SAM - 2005	Home	My Site Map

	JANUARY - On 21 January 2005 Sam and Mommy said goodbye to their very dear friend Ms. Josephine, our wonderful pet. Ms. Josephine was 15 years old and had lived a long and wonderful life that began in Anchorage, AK and eventually moved here to Colorado Springs, CO. She was very patient when 5 years ago Sam joined out family and she loved him right to the very end. We will miss her very much but she will always live in our hearts through our memories of her. Sam also participated in some very fun ice skating lessons this month at the Sertich Ice Arena which is where the National Champion Colorado College Tigers practice. Sam loves his lessons but wants to move right on into hockey instead of learning how to skate first.
	FEBRUARY - Sam celebrated his first Valentine's day card exchange at preschool. He made a beautiful red box from construction paper and a shoe box to put all of his goodies in. He received many wonderful cards and candy from his friends. Sam's card to give was a Spiderman treat bag with a chocolate and a sucker. The other big event for Sam this month was the Dora the Explorer show which came to the Pikes Peak center. Sam, Grandpa and Mommy's friend Darleen and her son Cody all had wonderful seats to see the show. The pirate piggy's were adorable and their ship was the highlight of the show. All of the sets were amazing and the show was very interactive with the audience, having the kids sing all the songs and asking them to reply to their questions.
	MARCH - March was a jam-packed month for Sam. He started out the month by taking Mommy and Grampy to the Denver Museum on Natural History to see the dinosaur exhibit. He saw the T-rex upon entering the building and then traveled through the Prehistoric Journey to see the other exhibits. There were lots of dioramas showing what the dinosaur habitat looked like and how they interacted within them. Sam also loved the science exhibits and went to see a show at the Planetarium. The size of the screen and the seats which nearly laid down scared him a bit as the images were very large and overwhelming. After a nice sandwich for lunch Sam went to look at the mummy's, played in the dinosaur bone pit, and then watched an IMAX movie about the corral reefs before heading back home. Sam was also able to fly his Mickey Mouse kite in the park during one of the nicer days in the month. He also celebrated Easter late this month. Sam loved coloring the eggs and writing his name on one. We also went to an Easter celebration at Schriever AFB where he met the Easter Bunny but the batteries had run out in my camera and I didn't get a picture :(
	APRIL - April was a fun month. Sam started out the month going to Amanda's birthday party at Pump It Up which is a giant gym with big slides, a boxing ring, a joisting ring and an obstacle course. We also finally had a decent snowfall this month with some accumulation for Sam to build a snowman. We used different colored Kisses for his eyes, mouth, and nose. During the middle of the month Sam was able to take Grampy to see the new Disney on Ice Show which featured Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, Little Mermaid and Lilo and Stitch. They actually had skaters with blow-up dolls tied onto poles come out to make sure there were 101 Dalmatians on the ice! Sam had a nice family dinner on his birthday day at the Lone Star Steak House because he loves steak. And then finally on 30 April Sam held his 5th birthday party at the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park. We invited about 15 kids and almost all of them showed up. The led us on a very informative tour, we ate cake, and the kids played Dinosaur Bingo. Sam raked in the Dinosaur gifts including Dino-oply, a Dinosaur "Operation"-type game to dig up bones, a Dinosaur bone digging model, a Dinosaur puzzle, and several plastic Dinosaurs to play with. We all had a great time and Sam sent personally autographed thank-you notes.
	MAY - Sam has recently started to learn to read. We read Dick and Jane books each morning as well as his speech therapy. He wants to be able to read Grampy a Lone Ranger story soon. For Mother's Day Sam invite Mom and Grammy to an ice cream social at preschool Friday and then on Mother's Day he took Mommy, Grammy, and Grampy to Seven Falls. The day was gorgeous and Sam climbed all the way to the top of the falls. On 20 May Sam and Mommy went to see Star Wars III and it was awesome. We had been ill the week before and stayed home to watch all of the other 5 movies to prepare ourselves. Sam also enjoyed indoor soccer (th Black Knights) this month and swim lessons to prepare him for his visit to Indiana next month. Finally Sam ended the month by graduating from Preschool at Greenshades. He had a wonderful year and learned some very useful skills. Next year in Kindergarten he will miss his teacher's Ms Lea, Ms Desiree, and Ms. Shelby. Mr. Kip who taught Sam most of the year moved to CA last month. Now it's time for summer and Summer CAMP!!
