June 10, 2008: Poppies 2008!!!!!

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2008

2008 (Runner-Up)

It was as though Travis knew the tradition that you had to be able to stand up to be in the "poppy picture," since he was not his usual "ham" for picture-taking. We decided to break from tradition anyways and let him join in the fun. And we also broke from tradition in getting the picture of the boys not standing.

Where did we find the Poppies this year? We actually saw them at the house where Barrett now attends pre-school, and had to call the owners to get permission to get these pictures today before another strong cold front rolls through and may end the good blooming!

For those who don't know the tradition, we had an area of our Billings' yard that each spring was filled with orange Poppies and at 1 1/2 years old we first photographed Nolan by the Poppies. Barrett also joined the pictures at almost 1 1/2 years old and on we went each spring. Last spring, we were very new to Cheyenne but found some Poppies along one of the main streets and used those. At least for the next few years, we'll have to continue asking to borrow the pre-school yard.

Hope you enjoyed this installation of a Carp Family Tradition.

June 7, 2008: A Horsetooth Hike

Following the Relay For Life, the boys played outside, had lunch and Kelly ran some errands. Then since we were celebrating the end of Nolan's school year, Nolan picked from a choice of hikes and dinner plans and off we went to Fort Collins. After finally remembering to stop at the Colorado Welcome Center and picking up our free t-shirts (a cool promotion by the Colorado tourism folks), we headed over to the Horsetooth area.

The hike in to Horsetooth Falls is about 1.2 miles, which we thought would be a good distance for the boys, and it turned out pretty well. We heard from several folks along the trail that had seen rattlesnakes just moments before, but luckily they slithered off before we walked up on them.

We did hear some rocks falling off the other side of the canyon near the falls, and when we were at the falls Scott spotted a black bear wandering up the other side of the canyon. Kelly also saw it moments later, but the boys were unable since the bear went into some pretty thick brush.

Here are a few more pictures. It turns out that we also took Reba on this trail when she was a puppy back in 1999.

Our neighbors across the street recommended a Mexican Restaurant in Ft. Collins that we had never tried. Consuela's was great and we will probably visit again. We are kicking ourselves for not trying it when we lived down there! We promised the kids we could go out for ice cream at the Walrus downtown if they tried the new restaurant without complaining, so we did that too and took in a little of the Saturday evening night-life and shopping in downtown Ft. Collins.

June 7, 2008: Relay for Life-Cheyenne

We could not generate enough interest from our "team" at the Cheyenne NWS to put together our own team for the Relay for Life (although Mike W. did give it a good try), so Mike was able to get the few interested folks onto the Knights of Columbus team. Scott was lucky enough to draw the Friday night shift during the luminaria ceremony, which was pretty cool. The shuttle/space station even passed overhead when the lights were down.

On Saturday morning, Scott had another shift to walk and brought along all three boys to help out. The older boys enjoyed the kids activities for awhile and then walked quite a bit too! Barrett was a little upset in the picture, because he had just accidentally knocked Travis backwards, off the track and under the bleachers in his stroller. Luckily, we think Travis actually thought it was fun!

June 6th, 2008: Nolan's Last Day of Kindergarten

Nolan's last day of Kindergarten was only 2 hours long, and involved wrapping up some loose ends around the classroom and then time to try flying their kite creations.

In typical Wyoming fashion, the winds were solidly around 30 mph with gusts to 40 mph at 9 am. This made for an unfair match between the kites and the wind, with the wind destroying all of the kites. A few kites were able to get airborne briefly, including Nolan's, but without perfect balance the kite did about five or six loops and crashed hard into the ground. The impact did in the frame, so Nolan was off to help some of his classmates see if their kites could take off.

Then Mrs. Schaefer was prepared with bubbles and sidewalk chalk for the kids to decorate the basketball courts.

After heading back inside, the kids were able to listen to one more story from Mrs. Schaefer before Principal Lamirand counted down to the end of the school year (and to his retirement).

The picture below is of the table Nolan was at for the latter part of the year.

After school, we got a few pictures like we also took on the first day of school:

First Day of School (above)
Last Day of School (below)


First Day of School (above)
Last Day of School (below)

And there it is, as of 1030 am on Friday, June 6, 2008, Nolan is officially a 1st Grader!!!

June 2nd, 2008: Barrett's 1st Day of Pre-School

Barrett has been on a waiting list to get into a highly recommended pre-school here in town, and he has officially been accepted for the fall. The great thing is that the pre-school has drop-in days during the summer too, starting today so he is getting a head start on the school thing.

So, with just a few more days of Kindergarten for Nolan, Barrett was very excited to go to "school" today too!

June 2nd, 2008: Nolan's Research Projects

Nolan has had two additional research projects this spring in addition to the presentation on Hawaiian Cultures and Traditions back around Christmas 2007.

The picture above shows Nolan's leprechaun trap which was created around St. Patrick's Day (as you might guess). This took a lot of research and creativity, not to mention gold paint...as those stinkin' leprechaun's love mischief and are sneaky little buggers.

The photo above is from June 1st. The final research project of the year involved learning about kites and then constructing one. Of course, Nolan's has a weather twist, since he decided to add some ribbon every 10 feet along the string to see how high the kite is when flying. He learned from Mom and Dad, and the Internet that before weather balloons some places used weather kites to see how high the clouds were, and that the direction the ribbons blew indicated the wind direction along the string.

The kids will be presenting their kites to the class early this week, and then will get to try "flying" them on the last day of school, this Friday, June 6th.

Scott's Birthday: He's 35 Now

We seem to be healthy again, and can get some recent posts updated to the blog.