!

Nothing else to share right now.  Hope everyone is doing well.  Love you all.

Catching up and a few new things

Greetings from the desert (I use that term loosely)!  The weather is 56 degrees and sunny now but from the end of August to the beginning of September was monsoon season.  We were told this last season was the wettest they've had in a long time.  It rained everyday for weeks.  Our grass in the backyard was beginning to look like a jungle and we didn't have anyway to cut it.  A quick trip to Wal-Mart and Larry was cutting the grass with a weed whipper.
Nothing major has happened since our last post but we have had a lot of fun everyday things happen.  In case you haven't gotten a moving picture on Skype of our latest cat, here she is.  Cookie is her name and she tolerates our presence pretty well.  We got her at the humane society.  She's 7 years old and even though she isn't real fond of Sophie sometimes, Sophie adores her.

 

Here is a picture of Sophie and her partner in crime, Violet.  Here they are having some good clean fun.

 



We had a great time visiting with Larry's dad, step-mom and sister in September.  Here are some pictures from the top of Sandia Mountain after we took a tramway ride to the top.

 



 

We went camping for the first time in New Mexico.  The campground was a state park on Bluewater Lake.  We camped on a hill overlooking the lake.

 

Sophie has her own Princess tent.

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately we forgot to check the weather before we left.  It got into the 30 degree range that night.  Fortunately Sophie was bundled up and toasty warm.  Unfortunately, Larry and I had on several layers and all of our blankets on but still weren't warm.  It seems too much ventilation in a tent is not good on a windy cold night. 

 



 

Here is a picture of our proud Heritage Girl Scout.  If you haven't heard of it, its like Christian girl scouts.  She loves it and has earned 2 badges already.

 

We had a lot of fun in early October when we went to the Balloon Fiesta here.  Its the largest hot air balloon event in the world.  When we first talked about going, I thought it might be kind of boring.  Boy was I wrong.  It was amazing.  We went twice during the week long event.

 

Larry and Sophie in front of Spider Pig.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Larry's favorite, Darth Vadar.

 

 

Laying out a balloon to fill up with air.  Then they will turn the burner on to get it upright.

 

One of Sophie's favorites, the butterfly.

 

Her very favorite, the kissing bees.

 

Another favorite, the princess carriage.

 

We went in the evening to the "Glowdeo".  They tether the balloons and turn on their burners.  The balloons glow in the night sky.

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you liked the pictures.  We have more company coming soon.  So we'll have more to share then.

 

Where baaaack!

It's hard to believe its been 2 years (and 2 houses) since our last blog post.  As everyone knows, we've moved to Albuquerque, NM and we love it!!!!  If you'd like to see some pics of our house, go to my facebook page and our best friend Cassie posted some pics from when she was here with us.

After searching for a about a month, Larry has a new job.  He started on the 28th and its taking some time for him to get in the groove again.  Its so nice to have him so close to home.  It only takes him 15 minutes to get to work.  We've added another family member.  Her name is Cookie.  She's a calico cat and she's 7 years old.  Its taking some getting used to Sophie's exuberant nature but Cookie's warming up to us all.  Sophie and I have tapered down our school time.  The kids here had their last day of school just before Memorial Day weekend.  So Sophie's friends have been wanting to play.  Sophie has a new best friend.  Her name is Violet and she lives just two houses down from us.  She's 4 years old, soon to be 5.  But she's pretty big and mature for her age.  The two girls together raise quite a raucous but they have a blast.  They're quite inseparable.

We try to get outside most everyday (Sophie and I).  I love to soak up that vitamin D as much as possible.  We have a couple of backyard games to play.  So that's fun.  A couple of weeks ago I introduced Sophie to mud pie making (strictly second-hand knowledge as I was not allowed to get dirty when I was a kid).  She may have made them before but she couldn't remember doing it.  At first she didn't want to get her hands dirty and just said "Ewwwww!"  It didn't take long for her to become one with the mud.  Here are some cute pictures.

 

Sophie's foot prints.

 

It's obviously not as green here as it is in Minnesota but I was surprised to see some color pop up in our backyard.  One day Sophie watered one of the bushes and the next day there were roses blooming on it.  That's the kind of gardening I like!

 

 

 

 Sophie was drawing scenes from the movie Tangled on the patio.

 

She even drew the castle where they lived and their rooms.  As a side note she drew a little tiny picture of the hero.  Obviously he's not as important as Rapunzel.

A couple of days ago, Sophie came in the house and said she took Butterscotch "for a walk".  Butterscotch is a stuffed dog she got from Grandma and Grandpa Gabriel.  She has Buddy's old retractable dog leash that she likes to put Butterscotch on when she's in the house.  It seems she took Butterscotch "for a walk" (or drag) while she was on her bike.  Not only did Butterscotch need a bath when he came in but he needed some minor surgery from Veterinarian Mom as well.  I pulled out over a dozen little prickles (kind of like sand burrs) from his fur.  Sophie decided she won't be taking Butterscotch "for a walk" again.

