Wilkins Family

Mom of the Year

2009-08-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

And the Ghetto Mom of the Year Award goes to...

So it was the first day of school but there was also a free concert for a band that we really like at 4:00 so...ya, we pulled them out early for the show. Here they are with the cute guys from band; they were so nice to the kids too! check 'em out: Synthetic Elements and they have a myspace page with music up. They were a blast! Evan really did have fun, he just looks disgruntled as always.

Evan't first day!

2009-08-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

Here's our baby off to kindergarden! He loved it and, although a little apprehensive and first, he said the day was great and he met a thousand new kids!

Pirate's Cove Water Park

2009-08-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

We spent our last day of summer at the water park going on the slides, the lazy river, the sandy beach and relaxing! Now back to school!

More park pics

2009-08-07T13:36:00.001-07:00

Another fun day at the park in our neighborhood! Tyler was a bundle of sunshine!

More zoo pics

2009-08-07T13:35:00.001-07:00

These cute kids were volunteering at the zoo painting faces. It was so cool.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

2009-08-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

This place was a blast! It is in Colorado Springs and a bit of a hike to get around since it is built up on a mountain side but so cool! We got to feed giraffes, get our faces painted and see all kinds of cool stuff. The monkeys and apes were the best! So much personality! One was flipping us off and another was hitting on us! Ha ha! Good times, good times!

A Day at the Park

2009-08-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

Few pics from Idyllwilde Park in our neighborhood, summer fun...yay.

Dillon's Day

2009-06-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Dillon was baptised on June 6th! It was a great day and we had grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins and lots of friends there to share with us! Dillon and his friend, Hallee, even sang a duet! It was priceless! Congrats on your great decision Dill!

Mother's Day

2009-06-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

This

was my mother's day gift from my boys and I loved it! Blaine built these great redwood planter boxes and then filled them with soil (all with his leg in a brace, mind you!). We all worked together to pick out some seedlings and get them in the dirt. What fun!

Arugala

Red Leaf Lettuce

Roma Tomatoes

Zucchini

Yellow Squash

Butternut Squash

Strawberries

Onions

Rosemary, Tarragon, Parsley, Basil, Choc. Mint and Marjoram

YUM!

Dillon

2009-06-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

This kid is really killing it. Here are some pics of Dillon rockin' the C-Rock:

Manual, he's got these on lock
50/50

Dropping in on the BIG ONE!

Roll in at the big ramps

Cute buns, sorry, that's not very cool to say (they are cute tho!)

Anti Bucket List

2009-03-21T22:19:00.000-07:00

Everyone else is doing it so we thought we'd be the joiners that we are here.

Here is a list of things we will never cry if we don't do:
Go to BYU
Have daughters (that's a cop out cuz' we can't but we are happy with what we got)
Wear Tevas or Crocs
Meet Blossom
Smoke Crack
Pierce anything except maybe a nostril
Live in Arizona
Scrapbook
See the Jonas Brothers or any other Disney machine that we are pretty sure is a dare to see just how powerful Disney is and just what sheep americans are
Go to Vegas, except In and Out
Ski
Eat fried oreos
Hunt large game
Visit Uzbekistan
Swim with sharks
Sew anything
Meet Tom Cruise or even see him or even hear his voice
Watch Lost
Be pregnant
Rollerblade
Quit swearing
sleep in a tent that hangs off a cliff
See REO Speedwagon in concert
Read from the Kabala
Watch that horse race where the ladies all wear big hats and drink mint stuff
that's all we can write because our parents read this sometimes.

Tyler's Birthday

2009-02-26T15:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, Tyler's birthday was in September; however, I just found these pics on my phone and thought I'd share! He got to choose where to eat his birthday dinner and so he picked Mt. Fuji, a (very expensive) teppan grill and sushi place in town. Yes, it was over the budget and no, they did not have a kids menu... but it was actually worth it. The kids were sooo well behaved, handled the chopsticks beautifully (with trainers, of course!) and two out of three of them tried the sushi! They had a great time and it was nice to finally be at a place where we can take our boys out to a nice restaurant and know they will behave and enjoy it! Well done boys and good choice Tyler! Happy 11 years old (now that you are 11 and a half!)