	JUNE - Sam enjoyed a trip to Indiana from 28 May to 8 June. He flew with Grammy and Grampy while Mommy came later. This was a very strange trip. First Mommy spent the rest of the day she flew in to Indianapolis at the Shelbyville, IN genealogy library. At least she tried. During the 3 hour period Mommy was there a man decided to take someone hostage at a local convenience store and consequently the entire town was shut down, including the power. Then Mommy tried to find some interesting genealogy information in the Cincinnati Public Library; however, she found out their collection is even smaller than the one at the Pikes Peak Library in Colorado Springs. Next Mommy got lost on her way up to Fort Wayne from Cincinnati just outside of Dayton, OH sometime around midnight. At last Mommy thought everything was good. BUT, no luck. Meanwhile at the cottage, the ceiling had collapsed in the bedroom of the cottage because flashing had not been placed between the roof and the house. The water softner went on the fritz. Grandpa was putting the pier in himself and it was taking much longer than anticipated. AND, Gandpa's new wooden boat needed to have water placed in it to "swell" or it would sink in the lake. Of course, he hadn't had time to do that because of all the problems with the cottage. So, needless to say none of the fun could begin right away. But, all the problems got fixed. Mommy bought a fun raft to dive from, a new patio set to sit outside and eat on, a barbeque, and a towable for the boat. The bad luck continued as the tow rope for the towable got wrapped around the rudder by the propeller (had to take the entire rudder off and fix). Then, the next day when we had everything ready and were finally ready to use the boat and the towable, we found out a man had drown on the lake the evening before (this has NEVER happened in the 150-year recorded history of this lake!!). The police asked that people stay off the lake for the rest of the day until they recovered the body. The next day we were at last able to get out on the lake and use both the boat and the towable - which were a BLAST (very bumpy)! However, the final nail in the coffin for this vacation was the terrible flight back (due to delays at Chicago O'hare) and the subsequent lose of one of my bags - the one with my irreplaceable scapbook stuff in it!! I eventually got the bag back safe and sound. Whew, glad that vacation is behind us!! Sam also attended the Ringling Brother and Barnum and Bailey circus this year. The circus has been absent from town for about 3 years. Finally Sam ended his month having a very nice barbeque for Father's Day with Grampy. Grammy and Mommy cooked steaks, shrimp, ribs, salad, and strawberry shortcake from Mommy's garden. Grampy was a little sick that day so he could not participate as much as he would have liked. Sam on the other hand felt great. He splashed in his new pool, played crouquet, and ate lots of steak. It was 90 degrees that day.
	JULY - July was a very busy for Sam and Mommy. We began the month out with the Annual Downtown Kid's Bike Parade near Boddington Park. Sam decorated his bike and shared the ride with many of his closest friends. Then, his family had another wonderful barbeque with lots of food and Ms. Randi and Mr. Darrin showed up for a brief time. Finally, Sam had his first set of home fireworks to set off. We used the road next to our house and had lots of fun exploding the fireworks. Finally, the day ended at the top of the Penrose Hospital parking lot to watch all of the fireworks shows held throughout the El Paso County area. Sam went hiking for the first time this season at the Garden of the Gods in central Colorado Springs. The hike was about 1.5 miles long and it was hot. Sam was a real trooper though and with a few games of eye-spy, he seemed to have a good time. Mid-July, there was the annual Colorado Springs Air Show this year called In Their Honor. Sam invited our next door neighbor Bailey to come with him and the kids had a great time crawling through all the airplanes, watching the wing-walker, seeing the F-15 and older planes flying, the old military costume displays, and finally bouncing on the air bouncer. Near the end of July Sam went to the Wilson Ranch Pool for a a dip with his friend Cody and pals. At this pool your able to bring in a picnic lunch and it has a kids area, lazy river, swirl pool and a really large slide. Sam was brave enough to try the slide - twice. He said he was too afraid to go down again but Mommy was very proud as he was afraid to even go down the small slide last year. Finally, Mommy and Sam went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to see the White Lion display. Mommy thought we'd only be there for a few hours; however, Sam had other plans and we ended up seeing most every exhibit. Each year the zoo is upgrading their exhibits and making wonderful improvements. This year they had a sign indicating that they will be preparing a new Colorado animal exhibit which will contain the bears, mountain lions, and bighorn sheep.
