Field Day

Last Spring, the girls' elementary school planned and then postponed Field Day a few times due to weather.  They thought perhaps to get a jump on all the end of school activities as well as the weather by holding Field Day in October this school year.  I thought just maybe they might have to postpone because of the weather, but they toughed it out and the weather got nicer as they day wore on.

Misha's Field Day was held in the morning and Kristen's in the afternoon.  Gotta love that I get to go over twice!  I'm all for Field Day, and maybe I've mentioned this before, but I like the idea of a traditional Field Day with races, long jump, triple jump, relays, etc.  Now they have stations with some crazy activities.  At least it gets them moving.

Amazing Technology

With Chris' travel schedule, he is often gone during the week.  Mornings are busy trying to get girls out the door--Amy at 7:20 and Misha and Kristen at 8:45--but we try to make time for family scripture reading and prayer before Amy leaves for the day.  Our morning routine has taken on an added dimension of Daddy.  He joins us for scripture reading and prayer via Facetime.  This amazing technology makes it possible for him to participate with us, whether it be through reading a verse or saying the prayer.  He can even give Amy a smooch on the cheek as she walks out the door.  It is a wonderful way to include him in our family time.

Kristen's Tooth

Kristen has been lamenting for awhile that she hasn't lost any teeth AND that she is the only one in her class in such a sad predicament.  Every so often she asks me to wiggle her teeth in hopes that one of them might give a little.  No such luck yet.  The other morning when she requested a little tooth wiggling, I noticed a funny flash of white and asked her to open her mouth.  What do you know but she has an adult tooth that has already erupted behind her bottom front baby teeth.  Her teeth are only slightly wiggly.

Happy Birthday Christopher

We'll be out of town for Christopher's actual birthday day, so I think I planned a good surprise for last weekend.  I had been at Time Out for Women all day Saturday and we had planned for him to pick me up from the Merchandise Mart and go from there.  I had done checking and found a Shepler's Western Wear off of 104th.  It was to be our first stop.  He has wanted a pair of cowboy boots and a hat for a long time.  I didn't tell him where we were going until we were almost there.  You could tell the wheels were turning. Once he figured out the plan, he was quite amenable to the idea of shopping (usually a sticking point for dates, so I have tried in the past year to avoid it).

We finally located the men's section at the back of the store.  He had an idea of what he wanted.  I had an idea of what I liked.  Luckily we were both on the same page.  It didn't take long to find a pair that he kept coming back to in comparison with others.  The boots add at least an inch and a half to his height which means I'll need to wear 6 inch heels or something crazy like that.

After picking out a pair of boots, we went to look at the hats.  He really wanted a black stetson (and maybe that'll come in the future), but for practicality purposes, he chose a hat that would work for wearing in the summer time.  I think he looks pretty hot.

We had reservations at Hacienda Colorado for dinner and followed up with a movie at the AMC in Westminster.  Great evening with my sweetheart.  Happy Birthday!

Fall Colors

Christopher and I were so impressed with the beautiful fall colors that we decided to take the girls up to check them out on Sunday afternoon.  We have XM in our car and were able to listen to General Conference as we drove.  There were NOT smiles all around--until we finally found a place to get out and explore after driving for a couple of hours.  Picture heavy post.

A Lesson Learned

Amy had one of those crazy days at school last week where she had three tests all in the same day.  We have been emphasizing the importance of preparation and encouraged her to start early in her studies.  That often meant that Mom was involved in the study process, but seriously, you don't become a great student without knowing how to study and learn facts.  I believe learning how to study is an art as well as understanding the discipline required in foregoing other more exciting activities.

She happily reported to me a couple of days later after her class graded their Language Arts exam together that she got every answer correct.  Some of the students in her class accused her of cheating.  She replied, "No, I studied."

I love it.  She did too.

An Unexpected Pleasure

Chris was at the airport on Monday evening set to fly to Phoenix.  We had said goodbye earlier in the day and planned to see him again on Saturday afternoon.  He called from the airport, while standing in line to board and said that his customers just sent him an email telling him they weren't prepared for him to come.  He quickly removed himself from the line and began conferencing with them to make sure the right choice was being made.  He had ten minutes before the airplane's door closed.  It was a happy moment to receive his text as he left the airport, "omwh" (that's Chris-speak for "on my way home").

The girls were certainly excited when he walked in the door.  Some of their first comments were, "I thought you weren't coming home until Saturday."  Hurray for us that he got a couple of extra days at home.  Now his schedule was opened up until Wednesday afternoon with little to no meetings.  And to make things even better, Tuesday was Chris' Service Day.  On the anniversary of his hire date with CA, he is now given the day off.  Because he had originally planned to be working in Phoenix, he didn't think he would actually get to benefit from the "Service" Day.  It was a happy set of events that led to Tuesday.

We spent the day just him and me leisurely driving through the mountains looking at the beautiful yellow-leaved Aspens.  It was an unusual day for us.  The girls were in school, so we just took off and had a wonderful time together.

We stopped first at Boulder Falls.

Our drive led us up through Nederland where we turned off the round-about toward Estes Park.  As we drove along, the leaves became more and more yellow, like big splotches of butter dropped in the forest.  We slowed in one spot where cars lined both sides of the road, people snapping away with their cameras.  We thought maybe there were some elk or a moose, but no, it was this field of vivid yellow.

We drove a little further along to a bend in the road.

Chris directed me to this view. It would have been lovely to be in the middle of this stand of trees looking up.

We continued on past Allentown and on to Estes Park where we stopped for lunch at Casa Grande Mexican Restaurant.  We sat on the patio enjoying the sunshine, the company, this view, and an unexpectedly pleasure-filled day.

