Skip to main content

Our Colorado Trip

Our Colorado trip in July was a lot of fun. Mommy and Buddy

We met up with grandparents in the airport in Seattle and then met them again on the other side.  The boys had to wear their Penang shirts.

Meeting with Grandparents at airport

This was a sort of working vacation for Phil, so the boys and I did a lot of excursions around Colorado Springs on our own or with Grandma.  One of the places we went to go visit was the headquarters for Compassion International.  We've been supporting a little boy in Bangladesh through them for a couple of years who is N's age, and since we've been home, we've started supporting a boy from Haiti that is Z's age.  We just absolutely love this organization.

The headquarters had a lot of fun things to see including their welcome center that had a larger than life sculpture of Jesus that the kids could climb up on.

Hanging out with Jesus at Compassion International

We saw what a typical home looks like in a Third World culture.

Typical 3rd World Home at Compassion

Finally, we got to join a group that was skyping with a class in Columbia.  It was fun to have all the kids singing songs to Jesus in Spanish together across continents.

Skyping with kids in Columbia at Compassion International

Another day, we visited the little Fire Museum.  After all the fires that have happened there recently, it seemed particularly relevant.

Fire Museum

We also visited Palmer Park on an extremely dry day.  We didn't stay out too long for fear of dehydration (no drinking fountains!), but we got some beautiful views of Pike's Peak.  The boys were excited to see cactus, and likes climbing around on the rocks.

Palmer Park

Palmer Park

Going to Focus on the Family was a highlight of our trip.  Their welcome center is like an amazing children's museum with an Adventures in Odyssey theme.  The boys loved it.  Oh, and it was FREE.  We had such a great time!

Focus on the Family

Focus on the Family

Focus on the Family

Focus on the Family

Daddy turned 30 while we were there too.  The boys thought we needed party hats, so we were creative.

Daddy's Birthday Hat Boy's birthday hats

For his birthday, we went to Garden of the Gods.  It was a gorgeous day, and the boys loved climbing all over the rocks.

Garden of the Gods

Garden of the Gods

Garden of the Gods

Garden of the Gods

We finished the day with dinner at Mimi's Cafe which is one of our favorite restaurants that we don't have in Washington.

Hagelberg Boys!

We also went to see the Cliff Dwellings in Manitou Springs.  It was neat to see how people lived hundreds of years ago.

Manitou Spring Cliff Dwellings

Manitou Spring Cliff Dwellings

We weren't at the cliff dwellings long, so we stopped at Bear Creek Nature Center before coming home.  This place was great.  Lots of hands on activities and a little hike that was perfect for the kids especially since we had already been on one outing that day.

Bear Creek Nature Center

Bear Creek Nature Center

Bear Creek Nature Center

Overall, it was a good trip although pretty tiring.  It was nice to spend some time with Phil's family and for me to visit a state I hadn't yet been to.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

About Me

  Hello! Welcome to my blog. What you will find here are my attempts at sorting through my ideas and implementation of homeschool curriculum and activities that I have pursued with my own two boys. The Beginning I began this blog in 2008 when my oldest was only a year old. It began as a family blog chronicling our adventures as a young family in Seattle. We decided early on that we wanted to homeschool our two sons. Honestly, now, I don't remember why we decided to do that, but we did it nevertheless. We began teaching our children as soon as they could walk and talk. We made many mistakes along the way and so learned to follow the lead of our children in what they were interested in. We focused on delight-directed learning with a lot of outings and fun things to do. When things got rough, we learned to adapt and switch things out. Moving To Thailand In 2015, our family moved to Thailand. We started another blog for our time there, but alas it was not a good fit for us. We had int...

Little Disciples

As I've been learning more about Charlotte Mason and her methods, I've been thinking especially about what she means by "Education is a Discipline."  As I was reading her thoughts on discipline from her Homeschooling series, I was particularly struck by the following quotation. Discipline is not Punishment ––What is discipline? Look at the word; there is no hint of punishment in it. A disciple is a follower, and discipline is the state of the follower; the learner, imitator. Mothers and fathers do not well to forget that their children are, by the very order of Nature, their disciples... How Disciples are Lured ––He who would draw disciples does not trust to force; but to these three things–– to the attraction of his doctrine, to the persuasion of his presentation, to the enthusiasm of his disciples ; so the parent has teachings of the perfect life which he knows how to present continually with winning force until the children are quickened with such zeal for virtue...

How I'm Approaching... Geometry

N will be taking Geometry this year.  A Little Bit of Background His last year was split between taking his first semester of Algebra I at the local middle school as an 8th grader and his second semester being homeschooled. Khan Academy was a fantastic resource for him to make sure that he didn't have any gaps in his learning. We also used IXL to supplement. He took a math diagnostic right when we started homeschooling, and then took the personalized lessons to make sure he wasn't missing anything from even earlier math. N likes math, but it isn't an obsession for him like it is for his brother. I'm a huge fan of the Art of Problem Solving's courses especially since we loved their elementary series, Beast Academy, when they were younger. However, AoPS is extremely rigorous and expensive if you take their online courses, so they are better suited for students who want to focus a lot of their attention on math. However, they do have a FREE online learning platform for...