Sunday

2009-02-06T16:34:00.000-08:00

Just thought this was a cute scene. Would be even better if Evan could actually READ the paper, but the pictures are fun too, I guess.

Dillon is really into it. He is a great reader and he really spends a lot of time buried in books.

Blaine's First Day of School

2009-01-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

It is a big year for us. Evan starts kindergarden, Dillon gets baptised, Tyler gets the preisthood and Blaine starts school.

Here is a cute pic of Blaine before he left for his first day at CU Denver. He remembered his backpack and snack and pen and pencil and paper. He worried that people would think he brought a chisel and tablets while they had laptops. I told him he's not THAT old.

It will be a loonnnggg two years but we are so happy that he has chosen to finish school! Dillon wrote him a very nice note in church Sunday. It went something like...

To: Dad

I am glad you are my dad. I am proud of you for going to college. I know you will be good in college.

Love, Dillon

I am proud, too! Always looking forward to the next great adventure! Guess I gotta come up with something big to do this year so I am not left out! Any suggestions?

It gets cold here

2009-01-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

So, yeah, it gets cold in Colorado. Here are some pics of this winter. December was soooo cold! We braved the elements to ice skate and play, though. By the way, today is 62 and tomorrow will be pushing 70 so don't feel too bad for us. Then Saturday, we'll be snowboarding so that won't suck.

Garden of the Gods

2009-01-19T12:04:00.000-08:00

With Ryan and Kim and the kids!

Dill-y-yo-yo

2009-01-05T16:39:00.000-08:00

It's not that I forgot about Dillon, I really thought I had more time to post before anyone read our blog and my day got away before I finished.

I have inadvertently written a little ditty about the kids so here is Dill's:

Dillon is happy.

If that is all I said, it would be enough if you know him.

Dillon loves.

Everything. Everyone.

Dillon has a cute scratchy voice and he worries sometimes that it does not sound good when he sings but it does. He has a goofy smile but it is his real, sincere one; it's just goofy and we love it.

Dillon is trying to learn the words to "You're Beautiful" so that he can sing it to someone someday.

That is Dillon, he is happy and he wants to make you happy. I want to be like him; but he will love me if I'm not.

and then along came Evan

2009-01-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

Here is Evan:

sometimes he needs a mom, but not as much as I need him.

sometimes he hugs, but mostly he gives high fives with a little bro secret handshake with his daddy.

sometimes he gets dressed and makes his bed and makes himself a peanut butter sandwich before anyone else is up.

sometimes he plays video games in Tyler's closet so no one can find him and make him turn it off.

sometimes he lays down and falls asleep on the dog.

sometimes he sings social distortion songs to himself.

sometimes he just comes up to you and kicks you in the leg.

sometimes he smiles at you, like this, and you just love him and pray he will always love you back...in whatever way he wants to.

This is for sure

2009-01-05T10:08:00.000-08:00

Blaine and I had a teenage friend ask us an interesting question.

"what are you guys going to do with your lives?" he asked, "probably stay together?"

It was interesting because, right now, lots of things are not sure; however, that one thing is for sure.

Blaine and I spent the weekend snowboarding with some shop skaters. We had a really great time and I think that it is so great that we could do that together. We both love to ride and I find it really nice that we support one another having fun. Of course, it is always better when we can have fun together but that is not always possible like it was this weekend. Sometimes he gets to do fun stuff and sometimes I do and sometimes it's equal and sometimes it's not.

We have tried that kind of relationship where we try to out-do eachother with pity parties and see who had the crappiest day but we found it is better to try to have a great day everyday and encourage the same for our family. Blaine loves to know that I had fun and I love to know he had fun.

Truth be told... having fun together knocks the socks off of anything else!

Tyler

2009-01-05T10:05:00.000-08:00

I love all my kids for different reasons. One reason I love Tyler is because he is so dang gorgeous. He is becoming less of a mini-Blaine and more of a Tyler. Here are some newer pics of him that I thought you'd like. In every child there lies a little angel and these really show his angel.

