Long Overdue Update
5 years ago
Sunday, December 23, 2012
2012 Christmas E-Card
Merry Christmas from the Carpenter Family. (My plan of updating this blog along our trip didn't happen, we had a great time).
Friday, July 13, 2012
Vacation - Day 1
Early this morning we piled into the car and started our trek east toward Michigan and Scott's family. We made wonderful time traveling 800 miles in 12 hours and the kids did really good. We spotted license plates from 28 different states and 2 Canadian provinces while on I-80. A quick stop in Cheyenne to drop off items we'll need when we pass back through for part of Cheyenne Frontier Days.
Nolan and Barrett finished up their summer 3 on 3 hockey session this week. A nice benefit of living in a big city like Salt Lake City is year-round ice. They both attended day camps for Cub Scouts earlier this month and had a blast. Another day of miles and passing through Chicago tomorrow.
Nolan and Barrett finished up their summer 3 on 3 hockey session this week. A nice benefit of living in a big city like Salt Lake City is year-round ice. They both attended day camps for Cub Scouts earlier this month and had a blast. Another day of miles and passing through Chicago tomorrow.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas 2011
From the Ranch House Way, to Devils Tower, to Happy Holidays From the Carpenters…the Sugarhouse Way! Now in Salt Lake City, UT
WOW! Another year has flown by and another move for our family. 2011 started out much the same way that 2010 came to a close, with Kelly and Travis making multiple trips (a few with friends and family along for the ride across Wyoming on I-80) to Shriner’s Hospital for Children, Primary Children’s Hospital and the University of Utah Hospitals. INCREDIBLE friends in Cheyenne helped out watching Nolan and Barrett well into the late evening hours on several occasions to help minimize the amount of work leave Scott had to take, and the resulting impact on Scott’s co-workers at the NWS.
The change started to take shape in the early days of March, when Scott’s former boss in Billings, sent a message about a potential employment opportunity in Salt Lake City. Within hours recommendations were made, and within days a directed transfer was awarded to make Scott the Meteorologist-In-Charge (MIC) at the Center Weather Service Unit (CWSU) in Salt Lake City. He is in charge of a small staff of meteorologists that are collocated with the FAA’s En-route Air Traffic Control Center. No longer in an NWS forecast office, but this opportunity is a great follow up to the Incident Meteorology Scott was providing at wildland fires the past few years. Constant interaction with the FAA customer makes for an interesting and rewarding work environment. The work involves providing critical weather information to the FAA personnel to ensure the safe and efficient flow of air traffic through our airspace, which includes the airspace from the Canadian border down through southern Utah (including MT, ID, OR, UT, and WY).
We said good-bye this year to our long-time cat, Rikki as well. She lived a great, long-life from TX, to LA, OK, CO, the Marshall Islands, MT, and finally WY. Kelly adopted Rikki way back during her time at Texas A&M, so they were together a long time.
Nolan greatly enjoyed his last year playing hockey with the Cheyenne Capitals, culminating in an exciting run through the WAHL State Tournament in Cheyenne for a second place finish in the tournament. His most fun sports experience of the year was winning an essay contest in Cheyenne that allowed him to spend a day with the Colorado Avalanche and even skate onto the ice with the team for the National Anthems. The whole family enjoyed a wonderful January day in Denver, and many friends and family from Cheyenne and Denver joined us for the event at the Pepsi Center. Nolan had an absolute blast and really took in the whole experience on the ice with some of his favorite players from the Avs and Canucks.
The move has probably been most challenging for Nolan leaving behind many friends and activities in Cheyenne (including missing the latter part of his baseball season), after a great year in Third Grade at Pioneer Park Elementary. He has adapted well to the new school and activities here in SLC. Within a week of the move, Nolan started playing hockey in a 3-on-3 league and getting to meet his new Cub Scout den. By late summer, he moved right into a big commitment playing football, and then has been active in hockey through the fall and into the winter. He tried out and made the top travel team, the SL County Lightning and has impressed many with his steady, smart defensive play while learning to be more and more offensive too. School within the SL City Extended Learning Program started out a little rough for Nolan, but he has since made friends and great strides with his teacher greatly enjoying his presence in the class. He is learning to play violin and also continuing to work on piano through the school program. Coming up, he will be doing the Geography Bee and getting into Science Fair as well.
