And Finally Some Snow

The first two weeks of February brought the 2015 World Alpine Ski Championships to Beaver Creek. It's a bit like a mini-Olympics for skiers, and all the big names in skiing are there. We watched the races a bit but ended up reveling in the totally empty mountain and had a great day of skiing. We're lucky in that several of the big name skiers train at Vail and Beaver Creek and it's not uncommon to share a lift or a run with someone such as Mikaela Shiffrin. Here's a view of all the race courses in the background of our very colorful skier.

 For Travis' big birthday he requested a ski trip here in Colorado to a ski area we don't normally go to. We narrowed it down to Crested Butte and Monarch and the timing of when we could go landed us at Monarch. We stayed at a hot springs resort nearby and enjoyed soaking in the warm river and pools after a day of better than expected skiing. We also stumbled onto a monthly art walk in Salida and spent most of a day in and out of galleries chatting with artists. All in all a pretty great long weekend.

We also got a decent sized storm here in Denver. Totals across the city varied widely, we ended up with a little less than 8" all of which landed over the weekend. Weekend snow means great sledding opportunities and when F and Emma discovered that their "secret" sledding hill was full of most of the neighborhood kids they were thrilled for the giant play date. Getting to each other was a bit tricky, Emma's gate was frozen shut (see the purple coated youngster in the background working the gate) and our gate was stuck shut by the weight of the snow on the opening side. The two intrepid pals were getting to each other one way or the other... Luckily Dad stepped in and manhandled our gate open and Emma bravely clambered over her fence (which is a little shorter than ours) and the two met in the middle for a day of snow play.

 Unrelated to snow, FFM presented several weeks worth of research and writing in the annual 2nd grade country night. He picked Ireland (yes, Australia was a close second) and filled an entire book with facts and details about the land of his birth. It was a great night seeing all the different books from all the countries and tasting foods from all over the world. F's other bestie, also named Emma, dressed in her native Ethiopian garb and made a lovely pancake similar to a French crepe.

Annual Christmas Letter

I'm pretty sure most readers get a copy of this one way or another, but in case you don't, presenting Moore's (a.k.a. Travis') annual Christmas missive. In real life it's on pretty paper, but here you get hyperlinks to the footnotes!

Hello, Hello!

Let’s jump right in….  Finn loves 2^nd grade, and similar to probably most parents, I’m amazed at the level of work his class is doing. I think I’d have to up my game a bit if I were a modern-day second-grader, because my efforts from decades ago wouldn’t cut the mustard now. I know I didn’t have superficial or loquacious on my spelling test when I was 7. (In fact, loquacious didn’t enter my personal lexicon until sometime in high school.) Math is trickier, too.  Compare these:

o   Travis’ old-school 2^nd grade math:  If you have 5 apples, and you eat two, how many are left? (A likely answer of mine, using the Socratic method – or perhaps dodging the actual task at hand:  What kind of apples are they?)

o   Finn’s modern 2^nd grade math:  Mary goes to the park and sees only dogs and pigeons.  She sees 4 dogs, and a total of 32 animal legs.  How many pigeons does Mary see in the park?[1]

Our major family wing-ding this year was a ski trip to France that has been in the queue for several years.  Since Finn and I had never been to France we added a bit of sightseeing in Paris and Switzerland before heading to Tignes / Val d’Isere for a week on the snow with Ann and Eric and mutual friends the Rushers. 

o   Paris was great, and we saw the key tourist-district sites:  Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Pont Neuf[2] bridge, and Musée d’Orsay; and ate our fill of crepes and croque-monsieur.

o   The TGV train from Paris to Geneva was super-smooth, and super-fast, clocking in at almost 150mph. Check-in? Just walk on your train car. Snacks?  You bet -- Brie and a glass of wine.  We’re all fans of high-speed rail now!

o   We arrived in downtown Geneva mid-trip, so I set out to take care of some laundry while M and F did homework at the hotel.  The laundromats in Geneva are conveniently located in the red-light district[3], so laundry-doing has a bit different vibe than coin-ops elsewhere.

