The flies! There have been so many gathering and buzzing around on the windows in the laundry room. Thus far, I would guess that I have killed at least 100 flies. There are not so many now, but I still kill a few every day. I'm not even sure how they are getting in the house!
For my seminary class, I needed to have an angel and a devil to sit on my shoulder to demonstrate about the choices we make. I asked Kristen what she had that I could possibly use, and this is what she came up with. (Note the horns she added to Elmo).
Chris has enjoyed the opportunity to mountain bike a lot this summer. Today he met up with a co-worker and they drove up past Nederland. Not only did they get to see changing Fall leaves but also a moose.
Misha has been working at an elementary school in the evening. Normally in the evenings she would be there all be herself. It freaked her out for the first week or so, and then she began to get a little more comfortable with the idea.
It made me nervous to know she was there by herself and checking doors after 9 pm to make sure the school was locked up. I worried that people might begin to take note of her. In fact, one night she texted that there was a strange car in the parking lot with its lights on.
I prayed over her a lot.
One afternoon, her manager arrived at the school and offered Misha a change to a K-8 school where she would be working with a team. Misha was happy for the change and it made my mom heart happy.
Amy has been working diligently over the past couple of years to get in better shape. She loves that she now works at a gym on the weekends and has access to the gym all week long.
For the past couple of years I have had an extra twin bed down in our guest room. It never really got used. One day last week a thought entered my mind, "You don't really need that extra bed," and I told Chris I was going to see if any of my local friends on Facebook were in need of a bed.
I posted the offer and within minutes, a friend commented, "I'll take it."
Melanie (the friend) and I made arrangements for her to come and pick up the bed. As we lifted the different pieces out to her suburban, she commented that they had just taken in her 3-year old nephew who had been removed from an abusive home environment. She said, "We just needed another bed."
I love how God is in the details of our lives. I could have gotten rid of the twin bed at any time over the past couple of years, and yet, he knew it would be needed today.
Kevin came for a quick weekend visit. He and Chris went biking and loved it. They always enjoy the time to catch up when they are able to get together. On Friday, they biked fairly close to home at Heil Ranch. Coming from close to sea level in Texas, Kevin expressed that there just wasn't enough oxygen in Colorado.
On Saturday, the two of them drove up to Winter Park and took advantage of the ski lifts to get them to the top of the mountain. After gearing up with full body padding and a helmet, they then proceeded to speed down the mountain. They enjoyed that for most of the day.
Kristen came up with the idea to have a homecoming dance with her group of friends. There is about fifteen of them that regularly hang out together on the weekend. One of the friends, who lives next door neighbor to us, has a half-court gym in their house. Kristen had her friend ask if they could have the dance there. Once that was approved, moms got on board and uber involved.
Kristen and friends and moms spent lots of hours getting ready with decorating the gym and planning snacks.
And of course, there was picture taking. Although the kids all say they want pictures, trying to organize over twenty kids (extra friends from the ward were invited as well), it was a little chaotic. I gave up after awhile because so many moms were taking pictures.
We often see hot air balloons on the horizon, we have even had a few fly over our neighborhood. Today was a first as a hot air balloon landed in an empty lot in our neighborhood. I could hear the people in the balloon yelling to our neighbors a few doors down, "Can we land here?" And then a few seconds later, "What is your gate code?" so that their retrieval vehicle could come and pick them up.
What I thought was kind of funny was that our neighbors directly to the East had a jumpy castle down by their beach. Their kids and a few of the neighbor's kids were jumping. Normally they would have been enthralled with the hot air balloon landing nearby, but today, they were more interested in jumping.
I am soooooo grateful that Chris has been home to teach Kristen to drive. I drove with Kristen shortly after she got her permit, and I think it was traumatic for both of us. Chris has taken her out a number of times so that today when Kristen and I drove to the grocery store, I was pleasantly surprised at how far she has advanced.
Since I have to be downstairs to teach my seminary class on Zoom, I don't get a chance to make sure that Kristen is up and going for her seminary class—which she sits in her bed and tries to stay awake for! However, it was nice to walk into her room this morning and see her scriptures and marking pencils open on her bed.
I bought new scriptures to use while preparing my seminary lessons. I love the flowery design and the extra wide margins for making notes.
Chris' hands started to get itchy and burn over the course of this past week with redness and small blisters starting to form. On Saturday morning, he called the Online Doctor and she diagnosed it as some kind of contact dermatitis similar to Poison Ivy or Oak. We can't image where he picked it up, but our best guess is when we on the slides in Estes Park. When you go down the slides, there are burlap mats that you slide on. Chris figures that someone with poison ivy or oak touched his burlap mat and transferred the poisonous oils to the burlap and then onto Chris' hands when he used the same mat.
It hasn't been a pleasant experience for sure. He puts some prescription meds on his hands to ease the itching and burning and then some Aquaphor lotion because they are dry. Hopefully it will resolve itself quickly.
While there aren't kids at the elementary school where Misha works as a custodian, she left a picture for the teachers on the white board in the cafeteria of the school mascot—the Indian Peaks moose—complete with a backpack and a mask in its antlers.
After seeing the drawing, one of the teachers asked Misha if she would be willing to do some artwork for her.
I think my working girls were pleasantly surprised to find that they got Labor Day off and that they got paid for it as well.
Chris made a reservation at Rocky Mountain National Park for noon. We packed snacks and drinks and hoodies and rain jackets and started for Estes Park. Our first stop was at Subway on Highway 66 for lunch sandwiches.
It has always been fun to peruse the shops in downtown Estes Park. We noticed crowds of people gathering at the park and decided to walk over to see what they were looking at. The park was filled with elk just enjoying the sunny afternoon.
Both Chris and Misha were looking for a hat (without success though) and of course, there was fudge. Kristen was looking for maple fudge without walnuts and was unsuccessful there as well.
We drove from Estes to the back entrance of RMNP and found a picnic spot in Endovalley. That was the highlight of our day in the park. When we tried to drive up to Bear Lake for a hike, the park rangers were turning everyone back saying the lot was full. That's even with people coming back down from Bear Lake. They rangers were pretty adamant, so we turned around and drove back to Estes Park.
Amy had requested a chance to revisit a childhood memory. Chris stopped at the slides.
Plan B. We drove toward Allenspark and Wild Basin Trailhead.
We hiked with Amy and Kristen to Cascade Falls. Chris and I had just been there a couple of weeks ago, but at least we were able to get in to this park. It wasn't even too busy. Misha stayed in the car while we hiked.
Kristen and I were shopping in Ft. Collins on Saturday when the Cameron Peak fire west of the city reignited and began to fill the sky with smoke.
Saturday
It was crazy and smoky so that our sky was orange and eerie looking all day Sunday. It felt like dusk all day long. The wrong color of dusk though.
Chris went biking with friends and won the award for the best non-crash crash. Chris careened off the side of the bike trail and managed to stay upright.
Not sure if that was the spot, but it looks like a long way down. Nice recovery!
Kristen was feeling particularly cute and festive for Fall. She asked me to take some pictures.
Amy was returning a car to a mom and her young son at the Lexus dealership. The boy was about seven years old and as Amy neared, he looked at her and said, "S'up girl!"
Seven years old.