Fort Collins Family Visit and the Beautiful Poudre Canyon

 So this is a very belated post.  We were in Fort Collins two weekends ago when we went to the Wyoming football game.

We stopped in Rock Springs to eat at the Chinese buffet. It was pretty good. The boys were especially excited about the huge koi fish they had.

Our four year old even got to feed the fish.  That was pretty exciting for him.

I thought this was a pretty light - not the ornamental circle, but just the metal part of the light with the colored globes.  I really don't think those two parts went together very well though.

I was shocked to see this fortune.  It's a Bible verse - Proverbs 4:23. That's the first time I've seen a Bible verse used in a fortune cookie.

 And this might just be the best advice ever found in a fortune cookie.

After lunch we headed to my Mom's house, where we visited with her and with my sister and her family.

These two are only 30 days apart in age, and they were a riot.

They would chase each other and pretend to fall. It was too cute.

Uncle J brought over a video for the kids to watch.

The little peas in a pod.  The last day we were there we went out to eat and the waitress mistook them for twins because they were seated together at the end of the table.

I didn't realize how close their hair color is until I saw these pictures. Our son's seems darker (and looks darker now, since we've cut his hair since this visit).

Here's what we were watching - Shaun the Sheep, a British animated show with no words.

We only got to visit for a short time before we had to head home.

On the way home we took the Poudre Canyon from Fort Collins to Walden, then headed  north through Saratoga, WY and back onto I-80.  It was the most beautiful canyon we've been through in a very long time.  (I was driving, so my husband took the pictures).

This was my favorite section - through such steep, rocky mountains.  The road follows the river the whole way.

 There was quite a bit of evidence of the flooding from last month, but for the most part it's been cleaned up.

 There was only one section where the road was down to one lane.

Isn't this a cool bridge - it's just a walking bridge.  We pulled over and considered walking across it, but found that it was a private bridge.

The kids thought this tunnel was pretty cool.

 We picked the perfect time to go through the canyon because the fall color was just gorgeous.

At the top of the pass there was snow.  We had to stop and have a bathroom break right along here - where the forest service has the kind of bathroom that is just a hole in the ground with a seat over the top of it... and drafty.  It was chilly.

We saw several moose just before getting to Walden, which claims to be the "moose viewing capital" - not sure if that's of the world or just the US - ha.  Anyway, going that way added about 1.5 hours to our trip, and we didn't leave Fort Collins until after 4 pm, so it was about 1:30 am when we finally got home. It was well worth the diversion though.  Very pretty.

Celebrating Little Successes

Potty training for most people entails a few weeks or months of frustration, then enjoyment of the results.  For us, it is taking years.  Something about autism seems to make potty training - especially where poo is concerned - an especially difficult task.  Bribery may work, but what do you do when the kid doesn't like candy?  It's not like I could say, "Go poo and I'll give you a bagel." That seemed a little unreasonable.  But we've tried for more than two years to get this kid potty trained, (he'll be 5 next month) and he just wasn't at all concerned about it.  He is finally pretty consistent about peeing in the toilet, and he tells us (in his own way) when he needs to go. We get statements like this when we're in the car: "When we get to Grammy's house, we can go potty."  That can be translated, "Find me a bathroom ASAP, I need to go right now."

Last night, I knew he needed to go poo, but he is always afraid to do it in the toilet.  I don't think he has ever done it before.  We won a major battle a month or so ago when we convinced him to ask for a pull-up when he needs to poo so I could quit having to clean nastiness out of his underwear.  (I confess more than one pair were just thrown away).

Knowing he needed to go (he had asked for a pull up), I let him stand to pee as usual, then put him up on the toilet and blocked him from getting down.  I told him, "Please, please, please go poo in the toilet.  If you do I'll get you a Mater car when we go to Jackson tomorrow.  He didn't want a Mater car.  He told me, "I need a tractor."  So I said, "Okay, I'll get you a tractor."  He went poo.  I celebrated.  We all did.  And today he picked out a $24 tractor and trailer set, brought it home and immediately filled it with farm animals and a made a Lego man drive (with his dog on the hood) :)  So I'm thinking, now what do I do for an encore?  I'm starting to think I may have been the sucker in this deal.  I'm definitely going to have to push this issue a little harder.  I'm just glad we've finally had a little success.  And here's the bonus - he picked the only tractor in the store that DIDN'T have any buttons to push to make noise!

