Friday evening our good friend, and former neighbor Evan Eastman invited us to a Texas Rangers game against the Boston Red Socks. He had a suite with reserved parking — it was AWESOME!
Our parking spot was right across the street from the main gates.
You have to eat a hot dog when you go to a baseball game.
After the game they had a really cool fireworks show set to music. It was pretty late by the time we headed home. Raine was tired, but little Alice was so wired from the cotton candy, M&M’s, and Twizzlers that she kept telling us that she wasn’t tired at all!
This was the first time that our kids have been to a major league baseball game. Watching from a suite was definitely the way to go for kids because they could get up and walk around, and there was a restroom right in the suite. Hopefully they won’t expect this from now on!
Carter’s class went on a field trip to the SeaLife Aquarium on Thursday and I went with him. It was pouring rain and driving wind when we arrived at the aquarium. It looked like a hurricane! We were all soaking wet by the time we made it inside.
Ben Murdock was in our group. (There were 11 parent chaperones for the 19 kids in his class so the groups were very small!)
Carter looking down into the stingray tank.
Carter and Ben watching a shark swim toward them in the glass tunnel.
A giant ray swimming overhead.
Jellyfish.
These guys were such 7-year-old boys, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They were constantly poking, pushing, and picking up each other! And laughing the ENTIRE time.
Touching sea anemonies.
Touching sea stars.
They had a “shark school” presentation at the end of their tour. When it was over, Carter informed me that it was the stupidest presentation ever! I had to agree. If you are going to call it shark school, it needs to be about sharks, not sustainable fishing. I appreciate the conservation efforts, but the best way to encourage conservation is to give kids an understanding of the amazing creatures under the sea so that they will WANT to preserve them.
Yesterday Carter had a skateboard lesson at Alliance Skate Park. His awesome teacher Trent helped him with his kick-turns, taught him how to do an ollie, and worked on dropping-in with Carter. The video shows it all. Carter really, really wants to learn how to skateboard and is willing to fall on his bony little tush to learn it (like he did when he tried to drop in all by himself). Every time he gets back up and tries it again, because he wants it.
Carter didn’t always have this attitude. Back on March 4, I recorded the following in my journal after taking Carter to the Watagua skate park:
About a year ago, Carter decided that he wanted to learn to skateboard. He bought a skateboard at the local sport store for about $7 and gave it a few runs. After watching the Olympics recently, he stated that he wants to be a snowboarder. Since we don’t have any snow or mountains around here, I told him that he needs to learn how to ride his skateboard because it’s similar to snowboarding.
Carter’s cheap board had some really cheap wheels and bearings so I told him that I would buy him some new ones if he would do 12 extra jobs (essentially a job for every dollar).
The new wheels made a HUGE difference and he has been riding his board every chance he gets (unfortunately we’ve had a record wet February), including to school every day.
Carter had asked me to take him to a skate park and yesterday we finally went. On the drive over he mentioned that he hoped there weren’t any professionals there. In reality, he was hoping that there weren’t many people there at all. To his dismay, it was very crowded when we pulled in. Regardless, he put on his pads and ventured over to the skate park.
Everyone there was at least 5 years older than Carter and all of the skateboarders were at least 10 years older. The place was full of boys on scooters, bikes, boards, and even a few remote-controlled vehicles. It was packed but it was organized chaos. Still, it was a bit much for poor little Carty. He ventured in and fell flat on his side the first time he tried to go up and back down one of the walls. He cried, got frustrated, but went back out. Again he fell. He came back to me the second time saying that he wanted to leave because it was too hard. I told him that if he would go back out there for 20 minutes then I would buy him a slush on our way home.
He went back out and within a couple minutes had taken another hard fall. He came back to where I was sitting on “my” skateboard, sat down on the board behind me, buried his head in my back, and cried. I knew that his pride was probably just as injured as his tush because there were so many really good skateboarders there. But I also had seen the way they would sympathetically pick up Carter’s board and hand it back to him when he would fall. They had all been there and remembered what it was like to be a beginner. No one ever gave Carter a look that said beginners weren’t welcome or that he was in the way. I was actually quite surprised by how they watched out for him and I even heard one say encouragingly, “you got it, buddy.”
As Carter sat on the back of my board, crying and vowing to never skateboard again, I gave him a pep-talk worthy of a Hollywood movie! I told him how all of these kids were at least 5 years older than he was and that when they were 7, they skateboarded just like him. I also told him that if he kept skateboarding for the next 5 years then he would be as good as they were. But that if he just went home and cried then he would never get any better. I pointed out that all of them were falling and that everyone was working on something that they couldn’t do yet. I assured him that he would have a good bruise or 2 but also told him that falling and getting bruises was part of skateboarding. I told him that nobody thought he was in the way and that when people were telling him that they were coming down it was just to let him know so that he wouldn’t run into them, not because they wanted him to move somewhere else.