Mad Props

2008-11-16T20:25:00.001-08:00

Ky doesn't read this blog, I am pretty sure, but I want to give mad props where mad props are due. My brothers ky and ryan inspired me to wipe out and reinstall my laptop and desktop computers. Ky ended up working much harder than I am sure he expected when I called him at least 6 or 7 times for help. What a sweetie, though. He was so patient and always willing to drop whatever he had going on to coach me thru it. It only took 3 days and I am proud to say that it worked and both computers work soooo much faster and do all the stuff they are supposed to do!
Thanks Ky!!!

Blaine the Builder

2008-11-14T15:25:00.000-08:00

Blaine made these shelves for the shop and I thought they were pretty cool! He built them with a glass shelf on the top for shoes (that was my idea!) that was held up with skateboards! Cool!

You should get a Tween

2008-11-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

I love having a tween! For those of you who don't follow Miley Cyrus and Bakugon (i know i spelled that wrong), a tween is from age 9-12 and I have a great one!

He is a cute, fun kid and one of my favorite friends to hang out with. He is also the second one I go to when I am having a bad day, because he always knows how to make people feel better. Seriously, call Tyler (on his cell) next time you are down!

Oh, btw, this is Tyler's very fun science experiment about liquid viscocity. He didn't really drink it, ew gross!

I love skater boys!

2008-11-10T10:43:00.000-08:00

Ok, Ok, Dillon's is a little blurry, but this post is about my boys skating. I love that they skate. I love what it teaches them and, yes, I do worry sometimes about the crowd and language they are being exposed to but here are my thoughts...

Boys who play football and lacross swear and drink and have sex.

Boys who go to church every sunday tease other boys and fight with their brothers.

Boys who play tennis care about their hair and what clothes they wear.

Boys who play chess only take baths if they are forced to.

I love that they cheer eachother on when they go together. They go skate with Blaine and when he gives them advice, they listen. They respect that he knows things that they want to know. They respect their dad. That is a good thing.

Tyler asked me if he could say the "d word" when he fell really bad skating. I won't tell you exactly how that conversation went; many of you disagree with my views on profanity, suffice to say, however, my 11 year old asked for my permission to use a bad word and I was honored that he cared for my opinion. I want to live my life so that he will always want to know what I think. It's a lot to shoot for, he's only 11, but it's a great goal.

Kids School Pics

2008-10-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

Here are Tyler and Dillon's cute school pictures for 2008-09. We put some in the mail for grandparents and stuff, but I thought I'd post some too!

I am not sure why Tyler's hair looks green, we certainly did not color it! The year is going well for them both and being back in public school is so much easier! They usually get the weeks' worth of homework done on Monday, which is nice so that we can have the week to spend fun time together! Last year, Tyler did homework from the time he got home until he went to bed almost every night!

The school had a "sock hop" Friday night and we had a blast. They did face painting, a cake walk, dancing and stuff like that. We are trying to be better about attending school and church family activities instead of always coming up with our own things to do. I don't know why we did that, we always have fun when we join in!

Tyler has a new friend at school who is a competitive snowboarder and they are the new tweedledee and tweedledum. It is so fun, they are such cuties! We are supposed to be going to the skatepark today after school, so I will try to remember the camera! No promises, though...you know me.

Moms need a life too!

2008-09-19T17:34:00.000-07:00

So I had a friend complain that mom's never have their pics on blogs. Here's me snowboarding with my dad this march and I am counting the days till' I can go again this season! Tyler gets free riding this season and I am so excited! The fifth graders get 16 days free at Vail, Breck, Keystone and Beaver Creek, is that a sweet deal or what? Plus Evan is free, so we just have to pay for Dill when we all go. Yay! I must say, summer has become a countdown to snow lately.

2008-08-09T20:40:00.000-07:00

Blaine's (very short) bull ride! Then they duct taped "free ice cream" coupons all over a smaller bull and the kids tried not to be killed or trampled while chasing it around tearing off the papers.

2008-08-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

It's called Mutton Busting. The kids hold on for dear life while a sheep tears around trying to throw them off. Oddly enough, they loved it. The kids, probably not the sheep.

