New duds

I bought this shirt at the thrift store tonight. 

On the back it says, "La Crema." 

My favorite.

Colorado visitors

Taking you back to Thanksgiving here with a lovely photo slideshow by Sarah Q.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/turdinthepool/sets/72157625473796439/show/

2034

When I look at this pic of my little lefty with his scrub hat writing on a white board, I feel like I'm glimpsing the future.

Moo-dy

Sawyer's behavior problems, particularly at school, are a growing concern to us as Kindergarten approaches. I just don't think a public school will have as much tolerance with his outbursts as the teachers in our little red schoolhouse.

We've also noticed that our little man is a bit explosive in the bathroom – more like a big man. He's been like that for a long time. He'll even sit in there for 30 minutes with a magazine. 

So, after a visit to the pediatrician, we are looking into several possible causes. In addition to being tested for bacteria and parasites, we have been instructed by the pediatrician to begin changing his diet. The first thing to go will be dairy, because it's the easiest and will have the most immediately noticeable impact if it's the culprit. Milk, butter, yogurt ... and, yes, milk chocolate. Ugh.

Unfortunately, gluten has also been indicated as a major cause of behavioral issues. I loathe to think of life without bread and all things wheat-related. Getting gluten out of the system is a longer process as well ... so we're putting it off to see how things go with dairy first.

In many cases, sensitivity to one coincides with sensitivity to the other. Just shoot me.

But, we've heard several success stories from people we know about eliminating these things ... enough to convince us that it's worth a try. 

And, funny enough, Sawyer's totally on board. Even when I told him it meant no Advent calendar chocolate. He said he wants dark chocolate. (Boy after my own heart.)

Maybe this is something that he'll just outgrow naturally. But, in the meantime, we're going to do everything we can to help him be successful. 

Day 1 — No Dairy. No meltdowns. 

Godlings (godparent siblings)

Friends

Little puzzles

We had parent-teacher conferences Monday. The teacher started the conversation off by saying, "Maybe we better talk about Arden first, otherwise we may never get to her."

She was completely serious. We had scheduled an hour to talk about both kids. And, talk of Sawyer could have easily filled the entire hour. Our dear son continues to challenge us all daily while Arden sails along with barely a mention. We have an entire "daily program" worked out for Sawyer. We are taking a parenting class to learn techniques for helping him deal with his anger and outbursts. But, I'm lucky to get a end-of-day report on Arden at all.

Arden is the typical "flexible" child. She's highly social at school and has found a gaggle of girlfriends whom she runs around with — Ellie and Allie — just to be confusing. I barely walk in the door in the morning and she's across the room to hug her girls and off they go to play.

Arden, according to her teacher, is amazing at puzzles. I thought Sawyer was our puzzle guy. But Arden isn't even 3 yet and can complete a 24-piece jigsaw puzzle by herself with the most amazing patience. I found this out only after buying her a princess puzzle she insisted on having, despite my concern that it was too difficult. As a parent, I was blown away when she completed the thing alone on her first attempt. But, to hear the teacher say the same thing just confirmed it for me. During free choice Arden usually chooses "puzzles, books and games" over dramatic play, building blocks or arts and crafts, the teacher said.

She's bright, but we knew that, and she's well beyond her age level in every area except gross motor skills — i.e. "playing catch." This is our fault. We don't have balls and we don't play catch.

She's also shy in big groups, and the teacher said that they hope to help bring her out of her shell and get her talking in circle. I asked her about this one night — talking during circle time — and she said, "It's too scary."

Every once in a blue moon she'll let her true colors fly with her teachers, and the EXTREMELY OPINIONATED side of her will accidentally pop out. Then she'll hang her head and sulk. Now, THAT's the Arden I know and love.

Sawyer — big shock — chooses dramatic play during free choice every time. You've never seen a kid spend more time in the land of Make Believe. He's the same way at home. Give him a couple chairs and pillows and about 2 minutes and he'll have concocted a whole scenario that involves cats stuck in trees and a firetruck to the rescue.

