Monday, August 30, 2010

Time to update? Prepare yourself for a short novel

Apparently life has been keeping us all on our toes and none of us have had time to update our blog. With Caity now up at college, and Mom always very busy, looks like I'll be the main one posting on the blog. We'll see how frequently it happens though. =)
Without further ado, let me go back and briefly recap the summer months in the Spencer family for those of you who don't know what we've been up to lately.

Week days through out May, June, and July found Caity at the pool for an early morning workout with our coach followed by coaching my swim practice and then finishing off with the boys' practice. Tuesday thru Friday either Caity or I could be found surrounded by four little boys who we each babysat two days a week. Curtis spent most of his summer interning at the IT (information technology) department at Dad's bank.

In June we celebrated Russell's 9th birthday, my 18th, and Mom and Dad went on an early anniversary trip to Chicago for 5 days.

The Fourth of July weekend Dad and all of us kids went on our annual backpacking trip with our dear friends the Skeens. Click here to see Curtis' album of pictures from the trip. We were blessed with beautiful weather and wonderful fellowship. The 4th was also Mom and Dad's 25 wedding anniversary. We are so blessed to have parents that are setting such a wonderful example to their children, and other people, in their faithful, loving marriage. In July we also celebrated Curtis 22nd birthday, he went on a backpacking/camping trip in Arizona with several different friends, I staffed Teenpact Survival camp in Glorieta, NM, and Scott and Russell made it to swimming finals in a couple relays and other events.

The last two days of July we were in Farmington, NM at the Skeens house for a brief visit before heading up to Moab, Utah. While in Moab for 5 days we went rafting down the Colorado River, experienced the amazing abilities of a Hummer H1 on a 62 degree incline of slick rock (aka a really fun hummer tour) =D, drove and walked around part of Canyonlands Nation Park, went mountain biking, cliff jumping, and just enjoyed family time and making memories together. From Moab we drove up to McCall, Idaho for one night and then continued up to Moscow, Idaho. Curtis got moved into his new house, which is much nicer than his old apartment, and Caity got all her things settled into the basement of the house where she is living with four other NSA students. Other than doing shopping for her kitchen and such, we play a little soccer, had a belated birthday celebration dinner for Curtis with some of his friends, spent an afternoon with the family Caity is staying with, got to meet several other NSA students and professors, and attended Christ Church. Monday morning found all of us except our college students piled in the car headed to Orem, Utah where we stayed the night and continued on our way home the following day. It was a wonderful trip and I think we all enjoyed it a lot and made a lot of memories together that will last a life time.

The following two days the boys and I spent at home together while Mom had some meetings at the boys' school. Amongst some school, chores, laundry, cleaning, unpacking, and cooking, we managed to have a bit of fun together. I made a scavenger hunt for the boys, we watched some Andy Griffith shows over lunch, made sandwiches grilled with an iron, and read some books together too. Tuesday the 17th the boys began their first day back to school, which of course means Mom is now even more busy than she was before.

Sunday the 22nd, Mom and I met Aunt Jan and Riley in town and I drove back with them up to Farmington, NM where I am currently. We spent a couple days here at their house, just visiting, cooking, shopping, cleaning, packing, playing frisbee, and staying up late. =) Five o' clock Wednesday morning found us all in a car packed to the top and on our way to Denver, Colorado. We made pretty good time and arrived at 12:30 in time to meet with Aunt Jan's uncle who we got to visit with for a couple hours. We then grabbed some lunch and headed to Cherry Creek State Park where were set up our 10 man tent which would be our house for the next 4 days. We met new friends, visited with old ones, played sports, were encouraged by the talks given by the elders of Reformation Church in CO, participated in some family activities, talked and sang late at night around the camp fires, and then finally said our good byes and headed back to the Skeens house on Saturday. Since then we have been recovering from lack of sleep, reading in preparation for school to start, fellowshipping with friends, and playing a bit of ultimate. Tomorrow I'll be packed up again and ready to head home to see my dear family again and begin my senior year of high school!

That was a very long, but relatively thorough glimpse of our family's summer. I'll try to stay up with posting better in the future so I don't have to write such long narratives next time. =)


1 comment:

Spencer Mom said...

I'm impressed that you covered so much ground so quickly. It was a great summer and many great memories made. I'm glad to have you home and excited for you about this year of studies.