Life in Northern Colorado

When we moved to Colorado, we were moving to Boulder. The cool town right up against the mountains. Really expensive housing, and likely nowhere near our dream home in our price range, but immediate access to the mountains. And that cool Boulder vibe.

We rented in Louisville, 8 miles east of Boulder and a lot more affordable, to see what that felt like. But I was sure that I didn't want to be out in the plains, and Andy was working in Boulder, so we started house hunting there and focused most of our activities and shopping "in town".

Then a funny thing happened - we fell in love with Louisville. The Boulder job didn't last (thank goodness we figured that out before we put down money on a house!), we spent more time exploring our town, and I joined a wonderful local running group. Boulder has rush hour traffic (okay, so it's not much compared to Dallas and DC...) and a lot of rich people with too much time on their hands, kids with too much money in their pockets, and transients who make the truly desperately homeless look bad. Louisville has families - gobs of them. Not that Boulder is some kind of wasteland; it's a great place to be and live. But Louisville is more grounded but still outdoorsy and fun with a suprisingly cool restaurant scene in a great little downtown.

As the seasons shifted, we also grew to love being "out in the plains". When you're in Boulder, you see the Flatirons and other close mountains. When you're in Louisville, you see the entire Front Range. Boulder has a great farmers market, but it's hard to get in there and park and deal with the crowds. My daily commute north took me past farmstands at the actual farms where the stuff was grown. Hannah and I would drive past the crops then go pick out what we wanted to take home. We watch the seasons change in the fields - cycles of plowing, new growth, harvest, winter prep... I've grown to expect (though not accept - it's gross and annoying!) the burning of fields in the late summer. We listen to coyotes howl at night and know that it must be 11:30. We anticipate the opening of valves in the spring that will turn irrigation ditches in our neighborhood into season creeks, and the local mud pie into something resembling a pond. (I heard the other night that apparently people steal the water, which is why it stayed to low this year!)

Living in Colorado is so much more than enjoying the mountains. In 15 minutes, I can be at a mountain trail, and in 45 I can be up at 10,500 ft for a hike to treeline. But on a daily basis I live and thrive - and run - in the agricultural plains. And I absolutely love it. Here are some photos from my run on Monday on the Teller Farms trail. They've moved the cattle, so there were lots of piles to avoid (no fences between cow and person on this and many trails), and the farmers' kids were out working while I was running. I was struck by the scene in the mud...

Running shoes and boots, dogs, silly Vibram toes, horse, mountain bike, stroller, and truck. Didn't get any cow prints in this shot, but there were plenty.

The trail/farm road, looking north.

The recently moved herd.

And my wonderful running companion!

Our girls

Fall 2011 and Summer 2007. The stripey girl is Lucy (in a Hannah hand-me-down, of course!).

Time to change

I finally decided that it's time to change my title photo, then I realized that the song lyrics needed a little tweaking, too. Not brilliant by any stretch, but it'll do. I actually find that I don't sing that song anymore, but I have carried on a little naptime diddy that I started with Hannah. Not bad considering that I consider myself to be a terrible composer/improviser and really lacking in the creative side of musicianship.

Hannah's first Canyon hike.

I love this photo of my mom and Hannah. Buddies.

Simple joy.

In the middle of an extensive sidewalk chalk project.

North Korea appears to be missing a small leader...

We're settled in nicely to life with a 4 year old and a 4 month old and me staying home again. I miss the people at my last school, and I miss having fun with students and making music, but I don't miss working. I certainly don't miss getting out of the house early every day, but I'm also glad not to be working on lesson plans, program plans, grades - and all those meetings!


Since summer wasn't a great time for us to travel this year, we took a trip to Flagstaff this fall to hang out at my parents' house for a week. The girls and I drove out and Andy met us for the long weekend. That's right - the girls and I drove for 2 days each way. I'd say that's worthy of a supermom designation, yes? I actually really enjoyed most of the drive. I've never driven the country between Moab and Flagstaff before - Wow! It helped to have a really comfortable car, plenty of time, and a portable DVD player. I think our longest stretch without having to feed or change somebody was two hours, but it worked just fine. Once highlight was the cafe in Bluff, Utah that had the best oatmeal I've ever eaten, a friendly server who held Lucy while I ate, books for Hannah to peruse, and a great swing in a tree out in the yard.