Barrett finished up a great year of First Grade at Pioneer Park Elementary this spring with the long awaited trip to the Denver Zoo. He decided to stop swimming at the YMCA and play hockey for the rest of the winter, which he enjoyed. Barrett returned to baseball with the same coach again this year, and had a great time playing ball prior to his leaving for SLC and missing much of the season. He still learned a lot and is a pretty good at hitting the ball.
Barrett has been incredibly excited about the move to SLC, and that has really helped him jump into activities and school (also in ELP) with great success. He also was also able to play 3-on-3 hockey over the summer, and has become involved with his Cub Scout den and even joined our church’s (Christ United Methodist Church) youth choir. Barrett is playing Mite hockey this winter and is really enjoying the hockey experience here in SLC and learning a lot. He also enjoys our almost weekly trips to the local neighborhood indoor pool and water slide!
Travis has definitely benefited from the move, being so close to his medical care givers and a community that is incredibly supportive of his Neurofibromatosis (NF) care. The benefit was immediately apparent when he broke his leg after just a few days living in Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, this meant he spent most of the summer in a cast. He continues to be a trooper through all the blood draws and MRIs associated with the drug trial that he is still on. The trial continues to show promise as his tumor growth has at least been limited. He has found a great physical therapist at Shriner’s Hospital for Children and continues to work very hard with Mom and Dad to improve his mobility.
Travis started pre-K this year, attending school for half-days Mon-Thu. His classmates have been great with his physical disability, and his teachers say he is a great addition to the class, behaving exceptionally and developing very well. Through the summer at the hockey rink, fall on the football fields and back to the hockey rink this winter, Travis continues to develop friends with other siblings and still loves to play with cars. The summer was extra exciting for T with the release of the movie, Cars 2!
Kelly has had a very busy year orchestrating the transition of Travis’ care to the medical community here in SLC, dealing with all the medical insurance, keeping the house going, and running kids to numerous activities and time with friends. The move to SLC was bittersweet for her, leaving behind a great group of friends in Cheyenne. They have managed to stay in contact quite well, and even spent a long weekend together near Palm Springs, CA in November to relax and attend the premiere of the latest Twilight movie. Kelly has continued to stay involved in the Texas A&M community here in Salt Lake City as they have quite a few opportunities to gather. She has also become involved with a women’s group from church.
Since moving to Utah, Kelly has been very active in the regeneration of the Children’s Tumor Foundation chapter here in SLC, planning the 1st annual NF Walk event that raised around $10,000 for CTF, and becoming increasingly involved as the regional contact point for CTF in the SLC area. She is now the Utah CTF Chapter Representative and currently planning a fund-raising watch-party at a local sports bar to watch the Rolex 24 Hours At Daytona automobile race. One of the race teams carries the colors of CTF to help raise funds and awareness for those with NF.
Scott spent the early part of the year continuing to help coach hockey in Cheyenne, along with serving on the hockey associations board. He finally earned a spot in a NWS Central Region Leadership Development program and spent a very rewarding March week in Louisville, KY. In May, he and the family dog, Elsie, departed for Salt Lake City. They arrived for one of the wettest months ever in Salt Lake City, so Scott found it very difficult to believe we were moving to a “desert.” Scott adjusted well to his new role as a member of management and spent much of the summer working operational shifts to help cover leave that his staff had been forced to save up due to a staff shortage. He started helping out with the boys 3-on-3 hockey through the summer, and enjoyed the lack of working midnight shifts (the CWSU is only open 630a-930p). This fall, he also took on coaching Nolan’s Squirt ‘house’ hockey team and helping out at practices for Nolan’s travel hockey team. He has also enjoyed the increase in evenings at home with the family and the opportunities to cook more often.
In just 6 months, we’ve already enjoyed multiple visits from our parents, and even our oldest niece Madelyn was able to visit for Thanksgiving. The visits were great to help us get settled in our new home, pictures on the walls, shelves hung, bars dismantled and rebuilt, bird houses built, etc., etc.
Together we enjoyed a great late July trip back to Cheyenne to visit friends and family for Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Zac Brown Band concert. Thanks very much to the Lohrenz’s for allowing us to crash your home for the week. We truly love the Cheyenne community.