o   One rainy day in Geneva we rented a car and went to Gruyere to see where the famous cheese is made.  Even for factory-tour veterans, the cheese factory is pretty cool – they even have a cheese-turning robot that flips each wheel of cheese as it ages.  Finn campaigned to bring a wheel of cheese home with us, and after calculation I determined that it would be hard to fit 85lb of cheese into his suitcase.

o   The most dangerous thing on the road from Geneva to Tignes was not the narrow, winding, icy, road, chock-a-block with racing buses, but British tourists who are grappling with driving on the wrong side of the road![4] 

o   Tignes is high in the Alps, and is essentially treeless, so there are massive expanses of pure white.  Lifts and the network of groomed runs are there mostly to take you to off-piste[5] skiing.  The tail end of a hurricane made the first few days challenging[6] but when the sun shone it was world-class with cloudless skies and big fluffy powder.   

Finn was a Holly Park Shark again this summer and was a top competitor in his age group, especially in the breaststroke. The Sharks team swelled in size this summer to over 100 competitors and made a formidable sight as they sung the Park Shark Power! team cheer at the start of each meet

Trying to remedy the displacement of June camping by swim meets and the rapidly-shrinking feeling of our “4-man” tent, we adopted the logical approach and purchased a pop-up camper.  While extending our camping season and providing enough space to take refuge from regular afternoon hailstorms, the camper has had some interesting effects on our family and traveling:

o   Finn is enthralled by the whole scene, and turned instantly into a proto-camper salesman.  If you come within earshot, he will explain every feature in exacting detail, ad infinitum.

o   We became accustomed to some new facts of camper-life:  driving in the right-hand lane up big hills (wave as you scoot by in the left-lane, please…); the merits of “pull-throughs”; huge turning radius; choosing businesses that have way-out-there parking; and an eagle eye in the backseat commentating on all of the other campers on the road.

This summer Finn convinced across-the-greenbelt BFF Emma that camping is awesome, and the two laid plans for a backyard summer camp out.  The tent was pitched and stocked with the absolute bare essentials necessary for an authentic suburban wilderness experience:  sleeping bags and pads, stuffed animals, numerous flashlights, pillows, books, headlamps, glowsticks, jammies, spare clothes, and two kiddos.  Marshmallows were roasted before bedtime on a disposable charcoal grill to make some s’mores, and two relatively sticky campers hit the sack.  Finn and Emma elected to spend the night in the tent without any parents, which is pretty plucky for recently-graduated 1^st and 2^nd graders. I left the back door open that night and slept on the couch with an ear open for any bumps in the road.  All was quiet until about 5:45 the next morning when both came bounding gleefully into the house campaigning for breakfast.

Maggie’s paternal grandfather turned 90 this year, and there was a big family party to celebrate.  Bill is a WWII veteran, and was in the infantry at the Battle of Normandy.  After listening to tales of a family member’s recent trip to France, Bill didn’t miss a beat and quipped “Last time I was in France, I had to wade onto the beach…”.   He’s happy and in good spirits, and makes us all smile.

Maggie and Finn made several trips to KS this year to visit Maggie’s maternal grandparents, and Cousin Katie[7] and her parents.  Katie turned 2 in November, and Finn is smitten.  They both have huge personalities, and it’s hard not to smile when they get into their rhythm together.

Grannie Annie’s birthday gift to Finn this year was a ride on the Royal Gorge Train near Canon City.  Finn was thrilled at getting to ride the train. In the dome car! Through a canyon!  The train ride is an out-and-back through an exceptionally deep, narrow, and spectacular canyon.  The canyon is so skinny that there is a section if the track that is suspended by girders attached to each side of the canyon.  Apparently a train long ago was a bit too big to fit under the suspension beams and crashed into the support structure, leaving various dents and bent things in the process.  Now, as you would reasonably expect, the train stops at the scene of the incident so everyone can more closely inspect the structural damage to the very items that are holding up the train above the icy river. 