He's a natural leader, the teacher said, and often creates extravagant games of pretend at school that he ropes all the other children into playing. He'll assign roles and set the parameters for the scenario. He has the most amazing imagination and the kids are drawn to him like flies to honey, she said.

The good news is that he's spending more time in arts and crafts this year, but he still struggles with perfectionism. In the past, he's often avoided trying things he can't do perfectly, like cutting with scissors — especially as a lefty. But, this year, he's taking more risks in that area. He brings home art projects everyday, which makes me happy.

Socially he floating, having lost his rock — Sylvia — to kindergarten. He doesn't know who his new bff is. And that's hard for him.

Our major struggle — one that brings me to tears — is how Sawyer continues to have extreme anger management issues at school. Several times a week, he'll completely lose it over something that doesn't go his way or something he's been told to do when he doesn't want to. He'll throw a fit and have to be isolated in the middle of the room where he can't destroy anything or hurt anyone.

I can't help but think he's like a little Napoleon. So charismatic and compelling to everyone around him, but with a ferocious temper when things don't go his way.

According to the teacher, we are about one step away from receiving a behavioral referral and we've been told that if we don't get this under control now, Sawyer will struggle for much of his life.

He's incredibly bright, she added, and asks the most brilliant questions. He is still the light of the classroom, but he can just as easily be the cloud that darkens the whole preschool.

We are seriously considering holding him back to give him another year to mature emotionally before sending hm into the big cruel world of Kindergarten.

We feel blessed to have such amazing teachers who are willing to work with our kids so closely and to be so patient with them. Some days I feel like any other school would have written Sawyer off already.

The most amazing thing to me is that at school the kids have totally separate lives. At home, they are like twins, constantly playing and fighting. But, even in a class of just 15 kids, they don't even hang out. They have independent identities. And, that makes me happy.

Where History and Skiing Collide

Tomorrow I am throwing an event for 160 people. Did I mention that?

160 people. I was shooting for 200. I was incredibly concerned last weekend when it was only 85 people. And I was still worried Tuesday when it was 100. So when that turned, somehow, into 160 people in two days, I was thrilled. Leave it to the Fraser Valley to wait until the last minute, said one of the two fabulous museum administrators that basically did all the hard work. (Tim and Darcy ROCK! *ROCK with a glorifying singing voice). Wait until the last minute people did. 160 people. (Can I collapse into a chair yet?) We may, yet, have a few stragglers signing up or coming through the door unannounced — we'd love that too.

This is my inaugural event both with the Grand County Historical Association and, basically, the whole world ... if you don't count my wedding, which had only 50 people and a ski slope. I was voted onto the board June 10 and immediately assigned chair of the event committee because the marketing committee was already taken and, well, nobody else wanted to do it. When I say committee, in this sense, it's typically a one man show. (Oh, and Tim Nicklas and Darcy Miller ROCK!*) It's laughable, really — ME in charge of events. I can barely organize dinner. But, I have fully utilized the strategy of delegation. (Have I mentioned, Tim and Darcy ROCK!*).

I agreed to join the board in the first place because the executive director was earnest and I had a good friend also on the board. They both resigned one month later. Looking across the table at four dedicated board pioneers in their legacy years, I knew I had to stay and help. Now I am the Marketing AND Events Committee.

Somehow, I talked many wonderful, generous people into jumping on board — in particular author Frank Pilkington whose book about the history behind the names of ski runs, "What's in a name at Winter Park and Mary Jane," became the driving theme. And thank you Kristen Lodge for tossing his name my way. Now go train for Ironman (you seriously ROCK*). I knew we needed something about ski history to make this event exciting, and it was already penned onto the calendar five days before the kick off of ski season. On Tuesday, Aug. 10 I emailed Frank, and the following day he graciously agreed to speak.