We are very much aware of how incredibly blessed we are to be at this point in our journeys through life. Ten years ago, Scott spent Christmas in the Marshall Islands half a world away from Kelly and newborn Nolan, and we wondered if the whole move to Montana to join the NWS was the right thing to do. Who would have thought that move back to the CONUS would start to put the pieces together that led to all that we have to be thankful for here in Utah?
We’ve been short on snow early in the season, but it will come and the skiing will assuredly be great. Please let us know if you head out to Utah to ski or any other reason. We would love to visit with you and show off this beautiful valley and the surrounding mountains. We’ve downsized into our new home, but still have one guest bedroom and lots of room on the floor and sleeping bags if you need a place to sleep!
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| Our new home in Salt Lake City |
The change started to take shape in the early days of March, when Scott’s former boss in Billings, sent a message about a potential employment opportunity in Salt Lake City. Within hours recommendations were made, and within days a directed transfer was awarded to make Scott the Meteorologist-In-Charge (MIC) at the Center Weather Service Unit (CWSU) in Salt Lake City. He is in charge of a small staff of meteorologists that are collocated with the FAA’s En-route Air Traffic Control Center. No longer in an NWS forecast office, but this opportunity is a great follow up to the Incident Meteorology Scott was providing at wildland fires the past few years. Constant interaction with the FAA customer makes for an interesting and rewarding work environment. The work involves providing critical weather information to the FAA personnel to ensure the safe and efficient flow of air traffic through our airspace, which includes the airspace from the Canadian border down through southern Utah (including MT, ID, OR, UT, and WY).
We said good-bye this year to our long-time cat, Rikki as well. She lived a great, long-life from TX, to LA, OK, CO, the Marshall Islands, MT, and finally WY. Kelly adopted Rikki way back during her time at Texas A&M, so they were together a long time.
Nolan greatly enjoyed his last year playing hockey with the Cheyenne Capitals, culminating in an exciting run through the WAHL State Tournament in Cheyenne for a second place finish in the tournament. His most fun sports experience of the year was winning an essay contest in Cheyenne that allowed him to spend a day with the Colorado Avalanche and even skate onto the ice with the team for the National Anthems. The whole family enjoyed a wonderful January day in Denver, and many friends and family from Cheyenne and Denver joined us for the event at the Pepsi Center. Nolan had an absolute blast and really took in the whole experience on the ice with some of his favorite players from the Avs and Canucks.
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| Behind the scenes, Pepsi Center in Denver, January 18, 2011 |
Barrett finished up a great year of First Grade at Pioneer Park Elementary this spring with the long awaited trip to the Denver Zoo. He decided to stop swimming at the YMCA and play hockey for the rest of the winter, which he enjoyed. Barrett returned to baseball with the same coach again this year, and had a great time playing ball prior to his leaving for SLC and missing much of the season. He still learned a lot and is a pretty good at hitting the ball.
Barrett has been incredibly excited about the move to SLC, and that has really helped him jump into activities and school (also in ELP) with great success. He also was also able to play 3-on-3 hockey over the summer, and has become involved with his Cub Scout den and even joined our church’s (Christ United Methodist Church) youth choir. Barrett is playing Mite hockey this winter and is really enjoying the hockey experience here in SLC and learning a lot. He also enjoys our almost weekly trips to the local neighborhood indoor pool and water slide!
Travis has definitely benefited from the move, being so close to his medical care givers and a community that is incredibly supportive of his Neurofibromatosis (NF) care. The benefit was immediately apparent when he broke his leg after just a few days living in Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, this meant he spent most of the summer in a cast. He continues to be a trooper through all the blood draws and MRIs associated with the drug trial that he is still on. The trial continues to show promise as his tumor growth has at least been limited. He has found a great physical therapist at Shriner’s Hospital for Children and continues to work very hard with Mom and Dad to improve his mobility.
Travis started pre-K this year, attending school for half-days Mon-Thu. His classmates have been great with his physical disability, and his teachers say he is a great addition to the class, behaving exceptionally and developing very well. Through the summer at the hockey rink, fall on the football fields and back to the hockey rink this winter, Travis continues to develop friends with other siblings and still loves to play with cars. The summer was extra exciting for T with the release of the movie, Cars 2!