The major drama was finding a bed bug in our hotel on the way to Flag as we were packing up in the morning. Hor-ri-ble. I was terrified about bringing them to my parents' and then home, so started by standing in the room for about 15 minutes panicking and telling Hannah I didn't know what to do. My wonderful daughter responded by hugging me and offering to get me a glass of water, which is the standard treatment for stress or injury at her preschool. (On a side note - it's been really fun to have a daughter who's old enough to act as a friend sometimes. We have plenty of preschooler drama, no doubt, but she's also really caring and helpful and fun.) So after much stress and many plastic bags and a week of less than stellar sleep, we seem to have left the bedbugs where they belong in the Travelodge in Monticello, Utah.



We had a wonderful stay in Flag. Lots of trail running, no trips out of the house without running into someone who knows my parents, and Hannah's first trip to the Grand Canyon. She even got to do two very short hikes below the rim. The first on a really steep precarious trail, and the second on the lovely and understandably crowded Bright Angel Trail. She kept talking about when she'd be able to hike to the bottom. No, honey, not when you're five. Lucy adjusted and slept well on the trip, and Hannah came home with a big-sister gift of a fancy purse and an antique rhinestone necklace from "Auntie" Karen. Very fun.


Back at home, we've been really enjoying the change in season. We've got quite a bit of fall color right now, and the temperature and skies have been gorgeous. I had the honor of running the last six miles with my friend during her first marathon last weekend. It was great to have a goal to train for and I'm honestly feeling a bit unmotivated now. Silly, since it's not like it was my race! I've certainly got baby weight to loose, but I'd rather set my sights on a running goal than a scale.


Next up - I have time to sew Hannah's Halloween costume again this year. It's my first time sewing since my Grandmother died, and sewing always makes me feel close to her. It feels good.

It's time to do this!

I suppose it's the usual excuse, but I have been meaning to get back to this thing for months. The last year has had it's share of ups and downs, and it seems like everytime I get it in my head to post something, there's a down. And I really didn't want to turn this into a place where I go to complain. Plus there's this whole Facebook phenomenon. I really didn't want to do Facebook, mostly because I had this blog, and I wanted to share here, but it's become the optimal way to connect with my local friends and of course it's fun to see what friends around the world are up to, so now I'm a Facebooker. So there.



Other than a birthday video for Baba, it looks like I haven't really shared stuff here since about last fall and Christmas, so I feel inclined to try to remember and sum up what's happened since then...



January - oh yeah, that's why I stopped posting. The company Andy was working for fell apart. Ultimate Electronics was a consumer electronics store, much like Best Buy, but not as big nation-wide. The industry has been hit really hard, and Ultimate didn't survive. We knew it was likely for a while, but couldn't say anything to anyone. Can't go telling people your company's going under when it's retail! So right around Hannah's birthday on January 31st, Andy was laid off with no severence. It sucked. We certainly are not the only ones to go through two lay offs in 2 years, but it sucked. And oh - I was pregnant! So that added to our stress, especially for Andy. Our plan was for me not to go back to work, so there was a lot of searching, both job and soul, local and distant. After 4 months (an eternity for Andy, but sadly not that long compared to a lot of people out there), he landed a job as Director of Programming and Content Aquisition at Dish Network. Just in time for me to comfortably announce my decision to stay at home next year before summer started. I really wanted to be able to tell my co-workers and the families at the school in person rather than just disappearing over the summer. It took a while, but he's starting to really enjoy the job and has taken on some additional responsibilities in recent weeks. The bummer is that it's 40 minutes to an hour drive each way and public transportation really doesn't work. But we were getting to a point where it was that or moving out of state. Thank goodness for bike rides, when Andy does all of his thinking and figuring things out. We both know that this is where we want to be, so a commute is worth staying in this amazing town, with our wonderful view of our magical mountains.



Okay so all the while, I was pregnant, right? I was a lot less emotional this time, thank goodness, since we were having to consider things like moving out of state, Andy traveling full-time, or me continuing full-time teaching this fall. Oh - and now I remember why I didn't share that on here before the whole job thing happened. I had some scares early on with spotting, so I really wanted to wait until we had the 16-week sonogram to post on here. And that was, sure enough, right in the middle of job-ending stress. Bleh. We did have a lot of fun taking Hannah to the sonogram. We decided to find out gender this time, and we had the sonographer tell Hannah out in the hall, so she was able to tell us that she'd have a little sister!



My school year had a very busy end, which I had managed to avoid last year (when I wasn't 3rd-trimester pregnant, go figure). Little kid program, choir concert, packing up my room, a keyboard unit (I taught 24 kindergarteners, in one room, by myself, to play Mary Had a Little Lamb on keyboards - yeah, me!), and a 5th-grade continuation performance. All the while dealing with the aforementioned pregnancy and husband job stress. Woo hoo! But at the end of the year, I was able to say good bye to everyone and received a lot of support and love. I really don't think that I'm the best music teacher out there as far as getting the standards covered, but I'm fun and engaging and welcoming and have a sane classroom, so people seem to think I'm pretty great. I always feel that I need to be doing more - a lot more - with my planning and teaching, but my ultimate goal is to get kids to want to participate in and learn about music, so I guess I do okay.


