Summertime Family Housing Style

Living in Family Housing is awesome. We have plenty of quirks, but really the community is so great. These days we pretty much live outside. We can almost always go out the back door and have lots of friends to hang out with all day. I think it's really saved my sanity these 5 years. I've made a lot of wonderful friends here. 
We also have SEVERAL programs going for the kids during the summer. Each court has a water day once each week. We bring out about 10 kiddie pools, a sprinkler and a slip 'n slide and have snacks and drinks. There's kids soccer club once a week (which I'm involved in), music and movement class every other week, theater workshop for kids every other week (which I'm also involved in. We play theater games and the kids will be doing a show at the end of the summer on stage), and craft club once a month. Each court also does a big outdoor movie night too. And there's the Family Housing Campout. And the Children's Festival is tomorrow. I'm not involved in ALL of those programs, but a nice chunk. And I didn't even mention ALL of them- we've got a few other programs for the adults too. So anyway, summer is pretty busy around here for the kids and I!

Cameron and our neighbor/church friend's oldest child, Brendan at Family Housing kids soccer club. Cameron LOVES him.

Singing the welcome song.

They have the kids run to and from the goals (they call "the monkey house") in different ways: airplane-style, monster-style, monkey-style, etc. Here's Miss Liesel running down the field like an airplane. :)

This Brendan is such a good kid. He is so nice to Cam and Liesel.

Another game they play at soccer: they have a few kids lay down in the hula hoop pretending to be sleeping dinosaurs. Then they have the rest of the group carefully put their "eggs" into the nest (hula hoop) using only their feet. Then they run back to the "monkey house" (goal) without waking the dinosaurs. Then the kids have to go get their eggs back and the "dinosaurs" wake up and chase the kids back to the monkey house. If they get caught, then it's their turn to be a sleeping dinosaur.

practicing balancing.

my friend/co-worker Jackie helping Liesel :)

 

She actually loved it and tried to do everything the bigger kids were doing.

 

knocking over the cones with the ball

Water days! 

Cameron and his friend, Henry

In other news: Brian is the new garden liaison for our court's community garden in Family Housing. I think he's really enjoying it and he's working hard. Cleaning out the tool shed, weeding the paths, and there's a HUGE mountain of semi-usable compost out there that's been building up over years. He's going to tackle that tomorrow morning.

Fathers

Here's to the Fathers in our lives!

Cameron, Liesel and I are so grateful to have this wonderful guy around.

A father who reads to his children.

A father who plays with his children.

A father who talks to his children.

A father who works with his children.

A father who teaches his children.

A father who laughs.

This man raised me and I'm grateful to have such a wonderful father.
(I have a lot of pictures of Dad. We go a ways back and stuff.)

I love that he's got an awesome sense of humor. When our family gets together, he really keeps us all laughing. It's awesome.

I love that he plays with and teaches my children.

I love that he works so hard. Always.

I love that he's so optimistic and enthusiastic about life.

I love that he radiates goodness. He never speaks ill of anyone. 

This man raised Brian and we're thankful to have his example and support in our lives even though we don't get to see him often. (He's the one standing to the left of Brian and I holding Liesel.)

I asked Brian what made him such a good father, and he said,

He was always in control of himself.

He could give advice without being pushy.
And the mustache helps.

(Well, helped. He hasn't had one for a while.)  

Love you all, you Fathers!

Liesel is 2!

Today our lovely little Liesel turned TWO!

She got a balance bike this morning:

 

Later on we played at the playground and had a nice picnic lunch with our friends, but I forgot to take pictures of that. After dinner we had some friends come over for rainbow cake and BlueBell ice cream. Thanks for coming guys!

 We sure love our Liesel and we're so glad to have family (through the phone) and friends to celebrate with!

Some old vids for the Gparents :)

Oy, this kid.

Cameron. That boy is somethin' else. He is a spirited child, for sure. And a determined athlete. Always climbing things. Like always. Moms on the playground will be watching him climb something and go "um...is that okay?!"

Evidence:

I wasn't encouraging this, but yeah I guess I took the picture. He's always doing this stuff.

After he did this one, I said, "Okay. Cameron, you're gonna break your face." To which he said, in typical fashion, "I wouldn't." And no, we didn't make him wear his helmet. That's just from him riding his bike around...

More evidence? He learned how to ride his bike without training wheels on Friday/Saturday. Didn't really see that one coming. I know he's naturally athletic, but... I was rather surprised. He tried out his little friend's balance bike on Friday and I noticed that he could ride for quite a ways without putting his feet down. So we tried taking the training wheels off. And there he goes, sure enough:

 

Memorial Day Weekend Part II: Sunday and Monday

Memorial Day weekend is a BIG deal here in Boulder. I think the city swells to twice its size (population). We have the BolderBoulder 10K race that runs right past our back door and ends at Folsom Stadium-- a few minutes' walk up the hill. The race has about 54,000 participants. There's also the Boulder Creek Festival for the duration of the whole weekend. Brian has ran the BolderBoulder each year we've been here. Here are this year's pictures:

Here he comes! Brian's in the green shirt

I told Brian he'd better wave at the kids this time so they can see him. As my Dad put it, the race is kind of a "mass of humanity." I didn't want the kids to miss him. Brian did pretty well for himself. He says he's not fast, but um, yes he is. I'd say a 7 minute mile for 6 miles is fast. But he runs with some guys who like fastER, so...whatev. 

Always LOVE those bagpipe guys that play right before the finish outside Folsom Stadium.

Cameron stood like a statue for the entire time we were watching them. I tried to talk to him,, but he was pretty mesmerized and didn't respond.  :)

On Sunday after church we took a walk along the creek and played at the "Shady Playground" in Family Housing.

Thanks for coming to visit us, Mom and Dad! :)