Then I made a Hail-Mary, late-August pitch to Winter Park Resort, which is — by the way — the oldest, continuously operational ski area in Colorado. Mistalynn Lee and Gary DeFrange blew me away with their generosity, offering us a place to hold the dinner at the base of the ski area, days before opening. They even helped pay for the food.

Francie de Vos jumped in during September and offered us some help planning before diving headfirst into the campaign to elect Freeta Goodhome as Grand Dog. She won, raising about $1 Billion. (The animal shelter and advocates are the real winners.) Before doing that, however, she sent us Karen Gadberry, HR Director for the resort, who agreed to be our emcee and helped us spread the word.

Our staff and the five other active board members, several in their 80s, went out and canvased the streets for donations to our silent auction. We received more than 60 items including a dog sled ride, a trip to the hot springs and an Adirondack chair made entirely out of skis by the Guest Speaker himself.

We've had 10 volunteers step up to help this week from out of the woodwork — half of them are under 40. I can honestly say that there's a lot of excitement building around this.

I saw the setup tonight. It looks better than I ever imagined. Our tables are named after historic ski runs — marked by Green Circles, Blue Squares and Black Diamonds — tomorrow, before we begin setting up at 4 p.m., the "events committee" is having a major arts & crafts session at the museum with Darcy.

Now, I've just got to figure out how the heck I'm going to have time to get dressed between playing with scissors and glue, sloshing through the mud with our parking volunteers and carrying dusty cardboard boxes of books and silent auction items up three flights of stairs.

And, while I'm at it, I better go figure out what I'm going to wear. Good night!

November chills

My Indian Summer has definitely turned to winter this week. Time for a new flag.

What's old is new

Construx was a brand of plastic building toys introduced by Fisher-Price in 1983. For a long time, they were one of my brother's most favorite toys. He recalls: "They made the BEST g.i. Joe and muscle men forts." The toy featured beam-like pieces of varying lengths that snapped on to cubical connector knots in order to build large shapes. Sadly, Construx was discontinued in 1988. Stupid people. My mother, God bless her basement, kept the old box of Construx as well as a big box of Capsela (and whole knows what else remains to be unearthed). Mixed in those boxes were a whole bunch of other treasures like some old 1970s Matchbox cars. When Justin came around, we resurrected these toys out of the basement. But, he never showed much interest in these kinds of building toys. The boxes moved with us to Colorado and have been tucked away in the top of a closet ever since. Over the weekend I pulled the one box of Construx down for Sawyer. We didn't hear from him for the rest of the weekend.


He built, and rebuilt, discovered the glow-in-the-dark pieces and — WHEELS! It makes me kind of sad about all the toys we gave away when we were young – the original Star Wars action figures, the Weeble Treehouse, Playmobile, the Fisher Price Sesame Street "People" village.



Ah, the joy of growing up in the dawn of plastics. I did save my Barbie and all her 1970s attire, which will be handed down to Arden one of these days. And the doll house (which needs a remodel) along with all its fancy furniture and tiny little pieces will someday be hers.

My mom's closet also holds hidden treasures. When I went home in August, she gave me these kicky boots that she wore in the 1960s and 70s.

They definitely don't make shoes like they used to (I'm lucky to see my shoes last three years). I pulled out the disintegrating liners, washed the boots out, polished them up and voila! Retro awesomeness.

I think about all my moves — in the past decade alone I've moved six times. Partly because I lack space and partly because I feel like stuff just weighs me down, I shed my things whenever possible and try to keep my sentimental items contained to one box. That said, I sure do enjoy the vintage hand-me-downs.

