Back to School

 When our calendars turned to August this fall, we knew school was just around the corner. The boys weren't thrilled to give up their summer freedom, but Adley could hardly wait to begin! She was so thrilled to start kindergarten. Our family was excited about the three amazing teachers assigned to our kiddos. The kids got to meet their teachers at registration in mid-August.

Jaden and Cody were both starting 5th grade and would switch teachers for most subject areas. Mrs. Degenhardt teaches 5th grade math and social studies and will be Jaden's homeroom teacher. This talented teacher went to Concordia Seward with Jason and me and was even on a CUNE Spring Weekend team with me one year. We love Mrs. Degenhardt!

Ms. Rabel teaches 5th grade language arts and will be Cody's homeroom teacher. Cody loved seeing all the funny memes Ms. Rabel had printed off and displayed in her room.

Adley loved finding out that Mrs. Snow would be her kindergarten teacher. Both Jaden and Cody had Mrs. Snow, so this is the teacher Adley knows best. We loved the way Mrs. Snow encouraged Jaden and Cody in their writing skills way back in kindergarten and are so excited for her great influence on Adley this year too.

The first day of school arrived before we knew it! Adley was especially proud to show off her new backpack. Her preK teachers had asked for the kids to use canvas bags during the year, so this was Adley's first ever school backpack!

She wasn't nervous AT ALL for Day 1.

Cody and Jaden were happy about transitioning to the upper grade chapel uniforms this school year. They sure are getting big!

And here's our Schleicher school crew!

All of the school kids go through a drop-off line in the morning, so our goodbye to our little kindergartner was just from the car. The school principal met each kindergartner at the door, and Adley marched right in without a falter in her step. Mommy was a tad more emotional. Ha! We were proud of our confident girl!

A couple of teachers took first-day pictures in the classrooms as well.

After dropoff, Jason and I attended a kindergarten parent "Boo Hoo Breakfast," where we enjoyed the opportunity to meet other school parents. On our way out, we caught sight of Adley and her class going to their first recess in the school playland. Adley was attentively listening to her teacher and didn't even notice us! ;)

We are so thankful for the many positive Christian role models at our kids' school and are looking forward to a great school year ahead!

Schleiquist Talent Show

 For the 4th year, we were thrilled to be invited to our extended family's amazing talent show! This idea was originally brainstormed and organized by my nephew Ryan and has been a big hit ever since. Their family has hosted this wonderful event each August.

My nephew Ian always creates the event program. We look forward to seeing what creative "acts" each family member will come up with each year. Here was this year's program.

We missed Andrew and Sarah's family this year! Even without their family, however, we still make up quite a crowd. Here is the Schleiquist bunch.

Ian was first up on the program. He wowed us all with his amazing talent on the Rubix Cube. Ian passed the cube around the family circle and asked each person to mix up the cube for him. He then proceeded to solve the cube in under 3 minutes!

Adley and Jason went next and sang "I Lift My Eyes Up," a song that Jason often loves to sing to Adley before her bedtime. Adley knows every word!

Grandma's talent displayed many hours of her hard work sewing this quilt for Jon and Chelsea's new baby girl (due to arrive any day!). We enjoyed seeing her beautiful labor of love.

Noah showed the family how well he can do somersaults.

Grammy and Papa had a special musical talent-- playing songs by clinking glasses. They worked together to play several fabulous, easily recognizable songs. How fun!

Nathan has quite a remarkable mind! He recited all of the words to Dr. Seuss's The Foot Book. Even when this rhyming book got a bit complicated, Nathan didn't skip a beat... or a single word. Amazing!

Chelsea and Micah continued the literary theme by reading together the book Dragons Love Tacos. Little Micah loves this book so much that he has pretty much the entire thing memorized! He recited the words right along with his mama as she read the book. What a smart 3-year-old!

Jaden and Cody's talent was next. These two created a dance routine to go along with one of their favorite songs, Crab Rave. They rehearsed this song quite a bit at home and even created the little scenery. The boys purposely planned out their matching red shirts (so they'd look like crabs!) and got some great exercise as they hopped and danced around!

Here's an abbreviated video of their performance. The full-length video was too big to upload, but you can still get a great idea of what they did.

