Christmas 2016 thru Summer 2017

With my parents when they visited in 2017.

A picture of me on a ride. 

I haven't blogged for a very long time, so here's a recap of the last 22 months.
December 2016: We went to Washington for Christmas. The kids weren't all sure they wanted to
walk away from their lives for nine days, but everyone ended up having a great
time. At the time,Caleb was a senior and was dating Allie, and it had been a difficult 6-9
months with him as we tried to navigate through that situation. Taylor had been to BYU-
Idaho for an entire year, but had transferred to Ft. Collins and was midway through her first year
at Front Range Community College. So we had some different dynamics at play than we
had previously.

We arrived on Christmas Eve afternoon and stayed about a week. Everyone was begging to
stay longer. Caleb was cousin Caiden's buddy, Taylor and Kenna slept the vacation away,
Isaac had fun playing with this new drone, and Corbin enjoyed playing with all of his cousins.
It was truly a great trip with good family time. (There is also something really good about being
in a car together for 3 or 4 days!) We generally only go to Washington every two years.

The kids with Grandma Sally, Christmas Day 2016

Jared and his brother, Jon, and Christmas dinner--I think there was ham and turkey and then a ton of dishes that everyone else brought. My kids really like Maritza's ceviche. 

Caleb, then Jade and her son Luke and Steven with McKay and Jake. 

The gift exchange. It always gets interesting! 

Uncle Eric, Aunt Beth and her husband Wes, and Aunt Kylie with little Caiden. 

Caleb really loved on baby Caiden. 

And the little cousins loved Caleb! 

With cousin Wyatt. 

Jared and his brothers (oldest to youngest from L to R) with his mom. 

Isaac with Hannah, Lauren, Chloe, and Allie.

Caleb did a lot of shooting since he got a pretty nice rifle for Christmas. He loves to shoot and is very good. This is at the top of (great) Grandpa Cottrell's hill. 

We had new puppies in November 2016. We bred Jessica, Isaac's lab, and she had six
puppies that survived. She had a long, dysfunctional labor and five were stillborn. Then the runt lived 2-3 days and died, despite Caleb skipping school to bottle feed it. That was an adventure! We came home from church to find that she
had had two puppies,and her labor actually continued for almost twelve hours, though the last couple of pups
were not alive when they were born. The kids had lots and lots of fun with them, especially Corbin and
Caleb--Corb (and Isaac) did lots of the work, helping to change the newspaper and feed the
puppies, and Caleb left school when he could in order to check on the dogs for the first few days.
There was one little pup, a runt, who couldn't nurse and we tried bottle feeding him. Caleb sat up all
night and willed him to live and was heartbroken when he died. The puppies were a great adventure
(and a good money maker). One dog went to Taylor and she is like her child. We will breed her in the spring.

 Caleb was really helpful even though it wasn't great for him to skip school to check on the puppies, and it definitely wasn't great for him to bring friends over to see them during school! 

Corbin and all of the pups. They were really cute at this stage! (About 5-6 weeks old.)

In March of 2017, there were terrible fires in Haxtun.  One day I was at school (I worked as an aide in Haxtun for a year after resigning from Holyoke) and I knew something was wrong--our administrators had all met together, which often happened, but then, around 1pm, I was working with kids in my room and I could see that it was very cloudy outside. It was also extremely windy -- as windy as I'd ever seen it here. In fact,  I could hear the wind inside my room, and it looked as if the huge pine trees outside of the school would fall over. It was a little scary. As I was looking outside and noticing all of those things, I saw a few teachers zoom out of the parking lot, in a huge hurry. They all headed north. And then, one of my students' moms tore into the parking lot. She was there to pick up her daughter. (Later that night, I'd learn that she had packed up their family's valuable and important papers and then left her home, which was in the path of the fire. A few hours later, their home was gone. Many lives changed that afternoon.)

Within an hour, the smoke was very close to town and the school evacuated all students and teachers; we were bused to Lonestar, 25 miles south. We heard that Haxtun could be evacuated. Getting kids on the buses was fine, but we had to get many of them off as parents came and picked them up. Then, in Lonestar, the school used the reunification plan and it worked very well...I am glad my kids go to a district that has a good emergency plan in place. We stayed in Lonestar for a couple hours. Most kids were picked up by parents, and those who weren't returned to Haxtun around 6 pm. It was an exciting day, and the fire department fought the fire for another 24 hours. It was a tough time for our area. We were on the news for a couple of days, and the community really pulled together. In fact, all of this happened on a Monday and Tuesday, and on Friday, we had a huge crowd in the stands at the state basketball tournament in Loveland as the girls got ready to play.(It was our first time going to state in many years.) There were a lot of "Haxtun Strong" tee shirts there, and a lot of community pride. The girls were very well supported and took 5th place. So, March 2017 was a very exciting month! (Too exciting.)   McKenna also turned 17, but as I write this almost eighteen months later, I can't really remember how we celebrated! (And Kenna doesn't really like birthdays. She doesn't like to be in the spotlight and would prefer to open gifts on her own in her room. ;-) She's probably glad I can't remember what we did--but I do have pictures!)