priceless moment

I woke up this morning to Sawyer yelling, "Mom, come look, I cleaned the house!"
It had been a long Hallows Eve — lots of candy, little food of any substance — and Sawyer had awoken in the middle of the night, puking and shaking. I gave him a slice of warm bread and a couple sips of milk. "Mommy, you are making me feel so much better," he said. We went back to sleep in my bed. Arden climbed in at some point early. And, the next thing I know Sawyer's downstairs yelling that he cleaned the house. I have no idea how long he'd been awake. I came downstairs and the house was spotless. Everything — every last shoe, every last toy — was off the floor or neatly lined up along the wall. (I won't even get into what it means about a mother's cleaning abilities when her 4-year-old is overwhelmed by the impulsion to straighten the house.) He'd even unloaded the clean laundry basket I'd folded the night before and separated them into his pile and Arden's pile on the couch (maybe not so helpful but super cute). I was pretty stunned and my reaction at the time may have been a bit underwhelming, so a little while later I found him upstairs getting dressed. I got down next to him and said, "Sawyer, you did such a wonderful job cleaning downstairs. I'm really proud of you." He sort of gasped and put his hand on his chest and said, "Mommy, that makes my heart feel warm."

Not a typical morning with my son. Maybe it had something to do with puking up the Halloween candy.

And on the First Day of Halloween ...

Halloween is a 4-day celebration this year, giving us ample opportunity to wear all our dress-up clothes. Thursday is the preschool party, Friday is trick-or-treat downtown, Saturday is the party at the school and Sunday is trick-or-treat in Fraser. The doctor outfit is my personal favorite, but Arden really wants to be a princess. Sawyer just wants Arden to be his prisoner.

Top or bottom?

We finally moved the kids out of their cribs. They were still sleeping in modified cribs, Sawyer's converted to a Daybed. Arden's was just a crib with the front panel removed. Scott scored this bunk bed from one of the properties he manages. It isn't in perfect condition, but the kids are just thrilled. They think it's a rocket ship. One thing's for sure — nobody's sleeping tonight.

Counting

Yet another hilarious moment with my kids. God bless preschool.

Counting from Reid Armstrong on Vimeo.

Chinese, Spanish and, um, Gypsy Kings.

Counting more from Reid Armstrong on Vimeo.

I'm pretty certain Sawyer's voice only possesses 26 octaves.

School work

When I picked the kids up from school today, the teacher gave me a picture Sawyer had made of a fire truck. The outline of the truck was formed by a line of very tiny holes. I looked at the picture closely and couldn't figure out how Sawyer had made such a straight line. When I asked, the teacher showed me a big square piece of styrofoam and a tack. The preschoolers place the paper on top of the styrofoam and use tiny pen-dots drawn on the page to guide them as they punch the tack into the dots on the page to make the picture. The teacher showed me a sample from another kid. The punch holes were all over the page and I could see the dots she was supposed to use as a guide. Looking back at Sawyer's picture I still couldn't see a single pen mark on the page. I pointed this out the the teacher, and she stared at it kind of baffled and then took it to the window. Even holding the page up to the light there wasn't a single pen dot visible. Sawyer had used the tack to perfectly punch through each pen dot on the page. The teacher was almost speechless. Not because this means Sawyer is destined to be a genius. It's just so quintessentially Sawyer. He's a perfectionist about some things. I don't know where he gets it. But to hit each of those hundred tiny dots so exactly must have taken incredible patience — something he doesn't always have. And because he's a perfectionist, he often get frustrated about projects like that. I can't even imagine how long it took him. I'd have taken a picture of it and posted it here or framed it or something, but as we were walking out the door he gave it to his little friend Sydney who was crying because she'd skinned her knee. And that, too, is so quintessentially Sawyer.

Church Park Fire

It's been a rough and interesting two weeks around here.

Following my last post, we have met "Shoulder Season" in Middle Park. Summer sweetly lingered through the first weekend of October. Then, in a literal fire storm, winter reared its head.


The fire broke out last Sunday. I was home by myself, supposedly cleaning. I hate cleaning. And, I'm really slow at it. My house eternally suffers for it. Scott called and asked me if I'd heard about a fire near Fraser. He'd received a call from a coworker who was packing his stuff to evacuate. I looked online and the county's emergency website was down. I called my editor. No answer. I called our photographer. Yes, there was a fire. He was on his way. My editor was on a mountaintop somewhere looking down at the fire.

