November chills

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

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.

24 hours later

I can't help myself. This is just one of those prideful parenthood moments. The video I posted yesterday was taken after dinner, around 7 p.m. and it was Sawyer's first solo ride after just one week of owning his new 14-inch Tony Hawk Freestyle Climber (in green). He spent most of the first week looking at the bike. Thinking about the bike. Talking about the bike.But not riding the bike. He was pretty intimidated by the size, the gears, the handbrakes and the peddles, I guess. The break-through, for some reason, came when I told him it was a dirt bike. A switch flipped inside of him and suddenly he was all: "We're going to do this thing." This video was taken after dinner this evening. So, it's 24 hours of improvement right before your eyes.

We initially told Sawyer that we'd get him a bike for his birthday, but when I realized that the summer would be more than half-over by then (and realizing just how short a Northern Colorado summer can be), I decided to bite the bullet and do it now. Sawyer's only request for his new bike was that it be green. It's hard, when bike shopping on a budget, to find bikes that aren't plastered with Barbie and Spiderman. As we were looking around, we debated whether to get a 12-inch or 14-inch bike. (14-inch bikes are very rare. The 16 is clearly too big for a 3-year-old, and we were worried that he'd outgrow and outride the 12-inch too quickly.) He does have to tip toe to touch the ground, but he was used to that since we kept moving the seat on his training bike up. And, it definitely doesn't seem to be slowing him down.

Bike riding appears to be Sawyer's "Thing." He's tentative on a lot of fronts, but he's always been really, really into his riding toys. (Go figure that his dad was a professional motocross racer in his early 20s.) It also helps, I will add, that we have a lot of unused pavement in our neighborhood, giving Sawyer some freedom and room to learn.

I, myself, recall learning to ride on a somewhat hilly but low-traffic suburban street around the block from my house. I think I was closer to 6-years-old at the time. I can actually remember the sensation of riding alone for the first time and the total freedom of being able to bike to my friends' houses.

I can't even begin to imagine the sense of independence it gives a 3-year-old. It's actually somewhat terrifying.

Mud season is no joke

Evidence of Utah's red dirt brought in on the winds of a recent snow storm.

There is dirt everywhere in my life. It gathers around the edges of my rugs and baseboards. It dangles off my dog's chest hair and settles in between the pads of his paws making him sound like a lady walking across a marble floor with high heels wherever he goes. Grit ruins every barefoot step I take in the kitchen. The treads on all our shoes are caked with mud. One forgotten item on the way out the door leaves tracks that will take 20 minutes to clean. I look down at my pants on the way to a meeting and, somehow, mud is smeared across the back of my calves. Like I sat there and let some kid make a mud pie on my leg, that's how bad it is after I walk through the parking lot at Sawyer's school. I don't know how it gets there. I leave the vacuum plugged in. We take our shoes off at the door. It doesn't help. The mud infiltrates every corner of our lives. You hear them talk about mud season. I'm here to attest — it's no laughing matter.

Play Date

This is what it looked like down the street from my house in Granby the day after my mid-April birthday. There were wild crocuses on the trail last week. Marmots on the rocks. Pelicans in the pond.

Despite our location in the center of the continent, we have osprey. I was shocked, in March, to hear that the osprey had returned. This is bird of a different ilk than what lived behind my family's house on the Chesapeake Bay. Those shuttered at a mid-summer breeze. And more than once I saw an entire family of osprey babies blown away forever by an afternoon thunderstorm.

Today — only hours until May 1 — it is snowing. It has, in fact, been snowing for the past three days. They say that there is a lot of nitrogen in the spring snow here. It melts quickly, like a shot of red bull to the landscape. The ranchers love it. Overnight, the sagebrush blooms into a fragrant, misty green. (I adore the smell of sagebrush. In my days as a backcountry guide, I used to crush it and rub it all over my skin and clothes to improve the overall impression of one who has not showered in weeks.) The ponds fill with ducks and geese. The grass returns — never to the lush Kentucky green — but to desert green.

