Aiden's Fall Soccer Season

Aiden finished up his fall soccer season a few weeks ago.  He had a good season, and really enjoyed it.  Here's a few pictures of him in action...

Love the hair flowing in the wind...

The spectators...

Some happier than others...

Seriously, look at that grumpy faces on both these boys.  What in the world?!?

Mike was assistant coach this season, which is so much better than being head coach.  Mike still took his job quite seriously though...

Soccer games were a great time to sneak in a few snuggles with Miss Viv...

Aiden had a couple friends on his team, which made it fun for him...

More wind-blown hair...

Not sure what's going on here...

Aiden also made a lot of new friends on the team this year too...

Making friends is definitely one of Aiden's strengths, which is good since playing sports is generally not...

Vivvie made friends too.  This is Aubrey, one of my Young Women. Her little brother was on the team, so she would come play with and entertain Viv when she got bored.  It was great...

Overall, it was an awesome season!  Aiden had a great team and coach.  They all seemed to get along great with one another and have a good time...

And, just as Aiden's soccer season ended, Cohen's soccer season began.  It now runs through the end of October.  Add that to Jr. Jazz Basketball starting up in the next few weeks, and wrestling beginning in November.  I'm sure you get the picture--I'm going to be one busy mama over the next several months.  If you need to find me, check my car...or any number of local fields/gyms.  --Lindsay

Aiden Turns Nine!

As I mentioned in the last post, Aiden had his ninth birthday over LOTOJA weekend--but we made sure we celebrated in style once we got back into town.  Aiden decided he wanted to take some of his friends to Jump On It for his birthday party.  If you're not familiar with Jump On It, it's a huge trampoline park with lots of fun activities for the kids to do...

Everyone had a great time bouncing off the walls...

And into the foam pits...

Another popular attraction was the rock climbing wall...

Once at the top...

The kids would jump off...

And fall all the way down into the foam pit...

They also had fun on the rope swings...

And on some of the little rides there...

Everyone had a lot of fun jumping the night away...

Toward the end of the party, we went to our party room to open gifts...

And eat cupcakes...

It was a super easy and successful party.  A couple of the kids actually fell asleep on the drive home, so I'd say we officially wore them out!  You're welcome, parents!  Haha!!

A few days later, we held a family party for Aiden.  We started with dinner and then Aiden opened presents...

And we finished the night off with cake and ice cream...

Yet again, another super simple--but fun--birthday party.  So, Aiden ended up having a birthweek instead of just a birthday.  And, I didn't hear any complaints about it.

I can't believe this boy is nine-years-old already!  Next year, he'll join Connor in the double digits.  It's crazy how fast these kiddos of mine are growing up!  I really wish I could freeze them at their current ages.  Life is pretty darn good (and fairly easy) right now.  Wish I could keep it this way forever.  But, alas, time keeps ticking away...depite my pleas otherwise.  --Lindsay

LOTOJA 2014

LOTOJA Weekend was a few weeks ago.  We checked the boys out of school around lunchtime and headed up to Logan.  Once there, we got Mike and Poppy all checked in for the race.  Mike was so happy to be able to ride it this year!  You'll remember last year, he was still recovering from his separated shoulder and couldn't ride the race.  This year, he was more than ready to ride.  Here's our family picture at the starting line...

After getting the riders registered, we checked in to our hotel and hit up the pool and hot tub...

Cohen decided to try "surfing" on Mike's back.  He was actually pretty good at it...

The kids had a blast swimming.  It's always one of their favorite parts of LOTOJA weekend...

After swimming, we headed to Chuck-a-Rama for dinner.  This was Aiden's choice, since his birthday was on the Sunday of LOTOJA weekend...

After that, it was time to head to bed for the long day ahead of us the next day.

The next day was the big race!  Mike and Poppy decided to switch stages this year, which meant Mike started the race and did the Logan to Preston stage.  Here he is leaving the hotel to head to the starting line...

And here he is taking a selfie at the starting line...

We met up with him in Preston, Idaho.  That's where the riders made their first relay switch...

Poppy took off on Stage Two, the Preston to Montpelier Stage.  We then met him in Montpelier, Idaho to make the next switch.  Here's Mike warming up for his next leg...