More Ranch

2008-08-09T20:24:00.000-07:00

The Ranch

2008-08-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

Here's the pics from our Wilkins Family Reunion in honor of mom & dad's 50th Anniversary. We had such a blast riding horses, shooting arrows, tubing, mutton busting, barrel racing, bull riding and more!

Blaine's Parent's Anniversary Party

2008-08-09T20:09:00.000-07:00

These two sweethearts have been married 50 years!!! It is so inspiring to see two people still in love and who have grown to be such a perfect team. I wish I had one of

their wedding pictures so everyone could see what a cute young pair they made. They are pretty darn cute now, too!

Pictures at the Newport Beach Temple

2008-08-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

These are from a photo session at the Newport Beach temple for Blaine's parent's 50th Anniversary. I gotta say, our boys clean up pretty well. I just love the one of all three of them holding hands. They do that a lot and it's really sweet.

California Trip

2008-08-09T20:05:00.001-07:00

Here's our boys playing in Nana and Papa's pool, always fun!!

Tyler skating at Castle Rock skate park

2008-07-02T20:29:00.000-07:00

Dillon skating at C-Rock

2008-07-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

Check out Kody

2008-06-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

We just signed a new rider, Kody Wright, to the team. He is quite impressive, check him out at www.KodyWright.com.

Blaine is cute

2008-06-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

For those of you who were not aware, Blaine is cute. This picture is the day after we went and saw Voodoo Glow Skulls together and he is pimpin' his new shirt. He tried to be old and stay in the back with me but his legs were shaking and he just couldn't so he jumped over the wall and went down to the pit. This is one of his favorite bands and it was a very small little pizza joint slash concert venue so, needless to say, he was loving it. I love this man of my dreams. Just throwing that out there in case you didn't know.

8 Track Skate Night

2008-06-03T09:11:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are curious, here are some pics of one of our summer skate events. The shop will be putting these on every other Saturday during the summer and we get a few sponsors at each one to give away skateboards, shoes, tee shirts, stickers, whatever! They are such a blast and we get a lot of great feedback from the kids and their parents about them. Definately money well spent!! Here are some of Parker's finest dirtbags! We love them!!

Evan

2008-06-03T09:10:00.000-07:00

This is why he gets all the ladies!

Camping

2008-06-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

Blaine took the boys on a "father and sons" campout in the mountains. They ended up just sleeping in the van since it was just one night and they didn't feel up to setting up the whole tent thing. They really had a great time (and mom had a great time taking the train up to Denver and staying out late with her friend Natalie)!

Sunday best

2008-06-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

For those of you who's rule is, "if you can do it in your church clothes, it's ok", here's what we end up with!

Crush Game

2008-06-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics from the "Crush" game we went to. They are an arena football team. We had a great time! That last picture of the two boys is their faces watching the cheerleader's time out performance. They were totally mesmerized!

2008-06-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

Latest shop pics

Charter school rant

2008-05-16T09:18:00.001-07:00

Warning: this is a rant about how much I hate the kids school. It is boring and random and the thoughts contained herein are unorganized and probably uninteresting.

The kids will be out of school in a week for summer break until September. We are very anxious to get out of this school and will not be returning next year. I am going to put the kids in a good old fashioned public school. If the academics are lacking, I can always supplement at home. What I cannot go thru anymore, however, is the elitist stepford mentality and lazy teachers that North Star Academy charter school has had this year. It was so great last year but has taken a nasty change and I have yet to talk to any parents who don't agree with me.

Dillon's first grade teacher has been fine. Tyler's teacher has been an absolute nightmare. His lack of flexibility and concern for the kids are coupled by this attitude that he is "preparing them for the future". They are in fourth grade, give me a freakin' break. He expects them to be completely independant and what I think it really boils down to is that he is unorganized and lazy and this "theory" makes his job easy. Nothing is his fault, the kids are supposed to know what to do and do it. If anything goes wrong, he can always blame the kids for being irresponsible. This is convenient because any academic issues can be swept under the "they just need to be more responsible" rug.

It would be one thing if they had clear instructions and his high expectations were based on something concrete. But this man is all over the place (I know because I have observed his classroom for an entire day) and totally inconsistant about rules and procedures, (I didn't even know what they were at the end of the day) leaving the kids unsure what is due and when and if they are allowed to go get a drink or not so the classroom is like a bunch of 10 year olds in college. They come and go as they please and listen when they want to.

