Stuff from September

 

Friends

Just as we’ve done for the last 3 years or so, we decided to take a trip up to Miller Farms where you might remember that the routine is that you pay $50 for the family to get in, and then they have a play area with tractors, cars, trains etc – but the real attraction is that you jump on the back of a tractor-drawn wagon, they haul you into the fields and you can pick as many vegetables as you want. 

We’ve gotten smarter about this, so unlike previous years, when we went so late that most of the produce was borderline,this year we hit the jackpot.  The kids love the games, and actually have a good time harvesting carrots, potatoes, etc. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so we ended up with about 100 pounds of: beans, summer squash, carrots, corn, acorn squash, basil, tomatillos, 4 kinds of tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, banana peppers, rellenos, eggplant, 3 kinds of onions, potatoes, beets, watermelon, cantaloupe, okra, pumpkins and indian corn.

 

Oh, and a black kitten – 5 weeks old at the time – now named “Halley” (it’s a cat-woman reference, and if you’re groaning, you should have heard some of the other ideas.

She weighed in at less than a pound when we got her, though she seems to have doubled in size in the last 2 weeks.

Samson is – less than excited about the new addition, but he’s warming to her.  He no longer marches out of the room when she comes in.

And – well – Delilah isn’t with us anymore.  Probably ought to have a whole posting dedicated to that.  The kids have actually taken her absence pretty well – they got to say goodbye, and be part of burying her in the back of the yard.

 

So that was the trip to Miller farms.  And then this last weekend, we took a trip up to Winter Park.  We’d scored a deal on slopeside lodging, and it was the last weekend of summer activities, so we just bought passes for that and played all day long.  There was miniature golf, and a climbing wall, trampolines, a maze, a zipline and some other stuff, but the big hit for everyone was the alpine slide. You can see the track under the picture of the ski lift – basically it’s a one-person luge on wheels.  We probably went down the hill 15 times – Daniel got to drive his own, Rachel had to share with an adult, but didn’t mind at all.  Great fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way home, we caught the leaves changing color, and did a little hike in Rocky Mountain National Park.  All in all, it was a great way to end the summer.  Oh, and we did a quick check of the cabin we’ve rented for Christmas, when the Norwegians will be joining us! It should be great fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Favorite quote from the weekend:
We’re playing “I spy” as we drive up the mountain, and first Daniel chooses something really obvious (like “I spy something with snow on”) and Rachel gets it immediately.  Then the roles are reversed and Daniel immediately gets Rachel’s clue.  So we say “wow, you guys are mind readers”.   Rachel promptly broke into tears and refused to play anymore, because Daniel could read her mind, but she couldn’t read his…

 

School is going well for both Daniel and Rachel.  More on that some other time.  Hope everyone is well.

Love, ADRE.

Rachel Bikes

Friends

 

This is the kind of milestone that just can’t be celebrated without video, but it’s taken a couple of weeks to find the time to get it converted from a high-def movie to something that can actually live on the web. 

So without further ado:  Rachel without training wheels!

Recorded September 10th, 2011.

Love, ADRE. 

Skippertak

Howdy, everyone…

I’m not even going to try to make excuses for the poor blog performance in 2011.  It’s just embarrassing.  I think I’ll blame facebook.  Or maybe some other site for the distraction, but really – there’s no excuse.   However, you may notice that all of a sudden – at least the pictures are up to date.  Not a lot of witty, clever commentary or little memorable quotes from Daniel and Rachel, but the broad outlines of our last six months are finally online in this and the preceding 5 posts. 

The Norwegians have a word for this.  It’s “Skippertak” – which for all intents and purposes just means “the extra effort you do to finish a lot of work that you’d been neglecting”. 

So over Labor Day weekend,  we went camping again.  We didn’t have a reserved spot, which is a bad call on the busiest camping weekend of the year, but nonetheless we managed to get a place up at Turquoise Lake, in a tent-only camping ground that we’d noticed longingly when we camped there last summer among the RVs. 

It was a very nice weekend.  The weather cooperated, though it was a bit cold, with frost in the mornings (there seems to be a theme to our camping trips in 2011), thought that’s sort of to be expected at 10,000 feet above sea level. 

We did the usual camp activities with hiking, fishing,  campfires, UNO at night and all the usual activities. 

This time, we brought the kids bikes, and Daniel had a great time mountainbiking the trails we hiked along. 

The lake was nice enough that Rachel and Eric waded in for a bit, though only Rachel was brave enough to actually lay down in the water. 

 

Now we’re back in town, and back at school again, and summer is winding down.  We have a trip planned up to Winter Park in a couple of weeks, then really nothing extraordinary planned between now and Christmas break – though we’ll probably come up with something. 

 

Here’s hoping that it’s not another six months before the next skippertak.

Love, ADRE.

August 2011

Yowza! It’s August already, and that means it’s back to school time.  These would be the official pictures of Daniel’s first day of First Grade, and Rachel going into Pre-K. 

 

Daniel’s new teacher is Ms. Wilkins – and he’s having a fairly good time so far not being a "Kindie” anymore.  He was a little insulted at the initial reading materials that she pushed his way, but that’s since been replaced by “Find an appropriate book” which lets him read at the more advanced level. 

 

Rachel has only had a couple of days of school so far, but she’s back with most of the same kids and the same teachers as last year, and that’s a good thing.  She’s excited to get to play "on both playgrounds”.  Over the summer, Rachel’s started to read a few things, and her artwork has just progressed incredibly.  If the blogs hadn’t been so far behind, I might actually scan some of it, because it’s really quite good.