I don't know about the nitrogen theory, though it's something I may have to look into further, but I can testify that when we woke up on Thursday there were 8 inches of snow on Scott's car. Under that snow was a layer of red dirt. I am told that is dust carried by the storm from Utah, some 400 miles away.

Spring sprung

Spring has hit Granby, Colo. For you east coasters, it's not exactly the kind of spring you might imagine. No daffodils or azaleas blooming here. It's practically Wyoming, after all. Spring is sagebrush, wildflowers and mud.

In the mountain towns of Colorado, spring is more rightly known as mud season. Every place has its weather demons. In many places, it's the wind. The Santa Anna's in Southern California are known to drive folks mad, just as summer's eternal light in Northern Alaska acts like PCP.


In the mountains of Colorado, it's mud season that brings out the crazy in people. Those with money or seasonal jobs flee for places warmer. My washing machine repair man (long story) was beginning a two week vacation as he left my house the other day. His plan — drive south. That was it. No plan. No destination. Just. Flee.

When mud season hits, restaurants shut down, shops board up, the town gets quiet. Those who stay are bombarded with the seasonal tease of 65 degree weather followed by freezing temperatures and 12 inches of snow. In 4-hour stretch last Friday, we had every type of weather imaginable — wind, rain, sleet, hail, thunderstorm, snow, fog and sun. Talk about getting caught up in the Cuisinart of the weather gods. Sure, we got 12 inches of snow in 48 hours, but it's spring snow and by nature melts (almost) as fast as it falls. By this afternoon, it was gone.


These photos are from a hike I took this afternoon — just mud, melting snow and a sure sign of spring — wild crocus (aka Pasque flower).

1974 Mother of Two **w/150,000k** — BEST OFFER

Here's the deal. Now that the Beast is in Ford Heaven, I have to take the insurance money and pick out a car that can carry the whole family, the dog and the gear through snow and mountain. Scott took my aging Outback and traded it in on something a bit cleaner with a little less mileage (read: better for his image) that wasn't so thirsty since he drives farther than I do every day.

(My 2005 Subaru Outback)

The OB served us well. It was the first and probably only new car I'll ever own. It was the car I dreamed of having all through high school, college and well into my 20s. And, it was a wonderful vehicle. But, it was too small for a family of five plus dog and gear. Justin is growing and can barely squeeze between the seats. It was never the same after the Subaru Dealer blew up the engine at its 60K checkup. Something to do with an air bubble and a sensor. With 120K, a putrid burnt oil smell when it idled and a question as to whether it would start on any given morning, it's time had come. Some dealer will fix her up and she will give a happy somebody another 100k in her lifetime. (Sniff. Tear. Sigh.)

Scott knew what he wanted. When the truck tumbled he made an instant decision. He didn't want another truck. He wanted a station wagon. He spent an hour online. Drove to Sharpest Rides in Denver. Met Louis. Test drove a car. And, Done.

(Audi A6 Allroad)

So, it's hard for him to understand my OCD car buying issues (I blame my parents who instilled in me a borderline insane practicality where cars are concerned.) The last two weeks has been a living hell for me. I'm up all night on Craigslist and Edmunds with Consumer Reports spread out on the couch next to me, a second glass of wine in hand, vision blurry from staring at the screen to long, trying to sort out the differences between small SUVs and mid-sized SUVs and the nuances in reliability between a 2004 and 2005 of some particular model. God help me.

(2005 Honda Odyssey)
*Back windows roll down in '05 model, not '04

For my 36th birthday, because it sounded better than being stranded all day with two kids and no car while Scott took Justin to the airport, we went Used Car Shopping. It was, in some respects, the best day of the year to undertake such a marriage-endangering venture. Being My Birthday — an official religious holiday — Scott was forbidden from swearing, speaking sharply or showing frustration ALL DAY. His present to me was patience. Even when I led him onto I-25 in the middle of Saturday afternoon rushhour.

Close your eyes and picture the quintessential used car salesman. Got it? Ok. So, Scott had found a salesman in Denver that he was very fond of and insisted that we start with him. After driving into the back alley warehouses of Englewood, I was a bit apprehensive — and then I saw the dealer's motto: "Affordable, Sexy, Sharp!"