Gardening was relatively good this year, with some adjustments to the garden makeup.  I inadvertently discovered a way to expedite the gardening by bypassing the harvest of a portion of the crop:  (1) Hastily construct a bean trellis out of scrap bits of dodgy lumber and make it about seven feet tall just in case you have some of Jack’s beans. (2) Be sure there are a few well-placed knots toward the bottom of the trellis supports. (3) Install the trellis upwind of a bunch of small and delicate crops. (4) Plant beans that will entirely envelop the trellis with 80 lbs or so of biomass. (5) Wait for a big wind, and (6) Voila!  In one cataclysmic event the knots on the structurally-deficient trellis will snap and the trellis will crash into the veggies below, efficiently doing away with a mass of beans, a few bell peppers, some edamame, and baby tomatoes.  Gardening made easy!

We hope you have a joyous and satisfying 2015 –

  

Photos – clockwise from top-left:  sunrise at the Eiffel Tower; M&F at the top of Mt. Evans (CO); Chihuly glass + F at the Denver Botanic Gardens; Louvre in Paris; awesome day at Tignes; off to the Broncos AFC Championship[8]; Hooray for the Camper!

---

[1] Mary sees 8 pigeons in the park. 

[2] Finn thought it was hilarious that the “New Bridge” is the oldest one in the city.

[3] Working-girls have laundry, too, I bet.

[4] As a matter of interest, the French and Swiss drive on our accustomed side of the road – the right-hand side.

[5] Oxford Dictionary definition: ADJECTIVE&ADVERB, Skiing 1.Away from prepared ski runs:[AS ADJECTIVE]:challenging expanses of off-piste skiing

[6] Visibility was zero, with no non-white trees or rocks for reference, and the howling wind blew Finn over a few times.

[7] Technically a second cousin, but who’s counting?

[8] We later avoided the misery of Super Bowl XLVIII with a Serendipitously-scheduled trip to Paris.

Lighting Up the Season

The countdown to Moore's Christmas started as we ate our turkey dinner a couple weeks ago. Travis spent the unseasonably warm day trimming the outside of the house while FFM and I did the inside. We wrapped up the weekend with some fun with friends.

We kicked off the post-Thanksgiving pre-Christmas fun with our now annual Casa Bonita Christmas with Emma. While I have nicer pictures of the two of them I like this one the best because it's exactly what they are like in real life.

 After dinner we headed to the Trail of Lights at Chatfield, which is a historic farm/ranch. It was the first time Emma and her Mom had used the refractive glasses and they ooohhhed and aaaaaahhhhed appropriately. Emma's Mom, Travis, and the kids in pic below.

 Class F+E. Two peas in a pod.

 About halfway through the walk we tried refractive glasses over phone cameras. The camera free kids got bored while we all fooled around with exposures and filters. Fun! Snowflake glasses over phone camera...

 King of the Christmas Lights!

Fall

The last few weeks have whizzed by, here are some highlights.

We visited the Denver Botanic Gardens one last time before it moves on, this time at night for the illuminated experience. We loved it. I was glad FFM and I know the paths well, between sculptures it was pretty dark.

 Travis had a business trip so we asked Granny Annie to come with us to our symphony season opener, Spooktacular! F's costume this year was a mad scientist. The dangley bits on his hat lit up and flashed and his test tube full of "molecules" glowed.

 The symphony runs a low key costume contest, winners get to go on stage during the performance. See our little mad scientist on the right side of the photo. He was not shy at all and had plenty to say about his costume and molecules.

under the green arrow

 Trick or treating with old and new friends was extra fun this year. I couldn't keep up and ended up taking a short cut home.

We went to a bowling birthday party, got there half an hour early, and killed time in a photo booth.

 I had surprise surgery on my foot in early November. It required 2 weeks of zero weight bearing. That's HARD. I switched couches periodically for a change of scenery. I'm starting to walk this week, should be out of the boot in about two more weeks.

 A good friend kindly loaned me her knee scooter. I would have gone crazy without it. Crutches work OK but it's hard to carry much when your hands are full of handles. I scooted my tiny path and only spilled a couple glasses of water.

 Our most recent symphony was Symphonic ComicCon. We've been before and knew that wearing a costume was encouraged. Darth Vader was thrilled to walk in to the lobby to find his troops waiting for him. They asked for some time off and raise.

