Summer Break has begun!

Ian has officially finished his first year of school....and we have lots to celebrate and planned. Here Ian is sporting his "after-hockey hair" full of sweat and hard work. He'll be continuing his hockey classes through the summer and is improving and loving it even more (if possible) with each week.

With summer come fun late nights. Here Ian and his good bud Quin are trying to warm up a bit after their first summer run through the sprinklers.

Ian has made so many friends at preschool this year and he loves them all. Here Dylan, Luke, and Ian are toasting with their hot chocolates at a lunch play date.

The last weeks of school are of course filled with lots of fun stuff. A couple weeks ago we went on a field trip to Penguin's Ice Cream and got to see how they make the yummy goodness and then of course all got to taste the results. YUMMY with sprinkles on top!

The last day of school arrived and of course I needed pictures, Ian obliged, even though he had to look straight into the sun! :-)

When asked what he thought about it being summer? "WHOOOO-HOOOOO" But when asked about it being the last day of school..."I'll miss everyone"

We celebrated with what will hopefully be a yearly tradition of bowling with his friends and pizza afterwards...of course with Ian's obsession with balls he made sure to keep track of them all and get them all ready for everyone. He is definitely a strong leader personality who has his own ideas about how things should be...and isn't afraid to share his thoughts (although he is still only 3 and gets frustrated easily which means when others don't see things his way he tends to use his brawn more than his brain...something we're working on! :-) ) He was very sweet though and cheered us all on with cheers of "Let's Go Mama, Let's Go" or "You can rock this mama" HA!

It's all about the style...yep, we all had bumpers and everything, and Ian was beating me until the 8th frame! Sad!

Ian and Kazdyn trying out the tandem bowling style:

Whoo-Hooo celebrating with a shout and dance after he knocked down a couple pins...

...and of course Zachary is following along everywhere we go watching and learning and trying to keep up. He's crawling like a mad man now getting into everything, putting EVERYTHING in his mouth. He's also learned how to say"Hi" (kinda) and wave and wave bye-bye and loves to play with anything he shouldn't such as plugs, wires, and especially doors. His personality is definitely starting to show -- motivated, persistent, rebellious, happy, and particular are just a few traits that are pretty evident. Here he's playing for the first time in the sprinklers and a video of him saying "hi" and a bit of crawling.

Summer fun...camping in Moab! :-)

Updates on Zachary and Ian....Zachary now has FOUR teeth and decided to try them out on a fake snake, not sure where this one was going.  Maybe he heard we were headed to Moab and was afraid I wouldn't feed him properly while there!?

Summer is finally poked its head out a few times (between the snow and wind storms) and we've been able to make it to the park.  Z LOVES swinging, and being its really all Z can do right now at the park, Ian has taken to swinging with his brother.  Its soooo cute.

We also were able to visit the Martinez park and zoo.  We've been having a picnic almost every day for lunch, so we decided to take it on the road and visit the farm while the baby animals were around.  Zachary wasn't sure what to make of the goats and others, but Ian loved it and ran from pen to pen so excited to see and talk to each of the animals.  When we first showed up I was busy getting the billion pounds of crap out of the car for the small field trip (stroller, diaper bag, wallet....) and Ian was looking at the animals from the sidewalk in the parking lot.  He says "Ah, Mom look that cow is a mama, where is the baby?"  Without really looking up I asked him, how he knew the cow was a mama and he replied "because she has boobies!"  HA!  Then I really looked and sure enough she had a big ol' udder.

Ian's bike's wheels were looking pretty slick so before our trip to Moab Dada was going to tune up Ian's bike too...guess Zachary wanted in on the fun!  Zachary is also now CRAWLING and pulling himself up, just wanting sooo bad to walk.  Scary crazy for us b/c of course EVERYTHING goes in his mouth and he is a little explorer and treasure finder...more pics and videos to come!

Ian has taken to getting up with Mike (at about 6 AM) and hopping in the shower with him, he then wants to put on Mike's robe and watch his morning movie before we are up and out for the days adventures.  This is how I've found him many mornings lately:

 

So finally we were off for Moab.  We decided to leave a night early and rolled into Glenwood Springs around midnight to crash at Jim & Mindy's place (thanks guys!!!).  Across from their "coolest place to live" was the firestation.  Ian watched the guys come and go and just as we were about to leave we walked by and they invited us in to check out the engines etc.  Turns out they were doing drills that day for wildland fires.  So both the boys got to sit on the truck.  Hopefully fireman Shane won't be too upset that they stepped out on him! :-) 

Once in Moab we did lots of hiking and playing around while Mike tackled the mountain bike trails with his buddies that were also there that week -- luckily they had rented a house with a shower etc. so we were able to get real good and dirty every day b/c there was a clean hot shower waiting for us.  This obviously made camping and dealing with 2 dirt loving boys much more enjoyable for me (and everyone else too I think!)  Here was after our 2 hour hike on Negro Bill trail.  I carried Zachary in the baby bjorn the whole time and he LOVED it.  Especially when we came upon other dogs, he squealed with delight watching Luna and them interact.  Ian walked the whole way with his camelback scouting out the best places to get into the water (about every 100 feet!)

Here was a sandstone hole just above our camp site.  Ian was a bit afraid as is was a bit steep farther out and he didn't want his brother to fall out.  Very protective!

Another hike around our camp area produced a few small puddles to hit and splash with his "light saber" -- because Ian had taken to being "Luke Skywalked with the green light saber, and I will protect you mama."

While looking for lizards near the campsite we found this huge "swimming hole that looks like your swimming in chocolate milk!!!!!"  just a few hundred yards from our site.  So of course dirt dog Luna and dirt boy Ian couldn't contain themselves and had to jump in (--as I said before this was much easier for me knowing that there were showers soon to come for all the bipeds).  Zachary even shared in the fun and had a great time splashing and trying to get every rock he found in his mouth!

Finally, after a great trip it was time to head home.  First we stopped at Arched National Park to do a couple quick hikes, check out the scenery and snap a few pics....

Then we were on the road again.  Ian watched all 3 star wars movies in between naps on the way home and is even more obsessed now, but he stayed happy as Zachary slept almost the entire way, so it was quite enjoyable.  Especially since we were pushing it a bit b/c Mike and I had a sushi making class at our church at 5:30 PM. So since we were on a time schedule, of course we ran into traffic in Denver due to an accident but were able to make it to the house by 5:15.  Throw the dirty, tired, hungry cooped up kids at Mike's mom to take care of, shower and get over to the church only 15 min late.  --and we're so glad we did, it was soooo yummy and so much fun!