Colorado Springs

Joseph sings in his middle school choir, and one day he came home and announced that he had auditioned for and been selected to participate in an all-state choir concert! We were impressed. He had music ahead of time to practice on his own, which he did very faithfully, and then at the end of January he would spend a day rehearsing with kids from all over the state, then sing in a concert that night at the famous Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs. We decided to make a weekend of it and go up on Friday. A family that we are friends with had a son who also was singing in the choir, so we rented a house together for Friday night.

Friday, after much scurrying around and last-minute packing and food preparation, we finally left the house and drove over (Colorado Springs is about four hours from where we live) and spent the afternoon at Garden of the Gods, a park in the city with big rock slabs and great rock climbing. As it turns out, in our desire to finally just pull out of the driveway that morning and stop packing more things for a 36 hour trip, we sort of forgot a jacket for Benjamin. So we made do.

I got to hang out with the sweet boy for awhile while the big boys went rock climbing.

Ben's birthday was actually the next day, but we didn't tell him that since we were going to celebrate that night with our friends. He was going to be four years old!!

It was fairly nerve wracking for me to watch the kids rock climbing, but I did take a few pictures. It is a small park with a one-mile paved loop around it, and it was fun to hear the passers-by talking about my kids like they were rock stars. They would stop and stare in awe, like they were doing the most amazing thing. (Reports are that it actually was a pretty easy climb.) A few even took pictures. It made me feel a tiny bit proud of them. I also loved trying out my new camera with the zoom lens, which as it turns out really zooms!! (I used it for the pictures of Joseph going up the crack).

It was a nice afternoon!

That night we celebrated our sweet Ben's birthday, and it was a fun party!

The cake was followed by glow-in-the-dark ring toss. Which was followed by a bunch of super wound-up boys all not-sleeping together in the basement, and then waking up very very early.

Saturday Joseph and Harrison went to the choir practice and the rest of us went to the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. It is a great museum in a gorgeous old building, and free!

The fourth grade had just had elections to model Colorado government the day before our trip, and Ian had been elected to be Governor (a fiercely-contested position!) and Caleb won the election to be a supreme court justice. So I was sure to get their picture in the courtroom at the museum.

There was a nice childrens room with a teepee and covered wagon and fun things for Ben.

Caleb and Ian are in fourth grade together this year and they study Colorado history, We went on a tour, and I think they knew about as much as the tour guide! I was really impressed with how much they knew thanks to their amazing and enthusiastic teacher.

And this is the part where I post pictures of Joseph at the concert. Sadly, we got a call in the late afternoon that he was really feeling sick and just wanted to go home. He had been sick on Thursday but felt better on Friday so we though we were good to go. Then we let him go rock climbing (maybe not the best parenting move...) and that night he didn't feel too good. Saturday morning he woke up also not feeling good, but not too bad. But he got worse and worse throughout the day, poor guy. So we picked him up and he fell asleep right away and slept for the next day. We were glad to get home a bit earlier as we had to drive over Vail Pass which is not much fun in the winter.