My talent was showing the family how to make origami frogs, a skill I taught my 4th graders when I was a teacher. The frogs were quite tiny but could actually jump! I had made enough to give one frog to each of the kids.

Kim and Matt entertained the whole family by performing a song from High School Musical. These talented singers showed us some beautiful harmonies in their song, and they had us all chuckling as we watched their dance moves. What fun!

Ryan's event was the first one outdoors. This acrobatic kid showed us some great moves on his jungle gym. We could all tell that Ryan loves his time outside!

For some reason, I didn't get any photos of Isaiah's event, but this video showcases Isaiah's great tennis serves. He is quite the tennis stud for only being in 2nd grade!

Uncle Jon also had a tennis talent. His act involved placing a tennis serve in specific locations-- knocking down cones and even going through a flying hoop. Wow!

Grandpa closed out our 2022 talent show with a performance on the guitar. Grandpa is always so great at getting everyone else singing along, and that's just what he did for his act. He taught all of us the words to his song, and then he accompanied his newly formed choir. What a great musical leader!

Following all of the talent acts, we enjoyed a yummy dinner and time to play and talk together. We sure have a fun and talented family. What a great evening! Thanks, Matt and Kim, for planning yet another fabulous family talent show!

CO Road Trip - Part VII

 Our second day in CO began with a trip to Focus on the Family. This welcome center boasts a 3-story, 76-foot long corkscrew slide. Wow! It's so long that the employees provide sacks to ride in and arm bands to protect your elbows on the curves.

Jaden and Cody tried the slide a couple times but decided their bodies were a little too big. Adley, however, thought it was just great and rode the slide over and over and over again!

The downstairs of Focus on the Family was called the Kids' Korner and was set up with rooms and paraphernelia from the Adventures in Odyssey episodes. All three kids enjoyed exploring this area, as they love the AIO stories. Cody and Jaden especially liked the scavenger hunts that took them throughout Kids' Korner. They completed all 3 main hunts, plus a bonus one. The lists for these hunts were very specific and quite tricky!

The rewards for completing the scavenger hunts were Adventures in Odyssey collectible cards. The boys loved picking out which characters they wanted.

The Kids' Korner also had a puppet theater area and a virtual color-by-number activity.

A visit to Whit's End Soda Shoppe (an oft-mentioned hangout place in the AIO episodes) made our trip complete! Our soda shoppe treats were very tasty.

That evening, we visited one of the best restaurants of all time-- a Dion's pizza place! When I grew up in Albuquerque, this restaurant was an absolute favorite of mine. I was eager to introduce this delicious pizza to the kids. They all gave the food two thumbs up!

The next day, we went on our last hiking adventure to Garden of the Gods. The park was very busy on the day we went, but even the crowds couldn't detract from the wonderful beauty of this park. Again, God's amazing handiwork was on clear display in these beautiful rock formations!

From the start, the kids weren't too thrilled about yet another day of hiking. Plus the warmer temperatures on this day tired them out quickly. They complained a bit at the beginning, but thankfully regained some energy and enthusiasm midway through when they had a chance to climb on some rocks.

A beautiful day to tour a gorgeous park!

That evening, we included an "extra" into our trip itinerary-- a tour of the US Olympic Training Center. Originally, we had read that this place was still closed to visitors due to COVID concerns. However, on our drives around CO Springs, we happened to notice a banner saying that the training center was once again giving tours to the public. Hooray! 

As we waited for our tour to begin, we got to watch some cool Olympic videos on this big screen.

Our tour around the training center was led by an actual Paralympic athlete, a rifle shooter named McKenna Geer who won a bronze medal in the Rio Olympics. She took us into multiple buildings where we got to see lots of training athletes.

I didn't get any close-up photos of our tour guide, but here is McKenna Geer explaining about the men's gymnastics training gym.

We learned a lot by walking around this training center and liked knowing that many famous athletes had also walked the same campus. We were thankful we got to experience it!

That tourist attraction wrapped up the last of our Colorado experiences. We spent the next day and a half driving the long way back home. The long drive was worth it, though! We definitely made a lot of family memories and marveled at our Creator-God's beautiful world.