All the while, Hannah conducted herself like a typical and wonderful 4 year old. For a while there, every weekend was impossibly hard - tantrums, drama, and tears all around - but she also learned to write most of her letters and to read and write a few sight words, and to zip around like a pro on her Skut bike, and to ski (sort of), and to be funny, and just lots of other really cool things. She got about 5 inches cut off her hair this week, and she's completely lost her baby belly in the last month, and she's just so darn grown up! She's very close to the age of my youngest students, which I'm finding to be very strange and a little sad. One more year until kindergarten!



So after all that job trauma, and teaching stress, it was baby time! She was due on June 4th, but it seemed like she might come early. I was completely unprepared to have to leave work early, and really wanted to have some time off after the end of the year, and she cooperated by having to be induced on June 9th. Labor was a lot quicker, but a lot more dramatic, mostly thanks to not having an epidural as soon in the process. Chemically-induced contractions of course were strong and back to back, so there was a lot of yelling for about an hour, then 30 minutes of relative calm, then a baby! My mom was in town taking care of Hannah and had stopped by to see how things were progressing at what happened to be right before push time, so she stayed for the delivery, which was pretty cool. My wonderful husband turned on my favorite Yoga music for the (not so big) push, and the doctor was totally into it, which of course really worked for me.



Our beautiful Lucy Elizabeth was born at 11:15 in the morning, weighing in at 7 pounds 2 ounces, and measuring 19 1/2 inches long. Hannah had been about a half pound heavier and a quarter inch longer. Pretty consistent kiddos. Lucy has wonderful red hair that's decently long and sticks up all over the place. It really does remind us of the baby orangutan we saw at the zoo last spring. She's fairly calm and sooth-able, partly because she didn't starve for the first 3 weeks like Hannah did, and I'm certainly a lot calmer myself! Breast feeding has been a huge source of stress for me, with both girls. Hannah didn't gain any weight for her first 3 weeks, at which point we started supplementing and of course eventually moved fully to formula. Then she ate too much and I was contstantly second guessing myself and stressed about her feeding. I was determined not to repeat all of that this time. So sure enough, despite giving it a go - pumping, supplemental nurser, and wonderful, wonderful support of Andy, my mom, and a spectacular lactation consultant - I really can't feed my child exclusively with breast milk. Everything you read or hear - EVERYTHING - says that if you do it enough, pump enough, drink enough, take the herbs, you make enough. Not so. And that spectacular lactation consultant looked at me and told me it's not going to work. Amen and hallelujia. I want to go shout from the mountain tops (especially above Boulder!) - not all women can breast feed! And it's not because we didn't try hard enough, or long enough. And when I say I don't make enough, I don't mean I'm an ounce short, I mean I can't even make a full ounce!



Okay - so it's been a big deal, right? So now I nurse Lucy then give her a bottle. And sometimes I get to skip nursing, which makes things easier, and sometimes I'm completely stressed about once again giving too much to my formula-fed baby. And that part sucks. But mostly it's good and she's good and she's gaining weight and she sleeps and it's wonderful! Hannah's wonderfully helpful, when she's so inclined. She's also quick to anger and contrary and occasionally disobedient just 'cause, but she's a really good kid. And she goes to a really good preschool that's just a 5 minute walk from our house, which keeps us all sane!


So now it's summer. Andy's sister Claire got married last month to a wonderful man, and Hannah and her cousin were flower girls. My parents returned for the weekend and were incredibly helpful, so we all had a great time and avoided major stress. I'm able to run a bit again, which is fabulous! We've also been hiking with the girls and generally enjoying the fact that hot here means low 90's, not low 110's. I'm planning a road trip with the girls to hang out with my parents in Flagstaff in September and Andy will join us for the weekend. Wish me luck!



So now the good part - the photos. It's a long and wordy post, and I don't blame anyone for skipping all the stuff above to just check out the photos. I felt the need to do a little reflecting on 2011 so far and what we've been through to get here. In the end, or beginning, as it were, we are incredibly blessed to have two healthy girls, to live in a place that we absolutely love, to have made some wonderful local friends, to live near Andy's siblings and Hannah's cousins, and to enjoy frequent visits from our parents. We have eachother, and while we may not have a lot of time to enjoy that right now, we continue to have a wonderful relationship and grow closer through all that life brings us.

