School's Out For Summer

Colorado rain isn't usually anything very serious.  However when you own a piece of camping gear specifically to keep the rain off because you always get rained on, it makes you really enjoy a dry camping trip.

We went to Rifle Falls with a small group this time, including two buddies of F's.  Rush and Haaken and F play really well together, but they live far enough away and we all have busy enough schedules that we don't get to see them very often anymore.  Within 2.7 minutes of the boys arriving they were all in their water shoes exploring the creek that ran next to our campsite and were up to their elbows in dirt and mud.

Buddies since diapers

Doing what boys do, exploring and getting as dirty as possible

Sticky, sticky, s'mores are so sticky! Did it make the dirt stick? YES!

Snug as a bug. Usually I can't even see his head,
he just burrows down and gets super sweaty.

It all washes out...I hope.
We did throw away the socks, they were beyond help.

We camped, hiked, fished, and got a behind the scenes tour of a fish hatchery.  We watched trout eggs hatching and itty bitty fish floating away on the first step of their trip to a Colorado lake.  Monday we packed up camp and headed to the Glenwood Springs pool and all managed to get sunburned even with copious amounts of sunscreen.  Dinner at a new place on the way home and we glided into Denver at a reasonable hour without hitting any traffic.  A glorious weekend to start off our summer.

Moving On

It's the last few days of school and both F and I are approaching them with a mix of elation (summer, whoo hoo!) and melancholy.  It's been a fantastic school year, and we're incredibly lucky to have landed a perfect fit for school and teacher. W'll be sad to say goodbye to his wonderful teacher, Miss Harken, but will look forward to seeing her on the playground next year.

Snacking on watermelon during field day

indoor cart races at field day

We're both looking forward to a summer filled with days off, camps, a vacation, and swim team. Swim team has been way more fun than either of us expected, F asked if he could swim all year round....not sure I'm ready to commit us to that but we'll see! Last week he got to move into the lane with the 'big' kids and is now practicing with mostly 7 year olds.

F in blue jammers and shark cap. Moving on up!

This semester of piano wrapped up this week, recital will be next week. During our 'party' the kids got super goofy.  They bought these goggles with their practice tokens. Of course they sang through them and giggled like mad.

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On the very last day of school the kids were only in for a little over an hour so I stayed to help out. They reviewed and read their Kindergarten Memory Books and got to ask whatever they wanted about first grade.

Last time ever at the little tables

The longest recess of the year, topped off with popsicles

 After school let out a group of us went to lunch and to see the movie "Epic." It was a rowdy lunch, but these three best buddies enjoyed the time together.

Sacha, F, Matt. Friends Kaynush, Talon, and Brayden in the background.

 Thanks for a great year Miss Harken!

Summer Just Around the Bend

School is wrapping up, the end of year piano recital is a week after that, it's time to restain the deck, flowers are popping up left and right, and yesterday was the start of summer swim team.

It seems awfully early, but with the first summer season swim meet a little less than a month away it's time for the kids to hit the (chilly) water!

Yesterday was F's very first ever swim team practice.  He was crushed that it was dry land, but reported they'll be in the water tomorrow.  Here he is with his new 6 and under age group pals.

Go Holly Park Sharks!

Getting to the Hard Stuff

Most of Kindergarten has been a breeze for F.  He thrives in the social scene and he's learning how to deal with those days when someone calls him a poopy head or doesn't want to be his friend anymore. For a LONG time, however, he was reluctant to write much beyond his name.

His brilliant teacher deduced that there was a schism - F wanted to write eloquent, complicated essays but his budding writing/handwriting barred him from getting it down on paper the way he heard it in his head. He especially did not want to write if he knew he was spelling something wrong, which is par for the course with a 5 year old. She broke through to him and while writing isn't his favorite thing to practice he's getting much better at it.

In April the Kindergarten class hosted a Spring Open House. The kids served lemonade and cookies and showed us their art and writing projects. The books' only requirements were that that they had to be at least three sentences long and illustrated on every page.  His teacher and volunteer parents did the typing. Topics ranged from real life to really bizarre. One of F's was about a very happy family that turned out to be his family.  The other was, surprise surprise, about a gray kitty.

page 1 of the original manuscript

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Two completely unrelated, amazing things disappeared recently.

1. The Lunch Battle
Since my surgery F's been eating school lunches on the days he's at school for a full day.  While our school lunch program is decent, with a fairly "healthy" offering pretty much every day, they also offer a total kid meal every day.  There isn't one day a week when you can't get chicken nuggets, pizza, or a hot dog. It's hard for chef's salad, pasta, or teriyaki chicken bowl to compete with pizza.  While I was down for the count I think F ate pizza for about four meals in a row. When I bounced back I suggested that he think about which thing was the best for his body and pick that.

Today, for the first time since spring break, I managed to move fast enough in the morning to pack him a lunch.  I literally squealed with glee when it came home looking like this:

not a speck left!

Guess Mom's lunches are edible after all.  Perhaps this is the beginning of a long, healthy relationship with the lunch box.

2.  We took out the spruce tree that was taking over the front of our house.  Now, we LOVE our trees. They are all about 30 years old, huge, mature, beautiful but SO SO big. As soon as we moved in I had the 6 dead and dying Aspen trees cut down.  When the wind blew they'd knock the eaves and roof.  It was freaky.  A previous owner planted the two spruce in the front and they are stunning trees,  BUT HUGE.  We trim the one closest to the house twice a year. You can't tell from this angle, but when you'd look out our front window all you'd see was tree from 2/3 of the window.  It constantly bumps against the house and windows ( we've been trying to keep it hacked back).

The crew arrived just as F and I were headed out the door for school drop off.  We made sure they were working on the right tree and I dashed off to school.  When I came back 30 minutes later (must have time to chat with the other moms!) The tree was GONE. 

The guys hopped in their bucket and shaped the remaining blue spruce, it's a nice cone shape now and the twin tips at the top are gone.  Poor F missed the whole thing.  Luckily the stump remover came later in the day and F got to watch him grind the stump to nothing.

We see a lot more of the side of our neighbor's house now, our 3 year plan includes some large shrubs and a new smaller tree for the space.  We'll also put in a walkway from our back yard to the front.

On the surgery front I'm still pretty swollen (it's really hard to elevate your hip) and I'm barely limping. I still can't put all my weight on my right leg going up/down stairs.  It's getting stronger every day, but PT says it'll take a while to get it back.  I told her she's got until the start of ski season to get me up and kicking at 110%.