Traeton Turns Eight!

Eight is a great age. We are loving eight. Traeton loves being eight. So many things come with eight. Traeton is a proficient reader so he is super helpful in many areas. Traeton is gaining oodles of freedom which he loves. And greater responsibilities which we love. Traeton is a huge help around the house and with the family.

Traeton called most of the shots on his birthday day. For breakfast he had his favorite, cereal mix - a little of everything.

Traeton chose to go see a movie the morning of his big day. No surprise there. But he did have two very special guests, Nana and Bebee, join us which made the whole event even more enjoyable.

We did have to make a quick stop at Wal-Mart for some last-minute birthday party supplies.

Daddy was on a short shift the day of Traeton's birthday so he was home nice and early. This provided the perfect opportunity to open presents before things got crazy at the party. As you can see all his gifts consisted of supplies for a new pet. Traeton had been asking for a new something for a long time. We decided it'd be fun for him to get a guinea pig - a pet all his own.

After opening presents we headed out to dinner at the restaurant of his choice, CB and Potts. We were joined by the grandparents. Here Traeton opened the presents from them which were all super cool. Traeton got a full-size air hockey table which has been lots of fun. He also got a motorized airplane that has yet to be built. Together with his grandpa Traeton will spend the next several years preparing this plane for flight. So much fun!

After eating a quick dinner we hurried home to prepare for the party, the big birthday party!! The theme for this year was Mad Scientist. Traeton personally made all the invitations on his homemade paint spinner. At the party we did all kinds of fun experiments, made goop, exploded things and made our own snack, drink and frosting concoctions to eat. It was a blast!

Due to privacy issues I don't have a lot of pictures I can post. I really want to respect the privacy of all the children who attended so I won't post any pictures of them. But this one is perfect of our master scientist, Dr. Slime.


Happy Birthday, son. We love you.

Mount Holy Cross

Burrrrrr......

At the tail end of the Burmeister family trip to Durango a few of us split off and hiked deep into the woods to tackle the beautiful and famous Mount (of the) Holy Cross.

Todd and myself along with Tony and Lindsey Brown (Todd's sister and her new-ish husband) left the family for this super adventure. None of us thought to check the weather forecast and we all regretted that in a big way! A big cold-front came thought and dropped the temps to freezing levels. We shivered our way to the top.



This was my first 14-er since before children. It is pretty difficult to tackle a mountain of this size with little ones in tow or on the back. I have put this part of me on hold for this season. Never was that more apparent than when we calculated it took us four hours to summit and three hours to descend. People were passing us all over the place.



Here is a picture of Lindsey and I trying to boulder our way upward through dense clouds. Yes, those are socks on our hands. It was Lindsey's brilliant idea, we needed gloves but had none. Socks were the next best thing. I am so, so thankful for my sock/gloves because our hands were frigid and we needed them for bouldering up and down the mountain.

There is the summit, right behind me!! Can you see it!?!? Neither could we... At times we could just put one foot in front of the other and have faith we were heading the right direction. From time to time climbers coming down would steer us this way or that.



Every once in a while God would open the clouds so we could see across the valley or to the peak. It was pretty incredible. I am glad we made it to the top. There were moments when each one of us second-guessed ourselves and thought we should turn back. This is the second time Todd and I have tackled Mount Holy Cross. The first time we weren't able to make it due to bad weather. This time we prevailed though!!

Oh, in case you are wondering why it is called Mount (of the) Holy Cross it is because when there is snow on the mountain it gathers on a vertical crevice and a horizontal crevice so that the snow forms a beautiful cross.

This is Todd being crazy. No, this is not the summit. This is on the way down, a rock that juts out over a cliff. (The first picture of the four of us together is at the summit.)

Durango Celebration

Durango, Colorado
A very neat town in far southern Colorado. I have to admit that my expectations were quite low. I didn't really expect that there was much to Durango, let along much in Durango. But I was wrong, and I love that I was wrong.

This June 22 the Burmeisters celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary. For the occasion the whole clan gathered from San Francisco, Chicago and Denver to caravan down south to Durango. It was a great week filled with great memories, isn't that what you really want your family vacation to hold, lots of great memories?

On our way down we swung by the Great Sand Dunes. I was amazed at this gigantic sand box right in the middle of nowhere mountainous terraine.


We had snow sleds to slide down the hills. It took some work but we were finally able to send the kiddos down.


Some of the highlights of our trip included riding the famous Narrow Guage Railroad.


This was especially exciting for Elias.


The train took us up into the mountains outside of Durango to the zipline park called Soaring. It is a one-of-a-kind, largest-in-the-world zipline park. There are 30-some zip rides that take you through the trees, over rock formations and cliffs and over the ginormous Animas River.

This is a picture of Addison and Traeton linking together for a tandem zip over the river.


This is a picture of Traeton and Addison zipping over the Animas River! Exhilerating!


The last night we were together as a family in Durango all of Glen and Jan's children and grandchildren put together a special evening for the lovely couple. We made a gourmet dinner that they enjoyed out on the deck of our cabin as the sun set. All the children took turns serving them and performing for them.
It was very special for us to honor them and their marriage in this way, I hope they enjoyed it as well.

Addison Turns 5!

Tonight is officially the very last day of summer vacation for our family... Tomorrow morning kicks off our 2009-2010 school year in full swing. Traeton had his first day last Friday but Addison's first day is tomorrow and Elias' first official day is Tuesday. Here we go!!

Our summer turned out to be a lot more than we had expected. As I begin to catch up on the many events of our summer you will see that we sped through our summer at lightening speed!



Alas, I step back in time to Addison's fifth birthday. It landed on a Monday. As birthday tradition goes in the Burmeister home the birthday girl/boy gets to dictate much of how the day runs. This begins with their choice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One of which will be out at the restaurant of their choice. For breakfast Addie chose cold cereal, of course! The most sugar she can consume in one sitting is bliss for this little girl.



After breakfast we went to get her haircut. This was a very big deal because it was finally time to cut her hair back to one length. You see when I was gone in the Philippines last fall Addison took the scissors to her own hair. She took a chunk out so short it took seven months to grow long enough to even it out.



Afterward we went to her all-time favorite restaurant for lunch, Gunther Toody's! We had so much fun sitting at the bar, playing cheesy games and slurping chocolate shakes!



That evening we celebrated Addie's birthday at Pump It Up! It was a wild time with lots of jumping, sliding and sweating! Addie invited friends from school, our small group and our neighborhood. It was so much fun and great exercise, too.