Poppy had to battle rain and even small hail during the Preston to Montpelier stage, but still did it in great time.  Here he is coming into the relay zone...

And then Mike took off on the third stage--Montpelier to Afton...

Cute Viv wore Mike's hat while he was riding.  So cute...

Normally, the Montpelier to Afton stage is where the support vehicles can finally drive on many of the same roads as the cyclists.  It's always fun to watch the cyclists do the part of the race called "King of the Mountain" which is the hardest climb of the race.  But, this year, the race officials made the support vehicles take a different route, so we didn't get to see Mike do it or get any pictures of him.  He did great though because he got into Afton, Wyoming just a few minutes after we got there in our cars.  He got there so fast that I didn't have my camera ready for any pictures.  Mike and Poppy switched again, and then Poppy took off on the fourth stage--Afton to Alpine.  At this point, we were finally able to drive along side the bikers, so we finally got some actual pictures of the race...

And, the kids got to stop to ring their cowbells for all the rides...

They also got to give some high fives as well...

Once Poppy got to Alpine, Wyoming, Mike joined up with him and the two of them rode the fifth and final stage together.  Here they are riding up Snake River Canyon toward Jackson Hole...

They crossed the finish line a little less than 12 hours after they started...

Pretty impressive, boys...

This is Poppy's 13th LOTOJA (11 all by himself and 2 as a relay) and Mike's 2nd.  How are they still smiling?!?

Here are the stats from Mike's Garmin.  I'd say he earned the right to eat just about anything he wants for the next month...

That night, we went to dinner at our favorite little Mexican restaurant in Jackson, El Abuelitos, and then went to sleep.

The next day was Aiden's 9th birthday!  His birthday falls on LOTOJA weekend a lot, but he doesn't seem to mind too much.  We decided to head into Grand Teton National Park for the morning...

It was pretty stormy and chilly, but we got some sunshine for a few minutes and went to one of our favorite spots, Jenny Lake, to throw some rocks--because that's what boys do best...

We found this funny little tree growing out of the rocks.  Connor and Aiden wanted to take this silly picture next to it for whatever reason.  I told them we should go back and find that tree someday and recreate this picture when they are all grown up...

After throwing rocks for a few minutes, a big thunderstorm rolled in, so we ran back to the car as quickly as we could, and got there just a few seconds before it started pouring.  We decided to drive a little further north and see another lake in the park called Jackson Lake.  We've seen this lake a couple times while driving up to Yellowstone, but we've never stopped there.  Once we got up there, the sun was out again, so we hiked down the little hill to the lake and threw some more rocks...

After that, it was time to leave--but not before getting a few pretty pictures of of the gorgeous Teton Range...

That afternoon, we drove back to Afton to visit my cousin, Elise, and her family who now live there...

They have lots of land and her husband, Ty, has created his own dirt bike track.  The boys, including Mike, had a great time riding around on the track...

Ty showed off some of his incredible dirt bike moves.  That dude is crazy...

Even Connor and Aiden took turns riding on the track...

Cohen took a ride with Mike.  They started out by riding on the dirt road before going out on to the track...

While the boys were having fun, all the girls hung out and chatted with each other...

Cute Vivvie had fun playing on their playset.  I love this picture of her with the Wyoming wind whipping through her hair...

Cohen eventually got brave enough to let Mike take him out on the track...

Unfortunately, it didn't go so well.  They ended up taking a little tumble off the bike, but everyone ended up okay.

Next, it was Vivienne's turn--but only on the dirt road.  She said even that was "too scary."  Silly girl...

Then, we held a little birthday party for Aiden.  He opened presents from our family and Nana and Poppy...

And then we ate cupcakes...

It was a pretty simple birthday party, but Aiden enjoyed it.  Then, it was time to make the long drive home.  I felt bad that Aiden would spend so much of his birthday in the car, but he said he thought it was a great birthday--mainly because he got to ride dirt bikes.  He thought that was pretty cool.  We continued to celebrate his birthday over the following week with two parties--one with his friends and one with our family.  More on those in another post.

So, that was our LOTOJA weekend!  It was a very successful one.  Good job to Poppy and Mike for completing another LOTOJA!  It was a great weekend!!  We all had a fun time.  --Lindsay