	AUGUST - At the beginning of August Sam went on his second hiking trip to Vail. The day was rainy and cold in Colorado Springs but much nicer in the mountains. We travelled to the top of the mountain on the express lift and hiked about 1 mile across to the old ski lift. Once there, the lift was closed due to a lightening warning. Grammy thought we should just begin hiking down the hill. However, the lift attendant told us it was 7 miles down. And, once the lift was operating and we rode that 7 miles down and saw how treacherous it was, we were glad we had waited!! Sam and Mommy also attended the Lafayette, CO Peach Festival. This was not quite the big bash Mommy had envisioned but we still ended up with some great peaches for freezing. Finally (drum-roll please)...Sam began Kindergarten at Skyway Elementary on 22 August. His teacher is Mrs. Luesden. Sam was little apprehensive to begin school as he was also moving into the "big kids" class in daycare. He spends the mornings at daycare (where there are about 4-5 other afternoon kindergarteners) and the afternoons at Skyway. He rides the school bus over with Ms. Doris from Greenshade and back with Mr. Joey. Sam also started his first year in Rush soccer for the fall. Although all the boys on the team are 5 years old, Sam is at least a head taller than all of them.
	SEPTEMBER - Over Labor Day Sam and Mommy planned to go to Dinosaur National Monument in the Northeast corner of Colorado. Part of the part is in Utah. We stayed in Vernal, UT at the KOA. This was out first camping trip alone together and I thought we did great. It took about 6 hours to drive there and then we set up our campsite the first day. The second day we went to the Utah Field Museum located in Vernal and then went to the UT side of the park and saw the Quarry with the dinosaur bones. We then took the driving canyon tour of the CO side of the park. The long drive took us to the Echo Park Lookout trail. This trail is about 2-miles round-trip and walks you out across the top of one of the plateau's. The last portion of the hike was little scary but we made it and the view was breathtaking. Then on day three we went to the Jones River Fish Hatchery which was at the bottom of one of the plateau's and did a 5-mile round-trip hike into the canyon. On this hike we walked next to the river and saw deer, eagles, lizards, petroglyph's from the Fremont Indians (that were over 700 years old) and a pretty little waterfall. On day four we drove home. This was a great trip. We couldn't have asked for a nicer first camping trip and we never knew there was so much to do at the park.
	OCTOBER - Sam and Mommy had an event-filled October. First, Sam finished up Soccer about the second week of the month. Then, Sam, Mommy and Mommy's friend Randi and her daughter Amanda took a plane to Orlando, FL to go to Disneyworld!!!!!. We stayed at the All Starts Movie Motel from 14 October through 25 October. We attended the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party on 19 October. Sam and Amanda went as Cinderella and the Prince, and Randi and I went as the evil stepsisters (Druzilla and Anastasia). Sam rode most of the rides including the Tower of Terror (which he swore he would never go on again). We saw great shows including Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, and the Lights, Motor, Action show (which Sam loved). Hurricane Wilma came through southern FL on the last day of our trip so the park was closed for 1/2 a day, but other than that all was great and we had a wonderful time!! Click here for more photos. After Sam and I returned home we had to step right into work and school and prepare for Halloween. We made some great shaped cookies, carved pumpkins, and dressed up as a dragon and his princess.
	NOVEMBER - Sam participated in Basketball this month. He's very tall and has a much better time shooting the ball this year. He made several baskets during the game which helps build his confidence. For Thanksgiving Sam had a little party at his school and we shared a nice meal at Grammy's house.
	DECEMBER - Sam's December was pretty quiet. We made cookies on Christmas Eve and our friends Ms. Dar and Cody came over to help us decorate them. On Chistmas Eve we spent the evening with another of Mommy's friends from work Donna and her twin daughters Allie and Millie. A Santa helper came to visit the kids and bring them toys. Everyone was so excited!! The next day Santa brought Sam all the things he asked for for X-mas: a piano, an extra joystick (for his V-tech game) and Hot Wheel cards. Santa and his reindeer even left some muddy boot and hoof prints outside the front door of our house!! Finally the week after X-mas snow came and we thought Sam would be able to go out and build a good snowman, but the snow was so dry this is as big as we could get him. Sam also went to Casa Bonita to visit his cousins Haley and Seth and Auntie Anna and Uncle Cary. We did this after the holidays as we were so busy beforehand!! Finally Sam and Mommy set off a couple fireworks on New Year's Eve and called it an early night at about 10 pm.
More miscellaneous pictures of Sam in 2005: Sam 2005

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