"Sexy." It says so right there on the dealer plate like they are selling naked women under the hood or something. So I knew we had to be onto something good. And then I met Louis:


You can't see his bottom half, but let me fill in the rest of the picture for you. Big t-shirt. Baggy jeans. Sneakers. I wasn't sure if he was going to sell us a car or . . . yeah.

So after taking a tour of the "Sharpest Rides" lot and test driving a beat up Volvo XC-90 that left me entirely unimpressed, Louis took us down the road to the "Family Trucks and Vans." Minivans and SUVs galore.

(2004 Volvo XC-90)

Louis walked the entire lot with me and that's when he started to win me over. He'd open a van, stick his head inside and say "whew that stinks ... NEXT!" or thumb his nose a Dodge or tell me straight up that one of the mechanics crashed another car into that one when they were moving things around the lot. OK. This was the kind of car salesman I could appreciate. When we found a car I liked, he handed us the keys and sent us on our way. No pressure. No tagging along. Just. Cool.

Consumer Reports and Edmunds sing the praises of the Odyssey and the Sienna, but with my budget I'm looking at '04 models, and — let's face it — after 8 years on the road, most mini-vans have been through 2 families, 3 shedding golden retrievers, 37 spilt cups of coffee, 205 leaky sippy cups, 5,489 lost Cheerios and not even the new car smell spray can erase the last trip to the petting zoo.

(2007 Hyundai Entourage)

I almost jumped off the minivan cliff when I test drove a 2007 Hyundai Entourage fully loaded with about 70,000 miles and a DVD player. Hell, it's hard to resist with the lazy boy recliners in back and the button that opens the back doors and rear hatch. And I just about drooled over those 19 giant cup holders. The kids were ready give up the house and move in instantly.

I pulled myself back from the ledge after a good night rest and the sudden realization that what I really want for my 36th birthday is something bad ass that can climb steep walls and run completely over Scott's fancy little station wagon.

(1986 Toyota Land Cruiser)

Being as I live at nearly 8,000 feet above sea level in a town that was bummed to lose the "Icebox of America" trademark to International Fall, Minn., I need some sort of AWD/4WD. I need something that looks good when it's dirty but won't look out of place with Winnie the Pooh sun visors in the back windows. I need something that floats over washboard roads in the Utah desert and won't mind the potholes on the way to the trailhead yet can haul preschoolers to playdates and playgrounds.

(2006 Dodge Durango)

I yawned my way through a list of 27 crossovers and small SUVs that were essentially glorified station wagons, crossed off another 7 cars due to unreliable European engineering and turned my nose up at a dozen American behemouths before landing on these three cars:

Toyota 4runner (2004)

Nissan Pathfinder (2005)

and Toyota Landcruiser (2000)

Truth be told, I need a car that I can change the oil on every 3,000 miles and call it good. I can't really afford repairs. And, any car that still fetches $15,000 when its 25 years old and has 150,000 miles HAS to have something going for it, right?

Now the challenge is actually finding one of these cars for sale in the price range they are SUPPOSED to be listed at (according to Kelly's) within 200 miles of my house. Oh Louis . . . .

Somebody please bubblewrap my family

I don't know what it is lately. The last two weeks all hell has broken loose. First my job. They cut the entire newsroom down to 32 hours a week — AFTER giving us bonuses and generous recreation reimbursements at the end of last year.
Then my good friend had her baby on the weekend of her baby shower when I was soooo looking forward to three days with my old girlfriends from the 'ville.
And then Scott wrecked the truck driving a coworker home on a road he didn't know. Hit black ice. Only minor injuries, but the truck was totaled.
We both had full time jobs and both the cars were finally paid off — and that all lasted about TWO WEEKS!
When are we ever going to catch a break??????????

(Oh, and ps, thank GOD he is okay.)