I have tried to conference with the teacher and the principal several times since the beginning of the year (when Tyler's first progress report showed d's and f's as opposed to last year's a's and b's) and the attitude was that he needed to work harder and we needed to help him more. (That conference, by the way, began with, "I just want to strangle Tyler" and ended with "Tyler just needs a good slap". Nice. The school has taken zero responsibility in guiding and helping the students. They are apparantly supposed to show up to learn every day even though they already know it all and they are as mature as adults so they don't need any discipline either. I am not the only one whining, he has had several kids from his class transfer out mid-year. My final conference with the principal ended with her stating that "this just might not be the school for my kids". I think what that meant was, "We are looking for kids that make us look good and are effortless, so we don't want you here." Nice.

I tried to bring up the grades issue and get some help. If Tyler is really dumb, (we all know the answer to that question) and if we are going based on the failing grades, he needs to be getting special tutoring or something. His teacher just kept saying he needs to try harder. His grades, in my opinion, warranted him repeating fourth grade. The school, however, winked and said, "we won't hold him back". Nice. So he is now being taught that you can mess around and fail all year and you'll still move on.

If a kid needs help, help them. If they are doing fine, their grades should reflect that. Tyler's state test scores were all well above average, most in the 90 percentile. Hmmm. It leaves me wondering what grades are all about anyway. I wanted my kids to learn to love learning, to love school and to feel good about how smart they are. Tyler is walking away from this year feeling like he is a failure and that there is no use trying because there are no consequences for failure anyway.
That should make for a fun summer, trying to undo the lessons he has learned over the last 10 months!

Too much birthday

2008-05-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I overdo it too. But who can resist cake?

Ok, yeah we are all over the place

2008-03-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

I am posting away and everything is all out of order, sorry! Those of you who actually check this site often know there is usually not much updated stuff here to count your blessings that we had a random Saturday afternoon that I was desperate for something to do besides the seven loads of laundry stacked up in the laundry room. I'll try to get some more stuff up by the end of the summer.

Evan is Four!

2008-03-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

Evan had a small bday party planned but Dillon got the flu that morning so we had to cancel it. Evan was really sad up until he found out he still got to turn four and have cake, then we realized he couldn't have cared less about the party! He kept telling us all day that he would not be four until after he had cake. His favorite part was opening the leapster game from his grandparents. (Thanks to nana and papa and to grandma and grandpa for contributing!)

Ryan

2008-03-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

Charity's brother Ryan came to visit a few weeks ago. We had a magical 12 hours! We toured downtown a bit and hung out at the shop. Hopefully, we can have more of him and his family for a little longer soon!

Blaine

2008-03-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

Blaine and Dave took turns and played very nice. They should really get together more often!

Tyler

2008-03-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

Tyler on Uncle Dave's Mini ramp in socal in January

Let's go bowling!

2008-03-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

We took the kids bowling. We have never done this before and I honestly don't remember the last time I went bowling. I remember lots of times in High School saying I was going bowling...anyway, it was really fun! Here are some pics!

Details

2008-03-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

so...I have this annoying friend that keeps bugging me to update my blog. I am of the thought that, if you want to know how I am, call me. But...

So, here's the latest.
This morning I was going to have oatmeal but then I changed my mind and popped a bag of microwave popcorn. I am not a big fan of the microwave popcorn and much prefer air popped with butter but I was at work so I acted out of desperation. It burned, so I had a cup of tea and a piece of gum.
I am meeting my kids and my man at the movies to see Horton Hears a Who this afternoon and then I'll probably do billing for the shop until 11:00. Hopefully, Blaine and I will get to watch a few episodes of season three of Arrested Development before we pass out. I'll make a point to make some hot air popped popcorn.

Is that what you had in mind Suz?

My knees are great!