I called my editor again. This time he answered. Yes, he could see the fire and it had doubled in size in the last 15 minutes. I threw one sentence to that effect on the newspaper website and then made a call to the county's emergency public information officer. She said the fire was now 300 acres and that every firefighter in the county was responding. She told me where it was — Sheep Mountain near Church Park, which is located 5 miles west of Fraser. The Town of Fraser is 15-mile-drive south of my house by road, 12 miles as the crow flies. I walked out onto my back deck and looked west. No smoke. I craned my head to the south, in the direction of Fraser. No smoke. I wrote another update online.

The phone rang again. This time it was another coworker who lives up the road from me. "I have pictures," she said. "I can see flames shooting over the ridge." From her house? I looked west again off my back deck. Nothing. And craned around to the south. Nothing. I needed a map so I walked out my front door to the car and — there it was, like an atom bomb had gone off.

What I did not realize, being so new to the area, it that the mountain 5 miles south of my house — the one that appears so clearly as the backdrop in all the photos I take of my kids running through fields — is Sheep Mountain. My heart hit my stomach.


I put photos online and another update. People were being asked to prepare for evacuation. The winds started picking up. I couldn't help but stand there are stare at that cloud of smoke. It was mesmerizing. The slurry bombers came in and for the rest of the afternoon it was a full on air attack and I had a front-row seat. We all did.


From the other side of the mountain it looked like a volcano had exploded.


The weather grew cold and damp that night and hundreds of firefighters poured into the area. They fought to save roads and fought to keep the fire from coming across that ridge. The fire grew to 500 acres and came within 2 miles of houses and a young life camp. But not a single structure burned. Sawyer wanted to know if his Uncle Brian and Uncle Sam had saved everyone from the fire.

In the days ahead, I wrote a least 15 more updates on the fire and two long, feature stories. By the end of what turned out to be a very long week (in one 14-hour day I wrote the story about the fire, put it online, edited fire photos from readers, helped design the paper and then drove two hours to pick the paper up at the press and deliver it) snow had arrived and blanketed the mountaintops. The bone-chilling, moist weather put a final finish to the fire. It is now 100 percent contained and crews are breaking down camp and pulling out.

This was the biggest fire of its kind that Grand County has ever seen. But with 3 million acres of dead trees surrounding us in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests due to the pine beetle epidemic, it won't be the last.

Adams Falls

We had a great playdate Saturday, hiking to Adams Falls with our summer friend Cash and his mom. He's started preschool down in Denver now, but — since his dad runs the local bike park — we'll see him again next year. He doesn't have any brothers or sisters and decided on this trip that he's going to adopt Arden and Sawyer as his siblings. Too cute.

Roll the 'Little House' theme song ...

Steamboat

I met my Leadville roomie and great friend Sarahgirl in Steamboat Springs last weekend for a little bit of girl time. We enjoyed a drink by the river and dipped in the Strawberry Hot Springs. Fall has finally arrived in the high country and the aspen and cottonwood trees are vibrant yellow. It was a perfect little get away.


The hot springs were far better than I anticipated. Great, even, for kids — although I left mine behind.


This was the bathroom.




We didn't stay, but next time I really want to. They have these great little gypsy caravans that you can camp in during the summer. They also have rustic cabins and nicer places for those who'd rather not rough it. It'll be a great side trip for folks who visit us.


Oh, the best part of Steamboat — a drink by the river with a best bud.

Recipes for Picky Eaters No. 4

Burrito Night

This one is simple. It's all about the process. Put out a lot of different ingredients and let the kids decide what goes in. A little piece of tinfoil around the bottom makes for easy holding (and keeps the bottom together). This is by far the most common dinner in our house. We shake it up with different kinds of leftover meat, chicken, cheese, veggies, sour cream, etc. But, for my kids, we pull out a batch with no taco seasoning. Then we season a batch for the adults. Always a winner.

