Six weeks ago, we went on a camping trip where I re-sprained the ankle I injured in the spring. I wasn’t doing anything exciting, just taking a step down on a hike. It caught me off guard. There I lay on the ground writhing in pain with my family, equally surprised, staring at me. The injury sent me down a 4-6 week path of limited exercise. I spent two weeks in a boot and two weeks in an intense brace….
By the time the eclipse was on our radar we figured we were just too late to be able to see it. There were rumors of 10X10 foot spaces on golf courses going for $100/night and Motel 6 renting rooms for$1000/night. We tried to tell ourselves, that a 90% eclipse would still be cool and we’d be glad we missed out on traffic and hoards of people. Plus, the kids would have just started school. There was some part of…
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Summer is a magical time at our house. Bedtimes aren’t as important, homework doesn’t exist, and there is so much possibility for adventure. Our kids also seem to be in this golden period of childhood. They have…
We decided kind of last minute that we wanted to take a long weekend and go camping. We knew it would be a popular time to go camping and were surprised when we found a campsite that was still available to reserve, so it seemed meant to be. (It turned out there was actually a computer glitch that had left a campsite open, but the camp host just reserved a typically non-reservable site for us.) We went hiking and decided…
Last weekend we went to the Denver Chalk Art Festival. I’ve meant to take us there for years, but this year we finally made it happen. We rode into Denver on the train, which the kids absolutely loved. On our way to the festival we got sidetracked by a splash pad. We let the kids run through and as we were standing there we noticed a big event happening at the other end. We wandered that way to see what…
At the beginning of April, Noel and I dropped the kids off at school and went for what was supposed to be a quick trail run. As we ran, I got caught up in doing one of my favorite things with one of my favorite people and didn’t pay as much attention to my feet as I should have. About a mile in, I tripped and fell to the ground. I screamed out and Noel who was in the lead,…
I did a post over on our neglected food blog. Since I’m talking about grief and Glenna I thought I’d share it here too. Click here to check it out.
The Jetta Sportwagen TDI was the first car we purchased. It was a magnificent machine. Gorgeous and incredibly well engineered, but in one particular way a little too engineered. We were hopeful that Volkswagen would come out with a fix for the car, but their deadline for finding a fix for our model came and went and we decided it was time to part with our smogmobile. (They did come out for a fix for some of the newest models, but…
I love Easter the same way other people love Christmas. Easter is all about hope and joy and light and so often the outside world reflects that as we turn our back on the long, dark months of winter. Both the plants and our souls are revitalized. This year, Easter was especially tender. Lately, we’ve become more aware of our own mortality and our absolute need for our Savior. As we celebrated Easter our hearts swelled with gratitude for the resurrection that…
Our last day in Zion, I added up our hiking mileage for the day and realized that the kids had hiked 6.6 miles. This realization of the kids’ capabilities and a new mantra to savor life (losing someone will do that to you) got our wheels turning. It was time for us to finally backpack Coyote Gulch. We’d read a blog post a few years ago about a family that took their 4 and 7-year-old and had felt inspired, but at the…