As the fourth of July approached, we weren’t feeling very enthusiastic. All the fireworks shows were cancelled and honestly, we weren’t feeling terribly patriotic and didn’t have much of a desire to be around people who were. We decided it would be best for us to get away from everyone and enjoy some of our nation’s natural beauty.
Our big summer trip this year was a trip to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons. We booked our Yellowstone campsite months ago, put it on the calendar, and then just kind of got distracted by other things. When we were debating whether to rent a pavilion for our cheesecake party, Noel and I made a pros and cons list and enumerated the reasons why it was a good idea. One of our biggest reasons would be that our house wouldn’t be…
I guess you could say Spring Break started early for Cooper since he didn’t go to school the last three days before the break. There’s a nasty cold that’s been going around and we all caught it. In two weeks we: Went to our HMO’s Urgent Care twice. Called the nurse hotline three times. Visited the doctor’s office three times. Treated two ear infections. Learned you can get canker sores on your uvula. Thankfully we have good insurance. All of…
This year marked our 9th wedding anniversary. Noel and I put a lot of thought into what we wanted to do. We’re always tempted to dress up and try to do something fancy, but ultimately we decided we get more enjoyment out of owning who we are and doing something less fancy. A friend kindly agreed to watch the kids and we headed up to a nearby open space park after picking up some Chinese takeout. We enjoyed our dinner…
In high school I could run a sub six minute mile. In college, I ran two Boston qualifying marathons.* I have a box in my basement full of ribbons, medals, and trophies, but as proud as I am of those accomplishments, the miles I’m proudest of these days are much slower. They’re long lasting miles fueled by patience and full of silliness, lack of focus, and creative endeavors at motivation. They’re the miles I do with my children. These miles require…
When we initially planned this trip months ago, it started out as just a little family road trip, but then more and more fun things came up that got added on. I usually like to come up with a story to share or a thread to follow when talking about our adventures, but there is so much I want to share about the last two weeks. Forgive me for this being a little bit journal-y. I’ve highlighted each day with just one…
We’ve grown accustom to a certain percentage of things going wrong in our lives. We could blame it on the kids, but truthfully things going less than perfect is nothing new. We’ve learned to lower our expectations, which may sound depressing, but actually has made it easier to enjoy life. When we planned a weekend getaway to Winter Park, CO we tried to bridle our excitement since we knew getting our hopes up is always a bad idea. As the day approached…
Apparently, summer is over. I’m still not sure how that happened. Three months ago when preschool ended I made a master list of things I wanted to do. I even divided it into categories and made a master schedule for what days of the week I would attack different types of goals. Then I never looked at it until yesterday. Instead of feeling bummed that I didn’t successfully micromanage our summer, I’m doing a recap of the fun things we did do…
Noel is pretty much the same age as all of his cousins and they’ve always been fairly close, even with him being the odd man out. (Pun intended; they’re all girls.) It’s been fun for me to be adopted into this group since my cousins and I have a much larger age difference. Last week, Annie and her fiancé, Greg, stayed with us for a few days and we also got Jaimie and her husband, Wolfgang, who are now Denverites to…
Two years ago we went camping at Maroon Bells. It was an enjoyable experience and we’ve been wanting to go back ever since. Campsites at Maroon Bells itself are pretty hard to come by, especially on weekends, so I had a reminder in my google calendar to make a reservation the second the sites opened up for our chosen days. Months ago that Google reminder popped up and I made a reservation hoping for a nice calm getaway, completely unaware…