2008-01-16T15:12:00.000-08:00

Kids are great. Evan has so much personality. He really keeps us laughing, whether it is just making silly faces, talking with a British accent, or singing My Humps (which I honestly have no idea where he learned and I am looking for the culprit for a harsh repremand). Not to say that we don't welcome and encourage our children listening to music, we just push them to listen to only really great music. I was tucking him into bed and he asked me to sing him a night night song. This is a pretty regular thing. However, I don't remember a prouder moment than when he chose the Bad Religion song, "Los Angeles is Burning" for the lullaby.

He is a Sunbeam at church now and after class last Sunday, I asked him if they sang any fun songs in singing time.

He said, "yes, we sang the knee song."

"Oh, head, shoulders, knees and toes?" I asked.

"No, the knee song. The I am a Child of God knee song."

"what?"

"I am a Child of God, and so my knees are great."

"Oh...yeah, I LOVE that song!"

Ice Skating on New Year's Day

2008-01-16T15:04:00.000-08:00

Ice Skating at Southlands is becoming a tradition! Although Evan's favorite part was eating burgers afterwards!

New Year's Fun

2008-01-16T14:53:00.000-08:00

Our friends across the street invited us over for a rip-roarin' New Years party! We had such fun playing poker, singing karaoke (Tyler made a mom cry when he sang "Proud to be an American"), and toasting Martinelli's in martini glasses. We finally crashed at about 2:30am! Luckily, we could all sleep in until 10:00 the next day.

Our sweet dog!

2007-12-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

We got Indie from a rescue that saved her from an abusive home in Utah. She had been chained in the backyard so we really did not know how much work we were in for. Turns out, she is pretty much the most perfect dog we have ever heard of!

We have only had her for about a week and a half and we've never had to worry one second about her. We saw right away that she was a good girl and that she really wanted us to trust her, so we did! We just trust her and give her the opportunity to show us how good she is and she has yet to let us down. She stays home in the house while we are gone for sometimes 4 or 5 hours and has never gotten into anything or made even one mess. The kids eat their waffles on the floor by her and she never tries to steal their food.

She is fun and playfull when we take her out to play fetch or run around but calms down immediately when we come in and just lays and lets us all pet her and love her. The boys love it when she snuggles with us while we do our devotional at night. She is really such a great addition to the family!

She is a tiny thing, about 45 pounds and about 5 or 6 years old. We just love her so much and she brings everything that we wanted a dog to bring to our home and our family! We can't wait for everyone to meet Indie!!!

Mom and the boys

2007-12-26T16:04:00.000-08:00

Here's a few pics of me and the boys. Evan has become such a lover lately and I have really loved it!

Some more skate pics

2007-12-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics of our skate boys! Kenny and Ben both are our shop sponsored riders. Ben is giving Dillon some drop in tips here. Check out our myspace page (myspace.com.8trackride) for a great video of Ben. Blaine has passed it around to some of our reps and just got Ben sponsored by Globe Shoes!! Ben is Parker's first shop sponsored skateboarder to get a shoe deal (which is a pretty huge deal)!

Tyler is 10

2007-12-26T15:38:00.000-08:00

Tyler is TEN! Tyler had a really fun birthday party. He wanted a "teenager style" party, so we couldn't have any balloons or lame games or anything. We set up skateboard ramps out front and video games inside along with movies and lots of pizza. We had ice cream sundaes instead of the cake so the kids snacked on toppings all night long. It was such fun and the kids all had a great time! Here are some pics of the guitar hero playoffs, a few of them in the movie room watching something totally "teenager like" and Tyler opening his presents. Happy Birthday Tyler! We hope you love being 10!

Pictures of the Shop

2007-07-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

I like your shirt

2007-06-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

I was delivering dinner to a friend (we are in a meal exchange group) and this cute little red headed girl scootered over to me and said hi. On my way back to the car, she stopped again and said "I like your shirt". It was a new DC shirt. I politlely returned with, "I like your hair". We smiled and that was it. It made my day that the 7 year old liked my shirt. Funny what things can make you feel good about yourself.

We love our Knucklehead!

2007-06-06T20:26:00.001-07:00

OK, I don't remember the last time I was as excited about kids clothes as I was today when this shipment came! Evan got some "testers", gotta love it when mommy and daddy own a skate shop! Just wanted to post his cute pictures in this stuff. Knuckleheads Clothing rocks!

