Some updates from September

 

So on September 15th, we headed north to watch the Denver Roller Dolls at the FirstBank Center, and this time we brought an army of school and neighborhood friends to cheer.  With Aiden, Brody, Lukas, Declan, Marly, Fiona (and their parents) it was a good crowd.  And the Green Barettes beat the Sugar Kill crowd, so we were happy about that.  Enyo Phace had a solid game and the kids had fun showing off their mom.

 

(Note to infrequent blog readers – we may have failed to mention that Anida is “#39 – Enyo Phace” (check out the link)

 

Sometime mid-week, we seem to have picked up another cat.  Everyone – this is “Boo” – she’s about 3 months old and if Halley doesn’t eat her – you can expect to see more of her. 

 

Then, this last weekend, Daniel and his gang went to a Colorado Rockies game, and got to go onto the field afterwards for the fireworks show.  Since neither Eric or Rachel cared to join them, they spent the evening at Chuck E Cheese’s eating bad pizza and playing arcade games.   Saturday was filled with basement construction work and an evening fireworks show put on by our city.

School is in full swing. Daniel’s been placed in advanced learner classes in both reading and math, which is pretty cool.  Rachel is doing really well at reading as well, and came home with a  report card full of “Advanced” grades, so we’re looking forward to the rest of the year.  Daniel is taking classes in Art, Skateboarding and TaeKwonDo after school, while Rachel is taking Art and gymnastics – so the weeks’ are fairly packed.

 

And that’s about it from here for the last couple of weeks.  The circus is in town and we’re going on Friday, so that will probably feature in the next update. 

 

Until next time

 

Love, ADRE.

Miller Farms 2012

Another year, another trip to Miller Farms.  You may recall that Miller Farms is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) place north of town a bit.  Every year they throw “Fall Fest” where you can play on their farm- and Disney-themed playground, then jump on a tractor-drawn wagon to harvest as many of the current produce as you feel like. 

 

And as usual – we ended up with way more than we planned.  Probably 150-200 pounds of potatoes, onions, tomatoes, corn, carrots, sweet peppers, spicy peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, beets, cabbage, dill, broccoli, pumpkins, green beans, wax beans and I’m sure I’m forgetting something…

 

And it was hot.  And we didn’t have enough water, but once everyone re-hydrated, we agreed it had been a decent trip.   No kittens this year….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And other than that – we got Rachel’s kindergarten evaluation, and she’s a “4” – advanced in every skill except writing her name, where she merely got a 3 - “Proficient”.  Daniel’s evaluations were also really strong, and he’s getting pulled out of his normal classroom 4 times a week to participate in a reading program that will keep him challenged, so it’s all good. 

 

And that’s about all in the last week.

 

Love, ADRE>

Camping at Turquoise Lake (Labor Day 2012)

 

We just got back from 3 nights of camping at Turquoise Lake – just outside of Leadville.  The weather (mostly) cooperated, and we had fun paddling around on the lake, riding bikes, the occasional swim/dip, and usual camp activities like s’mores, rock climbing and (this year’s addition) pinecone wars…

Daniel showed that he can handle the kayak on his own, and Rachel was amazing on the trail biking – particularly considering that she only has 16” wheels and no gears.

 

This, by the way is the new “let’s post pictures and not so much text” initiative to see if we can get blogging again.  With some luck, we’ll be creating posts all the way back to when it fell off in December.

 

We’re doing great. Hope  you are too.

 

Love, ADRE

 

 

Rachel is a Kindie!

AND – She’s off to school!  Rachel started Kindergarten today, and got the same awesome teacher that Daniel had, so we’re very excited.  She’ll have half-day kindergarten in the mornings, so she goes to school with Daniel.

And – since this is actually written almost two weeks into the school year, we can report that Rachel is enjoying school – she’s getting to know the other kids (7 boys, 7 girls) and has a big smile on her face at the end of each school day.

Daniel Starts Second Grade

And… He’s off.  Daniel’s a second-grader.  He’s still at the same school, this year with Ms. Puent as his teacher, and since we’re posting this two weeks after the fact, we’re already noticing that she is just as awesome and organized as friends had told us. 

Christmas 2011 in pictures

 

Happy New Year, everyone!

As we mentioned in the last post, we were waiting for the Norwegian invasion for Christmas in Colorado.  In a nutshell – that’s what we’ve been up to for the last couple of weeks.  It’s been great.

Daniel and Rachel helped make the pepperkaker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farmor and Granpa showed up the day before Aunt Sara, Uncle Michael, Jacob and Leo were due.  Unfortunately for them, they missed a plane, got stuck in a snowstorm, landed in Colorado Springs and had their travel extended quite a bit.  They finally made it – about 15 hours late.  We passed the time with boardgames and other fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the cousins were here, the real fun could begin.  The same storm that they got stuck in on the way dumped about 8 inches of snow on us here in Denver, so not only did we get a white Christmas, but we also got to go sledding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we were heading up to the mountains on the 25th, Santa was nice enough to show up 12 hours early (by Norwegian standards) or 24 hours before the regular US tradition, and we celebrated Christmas with presents on the morning of the 24th. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grandma Babe joined us for Christmas dinner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solvista

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cabin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner sleigh ride

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dogsledding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until next time….