Kelly has had a very busy year orchestrating the transition of Travis’ care to the medical community here in SLC, dealing with all the medical insurance, keeping the house going, and running kids to numerous activities and time with friends. The move to SLC was bittersweet for her, leaving behind a great group of friends in Cheyenne. They have managed to stay in contact quite well, and even spent a long weekend together near Palm Springs, CA in November to relax and attend the premiere of the latest Twilight movie. Kelly has continued to stay involved in the Texas A&M community here in Salt Lake City as they have quite a few opportunities to gather. She has also become involved with a women’s group from church.
Since moving to Utah, Kelly has been very active in the regeneration of the Children’s Tumor Foundation chapter here in SLC, planning the 1st annual NF Walk event that raised around $10,000 for CTF, and becoming increasingly involved as the regional contact point for CTF in the SLC area. She is now the Utah CTF Chapter Representative and currently planning a fund-raising watch-party at a local sports bar to watch the Rolex 24 Hours At Daytona automobile race. One of the race teams carries the colors of CTF to help raise funds and awareness for those with NF.
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| Salt Lake City NF Walk, October 1, 2011 |
In just 6 months, we’ve already enjoyed multiple visits from our parents, and even our oldest niece Madelyn was able to visit for Thanksgiving. The visits were great to help us get settled in our new home, pictures on the walls, shelves hung, bars dismantled and rebuilt, bird houses built, etc., etc.
Together we enjoyed a great late July trip back to Cheyenne to visit friends and family for Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Zac Brown Band concert. Thanks very much to the Lohrenz’s for allowing us to crash your home for the week. We truly love the Cheyenne community.
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| At the Zac Brown Band concert in Cheyenne, July 29, 2011 |
We’ve been short on snow early in the season, but it will come and the skiing will assuredly be great. Please let us know if you head out to Utah to ski or any other reason. We would love to visit with you and show off this beautiful valley and the surrounding mountains. We’ve downsized into our new home, but still have one guest bedroom and lots of room on the floor and sleeping bags if you need a place to sleep!
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Another Year, Another Adventure
It's been a busy 2011 so far between the trips to Salt Lake City for Travis' clinical drug trial and our move to Salt Lake City. Scott got a promotion/directed transfer to be the Meterologist in Charge of the Salt Lake City Center Weather Service Unit, part of the National Weather Service. Scott reported to his new job in early May with Kelly and the boys joining him in early June, after school was out. The older boys enjoyed some final end of year trips and time with their friends before the move. They also played some baseball before the move, even squeezing some final games in on the Saturday we headed to Salt Lake City.
Nolan and Barrett were able to play in a summer 3 on 3 hockey league in Salt Lake City. They played fast-paced hockey games every week over the past 6 weeks. Unfortunately, Travis fractured his left femur about a week after we moved into our house, he stepped off the next to last step thinking he was on the bottom. :( His fracture is healing, but he will be spending 7 weeks this summer in a cast from his knee down. Some good news, Travis' clinical drug trial has slowed down the growth of his plexiform/nerve tumor from 33% in 6 months to growing right along with him. Thank you God! More details about Travis' NF journey can be found at tsnfjourney.blogspot.com .
We found a church home already in Salt Lake City (Christ United Methodist Church) and the boys (and Kelly) had fun with Pandamania VBS this past week. Travis loves singing the songs and should be heard Sunday morning when the kids sing for the congregation.
May each of you be enjoying a great 2011.
Nolan and Barrett were able to play in a summer 3 on 3 hockey league in Salt Lake City. They played fast-paced hockey games every week over the past 6 weeks. Unfortunately, Travis fractured his left femur about a week after we moved into our house, he stepped off the next to last step thinking he was on the bottom. :( His fracture is healing, but he will be spending 7 weeks this summer in a cast from his knee down. Some good news, Travis' clinical drug trial has slowed down the growth of his plexiform/nerve tumor from 33% in 6 months to growing right along with him. Thank you God! More details about Travis' NF journey can be found at tsnfjourney.blogspot.com .
We found a church home already in Salt Lake City (Christ United Methodist Church) and the boys (and Kelly) had fun with Pandamania VBS this past week. Travis loves singing the songs and should be heard Sunday morning when the kids sing for the congregation.
May each of you be enjoying a great 2011.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Wow, how time flies! 1st Post in a long-long time. Merry Christmas 2010!!!!
Happy Holidays 2010 from the Carpenters! Another year has flown by and we hope this holiday season finds you and your family happy and healthy.