So, that was last week. This week, Sawyer has crashed on his face three times — first he tumbled off a chair and got rug burn under his eye, then he scratched his cheek at the playground and now he's somehow done his nose in on the bunk bed at the babysitters house. He looks like a bruiser. Still, every time I turn around he's standing atop some piece of furniture.
I don't even want to discuss the time about a month ago that Arden climbed up her armoir and pulled the whole thing down on herself in about 15 seconds while I was putting away laundry. She walked away unscathed, luckily.
Hmm — did I mention the baby powder explosion and wall art that occurred upstairs while I was vacuuming the downstairs for an out-of-town guest?

And, so I was already worried about walking out the front door when THIS NEWS arrived at the office this morning. (This occurred across the highway from my house on the slopes of the local ski hill.)

First Run

We took Sawyer and Arden downhill skiing for the first time this weekend at SolVista, the little locals mountain located literally across the street from our house in Granby. We've been doing the Nordic lessons every Friday and the kids have really grown comfortable walking around with sticks on the ends of their legs. We had shied away from taking them downhill because it seemed like an overwhelming prospect with two young children. With the days warming as spring approaches, we bit the bullet this weekend and gave it a whirl. First of all, it's FREE for kids to ski under the age of 5 (didn't know that). The little learning hill has a magic carpet that Sawyer quickly learned to use himself and we could just stand at the bottom and watch him do laps (so much easier than I realized). It was easy enough for one person to watch two kids. (We rented skis for Sawyer but skipped renting them for Arden. Her little Nordic strap-on skis didn't have enough slide so she actually had to walk downhill. Being our adrenaline kid, she was not happy about that.) Sawyer's first run was PERFECT. He wasn't scared at all (clearly there's been a kid-swap here). By the third run he was insisting he was ready to go on the chairlift and after two runs on that he wanted to go on the BIG chairlift. All I can say is that apparently we have a Jonny Moseley on our hands.

Pioneer Baby

High Five Dad

While Scott continues to job hunt on a daily basis, he is enjoying (most days) the opportunity to stay at home with Arden and, on Fridays, with Sawyer as well. (Interesting note: For many years Granby has run on a four-day school week to allow kids the opportunity to ski, travel for sports, take extracurriculars on Fridays.)

After three months as a SAHD, Scott has his routine all worked out. There are five libraries here in Grand County (and only 12,000 people) and each library has two preschool story times each week, so he makes the daily circuit and has determined which story hours are the best. But, hitting four story hours a week can get a little redundant, so this month we've signed the kids up for a couple of classes.


Gymbor-wee



On Wednesdays, Scott is taking Arden to a romper room gym class at the new Fraser recreation center that just opened a month ago (wait 'til you see the kids pool!) The rec center has a full competition-level gym. Gymnastics is, oddly, one of the most popular sports in the area. The program was run out of a warehouse in Tabernash for years. The woman who coaches the competitive team also offers classes for toddlers and preschoolers during the day. Arden's getting her start with a little bouncing and tumbling. I love in this video that the moment Arden learns, 'It's a race,' she takes off and blows away the other kid. It's a bargain at $35 for 4 weeks.


"We were far far far away"



On Fridays, Scott is taking both kids to Nordic ski class, another bargain at $20 for 10 weeks, including rentals, passes, lessons and hot cocoa. The first week of ski class, temperatures were as cold as they've been here, registering negative 18 at 9 am. It was so cold, my car battery finally kicked the bucket after five years. Unfazed, we bundled everyone up and Scott headed off to the Nordic center with the kids, only to discover class had been canceled. Too cold. (I didn't think it was EVER too cold in Granby.)

After six days of temperatures below zero, we bundled everyone up as much as possible yesterday for week two of ski school. Even though temperatures weren't above 20 degrees, it was about 40 degrees warmer than it had been all week and the kids apparently thought we'd moved to Florida. So, first of all, in this video, you can see Arden stripping down to her skivvies. I also love that Arden is not the type to follow the beaten path. (You can see her off to the right in the video. Sawyer is the painfully overdressed kid in the green coat and black hat. ) And, I love that Scott is the only parent who hung around to help the instructors, and that he magically knows the kid's names. Must be all those story hours.