Happy Birthday Baba!

Christmas and New Years photos

The obligatory family photo. Not bad this year!

The best we got with Baba and Nammy. That's some look that kid's giving!

The next American Olympic Luge team. Hannah and her cousin Juliet made it further than anyone else on the hill on nearly every run!

Ski practice with Daddy. She's far from tackling the black slopes, or even the lift for that matter, but she's having a blast!

Priceless.

Photos

It seems the only reason I update the blog these days is when I have new photos. Such is life these days. We're having a good time, but it does seem that there's not a lot of time for more than work, meals, exercise, and bedtime. Weekends are nice. Here are a couple:

Fall in Colorado

Brainard Lake in September

Leaving Texas behind... we've only slept with the windows closed maybe 10 times this summer, and most of those were because of smoke or wind. We've actually closed up a couple of nights because it was too cold. Fabulous.

The scary reality of this season in Colorado is the fires. Our big fire made the national news as the state's most expensive fire ever. Nearly 170 homes lost. We were coming home from a night in the mountains and saw a sign announcing the closure of the road up Boulder Canyon. Then noticed that the huge cloud in front of us was actually smoke extending from the hills above Boulder to the east horizon. At times during the day, we could be standing looking straight up and see the line of brown smoke and bright blue sky. That night, we could see the flames from our house. The community response has been amazing, and the sad but good thing is that when two other fires sprang up locally, the massive response of firefighters, tanker plans, and helicopters were already in place to respond immediately. We've had some rain today, so we can only hope that fire season ends soon.

Back to school

A lot of really disjointed stuff...

Hannah and I are back to the full-time school routine. She's back at a wonderful preschool 3 days a week and a really great home day care the other two. I really wish that I could be with her more, but I love what she's getting out of both places.

My big excitement this month - I bought a piano! A real, live, acoustic piano! I feel like such a grownup. Took about 5 months of searching on Craigslist, but I finally settled on a 1989 Everett studio upright. It looks pretty good, has a nice action, and holds a good tune. Hannah got some practice on my digital, so she's been great about playing gently. And she can find all the C's and F's!

For our summer fun, Andy and I got away for 10 days in Hawaii while his wonderful mom stayed here with Hannah. We had a wonderful time in Waikiki and then Kauai. The highlight was Kayaking the entire Napali coast - 18 miles, a headwind and counter current, one poor woman who puked for the first 5 hours (no, not me!), some seriously sunburned hands, sea turtles, dolphins, AMAZING scenery, and one lost wedding band (Andy's). It was fabulous! We have some kayaking and snorkeling photos, but they're not digital yet...

Diamond Head in the background. We had an awesome run out around and up it! Good training for my other summer adventure!

A view down the Kalalau trail, heading out to Hanakapiai falls. A gorgeous hike, but insanely muddy. Not sure I'd to it again!

Hannah modeling her new flower clips from Hawaii. She wears her new Hawaiian dress probably 8 days out of 10.

And now for my big running fun this summer. I joined a team of 10 of the local Louisville runners and raced the Wild West Relay from Ft. Collins to Steamboat Springs. Just under 200 miles through northern Colorado and a little bit of Wyoming - it was a blast!! The real excitement was finding out, just after blowing out my quads on my midnight run, that one of our team mates was going to have to pull out for injury. After the necessary rearranging, I ended up adding 6.5 miles for a total of just under 20 miles in 4 legs. Other than not being able to walk down stairs without cringing, I managed to come out of it okay! It was a wild experience and a great escape from reality - either running or being in a van for 27 1/2 hours. Running in the middle of the night by myself wasn't as scary as I thought, and my 6:30 am run was gorgeous!

Red Hot Solepeppers after our awesome finish - 9th overall and 3rd in our category. I have some fast running friends!

My last leg. Slightly downhill, but really hot and with very unhappy quads. That "one mile left" sign had to have been a lie. Still totally worth it!

Monster wearing a costume

Spontaneous fun from Hannah. We thought she was spinning around, but check out her feet!

Happy Father's Day, Baba!

The sunny side

At the splash park enjoying the summer. Notice the control freak with her foot on the restart button so no one else gets to hit it when the water turns off.

Joy!


With Baba on a hike above Ouzel Falls during his recent visit. She's getting really hard to carry, but she's also able to walk a mile or more, so we manage to still get in some good combo hikes.