The view looking back at town as we left on the bus. 

More smoke from the fire. 

Kenna's team with their 5th place trophy. (She's in the front row on the far right.) 

Lots of Bulldog support from our family! 

Corbin is always cheering, and he's not camera-shy!

Kenna with the other juniors on the team: Her good friends Dawson, Molly, and Riley. 

Jennifer and Brianna Willson saw something about the game on Facebook and surprised us when they showed up! 

Getting a shot in . 

The happy seventeen year-old. 

In May, McKenna narrowly missed qualifying to attend state track. She was ranked 13th among 2A shot put girls and only the top twelve were taken. Still, considering she missed her freshman year due to her surgeries, she did well.

In 2017, Isaac finished 7th grade, Corbin finished 3rd grade, Kenna finished her sophomore year, and Caleb graduated. Taylor stayed in Fort Collins, where she had been studying criminal justice and psychology at Front Range Community College. She worked as a nurse at Poudre Valley Hospital, changed her major back to nursing, and started looking for a new apartment and roommate.

The highlights of Caleb's last month of school were a phenomenal district baseball game against Holyoke and getting voted Mr. HHS by his classmates. Caleb graduated with 3.8 GPA and 29 college credits, over half in advanced math. He planned to study engineering at CSU. He was also the MVP for both football and baseball his senior year.  He worked really hard both in school and sports,  and we were proud of him.

Graduation was on Mother's Day and we were lucky to have both of our moms here. :-)

One of Caleb's senior pictures, Aug. 2016

Brothers! Senior and third grader. Look at their eyes--they're identical. 

(Taken at the homecoming pep rally, fall 2016. )

And another senior picture. 

After he graduated, Caleb was also able to visit NY and go to Yankee Stadium, a dream he's had for a long time. He was very impressed by the city, although he only saw a little of it through the bus window.

Here are a couple more pictures of the kids from spring 2017:

Kenna and Isaac at prom. 

Isaac playing with the dogs

Summer 2017 flew by:  Jared worked his normal summer hours, leaving the house at 5:15 am and returning around 7 pm.  I was a new Young Women president and was busy planning youth conference. I also attended girls camp for 2 days, went to Caleb's CSU orientation, and worked at the pool for the first time. (I did that partly because I needed more income than my aiding job provided and partly because Kenna needed a job and was afraid to apply for one. Plus, I've always liked swimming; I lifeguarded for a bit in college, too. And Corbin spends a lot of time at the pool, so I was still able to be with him.) I also took a swedish massage class at the Academy of Natural Therapy in Greeley and tried to keep up with the boys' ball games. My summer was very, very full--too full, actually.  Still, I loved my class (I am a little frustrated that I haven't been able to return to school again yet.) and enjoyed the challenge of balancing things, though I was ready for a break at the end of summer!  I had begun to plan how I would spend the first few days of calm and quiet after the kids returned to school (I was debating quitting my aiding job and subbing so I could take more classes in Greeley. However, in late July, I learned about a position at BOCES  and applied. I was hired to be an aide for speech/language and occupational therapy.So, in August I started my new position.

August is also a month of celebrations in our home. On the 13th, Caleb turned nineteen. He left for CSU a few days later.

Jared and I were married August 15, 1995, so we had our twenty second anniversary this year.

Isaac turned 14 on the 23rd.  Here are some pictures of him at his party. I made angel food cake and a chocolate cake.

My parents were able to come visit for several weeks during the fall. They have done this now three of the past four years. (They missed fall 2016, after my mom had her bypass surgery.) 

Corbin played football through our local SPYFL league.

Taylor earned a position change/promotion at Poudre Valley hospital. She was able to switch to scheduling other nurses for shifts.

We spent Christmas 2017 at home, although Jared and I did take a quick trip to Ft Collins so I could have a vein procedure done. We stayed with Taylor afterward, then came home the next day.
Here we are, resting after the little surgery.

In the winter, Isaac  played basketball. His team was good, and he wasn't the only star--many of the kids had grown and grown into themselves. They worked well together, but lost the East Championship to Holyoke, which is super hard for Isaac.  (The Holyoke kids are his rivals, and he thinks they're bad sports and stuck on themselves. )  In the spring of 2018, some of the same boys beat him in high jump, but he trumped everyone in triple jump and developed a passion for it.  He also set a new 8th grade boys' triple jump record of 37'5".

Here are the boys, working toegther on something. Corbin is good with computers and often uses them to figure out algorithims for solving Rubik's cubes adn to do other types of research.