Henry: Celebrating 8 1/2 years!

(photo taken June 19)

(picture coming - more details coming)

Yesterday turned 8.5 years!  He spent the day at the two Bright Lights classes he is taking this week and then went to wrestling in the evening.

The school year ended with Henry being confident in his surroundings at school.  We are hopeful 3^rd grade will get off to a great start in a few months.  While we are glad he is at ease at school he is still uneasy/unsure in new situations (and even familiar situations that don’t occur on a routine basis).  If he has someone else nearby that will do the talking for him he is perfectly fine with letting that happen.

I think it’s safe to say he is over the 50 pound hurdle!  Six months ago he’d hit 50 pounds on a heavy day but was usually closer to 48 during the wrestling season.

He is prefers size 6/7 shirts – some used M(7/8) shirts are ok.  New M(7/8) shirts are too big for his liking (and really just too big).  He is wearing some shorts with elastic bands as little as size XS (4/5) – but those that could use belts and have adjustable waists its closer to a size 7 . . . 8 if really cinched.

Breakfast is about the same as six months ago.   His preference most weekdays is still French toast sticks and a sausage.  When the weekend rolls around he usually asks for a breakfast burrito made by Mike.  Dessert most evenings is ice cream

This summer’s activities are Y baseball and wrestling with CES (Competitive Edge Sports).  The wrestling venue is the only year round venue so he has been seeing other kids he has wrestled against or near his weight class the last few weeks.  It’s good to have new kids to wrestling against.

From last blog still need to update -

With the exception of his penmanship (which is teacher is more lenient in grading than last year's teacher), school seems to be going well.  Luckily everything seems to come easy for him so far.  Reading is still a favorite pasttime of his . . .though if he had his choice "screens" would be ahead of reading whether its tv/you tube time, minecraft on the WiiU, or games on the kindle . . or all three at the same time.

Destination: Denver!

In what has become  a slight tradition the past few years we went on a road trip after the school year was done.  Traditionally we've left the day after and returned a few days later.  This year we left on Saturday and returned on Wednesday.  The destination?  Denver.  It was mostly due to process of elimination - we have visited most major cities in the other directions and decided to head West this year. The original destination was the Black Hills but we decided we didn't have enough time . . and Denver wasn't quite as far.

We left just after 8 am on Saturday, May 26.  The boys had to read until we reached Grand Island then could have screens.  We tried to play the "license plate game" but it was short lived on their part.  We had packed a lunch so we didn't need to worry about being near civilization at lunch time.  We ended up stopping twice along the way for restroom stops.  Around 2:30 pm mst we arrived at Wings over the Rockies - perfect timing to make it though one of the stops and free up time on another day.  Wings over the Rockies is similiar to the SAC Museum on a smaller scale.

From there we went to the hotel to check in . . and found out Chick-Fil-A was not far - we could see from our hotel room, AND it was easily walkable for supper!

No one slept in Sunday morning.  We were eating breakfast by 6:30 am.  We arrived at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature just before it opened.  We checked in when they opened at 9 am and started exploring - starting on the top level.  We were there for roughly 3 hours before we reached our limit for the day and had to find some lunch.  Some reviews I had read suggested visiting a few half days so I knew we'd be overwhelmed with only 1/2 day but we had places to go!  After lunch we went to an indoor water park in a sense at a suburb Rec Center (Apex Center in Arvada).  The boys spent the first hour going down the 150' curved tube slide on a double intertube - having to give up the tube after each time they went down; waiting in line for another one.  After an hour and a safety break they went to the "play pool" - zero-depth play area with slides, fountains, waterfalls, and geysers . . and eventually tried their hand at the  (rope /walking across the water things).  We left Apex after nearly 3 hours.  Glad we could squeeze it in; it was a good find.

There was a bit more sleeping in on Monday morning.  After breakfast we drove to Dinosaur Ridge in Golden.  We took their little narrated bus tour which stops at the Dinosaur Bone Site, Brontosaur Bulges, and the Dinosaur Track Site to learn about and see the fossils.  From Dinosaur Ridge we went to Buffalo Bills Grave and Museum at Lookout Mountain.  After lunch we stopped at the Colorado Railroad Museum.

Tuesday was a super early day as we were hoping to tour the mint and the ticket window opens at 7:00 am and only hands out tickets for that day.  Not knowing what kind of crowd there might be or the demand after a 3-day weekend, we were line by 6:40 am and luckily got tickets for the 8 am tour.  From that tour we went to Hammonds Candy where we just caught a tour starting.  The tour there consists of a video and then going to factory floor to watch candy being made behind glass.  After the tours we ventured to Elitch Gardens - we tried to stick to the rides but the water park area drew the boys more.

When we left Elitch Gardens we drove to Fort Morgan to spend the night to avoid the Denver morning rush hour traffic and make the drive home Wednesday not quite as long.

All in all, a pretty good vacation.  Our last two roadtrips have been to Des Moines so it was great to venture to somewhere new.