At the end of the video Scott interviews Sawyer who states that the best part of the whole thing, was making it back. And, now he wants some food.

Mommy, not me
Last week, a mom-friend we've gotten to know through Sawyer's school (who's also on the library/gym class circuit) invited Scott to join the Mommy and Me group in Granby on Mondays. Thinking this might be a nice addition to the routine, he went . . . and, promptly decided it wasn't for him.

Devil's Thumb

We took the kids to Tommelfest at Devil's Thumb Ranch this weekend, an odd celebration of Nordic culture centered largely around eating meat, skiing and throwing heavy objects. We looked a little goofy out there in our heavy telemark gear and baggy clothes while everyone else flittered around on a new generation of skinny skis wearing bulletproof spandex. Sawyer didn't want to get on his skis. He was way too excited about the "car" we rented, which he kept asking to "go faster." Finally, running into a girlfriend from school (she's 5), he decided to strut his stuff, little Napoleon that he his. (That video is on Facebook). The wind in this video, as always, sounds worse than it really was. But, don't get me wrong. I wasn't stripping down to a bikini either. I figure the combined weight of the kids s about 60 pounds. We each took turns, pulling the kids about 3 km each. Today my whole body feels like Gumby.

All in all, it was the first weekend here that I really started to feel like more than just a visitor. I ran into several different people I know at Tommelfest. It's strange, when you are used to small towns, to go somewhere and not know anybody.

Saturday night we had our office party, potluck style, at the circulation coordinator/delivery driver's house. He had set up 3,000 lights up outside his house. The directions we got were: "turn left and look for the glow on the horizon." The publisher made lasagna and brought a cooler full of alcohol. We all brought the side dishes, appetizers and dessert. We did a white elephant gift exchange (I walked home with the best gift). Steve had a bonefide Man Cave in his basement with working 8-tracks, poker and Foosball, all of which were put to good use. With only eight full-time employees plus spouses (no kids), it was a small crowd and we had a blast. All due respect to my former colleagues, this was the best office Christmas party I've ever attended.

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree *on steriods

It was a typical holiday debacle in Pierceville. We bought the $10 tag to go cut our own tree in the Sulphur Ranger District. Of course, the doors to the Arctic opened wide the other day and temperatures have been peaking in the single digits with a little negative sign in front of them whenever you calculate in the windchill factor (which as a kid I thought was the windshield factor). We bundled everyone up, and I was assured by our friendly rangers that we'd be able to jump out of the car and find a tree RIGHT THERE. We drove to the end of the maintained Forest Service road headed and down a snowy trail pulling the kids behind us in the plastic toboggan sled. Seven paces into the forest, I spotted a PERFECT tree far off to our right. But the man of the house said: Let's keep walking and see what else we can find. Another 5 minutes down the road I spotted several more, chest-high contenders. The man of the house said: This is supposed to be an adventure, let's keep going. An hour down the trail and twelve of my suggestions rejected, I realized that the tree selection was not mine to make. My back was breaking, the kids were crying that they are hungry and cold, and Scott had been out of sight for a good 20 minutes, frustrated with us all. Meanwhile, we kept passing families with their Chariots and tarps and gear sleds pulling out these beautiful, perfect trees with smiles on their faces. One family was on skis and the little girl is all: 'That was so awesome,' as they zoomed by with their fluffy little tree on a sled. Meanwhile my kids are rolling out of the toboggan into the snow, screaming for snacks that I don't have and freezing — and WE ARE TRUDGING DEEPER INTO THE WOODS. Here's the thing: In the forest, the perfect cone shaped, bushy tree simply doesn't exist. I was beginning to worry because, whatever we found, Scott was going to have to haul it out by manpower alone. We didn't have a rope, a gear sled or a tarp. Alas, I heard the call from through the woods. He had found two trees that met "The Criteria." Despite their daunting size — both were more than 16 feet tall — they qualified as perfect Charlie Brown Christmas trees. Unwilling to make a single negative comment about the height of the trees, I pointed at the bushier one and down it came. Scott heaved the base of the tree onto his shoulder and dragged it two miles back to the car without a single complaint while the kids screamed that their hands had frozen. Well, actually only Sawyer was screaming about his hands. Arden was complaining about her leg. After we got home I realized she had dropped a matchbox car down her snow bibs that had lodged itself near the top of her boot. We found the decorations AND the tree stand (which we spent 15 panicked minutes looking for wondering if it had gone in the yard sale). Sure, the thing has a few gaping holes and we had to lob it off at the top to make it fit in the house, but it's a Christmas Tree! And, like any Christmas tree, it brings light, joy, memories and magic into our house.