1 - I ran a 4-minute 10K PR yesterday! For those of you who aren't running dorks, that means I ran 6.2 miles about as fast as I possibly can. I finished in 47:59 and placed 3rd in my age group. Too bad the awards were for 1 and 2. Double too bad the 2nd place woman my age was only 3 seconds ahead of me!! Many thanks to my wonderful running friends who paced me a pushed me.

2 - I've decided to get even crazier in my running and am joining a 10-person team to run the Wild West Relay http://www.wildwestrelay.com/index.html in early August. I'll be running 3 legs in the mountains between Ft. Collins and Steamboat and am likely to run 6 or 7 miles in the middle of the night, possibly down hill, in open range. For you city folks, that means cows on the loose! Never mind things that eat cows - I'm chosing not to think about those.

3 - We're loving our new house. Thanks to a few days of cold and rain, we did a bunch more unpacking this weekend. Just a few boxes left! Hey you Texans - it was 55 and rainy here today. I ran a race in capris yesterday. Come visit!!

4 - Hannah is amazingly grown up. She's been saying things like "So, um, Mom...." and I actually caught her putting the word "like" in the middle of a sentence. What??

5 - Despite my best intentions, Hannah had become quite the "kid food" eater. We set a goal of eating "big kid food" this summer - as in way fewer meals of fish sticks and freeze-dried veggies - and she's taking to it quite well. Of course it means she ends up in bed later because we cook for all of us together, but for now she's still napping (knock on lots of wood), so it seems to be all good. Feeding has been one of the most challenging parts of parenting since the beginning, so these little milestones are huge for me!

6 - Did I mention that it's summer and I'm break? I'm loving getting to be a stay-at-home mom for a while again! Of course Hannah's still going to school a little bit each week, so I also get some time to work around the house and take some long runs by myself or with friends. Very nice.

7 - Saved the best for last. We were running an errand in Boulder the other day, and Hannah asked, "Why is that man was standing by the road holding a sign?" So I did my best to explain begging and some of the realities that go with it. (Twice, because she often asks me to repeat my long answers.) Her response: "Not us, because we're on the sunny side of life." I cried and laughed the rest of the way down Arapahoe. We've listened to the song a few times in the car recently, but certainly not had some great discussion about the meaning of the lyrics.

First verse and refrain, for those of you aren't familiar with the song:

There's a dark and a troubled side of life
There's a bright and a sunny side too
Though we meet with the darknest of strife
The sunny side we also may view

Keep on the sunny side
Always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us every day
It will brighten up our way
If we keep on the sunny side of life

The New House

Obligatory opening shot of Hannah. Modeling my new fancy-pants running headband. Wonder if they need some marketing photos?

Egg dyeing - a week late, but still fun!

We're finally homeowners again! We've been in the process since the fall, waiting for our brand new house to be built. The plans were already permitted, but we got to choose the finish out - cabinets, counters, floors, and a couple of extra little windows. The neighborhood is great. Full of families with little kids, walkable to a decent grocery store, bike able/runnable to downtown Louisville, and amazing views of the Front Range. The little windows we added even line up so I can look at Indian Peaks in the bathroom mirror while I get ready in the morning. Outstanding! We feel very fortunate to live here.

Part of the view out our bedroom window.

Zoom of the bedroom view - Meeker (Longs Peak is behind it), and the church that will hopefully never get the 2-story bug! They seem like pretty good neighbors. Hosting a series of meetings titled "2012 Time of the End - are you ready?", just in case we decide that are indeed unprepared for the Christian/Mayan end of the world...

An indoor shot - the first floor has a great room, open to the kitchen, a study/playroom, and powder room. And that floor almost looks like a lived-in home after only 2 weeks!

Mount LeCuyer

Gotta love Colorado weather - 60s on Thursday and snow shoveling on Friday afternoon.

All about me

I may not even put any of Hannah's cute phrases or songs in this one. It's all about my great adventures in skiing yesterday. You know those cool-looking tracks that snake down the powdery slopes in the movies? I got to make those! It involved a ride in a snow cat and hiking in ski boots at 12,000 feet, but it was so worth it. Of course we didn't have a camera (though Nick did have an extra strap to carry skis so I could use my poles to hike - thank you!!!), so I did some googling and am posting fake but fairly accurate photos of my adventures yesterday...

The snowcat - took nearly an hour wait to get a ride, but it was worth it to get up most of the 12,000 feet.

Our hike up Tucker Mountain. Not sure exactly which run we took, but I do know that I walked up this "trail"!

I know, it's not me, but I do wear a black ski coat, and I did get to make tracks in powder like that. Thanks to my wonderful husband and brother-in-law who coached me through a fabulous ski day! And to those of you still just considering visiting us in Colorado - it really is this good!!