Road trip to Dallas- day 2

10:00 am 

We just left Durango. We had a fun breakfast and played at the playground before we packed up. The kids slept good last night. Copelin actually slept in about an hour longer than everyone else. 

We had planned to stop at Chimney Rock National Monument on our way out but Copelin fell asleep right before we got there so we took a quick selfie from the side of the road and kept on driving. 

Our next rest stop was Echo Rock (I’ll have to double check the exact name) in New Mexico. It was a little hike back to see a natural amphitheater, Cope and Lennon had fun yelling and hearing their echo. Copelin loves to do everything Lennon does and tries to act exactly like him, it’s pretty entertaining. 

We stopped for the night in Tucumcari, NM. We stayed on Route 66 at the Desert Inn. Kyle also stayed in that town when he drove through a few weeks ago. They have clean and cheap hotels, good place to stop when driving through for sure. When we were eating breakfast a man who was staying there brought in a little bag of toy Subaru’s. He said he is a Subaru ambassador and gave each of the boys a car. They were so excited. 

Road trip to Dallas- Day 1

12:35 pm

Day one of our trip has been successful. We left the house two hours later than planned but have had good driving conditions so far so we are making up time. The boys are all set up in the backseat with their new car organizers I made them and their special travel blankets Aunt Cheryl made them. Copelin’s has a donkey in it (his favorite animal) and Lennon’s has a soccer ball. 

We stopped in Price for lunch and now Cope is asleep and Lennon is playing games on the iPad. 

We stopped at Hole n the Rock just past Moab. The boys thought that was pretty cool. They had two antique grocery store type rides that still work! They each had a turn and loved it. 

We made it to the KOA in Durango, Colorado about 5pm. We made really good time, I can’t believe how fast the drive went and how well the boys did. 

Our little cabin has a kitchen so we ate dinner here and then went swimming and checked out the campground.  Cope is SUCH a fish! All he wants to do is kick and paddle around and stick his head under water. Lennon sat on the edge and cried about being cold haha total opposites.  

We are excited for the pancake breakfast they have in the morning served next to a real caboose! 

Preschool Graduation

Lennon finished his first year at Teacher Laurel’s preschool and earned his “bachelors degree”. He had so much fun and learned and grew so much this year. At the graduation his class sung a bunch of songs they learned and also did an Irish dance! We are so proud of Lennon and the big boy he has become, he is so sweet to friends and other people, he loves to learn, and he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. 

Lennon’s Playing Soccer

Lennon is playing soccer this year! This is his first time playing team sports. He’s on a team in Lindon with a few of his friends. His first game didn’t go too well, he was scared and didn’t play. But after a week of practicing with dad, he went out and played game #2 like a champ! He loved it and ran and played so hard! We are excited to see how the rest of the season goes. 

Update: Lennon finished the season strong. He loved running the field and he got a few really good kicks in too. It was so fun to watch him really get into the game and having fun with his teammates. 

Copelin’s Big Weekend

Well, as expected, Copelin was the first kid to break a bone. We just didn’t think it would be the same weekend he had his first surgery! 

Friday (April 27) we took Copelin up to Primary Children’s hospital to have a stint put in his right tear duct. The procedure didn’t take long but he had to be put under anesthesia so it was a long rough day. 

On a lighter note, Lennon got to have his first sleepover! He stayed at his Great Grandma and Grandpa Kirkwood’s house Thursday night and spent Friday over there playing. He slept great and had a fun time! 

Sunday evening Copelin tried to climb up onto a chair to get on the trampoline at Grandma and Grandpa Steele’s House. The chair tipped and he fell, he didn’t cry too hard but we could tell something was wrong. He was really quiet and wouldn’t move his right arm. We took him in for an X-ray and sure enough, broken collarbone. 

2018- ready for new adventures

Well it’s been 2 years since my last post, not because we haven’t had any adventures, but because life is busy! We now have 2 little adventurers. Lennon is 4 years old and Copelin is 19 months. 

In a little over a month we will be loading up and heading out to Texas for a good part of the summer. Lennon is so excited and ready to go already. We are so excited to see what exciting things live ahead. 

Boulder/Ironman

About 8 months ago Kyle decided he wanted to start training for a half Ironman. He trained hard and this weekend we had the opportunity to watch him race. 

We rented a vacation home/apartment in Boulder, Colorado to stay in while we were out there for his race.

We got in kind of late Thursday night and just got settled in, Friday we drove out to the reservoir where Kyle's race would be. They were doing packet pick up and he had to drop his bike off. They had the Ironman Village set up so we got to walk around that and get tons of samples of stuff. It was so crazy hot so we decided to go down to Pearl Street Mall and let Lennon play in the splash pad and get some ice cream. 

My dad and Margy came into town for the race too, so Saturday morning Kyle left bright and early for the race and my dad picked me and Lennon up. We got to the reservoir a little early so we got to see Kyle before he started his swim. 

Once the race started we set up our blankets and chairs under a tree, I'm so glad we did that because we were there most of the day and there was hardly any shade to be found. We were at a good spot right by the transition area and the finish line so we were able to see Kyle finish his swim and get on his bike, then come in from the bike ride and start the run, then we saw him finish his first lap of the run. I'm so lucky my dad and Margy were able to come, they were such a big help to me. Margy stayed with Lennon a lot when I would go wait for Kyle, and my dad had his nice camera to take pictures, plus it was just fun to have a bigger group of people cheering Kyle on! 

When we saw Kyle start to come toward the finish line I handed Lennon a cowbell and threw him up on my shoulders. He shook the cowbell as hard as he could and we ran the last little ways to the finish line next to Kyle. We were so excited! It was so fun to see him accomplish something he had worked so hard towards.  

We spent the rest of Saturday just taking it easy and letting Kyle recuperate. We went to the most amazing bbq place for dinner, I'm pretty sure it was called Moe's. 

Sunday we drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park. 

We drove up to the gift shop at the highest point of the park and had some hot chocolate. We did that last fall when we came too, it's so cool because you get to drive up to a peak that's just about the same height as Timpanogos. There was still about 10 feet of snow in some places up there. We also saw a ton of elk just hanging out right near the road. There were three or four places along the road where we saw them. 

After that we started a little hike along a river towards a waterfall but it started pouring rain so we just threw rocks in the river for a sec then got back in the car and headed back to Boulder. 

Monday we went to Chautauqua Park and hiked up a trail by the flat iron mountains. 

It was a pretty short hike but we saw a lot of cool things. One section of it was completely covered in rock cairns, Kyle and Lennon set one up to add to the collection. 

After our hike we took a nice long nap then headed back to Pearl Street Mall. It was a little chilly and rained on and off so we didn't do the splash pad, instead we took Lennon into a candy store and let him fill a little sack with whatever he wanted. We walked around for a while and then went to dinner. 

Overall we had a really fun and pretty relaxing vacation (other than Kyle during his race haha). We are currently driving home but taking our time. We stopped in Georgetown, which is an old mining town just outside of Golden. They had a really cute park and playground that we stopped at for a while. We'll probably end up getting in late tonight but we're having fun so it's okay.