Alone, not lonely

We spent Thanksgiving dinner with some family friends that lived with us on the Navy base in Guam when I was Arden's age. They later lived in Virginia, and oddly enough they now live in Granby. Given that they are our only social friends in town at this point, we were incredibly grateful to be invited to spend the holiday with them. Scott and Justin took the medallions from work and spent the day skiing, which left the cooking to me . . . gasp! I made a green bean casserole straight off the box of french fried onions that won me many praises, I'm proud to report.


One of our Thanksgiving dinner companions was in a fairly advanced stage of Parkinson's disease. Three-year-olds tend to be pretty blunt about anything they perceive as unusual behavior. Earlier that day in the grocery store, I ignored Sawyer when he asked loudly about the man next to us in a wheelchair: "What is that man doing, Mommy?" But, there was no getting around it when he turned to his convulsing dinner companion in the middle of the meal and asked frankly: "Why are you doing that?" Preferring to avoid the painful awkwardness altogether, I was preparing to divert the conversation, but I think the man's wife appreciated Sawyer's directness and she offered her best preschool explanation. After learning that his new friend's uncontrolled movement was caused by medicine, Sawyer attempted to mimic it repeatedly for the rest of the meal, much to our dismay.


I have a theory that it takes three years to really find good friends in any new place. I'd love to fast track that this time around, but it's hard to meet people socially when I'm working full time and have kids at home. I'm excited to get out with the family on weekends for hikes and skis, but I have little energy right now for book groups, supper clubs or church. I'm pretty self-absorbed, enjoying my little family, our house and exploring the area right now.

That's not to say that we've been total loners. We have some dear friends living elsewhere in the state and we have spent several weekends out of town. Two weekends ago we visited my old Leadville roomie who now lives on a farm in Grand Junction. Arden and Sawyer had a blast checking out their cow and chickens and llama, and playing with her two kids who are 2 and 4.




The day after Thanksgiving my dear friend Dara and her entire family came to visit for a few days. We celebrated our 6th anniversary in style with her parents Saturday night while the kids stayed home with a sitter. They brought the kids a sled, which we made good use of on snowy road in Rocky Mountain National Park. Dara and Mike hauled my kids up and down the entire way.


The next day Scott had a better idea:

The revolution of snow

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,

its white flag waving over everything,

the landscape vanished,

not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,

and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,

schools and libraries buried, the post office lost

under the noiseless drift,

the paths of trains softly blocked,

the world fallen under this falling.

In a while, I will put on some boots

and step out like someone walking in water,

and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,

and I will shake a laden branch

sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,

a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.

- from "Snow Day" by Billy Collins

SAHD — Week 3.