Travis continues to be such a source of inspiration for us, as his struggles with Neurofibromatosis (NF) continues to dominate his life. In the face of these challenges, T has entered pre-school this fall and has continued to work hard in his physical therapy activities. He also continues to enjoy attending Kindermusik classes and loves Sunday school. Travis is now seeing world class geneticists and orthopedists at the University of Utah and Shriner’s Hospitals in Salt Lake City. Kelly’s dedication to his cause has led to the family being more involved in fund raising, and her attendance at a symposium in Denver was the impetus behind us being in contact with the outstanding doctors in Salt Lake City. We are so blessed to have access to these great people, and just since October Kelly and Travis have made 4 trips to SLC for his care. Travis is now enrolled in an experimental drug trial and he is a little trooper taking his meds and going through all of the required blood draws. His story is incredible and the details are far too much for a holiday letter, but please feel free to follow Kelly’s blog on Travis’ Journey at http://tsnfjourney.blogspot.com/.
Nolan just turned 9, is now in 3rd grade, and continues to be a great student and receives exceptional comments from his teachers. He continues to be active in piano, Cub Scouts, baseball, hockey and football. His first season of tackle football had him as a wide receiver and cornerback. He had one interception and several tackles at cornerback this fall and learned a ton about football. His team even finished the season with a league championship. The hockey season is well underway, and he continues to learn and improve with the challenges of playing against some much bigger 10 year old kids this season.
Barrett started the year playing hockey and finishing up kindergarten. He then transitioned to being able to start Cub Scouts, and shifted over to the swim team at the local YMCA. He continues to be the youngest on his team and works incredibly hard with practices a few times each week. We are impressed how he often swims upwards of 1000 meters at a practice! Barrett, about to turn 7, also continues to enjoy his piano lessons, and improved greatly with his second year in little league baseball. Most important, Barrett also continues to excel in the school environment and greatly enjoys the learning opportunities that 1st grade is offering him.
Scott returned from some training in Boise in late March to meet the family at the Denver airport ready to drive to see the Texas family for Nolan and Barrett’s spring break. Kelly’s brother James decided to also fly up from Houston and help us drive down and to spend some quality time along the way. Having three drivers made our trip a breeze and it was great to spend some extra time with James. Highlights from the trip included: seeing lots of friends and family, especially the time with Great-Grandma Long, the pond at Grandma and Grandpa Findeisen’s house, taking the boys to the beach at Galveston and near Corpus Christi, and a great few days with the cousins in Corpus, San Antonio, and Sea World San Antonio. It was great fun, and nice to get warm after a near record snowy winter in Wyoming.
In April, Kelly did a tremendous amount of research on black lab rescues along the front range and we were able to adopt a black lab mix puppy that came to a metro Denver rescue association from North Carolina. Elsie has been a great addition to our home with only Rikki (our 17 year old cat) still questioning the addition of a puppy to our home.
Scott continued to adjust to a lot of change at the NWS in Cheyenne this year, but on a high note did finish his certification as one of the NWS’s Incident Meteorologists (IMET) for wildland fire and hazardous material spill incidents. There was little in the way of wildland fire this year, but he was invited to train at a June fire near Espanola, NM and then volunteered to help out at the Kalamazoo River Oil Spill near Marshall, MI in August.
Kelly continues to stay busy managing Travis’s medical care, coordinating all of the activities the boys are involved in, and running the house in general. She has continued to frequently volunteer at Nolan and Barrett’s elementary school. For some fun, she has started participating in a bible study at a friend’s church and has enjoyed some fun times with her friends celebrating all that is the world of Twilight. She even made it to an outing in Denver for the midnight debut of Eclipse in June!
This September we said good-bye to Scott’s Grandmother Carpenter. A wonderful celebration of her 106 years took place in Michigan and Scott was able to make the trip back. Scott’s Incident Meteorologist work became more of a blessing in that his trip to the Kalamazoo River Oil Spill in August allowed him one last brief visit with Grandma about a month before she passed.
We recently hosted our 2nd Thanksgiving at our new home on the prairie, with some of Scott’s family from Denver coming up for dinner. We then spent a day in Estes Park with the Colorado Carpenters at the YMCA of the Rockies, and continued our tradition of attending the Estes Park light parade on Black Friday.