8 Track's first event

2007-06-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

Are you kidding me???? This was unreal! Tons of great skaters, perfect weather, chicks with candy and young Marines setting up skate ramps? Does it even get better? Blaine showed up an hour early to set up only to find the park crawling with skaters waiting for the event. We had about 40 skaters and also bunches of kids there to watch. Not a one problem! This will really make an impact on the town of Parker in letting up on the skaters and letting us do this more often. We have four more skate days scheduled and permitted during the summer and are finding that we will need to add many more! Hoorah!

Dillon's Bday

2007-06-02T11:09:00.001-07:00

Dillon is 6 years old now! He opted out of a party in exchange for a new Nintendo DS Lite, but we had cake and ice cream and celebrated at the Mexican place in Steamboat. He was way stoked to have the waiters sing to him and we passed around the fried ice cream! Thanks to all friends and family for the phone calls and fun gifts, he had a great bday!

Steamboat Springs

2007-05-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

We spent Memorial Day weekend with friends in Steamboat Springs swimming, hiking and throwing up. We all had a great time, except for Brady, who spent the last night hunched over the potty. Sooo sorry Brady! The pics turned out good, though!

Field Day

2007-05-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

The kids are at this new Charter School this year and it has been such a fantastic experience. Last week, they had an end of the year Field Day. It was completely over the top awesome! They had it at a big park and the field was all chalked and everything was so fun. It was an Olympics theme and each class got a country to represent a few weeks ago. They've been studying their county, mostly just some fun fact and music and things like that. Then each class had tshirts made up for them. Dillon's had the grade and school logo on it and they put stickers on from Italy. Tyler's shirts had the Russian flag and his name in Russian.

Tyler got a silver medal over all and Dillon got a gold. They both ran, jump roped, tagged and scored their little hearts out. It was a fun and exhausting day for them and we finished it all up with ice cream at Baskin Robbins. In true form, I forgot the camera so as soon as somebody emails me pics of my kids, I'll post them!

Mother's Day

2007-05-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

This is the holiday I hate most. The kids are not old enough to have money or transportation to buy the things they know moms want to so we rely on husbands to shop for them, which, of course, never happens how we imagine. What are we really imagining, though? Diamonds, massages, sonnets of praise written by the 5 year old? So we spend the day at church listening to eulogies from children who must have had these perfect moms that were like saints, supermodels, and spiderman all wrapped into one. They are praised for never yelling, heaven forbid spanking, and always having a clean house and warm cookies each afternoon. They had memorised the bible and would quote it each time the child was tempted to go astray, stopping them in their tracks because they couldn't stand the thought of mama's tears if they made a bad choice. Ok, that just makes me feel guilty because all I REALLY want for Mother's Day is not to be mom for the day, is that bad? Seriously, though, just sing us the primary song, give us the treat and lets all go home.

I asked to skip the holiday. Because my husband knows many things, the kids were woken up at dawn and I had breakfast in bed. I stayed in that bed until 11:30 and then got ready for church. He did all the mom duties all day and even cooked dinner that night. I know I said I wanted to skip it, but it really was great. I will reconsider allowing the holiday next year.

Bucky

2007-05-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

On a sadder note, Bucky found a new home a few weeks ago. We tried to be good doggy parents but the pressures of everything else going on right now were just too much. We chose to find him a new home instead of ignoring him until he turned into a bad dog. We really miss him a lot but his new parents have promised to let us visit and even dog sit for Bucky and his new brother, Joey, sometime this summer. We have heard they are getting along wonderfully and that Bucky is adjusting well to two walks a day, playing in the water at the lake a few times a week and running around with Joey all day!

New Blog

2007-05-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

So, I think the whole website thing was just too much work for now. Let's try a blog and see if we can keep it up. Biggest news for the Wilkins has gotta be 8 Track Ride Shop, our new skateboard shop we are opening any day now. We are working on the website- don't worry, it's not actually US working on it, we have a designer doing it! It has been lots of blood, sweat and tears thus far. Ok, no blood or tears, just lots of sweat!!! We are excited and hope it will be a great addition to our great town of Parker, Colorado!