About the Quilt

I've been working on this quilt since long before Arden was born. The batting — the heart — is an old tattered bedspread from my very early childhood. Other children cling to a blankie. I clung — apparently — to an entire, quilted, twin-sized bedspread. You'd probably even recognize the pattern — if you could see it. It's one of those recognizable early 70s bedroom patterns. Like, um, this:


Orange roses on green vines. Woodies, maybe Hecht's circa 1976. My parents tried to match the color of the stems when they painted their walls. Ah, good times. It was like that for years ... That green room used to be my sleepy place. I think about that, sometimes, when one of the kids crawls in bed with me at 5 a.m. I think about the green room.

Back to my quilt. The old comforter traveled with me and got softer and more wonderful straight through college. By the time I headed into my outdoor life I had made a white duvet for it out of two old army sheets my mom had in a trunk in the basement. I decorated the closure with buttons I'd collected over the years. I have no idea what happened to it — probably made way for a real down comforter.

When I moved into the Leadville house I found a huge popcorn tin full of pre-cut fabric and started stitching the squares together for fun. Then life got interesting, and sitting around stitching things for fun became a thing of the past. The quarter quilt and my giant binky moved around with me six times and across 5,000 miles before landing here.

IN THE MEANTIME — we got this awesome wedding gift from our dear friend Joanna. A quilt. It lived on our bed for a while. Then I had to rescue it from the boat, where it was growing too comfortable. I washed it up and made a baby mat out of it:

Learning to crawl

Last winter, the wedding quilt became Arden's winter bedspread and kept her warm until it was literally shredding on the backside from love.

AND SO — I have taken the three sentimental quilts — the Giant Bedspread Security Blanket, the Leadville Quarter Quilt and The Wedding Quilt — and married them into one crazy but much loved and far-traveled blanket. There is some serious sentiment in that thar' blanket. And, assuming, if I manage to finish it before winter, she will love it forever. Until she decides she'd rather have a Dora bedspread. (Over my dead body.)

School Notes: Vegetable Garden

The preschool grew a vegetable garden this summer and the kids have been helping harvest it over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, this mom has been enjoying the fruits of their labors more than any of her kids. But Arden was willing to try a sugar snap. Otherwise, it was really fun to see their excitement as they unearthed and picked vegetables.

A friend of my mother's recently posted on Facebook that she was in the check out line buying acorn squash and that the cashier said: "Oh, so is that acorn squash? I heard about it on Farmville."

I hope to never hear one of my kids say something like that.

A sad farewell to these cute boots, which Arden has finally outgrown.

Our beloved Miss Molly.

Funny things

Arden, after falling down and getting a boo-boo: I need a new Arden.

Sawyer, What is Easter? I start with spring and rebirth... But, Mommy, it's snowing and cold at Easter ... and, then ... Will I be born again?

Arden, sobbing after being told to go to bed: That makes me sad!

Arden, What is the deal here?

Arden, I want to cuddle.

Arden, Whenever there is mention of snow, reindeer or Santa ... My birthday's at Christmas!

The bells go off

Sawyer has just started creating his first representative artwork. Always before it was pretty much just scribbles. The breakthrough came — I think — with all the coloring he did on the plane to Virginia.

I love kid art, so I've had art materials around my kids since they were 12 months old. I've been waiting and waiting. But, its just been scribbles, and Sawyer never really took much interest in art at all. The teachers kept saying: It will come.

The first thing he drew this week was a picture of his family, which is hanging on the wall at school. I cried and hugged him. (I can't believe I had to wait until he was 4 and to see his first stick figure.)

This picture, he said, is of Mommy and Daddy getting married — which is why we don't have any kids. I'm on the right, playing the guitar for Daddy to calm him down ... although originally I think that was supposed to be me on the left with my wedding dress. So, maybe I'm really just marrying myself. I love it anyway.

Arden, who has always had a better since of color and line, painted me this, which she said is an eye.