 

There was, of course a lot of August that didn’t get captured on film.  Once we got back from Norway, Rachel had “Chemistry Camp” that ran for half-days at the Museum of Nature and Science.  It seemed to consist entirely of making tasty things and eating them, and as the Chemistry major, I’m not sure what to think of that, but she had a good time and while she was there, Daniel played with Sam.

 

 

The following week, they switched roles, and Daniel and Sam went to “Pirate Camp”, while Rachel and Tyler played.  It seemed to go well, and all of the kids enjoyed themselves. 

August was actually fairly busy.  We went hiking again at Roxborough, and this time the kids really rocked the trail and completed the “Moderately difficult South Rim trail in good spirits, even though Rachel fell and scratched herself quite a bit. 

 

Then there were additional trips to Pirate’s Cove, Putt-putt golf, and of course – Derby. 

Anida started playing roller derby about a year ago by going to some practice sessions.  One thing led to another, and she was invited to join the Denver Roller Dolls this spring, was selected onto the “Green Barrettes”  team and has been working her way up to her first public bout at the Firstbank Center on August 27th under the Derby name of “Enyo Phace”.  

There were some last-minute skills and qualifications that she had to prove to the league, so August was pretty busy with practices, meets, tests and and Derby events.  

However, it all paid off, and we got to see her compete for the first time in the league championship, which the Green Barettes won.

There was a LOT of derby in August.  September has been a bit calmer on that front so far.

July 2011

July  - ah, yes – July… Another fun month

 

As in June, we did a few other things, but the camera only made it out for two major occasions – the renaissance festival down in Larkspur, and the annual trip to Norway and Sweden.  Of course – between the two, that covered almost 3 weeks of the month.

 

Not captured on film –> watching the fireworks on the 4th of July, putt-putt golfing on the weekends and going swimming at Pirate’s cove.

 

For the last couple of years, we’d been wondering if we should take the kids to see the local renaissance festival down in Larkspur, and we decided that this year, both of them were old enough to appreciate it, and also that they’d probably have the stamina to handle the heat and crowds.   And it was fun – Rachel dressed up as a princess, Daniel did his pirate thing.  Sure, it was hot.  And it turns out that the humor in the “Puke and Snot” show is a little more adult than we remembered, but there were jugglers and jousting and big cats and all sorts of eye-candy and/or weirdos.  I’m not sure we’ll go back next year, but it was fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then, of course – there was Norway and Sweden.  How do you sum up 2+ full-speed weeks and do it any sort of justice?  You can’t, really.  We went, we had fun.  Of course – there’s more to it than that.  As usual, the kids were excellent travellers, and tackled the trip from Denver to Oslo like it was old hat –> which in a way it was, seeing that we took the same route there as last year – via Toronto and Copenhagen.  The layover in Toronto was fairly long, but the nice people at Air Canada let us use their lounge, so we relaxed well. 

 

 

 

 

 

As usual, we transitioned fairly quickly from Oslo to go down to Stugan – the family getaway on the coast in Sweden, just across the border from Norway.  And there the days just sort of floated together in a summer ritual of crab-fishing, rock-climbing, some swimming (not so much the kids), fishing, berry-picking and playing with cousins Jacob and Leo. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We did make a small excursion from Stugan down to visit Aunt Majan and Benny – partly to see them of course, but mainly because Mormor (Eric’s grandmother) was down there as well for a few days.  We had a nice visit, developed a severe envy of their gardens and really enjoyed seeing Mormor for the first time in over a year.

Since we were passing through anyway, we stopped off in Gothenburg and stayed for a night, visiting the famous entertainment park Liseberg for a day.  It was a lot of fun – though certainly more than a little crowded due to a large soccer tournament being held at the same time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, it was a great trip, very relaxing and enjoyable, and we’re looking forward to seeing the whole gang again Colorado for Christmas. 

June 2011

June – ah, June.  There were a lot of things that happened in June, of course.  School was out and summer activities started.  Rachel had gymnastics, and Daniel went to soccer for a few weeks and both enjoyed that.  However, when looking back at pictures from June, it seems that we only took out the camera for two occasions – Camping in Yellowstone, and a visit from Farmor.

 

 

 

Those of you with really good memories will remember that this is actually Daniel’s second trip to Yellowstone, though he doesn’t remember the first one.  On a map, it looks so reasonable to zip up there from Denver, and it’s only about 400 miles into the 600+ mile distance that you find yourself thinking “This is a trek”.  Still, the kids did super on the trip, helped in no small part by the audiobook of “The little house on the prairie” which they’ve been reading through. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-June is shoulder season for Yellowstone in the best of years, and 20110-11 was the coldest, snowiest winter in 35 years.  So when we got to our reserved spot, there was over 6 feet of snow, and the staff rather uselessly said “Here’s a shovel, the site’s there somewhere”. Luckily, we were able to snag one of the last sites at a campground at a lower elevation – but there’s no denying that it was cold. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sights are amazing of course, and we got to see old faithful erupt, and lots of the other thermal features of the park without the summer crowds.  We saw bison, elk, bears, moose and bald eagles up close.  The only big animal that we missed was the grizzly.  In the evenings, we went to the ranger talks, and those were really interesting and fun, and Daniel completed the “Junior Ranger” program, and is now an official “Junior Ranger” with the badge to prove it.  They wouldn’t let Rachel participate due to age – even though she did all of the same work, she’s an un-official “Junior Junior Ranger”.  There was a lot of driving to get there, and yes – it was cold, but this was a great trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then, at the very end of June, Farmor came to visit for a week, which was great fun, and an excellent preparation for our big trip in July….