The Carpenters just returned from a hockey weekend in Cody for Nolan’s squirt team from Cheyenne. Since we were only 100 miles from our former home in Billings, MT, we decided to spend a few extra days visiting friends in south-central Montana. This was a great holiday getaway, and now we are set to enjoy the holidays back home in Cheyenne. Scott will be working during the holiday again this year, but we plan to make the most of it.
2011 is already setting up to be an exciting and challenging year, especially with Travis continuing on the drug trial and not knowing exactly what lies in store for him. We look forward to our 5th year experiencing Cheyenne Frontier Days in late July, and continue to invite you to come enjoy the Daddy of ‘em All with us!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2011!!!!
Scott, Kelly, Nolan, Barrett and Travis Carpenter
Friday, December 25, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
December 18, 2009: Where have we been!?!
Wow, I can't believe it is already Kelly's birthday and Christmas is a week away.
Here is our holiday greeting for this year, and we may still get something real in the mail. Only time will tell...
Happy Holidays from the Carpenters,
We hope this letter finds you and your family and friends happy and healthy again this year.
2009 kept us busy here in Wyoming. Our biggest change was deciding to purchase a home 8 miles north of Cheyenne in June. We love country living, and are settling in with our new snow blower, lawn mower, etc. and have already used the nice sledding hill in the open space behind the house. The boys have adjusted well to the new house and we even hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner this year with Kelly’s parents in town from Texas.
We lost our family dog, Reba in November after having her somewhere in our family since January of 1999 (she lived with Scott’s parents in Michigan when we lived in the Marshall Islands) Her recurring leg arthritis problems were really creating a diminishing quality of life for her, but we take comfort in the fact that she loved spending her last two years in her original home town and her last five months out here with a big yard to roam after being cooped up with town-life in Billings and Cheyenne.
The beginning of the year involved several weekend hockey trips for Nolan’s tournaments in WY, CO and SD, and even a few for Barrett toward the end of the season. Both boys continue to enjoy the hockey.
Nolan had another exciting year with baseball and scouts also keeping him busy in the spring. He and Scott went on their first spring scout camping trip in the Laramie Range, and liked it enough to go again in October (in October the temps got down to 26 overnight!). Baseball also kept us busy and Nolan continued to amaze us with his hitting the ball! Nolan is now in 2nd grade and continues to enjoy school and the learning challenges. He continues piano lessons too and has played in a few recitals.
Barrett really excelled at swimming this year and by summer was taking lessons with much older kids at the YMCA. He played rookie league baseball this year and had a lot of fun. Barrett also has started piano lessons and even had his first recital. He also finished pre-school in the spring, and qualified for the Trailblazer program for Kindergarten. He loves Kindergarten and is adjusting to the life of a school kid. Barrett even learned to ride his bike this year, and loves having the new long driveway to ride on.
Travis has had a challenging year, but conquered learning to walk in October! It is so awesome to see how much he loves walking and how much he loves to help now that he can get around. His Neuro-Fibramatosis (NF) is still creating leg-length and potentially other issues that will challenge him in 2010. He absolutely loves penguins and has created quite a little rookery in his big-boy bed now that he is out of the crib. One of his favorite things to do is visiting the real penguins down at the Denver Zoo.
Kelly has stayed very busy around the house and with the boys, making sure they make it to school, piano, medical appointments, sports, scouts, etc., especially when Scott is at work or working some crazy shift. She regularly helps out in the boys classrooms and has continued to be s hockey manager along with some fun belly-dancing. She and Nolan took in the Texas A&M football game in Boulder in Nov and had a great time (even though the Ags came up a bit short).
Scott continues to work at the National Weather Service and this year started training in the Incident Meteorologist Program. This included a week of training in Boise, and his first training dispatch to a fire southeast of Eugene, OR in Sept. Although the dispatch was brief, Scott enjoyed the experience and looks forward to the next training opportunity. He still tries to play Sunday night hockey with the “Old Puckers” when work allows, and played in a USA Hockey Adult tournament in Denver in the spring with some friends from Cheyenne.
In mid-August, Barrett, Nolan and Scott went up to Rocky Mtn Natl Park and camped out the night before trying to hike Flattop Mtn. The 9.2 miles roundtrip took them about 7 hours but they celebrated making it to the top and surviving the hike down. It was a great confidence and brotherhood builder for Nolan and Barrett supporting each other on the long walk uphill and they are so proud to have made it (and to have earned their trail tags). Scott and Nolan were a little sore the next day, but Barrett was ready to go again! They’re already planning another challenging hike for next summer.