Camping: Flat Top Wilderness

Cold Springs Campground, Flat Tops Wilderness near Yampa, Colo.

We took the kids camping for one night this weekend — get this — for the FIRST TIME EVER! I can't even believe it. Me. The woman who camped more than 200 days in 1998. We drove about two hours west to the beautiful Bear River valley at the entrance to Flat Tops Wilderness — where all the mountains are ... flat!

We camped by a clear blue/green pond w/waterfall.

The last time Scott and I camped like this, we didn't have Sawyer and Arden. We went camping a handful of times with Justin in Virginia — winter camping once, beach camping two or three times, and camping with the boat twice. I have a negative-30-degree down sleeping bag that I've owned for almost a decade and this was the first time I actually slept INSIDE of it.

Scott's custom marshmallow roaster travel with us everywhere.

Other than the sleeping bags, most of our campgear is 15 years old. We pulled the trip together on a last minute whim when I had a Labor Day, "How-has-an-entire-summer-flown-by?" revelation that I had not fulfilled a promise to my kids to take them camping. In the rush to pack, I didn't check the camp stoves. Despite my expert skills at disassembling and then reassembling Whisper Lite stoves — the VW of all camp stoves — our fuel pump appeared to be shot. We resorted to cooking our meals, hot drinks and dessert by campfire. Scott did a fabulous job. Never has saltless ground beef/red potoato/carrot scramble tasted so good (uh, remembered spice kit, forgot to replenish it). Eggs and bacon at breakfast were to die for. (The 7-year-old Tabasco sauce would have made my parents proud — separated and chunky — that stuff could survive nuclear warfare, just not 7 years in storage.)

""""""
O O
V
—

In the blank space above should have been a photo of Scott circumnavigating a small lake with a bundle of four long dead trees trunks hoisted on his shoulders. It was a total Survivor Man moment. As much as I laughed at the time, I was glad to have all that wood by the fire ring.

Kids enjoying a cuppa before bedtime.

Camping – with all its wild and elemental experiences — can test the most traveled adult, not to mention play with the mind of a preschooler. Arden slept and ate like a trooper — basically the perfect camper. She hardly complained about being cold (even when it was). Sawyer, on the other hand, had a harder time — eating/being cold/pooping/falling asleep. I eventually pulled him out of the tent so he could have that post-dark camping experience sitting by the fire roasting marshmallows, playing with headlamps and watching the stars emerge.

It was — hands down — the starriest sky I've ever seen. And I've slept under hundreds of night skies. Snuggling by the fire with Sawyer, stargazing and just talking, was one of those intensely special kid moments that make me wonder: why don't I stop and enjoy this more often?

Keeping us safe from small, high-alpine varmints.

There was one thing that completely shocked me when the stars came out. Low on the eastern horizon there was an object so intensely bright that I thought it had to be man made. So intensely bright — it nearly blinded me in my right eye — that I figured it had to be the International Space Station. Which I've never seen before. It was only beginning to be constructed in 1998 and was barely visible when I moved east, where you are lucky to even see a star in the sky at all. So I googled the International Space Station and tracked it. Turns out, it couldn't have been the space station.

Which leaves only one possibility: It was JUPITER! Read this Earth and Sky article. Jupiter is closer to the earth that its been in 60 years.

Happy summer's end everyone!

Recipes for Picky Eaters No. 3

Spaghetti Carbonara

This is another meal my mom used to make. One of my all-time favorites and a nice change from regular pasta. It's basically breakfast pasta.

The key is to warm the bowl in a 200-degree oven. Cook the pasta, save some hot water when you drain it (add it back in to pasta if it begins to look dry). Transfer pasta into warm bowl. Beat two eggs and then add them to the hot pasta. (The heat from pasta and bowl cooks egg). Add crumbled, cooked bacon, grated parm and salt.


Voila! A meal even picky eaters will love. (Unlike all my other recipes, there is no butter in this meal, but it's still a guaranteed artery clogger.)