Scott had some concerns about me posting this video. I think his exact words were: "Don't you dare put that on your blog." But, I couldn't help it. I had to show how well he's fallen into the SAHD (Stay At Home Dad) role these last few weeks. (Did I mention that we pulled Arden out of daycare temporarily?) He's taken Arden to storytime at the library every week and is keeping track of which books he borrows. Last week, he even checked books out in a theme . . . books about snow. I can see his enjoyment of reading with the children growing. He cooks dinner every night – and not just mac-n-cheese and chicken fingers. He cooks pot roasts and soup and pork chops, and I am finally packing on some much needed winter pounds. He knows the location of all the playgrounds in the valley. He's potty training Arden and already has her in underwear. He's even figured out the benefit of "The Schedule" and has got it down to a science. I think the nice part of being the working mom is coming home and KNOWING that the other parent, the one who stayed at home, had a full and totally exhausting day. Sometimes, when I see how much work it is for the two of us to get everyone to bed and dishes cleared and the house straightened, I wonder how I did it by myself for so long. I don't underestimate for one second how much work it is to stay at home alone with the kids all day. And, that said, after two weeks Scott said he doesn't really know how much more of this he has in him. He sent off about 15 resumes and began the search for work in earnest. But, I think he's over the hump, now. It does get easier after that whole routine thing kicks in and everyone gets used to the new m.o. I think he's better at this than he realizes. Today, after I cut him loose for some personal time, I heard him upstairs whistling in the shower. The tune that drifted down the stairs was quite distinct: The isty-bitsy spider went up the water spout . . .

Gore Canyon

I lived in Colorado for a decade before accidentally moving to Virgina for 7 years. But, somehow, I never spent much time in this part of the state – that is, anywhere north of I-70 and west of the Great Divide. I realized the other day that while you had to cross the divide TWICE to get to Leadville, this is actually the first time I've put down stakes west of the Big Ridge. I've been getting out on hikes with the kids every weekend since we moved, trying to explore as much as possible before the snow starts sticking and we switch to skis. Scott, for his part, also got the kids out (see photo below) on Friday as part of his daily SAHD adventure. Today temperatures were in the 60s and we headed west, past Kremmling, to a spot we had picked out of a guidebook. As we made our final approach on a typical western dirt road, we rounded a bend and both gasped out loud. The tires screeched as Scott swerved into the closest scenic overlook. I've never seen such a stunning view. At least not in a long while. Gore Canyon took our breath away. It's one of those sights that a photo could never capture — the green Colorado River winding through a steep valley below. The sharp snowy peaks of the Gore Range on the horizon, and beautiful arid steps populated with juniper and sage stretching as far as the eye could see. We hiked three miles along the river's edge, and Sawyer made the whole hike himself, including some pretty treacherous spots on the trails that were washed-out and rocky. The pinnacle of the whole hike was seeing the train that passes through Granby wind its way around a steep cliff above the river. Sawyer stood transfixed for a good 20 minutes and refused to leave until the last train car was out of sight. I also liked the part when Sawyer asked me if there are alligators in the Colorado River.

Postscript: I sincerely apologize for the cheesy music in the video. There was a lot of wind on the video soundtrack, and so I thought I'd drown it out with a Flip Video selection called "Happy Saturday." I had no way of listening to it first, so it was a little bit of a crap shoot, one that – typically – I lost.

Meet our new neighbor

Scott caught this little guy on film while he was out scrounging for food in our backyard Friday. He was young, alone and harmless, but after posting a similar photo on Facebook, my mother couldn't resist sending me THIS.

Ham

Sawyer has always been the hide-behind-my-leg kinda kid when we walk into a room. You'll also remember that he was the angel that cried at last year's Christmas Pageant. When we walked into his preschool today, I noticed that they had built a small stage and apparently had been playing "actor" all week. The teachers read aloud books and the children act out the parts and even say some lines. So, guess who their number one actor is? Really. Can you guess? I was FLOORED when Miss Molly told me that OUR Sawyer is the first one with his hand up desperately waving in the air "ooooh-oooooh-oooooh pick me pick me" and that he not only says a few words like the other kids do he recites entire lines, sonnets even. Then, again, I look at his genes (you know who you are people) and I wonder why this should surprise me. I guess I wouldn't be shocked if this kind of behavior was occurring within the confines of our home. But, this is public, people. PUBLIC.

Wooo Woooo!

I've lived in a military town, a government town, a college town, a mining town, a fishing town and, now, a railroad town. I love how the train clocks my day from a distance as it heads into the mountains or the canyons. I love that there is a passenger train twice a day. I love the anticipation in any drive, wondering: Will we see a train? Will it be a working train? A people train? I love that for all the times I've called him an engineer, Sawyer wants to literally be an engineer when he grows up.