Although Scott worked midnight shifts most of Frontier Days this past year, we still greatly enjoyed the events and are already looking forward to the last full week in July 2010. As always, if you plan to come up for the “Daddy of ‘em All” this summer we’ll definitely welcome you.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
The Carpenters
Here is our holiday greeting for this year, and we may still get something real in the mail. Only time will tell...
Happy Holidays from the Carpenters,
We hope this letter finds you and your family and friends happy and healthy again this year.
2009 kept us busy here in Wyoming. Our biggest change was deciding to purchase a home 8 miles north of Cheyenne in June. We love country living, and are settling in with our new snow blower, lawn mower, etc. and have already used the nice sledding hill in the open space behind the house. The boys have adjusted well to the new house and we even hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner this year with Kelly’s parents in town from Texas.
We lost our family dog, Reba in November after having her somewhere in our family since January of 1999 (she lived with Scott’s parents in Michigan when we lived in the Marshall Islands) Her recurring leg arthritis problems were really creating a diminishing quality of life for her, but we take comfort in the fact that she loved spending her last two years in her original home town and her last five months out here with a big yard to roam after being cooped up with town-life in Billings and Cheyenne.
The beginning of the year involved several weekend hockey trips for Nolan’s tournaments in WY, CO and SD, and even a few for Barrett toward the end of the season. Both boys continue to enjoy the hockey.
Nolan had another exciting year with baseball and scouts also keeping him busy in the spring. He and Scott went on their first spring scout camping trip in the Laramie Range, and liked it enough to go again in October (in October the temps got down to 26 overnight!). Baseball also kept us busy and Nolan continued to amaze us with his hitting the ball! Nolan is now in 2nd grade and continues to enjoy school and the learning challenges. He continues piano lessons too and has played in a few recitals.
Barrett really excelled at swimming this year and by summer was taking lessons with much older kids at the YMCA. He played rookie league baseball this year and had a lot of fun. Barrett also has started piano lessons and even had his first recital. He also finished pre-school in the spring, and qualified for the Trailblazer program for Kindergarten. He loves Kindergarten and is adjusting to the life of a school kid. Barrett even learned to ride his bike this year, and loves having the new long driveway to ride on.
Travis has had a challenging year, but conquered learning to walk in October! It is so awesome to see how much he loves walking and how much he loves to help now that he can get around. His Neuro-Fibramatosis (NF) is still creating leg-length and potentially other issues that will challenge him in 2010. He absolutely loves penguins and has created quite a little rookery in his big-boy bed now that he is out of the crib. One of his favorite things to do is visiting the real penguins down at the Denver Zoo.
Kelly has stayed very busy around the house and with the boys, making sure they make it to school, piano, medical appointments, sports, scouts, etc., especially when Scott is at work or working some crazy shift. She regularly helps out in the boys classrooms and has continued to be s hockey manager along with some fun belly-dancing. She and Nolan took in the Texas A&M football game in Boulder in Nov and had a great time (even though the Ags came up a bit short).
Scott continues to work at the National Weather Service and this year started training in the Incident Meteorologist Program. This included a week of training in Boise, and his first training dispatch to a fire southeast of Eugene, OR in Sept. Although the dispatch was brief, Scott enjoyed the experience and looks forward to the next training opportunity. He still tries to play Sunday night hockey with the “Old Puckers” when work allows, and played in a USA Hockey Adult tournament in Denver in the spring with some friends from Cheyenne.
In mid-August, Barrett, Nolan and Scott went up to Rocky Mtn Natl Park and camped out the night before trying to hike Flattop Mtn. The 9.2 miles roundtrip took them about 7 hours but they celebrated making it to the top and surviving the hike down. It was a great confidence and brotherhood builder for Nolan and Barrett supporting each other on the long walk uphill and they are so proud to have made it (and to have earned their trail tags). Scott and Nolan were a little sore the next day, but Barrett was ready to go again! They’re already planning another challenging hike for next summer.
Although Scott worked midnight shifts most of Frontier Days this past year, we still greatly enjoyed the events and are already looking forward to the last full week in July 2010. As always, if you plan to come up for the “Daddy of ‘em All” this summer we’ll definitely welcome you.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
The Carpenters
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