Now we're in the throes of a very low key Thanksgiving week. Being hobbled makes it easy to justify doing little to no prep. When I explained to F that we were having a traditional dinner this year he got upset and told us quite clearly he wanted fondue again. Fondue is now on the menu for Wednesday night with turkey to follow on Thursday. We also had to explain why people camp out in front of Best Buy and he remarked that he still didn't get it, why anyone would want to buy something that badly. Hard to argue with that.

Sharing Neighborhood Thanks

We live in an established neighborhood, most houses are +/- 30 years old. However, a couple years ago the one stray empty lot sold and a new house was built. While a huge surprise to our entire neighborhood and HOA, the new house was built as an assisted living home. It looks just like a regular house on the outside, complete with garage doors, and the main area looks just like a regular kitchen, dining, and family room, but instead of huge bedrooms there are lots of small ones.

This was the first Halloween for trick or treating at the new house, and the kids ended up with bountiful treats, some lovingly hand decorated and wrapped by the residents. The kids asked if they could visit again and we parental units thought that was a great idea.

With a few days off from school, F and Emma both had large chunks of free time, at the same time, and we made today a craft day. The kids made Thanksgiving goodies to hand deliver to the "new house" residents (we also had several discussions about how they should not refer to them as such).

Emma's handprint turkey cards in progress

F's cards, also in progress

It takes 2 to stir a batch of pumpkin muffins

 The staff and residents were a little confused why we were there at first. I kept explaining, emphasizing we were neighbors, and the kids just started handing out stuff. It suddenly clicked, smiles all around, and invitations to come back soon. I warned the staff the kids would likely be back before Christmas.

Backyard Campout

Emma wanted to go on a campout with us so we set one up in the backyard!

FFM got the tent ready while Emma was at Tae Kwon Do.

 I found a 'fire pit' we could us to roast marshmallows. The kids  (and Travis) loved it.

 Getting dark, time for bed. They were well equipped with at least one flashlight and one lantern each. We talked about what makes noise in the night and what they might hear. They assured us they were super brave and didn't need a grown up in the tent with them. Travis slept on the couch downstairs with the back door open just in case...

 All tucked in, books and ereaders in hand. It was a LATE night, but they both giggled and had a great time..

Almost Weekly Science and Crafts

Before the holiday weekend the kiddos opted to do some crafts and activities instead of a new science project. First up, Sharpie Tie Dye.

We used several patriotic colors and the kiddos drew "fireworks" on the front of their shirts. We stuck a piece of cardboard inside so the colors wouldn't run through. We quickly learned that lots of small dots work better than large colors splotches. I sprayed/dropped rubbing alcohol on them to make them bleed, and then ironed over with a cloth to help set the colors. F had so much blue on his that it did bleed a little, but not enough to blur the designs. I washed them once in warm water with vinegar to make sure they wouldn't bleed too much and the kids wore them almost immediately.

One of the things I loved as a kid was building forts out of blankets, sheets, and couch cushions. My mother frowned upon this practice, I think because we tore apart beds and couches to make the forts. FFM hasn't really gotten into the whole fort thing yet, so to spur his creative juices T and I put together a fort kit and gave it to him for his birthday. I made a medium sized drawstring fabric bag and put: 2 full + sheets, small clamps, clothespins, rope, stretchy rope, flashlights, and a string of LED lights. It took about 7.2 seconds for the kids to figure out what I was doing before they took over and I was relegated to reaching things too high for them.

View from outside, the light blue thing on the lower right is tunnel fort access.

 FFM hauled floor pillows from his bedroom and they read by flashlight and twinkly star light.

Summer Science #2

At the end of last summer both F and I felt like we'd frittered our summer away. We did lots of fun camps, but somehow never got around to doing all the fun excursions, experiments, and exciting things we thought we'd get squeezed in to our short three month break. This year I MADE A PLAN (who's laughing at the freaky planner?). We've got a summer bucket list and F and pal Emma both asked if we could do some experiments. I browsed the web and some of my old camp/school planning workbooks. I knew I'd get hung up trying to get all over town for supplies, so I took my list of projects and spent half an hour on amazon gathering all the supplies we'd need.