11-Man Football Finale vs. Jackson Hole

 Today was the big day - my son's 11-man football team had their out of town game in Jackson Hole.  It was a really nice day considering it's the middle of October.  This was kind of a crazy game - they played 6 quarters - three then halftime, then another three, so that all the Jackson players had a chance to play.  Yeah.  They have that many players.  If I heard correctly, they had 37 players to our 16.

 But the coaching was much better on our side.  (My nine year old is in the center of the above picture - #6 - with blue sleeves and white socks next to the kid making a fashion statement with orange sleeves and pink socks.)  In the end, we won 38-6!!!

My little guys found plenty of new things to explore.

And the two year old does a great job of cheering.

 The poor four year old had a rough day.  We have to drive through a very winding canyon, and before we made it to town he was carsick.  He hasn't done that in a very long time.  He felt pretty puny for quite awhile this morning, and just seemed low on energy. When we went to eat, he fell asleep on the floor, which was probably for the best since we were starting to believe he was feeling ill again.  After the nap he was great though, and we made it through shopping and driving home without any further problems.

 Here is the whole crew - along with their five coaches.

Our nine year old really enjoyed the season and can't wait for next year (if he makes it through tonight... his legs are cramping and he's pretty sore.)  The football program starts kids much younger with flag football, but this was our son's first year playing.  He did surprisingly well for his first year.  The 11-man team is made up of 4th and 5th graders (our son is 4th grade) and he played 1st string offense and defense and was in for most of the game.  He also got two sacs and made one really impressive play where he tackled their running back and stripped the ball causing a fumble, which we recovered.  At lunch he was contemplating playing for the NFL. ;)

 After the game we went to eat at Sidewinders, where we could watch all the college games.  Wyoming was playing CSU and played a horrible game.  I'm glad we were there last week and not this week.  We did some shopping, then drove home. It was a great family day, and there was a beautiful sunset on the drive home.

Road Trip to the Wyoming Football Game

 Last Friday we hit the road for a fun weekend.  We drove down to Fort Collins, CO to spend the night with my mom and visit with my sister and her family (I'll do a separate post for the family pics).

Once we got on I-80, I started noticing how many double trailer Fed Ex trucks there were.  From Rock Springs to Laramie we counted 35 of them, plus two of their little vans.  Guess how many UPS trucks we saw... ONE.

Saturday we left Fort Collins and did a little back tracking back up to Laramie for the UW homecoming game against New Mexico.

They have one of those beautiful new fields like the pros (and like our local school district which is swimming in oil field money).

 The kids were pretty impressed. Except at one point, our four year old asked us to turn off the music. ha.  It was a little overwhelming for him, but he did really well.  He squeezed in between Dad and the nine year old for most of the game, so he was actually pretty content.  (For those of you who don't normally follow along, he has autism and sometimes gets overwhelmed easily, so him being content was a big accomplishment).

 We had great seats - only 21 rows up from the field, and we had group seats, so everyone around us was from our hometown (about a 5 hour drive to the game).

 The boys were impressed by the tricks the cheerleaders could do.  (She did a somersault flip to get down from there).

The band was really good too - they have the largest marching band in UW history.

It also happened to be "band days" so bands from around the state, plus some from Nebraska and Colorado were there.  They all marched out onto the field and played a song together with the UW band.  Our local band ended up lining up right near where we were seated too, so some of the parents got to see their kids right there.

At the end, the marching band spells out WYO.

It's easier to see on the big screen.

 During halftime, they introduced our nephew and gave him an award.  If I'm not mistaken it was the National Honors Society Gold Award.  I think that's what they called it.  (Someone in my family who knows can let me know if that's right.)  Anyway it was a really big deal.

Congrats, Casey!  It was really cool to be there to see this awarded.

We all had a really good time at the game.

 I was going to put a caption here, but I think the picture speaks for itself.

Sometimes there really are no words for this kid...

The four year old used the giant foam finger to "shoot" people.

Ornery.

The final score was 38-31, and we won :)  Do you like the flames at the top of the scoreboard?  We have a canon too ;)

After the game we had to drive back to Fort Collins.  This little man jabbered the whole way.  He kept saying "I'm not sleepy." and "It's not naptime."

His brothers were wiser and went right to sleep.

It was a beautiful drive with the sun setting.

 And then of course as soon as we got in to Fort Collins, he crashed.  Go figure.

We had a pretty amazing day at the game though, and when we got to Ft. Collins, we had a great dinner which featured my brother-in-law's amazing marinated grilled steak.  Can't beat a day like that :)