Sophie Every Day

I'm trying to keep posting up now, and to that end, here's a brand new post - only ten days since the last one!



Sophie is a tech head already (so surprising considering her dad, huh?) and we have fun playing games together. Here we are playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii. She does do a pretty good job, and has no problems using normal controllers and pressing multiple buttons with her nubby - she's pretty adept at using it.



Again, Sophie takes after both of us, and she is becoming a good Ms. Pac-Man player (and still not 5 years old!). She can now get to the 6th board completely by herself (which means she has seen both the "They Meet" and "The Chase" intermissions). I am very proud! ;)



As I am the tech side, Stacy is the crafty side, and Sophie loves doing anything crafty with mommy. Here she's learning to use rubber stamps, using her own stamps and ink pads that mommy got for her.



I mentioned reading in the last post, and Sophie is learning to read very quickly. Stacy and I got a set of Usborne First Reading books at the Home Schooling convention a few months ago, and Sophie is now up to reading the 8th one out of 15 (they build on each other and get harder as you progress). Here she's reading that book, Moon Zoom, in Stacy's lap.



We like to get Sophie the crafty kits at Target or Wal-Mart, to help her develop her creative skills, and this is a sticker-based mosaic picture project that Sophie quickly picked up and enjoys.



Sophie still loves to jump and run around, and here she's showing off how high she can jump on the mini trampoline that we have in the house.



Sophie and her friend, Olivia, were eating giant marshmallows, and then decided it was more fun if the stuck the marshmallows out of their mouths while smiling. They could barely stand, they were laughing so much.



And to close this entry, here Sophie and Olivia are giving each other a big hug!

We have a lot of stuff happening over the next month or so, so I should post again in a week or so, and hopefully I can keep the pace, as there will be pplenty of material to work with. Later!

Larry

Sophie Episode IV: A New Hope (Spring 2011)

Alright, I've got the final of the four updates to get us up to date (well, within the last week or two)...



We had originally bought this whiteboard easel almost two years ago for Christmas, but it went unused until a few months ago, when Sophie wanted to learn reading. As you can see, she also does some artwork as well.



We're pretty proud - she's very creative!



Sophie graduated from pre-school just before Memorial day, and here is a picture of her with the two other boys who attended that day with her mortar board hat.



This is Sophie's pre-school teacher, Miss Krista - wishing Sophie a good summer.



Sophie is a big ham, as you probably know, and here she is licking a bowl clean just to get messy.



This year we had Easter with our friends Tim and Cassie at our house, so Sophie had a familiar place to search for her Easter eggs. As she was opening her eggs, Tim was re-closing the plastic eggs with nothing in them and putting them back in her basket - it took her a few to realize the joke he'd played on her.



Sophie loves rainbows, so after the last big rainstorm, I ried to get a semi-artistic picture of her and a rainbow. I'll keep working on it :)



Now that she's at an appropriate age, and to encourage her to play outside, we decided to give Sophie a playset for her birthday. As is standard practice, Sophie wanted to help me put it together.



I put it together about a month ago, and the day was both cool and extremely windy! Here Sophie is testing out the fort structure after it was halfway built (it still needs a roof and side panels).



It took me another day (and after 15 hours in the sun the previous day, I was exhausted and sick), but I got the set completed, and here Sophie is swinging on her swingset for the first time! The birthday present is obviously very early (by about two months), but we definitely wanted her to be able to enjoy it the whole season. She loves it, and plays on it nearly every day!



Last but not least, Sophie started playing soccer in May. Here Sophie is stretching with her teammate Hannah.



Here Sophie is practicing passing with Kyra.



This is the whole team from the first practice. The two teenagers with them were their coaches, April and Anna.



Here April is passing with Sophie before the first practice.

When I said "were" the coaches - it wasn't a typo.

At the second practice, we found out that they wouldn't be able to be the coaches for the Lime Tigers after all, as they were both on the Princeton High School traveling team.

Guess who volunteered when they saw the need for a coach of ten 4 and 5 year olds?

That's right, the geek who's never played soccer! Me!

Just as we expected, it looks like Sophie is going to enjoy sports, and her parents who don't really care for or even watch sports, are going to have to learn 'em!



Coaching them isn't about technique so much, as it is about herding cats.

The other parents appreciate it, and the kids have a good time, which is what is important.

We have two more weeks of Soccer, and just got the formal pictures, which I'll scan and post very soon.

That's about it for now, I intend to get some more stuff posted in the next week or two, and try to stay regular.

Have a good night!

Larry