Last week we did the mentos/diet coke experiment. Kiddos learned that the CO2 in the soda interacts with the "dimples, like on a golf ball" that are found on mentos, causing the "explosion." We compared A&W root beer and Diet Coke and determined they're both fun to blow up.

This week we're learning about fluorescence and the light spectrum. We talked about infrared light and ultraviolet light and the light we can see and the light we can't see. We didn't get much deeper than that, but we sure had a good time with glow water.

We grew some water beads, a control group in plain water and our test group in glow water.

For the glow water recipe, and a whole list of other fun recipes, click here

First we made a sign with a yellow highlighter and a yellow marker. We talked about how the highlighter glows or, fluoresces, in the black light but the marker just looks black because it's not reflecting the yellow we normally see in the visible spectrum. our beads, using regular water in the while bowls and glow water in the blue bowls. Then we made our glow beads using regular water and plain water. The kids wrote their hypothesis on which ones might glow under the glow light.

 It took a couple hours for our beads to soak up all the water, and then we headed to the basement!

 They had a great time trying to figure out what color the beads were in regular vs. black light. We turned on the lights to check it out. Same handful of beads, both times.

 I have a feeling there might be drips of glow water all over the basement now. The kids splashed around for a while, I'm thinking we should save the water and make some glowing Ooblek next.

Ringing in the New Year Family Style

FFM and I planned to spend NYE in Beaver Creek watching fireworks and hanging out at the resort's family festival. Travis opted to save his vacation time and came back into town at the beginning of the week so we were Dad-less for the Tuesday/Wednesday celebration. The 31st rolled around and we both decided we were tired of being Dad-less so after ski school we headed into town for family NYE.

That also gave us a few days before school started to hang out with local pals, watch movies, and be totally lazy.

Making chalk art in a surprise snow.

Me, "Don't you want to come in?"
Kiddos, "No way!"

 FFM has been asking for years if I would teach him how to knit. Cold, snowy, lazy days seemed like the perfect time. He picked it up really fast and was making rows of nice, even stitches in no time. He ambitously choose to knit a small blanket, and I think once he realized how long it was going to take to make something big enough to cover Gray Kitty he lost steam and gave up.  He has since switched back to rainbow loom bracelet making and our house is again covered in tiny rubber bands.

Fa La La La La

The holidays fell fast and furious this year, for us and everybody else. With one less week between Thanksgiving and Christmas we felt the pinch to get together with everybody we wanted to celebrate with. Luckily we were able to share the season with many close friends and family.

Après Company Kids Holiday Party

Annual cousin fun at Blossoms of Light with Ryan and Skylar.

Christmas lights at Casa Bonita

BFFs forever.
This was Emma's first trip ever to Casa Bonita and it was fabulous (of course).

Hide your loot! They tried to look bad but couldn't muster a good snarl.

Hannah's favorite part of her gift? The tissue paper of course!

Missing one of the three amigos (Matt), who was down with the flu.
A fun evening wearing the kids out at the playground.

The Three Amigos Go to Boulder

Last week we had parent - teacher conferences. Our school has two non-student days the week of conferences so after your thirty minute meeting is over you've got a bunch of free time to kill. F and I rounded up some pals and headed to Boulder to tour the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory (free!).

Sipping at the tasting bar. Tea aficionados for sure.

Getting up close to the Sleepytime Bear

Obligatory hair net picture.

 Boulder was great fun and we all got really worn out. The following day FFM and I headed to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to see the new Mythbusters exhibit. F doesn't watch much TV so on the way over I had to explain what the show Mythbusters is all about. He is HOOKED! On the way out I ended up buying one of the DVDs. This worked out really well since I spent the whole day Saturday helping my Mom clean out her basement while FFM binge watched Mythbusters.

Posting with the robotic shark from the episode celebrating Shark Week.

Now we're enjoying our lengthy fall (no blizzards yet!) and the not to hot/not to cold weather that we've had the last couple of weeks.