He calmed down and said that he didn’t want to go home yet. He wanted me to go over by the little ramp that he felt like he could conquer — I think he just needed me closer. He got back out there and seemed more comfortable. A bit later he fell hard again on the big wall and came back to me to cry. But this time he didn’t talk about wanting to go home, he had accepted that everyone falls, that it is part of the sport. He was a little frustrated though. His skateboard had long board wheels but softer trucks than mine which had wheels better suited for a skate park but tighter trucks which made it harder to turn. I told him that there was a boarder across the park who had a wrench and I would go ask him to adjust the trucks if he wanted. He agreed and so we ventured over to the skater with the tattoos down his arms and asked if he would adjust Carter’s trucks. He happily did it, saying that it would make it a lot easier to learn.
By the time we left, Carter was all smiles. He had mastered the little hill and felt much more comfortable on his board. The confidence he gained was visible on his face. He now appreciated how hard skateboarding is and was committed to putting in the effort to get better. As a mom, it was really awesome to watch. In a small way, I felt like I was watching my little boy take his first step toward manhood.
We stopped at Sonic on the way home to get a slush and a hot dog. Carter was on top of the world! He had conquered a giant.
Grandma and Grandpa Anderson came to visit us after getting home from their mission to Brazil in February. They brought us Brazilian soccer shirts so we wore them for some photos in the bluebonnets.
The 13th and 14th we went skiing at Loveland Ski Resort. The first day Carter and I stayed on the beginner hill while Daddy and Raine spent the day on the bigger run in the lower bowl.
Below is a video of Carter’s snowboard skills shortly after lunch as well as Raine skiing down the upper run. Carter didn’t do too bad for his first day, especially since he only had a skier to teach him! I tried to convince him to let me put him in snowboard school so that someone who knew what they were doing could teach him, but he refused, he wanted me to teach him. Since I love spending time with him, I agreed!
We had BEAUTIFUL weather both of the days we skied. It was perfect spring skiing.
The second day, Raine and I spent the morning together while Daddy and Carter rode the mountain together. We switched later in the day.
Thursday, the 15th, we started our drive home. We took the scenic route, through the mountains.
We stopped at Royal Gorge for a few minutes.
Then we continued to Canon City where we ate lunch at Bunk House Burgers. Yummy!
We made it to windy Amarillo with just enough time to swim in the hotel pool while we waited for Pizza Hut to deliver our dinner.
The next morning we blew the rest of the way home.
It was roasting hot when we got home but perfect weather that evening to watch Ferdinand the movie outside in the town square.
Carter wore his mustache the entire time. I don’t know why, but this kid LOVES mustaches.
Carter had been begging to go snowboarding ever since the Olympics, so when we had the opportunity to stay with my boss and her family in Breckenridge over spring break, we did it.
March 10 – Saturday morning we headed out. Our goal was to make it to Pueblo, CO with enough time to swim in the hotel pool. We weren’t particularly speedy, but we made it early enough to swim.
March 11 – Sunday morning we drove to Denver to attend church and hang out with the Ellis family. But first, Carter needed to burn off some energy!
Sunday night we stayed at Uncle Jake and Aunt Candi’s house.
March 12 – Monday we drove up the canyon to Frisco, where we were staying with the Williams family. That afternoon we headed up to the sledding hill for a little snow fun. Raine had picked out a saucer sled while Carter found a toy snowboard so that he could make sure that’s what he wanted to do before we rented a real one and paid for a full-day lift ticket.
Here are a few of Carter’s first attempts at “snowboarding.”
Thursday, February 22, was the 2nd-grade hoedown, little brother version.
Carter was dead-set on not wearing anything western. It took all I had to even get him to wear a button-up shirt, but he refused to wear a plaid one. Nothing I did, said, or promised could get him to wear jeans.
This video is rather long because I didn’t edit it at all. It is just a mash-up of all the different clips that we took during the hoedown.
The kids decided that they want to learn to play tennis so they have been going to the local tennis courts to hit the ball around.
January 22 – Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo
Raine was my date to the rodeo this year because Carter had the flu and Daddy stayed home with him. We had a lot of fun — despite the fact that Raine still doesn’t like any of the events that involve calves.
January 28 – hammocking
We’ve had some beautiful weather this January and pulled out the hammocks a couple times to lazily sway in the breeze on a Sunday afternoon.
January 31 – blue, blood, super moon
They said that it was a once-in-lifetime event, so we woke up early to see the second full moon in the month (blue moon) that was also at it’s closest point to the earth (super moon) that was also a lunar eclipse (blood moon). Carter wasn’t impressed.
January 25 was Raine’s Forth-Grade Concert. They sang several Texas-themed songs as well as showed off their newly-acquired recorder skills. It was horribly painful to listen to those recorder songs — I’ve never been so happy for a program to end — so I didn’t include those numbers the video below!
(Raine is in the second-from-the-top row, in the middle, under the two balls hanging down between the flags.)
