teamsam.com Blog

« | Home | »

Summer

By Margot | July 6, 2012

North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Hiking in Zion

boys on their mules

Neil and boys on Closing Ceremonies Day

jumping in with Sam

We kicked the summer off with a trip to Zion National Park and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  We left right after Charlie’s graduation and flew into Las Vegas and drove down to Zion. I had fun showing the boys the covered wagon that the settlers used to travel in at the Mormon Fort national monument after all the complaining about the long drive ;-).  The vacation was great though.  Zion is just spectacular.  It was hot so we hiked in the morning and swam in the afternoons.  The boys and I rented inner tubes and went tubing down the Virgin River.  They had a blast and it was shallow enough that I could easily hop up and help Charlie when he got stuck on a rock.  We pretended he was seven so he could do it and after the first big rapid I was thinking I made a big mistake but he was a champ and had the best time.  Andrew had a great time as well. After a couple of days at Zion we drove down through the most desolate area we’d ever been to, to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and hiked a bit and rode mules for an afternoon.  The boys loved it and are still talking about their mules.  Neil was very funny on his mule.  He reminded me of Billy Crystal in City Slickers 😉 but he was game for the boys to have a good time  and it made for a great memory for both of them.

We’ve hit the beach a few times.  Neil took the boys down last Saturday and Charlie got stung by a jellyfish.  So he’s got that for a war story now.  The 4th was too cold for the beach here but we had a nice day at the park and did a big hike with the Monaco boys and Luke Brunette.  Then we watched the fizzled San Diego fireworks from the Monacos roof top deck.  It was a good day.

We’ve been enjoying some time off from sports.  Andy’s heels were hurting (we think he’s growing too fast and has something called severs so we’ve been stretching and icing) so we took a week off of soccer and he seems to be doing better.  It was actually nice to have free afternoons.  Both he and Charlie have been swimming a lot and doing playdates.  We start next week with Andy’s summer baseball league and then the week after that he has a big soccer tournament so it’ll start to be busy soon.  They both did a Scripps aquarium camp and really had fun.  Andy got to disect a squid and Charlie learned all about different animal life in the oceans.  I’m trying not to over camp them this year though they both have a couple of sports camp coming up and a chess camp at Balboa Park.  Both boys are still so funny and active.  Andrew’s loves to say, “No offense mom, but….” and then he says something like “those pants look horrible” or “this chicken tastes really bad.”  Ha ha.  So be careful if he’s talking to you and starts a sentence with “no offense.’ Charlie is still five going on 22.  He still wants to hang with all of the big kids.  He’s so darn cute these days.

Next week is Sam’s birthday and we are doing the celebration in the park on the day afterwards because the 13th is Andrew’s first baseball game. I see Sam’s friends now and they are so tall and some of their voices are so low it just knocks me out.  We’ll bring some legos to the hospital that week in honor of Sam’s birthday and I thought I’d bring some water balloons to his party at the park this year since Sam loved water balloon fights.

That’s it for the summer so far that I can think of.  I’ll post again on Sam’s birthday.

Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Summer”

  1. Dorean Says:
    July 7th, 2012 at 12:08 am

    Glad to read you are having a good summer! Keeping you in our prayers!

  2. suzy Says:
    July 7th, 2012 at 12:33 pm

    Sounds like a great trip. Give the boys a big hug.