Dinner Conversation

It was a fairly interesting conversation to listen to.

Chris:  "God must have been having a  good day when he came up with watermelon."
Amy:  "Pineapple and bacon too."
Chris:  "He wasn't having such a great day when he created zucchini and squash."

Groans all around except from me.  I like zucchini.

Chris:  "Even worse when he made okra.  That must have come after making dog snot and God said, 'Hmmm, I think I'll use that recipe again--Okra.'

The Tooth Fairy Please!

Kristen and Misha were in their bathroom the other night getting ready for bed.  Kristen was dramatically lamenting (as she often does) that she was the ONLY person in her first grade class that hadn't yet lost a tooth.  Misha quickly responded, "I can take care of that."

Oh Happpy Day!

Last August, the 25th to be exact, Misha's grin took on a new dimension--braces. She was a trooper. The braces were intended to shift her jaw into alignment, and consequently, she suffered a lot each time they made changes to her mouth. Her jaw was successfully realigned in the past year and earlier this week she had those wretched pieces removed from her mouth.

Before

After (her hair has changed a lot in the past year as well)

We went to her first appointment on Tuesday, September 13th for the removal and casting for a retainer. We went back on Wednesday morning for a quick retainer fitting. And just in time for picture day on Wednesday.

Cinderella

Last Sunday, Kristen wore one of the fancy dresses her grandma had made for a wedding.  As Kristen walked down the hall, a little girl being held in her daddy's arms, pointed to Kristen and said, "Look, Daddy, it's Cinderella."

(This picture shows Kristen wearing the smaller version of the same dress last year.)

Couch Surprises

I am always amazed at what I might find stashed in the crevices of the couch.  I had hoped to find the Apple TV remote, and was successful, but I also managed to find a few other treasures.  Now, you might think this is a pepperoni stick, but then you might think, "Hey, that's a cheese stick package!"

Pirate's Cove Water Park

Chris and I had originally thought to go out of town for Labor Day weekend, but since we had tickets to Les Miserables, we were limited.  We had a Groupon to Pirate's Cove Water Park that actually expired on Labor Day (the last day they were open for the season) and decided to make use of it on Monday afternoon.  The morning was spent in doing some chores and catching up.  After lunch we were on our way. 

 The park was packed.  I can't even imagine how they fit all the people in on a hot summer day.  It took about ten minutes around the parking lot a few times to find a parking spot.  We had two cars, making it doubly hard, because Chris was headed to the airport later in the evening.

We found a small shaded spot to drop our towels and snacks.  Misha and Amy headed off to the slides, while Chris, Kristen and I checked out all of the different areas.  We ended up at the lazy river, standing in line for at least twenty minutes.  Misha and Amy found us there and happily joined us in line.  The river was quite nice for floating around in, though Kristen was probably a tad too small for her tube.  After one turn around the river, she gave up her tube and rode on Chris' lap instead.

We went from the lazy river down to our shady spot for snacks and then jumped in the pool there.  I retrieved our water camera from the car and got some fun shots for the day.

We stayed until about 4 pm.  By then, Chris and I were ready to wrap things up.  We stopped for a picture with Mr. Pirate dude.

We parted ways for the week as Chris turned left toward the airport and the girls and I turned right for home.  We made a slight detour at Chili's for dinner and a last-of-summer hoo-rah.

Les Miserables

Chris and I had the fantastic opportunity of attending Les Miserables last weekend.  It started out as a lovely evening in downtown Denver, though I made the mistake of wearing mighty uncomfortable, blister-inducing shoes.  In fact, they were so uncomfortable that I heeded Christopher's urging after dinner to just take them off and walked part of the way into the theater barefoot.  I know, not kosher, and I've gotten ahead of myself.

We found an ideal parking spot and walked to our chosen restaurant.  We started with a lovely meal at a quaint little place called Osteria Marco in Larimer Square.  We both had the Mixed Green salad.  By its name, you would never think it to be so delicious, but it contained strawberries, pickled red onions, goat cheese, and candied walnuts.  Delish.  The dipping sauce for our grilled ciabatta bread was made of pesto, parmesan, balsamic vinegar and sun dried tomatoes and then we shared the Basil Pesto pizza.  It was a wonderful dinner.

We had plenty of time to walk from Larimer Square back to the Denver Performing Arts Center (DPAC).  It would have been lovely if hadn't already had blisters on my feet.  Thus the removal of my shoes.  Like I said, we had plenty of time, the theater doors were not even open yet when we arrived.  Once we were allowed to be seated, we easily found our seats and marveled at how fortunate we were to find great seats so close to the performance (I had called the ticket office to ask about seating for some seats and they informed me that they had other tickets returned and would I be interested in those.  Yes I was.)

We watched with interest the variety of people attending the show and the wide range of clothing styles and levels of dressing up that they had chosen.  "We could have come in shorts!" I told Chris.  Both Chris and I thoroughly loved the performance, however, just prior to its beginning I made a comment that pretty much soured the evening for both of us (for which I am terribly sorry).  We both became "Les Miserables".

When we exited the theater, I was not looking forward to walking what I thought was a long distance to our car.  Chris directed me to take a short cut through the DPAC parking garage, and blessed day, that was where we had parked.  I am so directionally challenged that I didn't even realize that we had parked so close. 

Things that make you go "Doh!"

So my little six-year old dumped her backpack and lunch box on the kitchen counter after school on Tuesday afternoon.  I noticed right away that the backpack was wet and inquired as to what was causing the wetness, "Oh, it's just my water bottle."  That would have been the preferable option.  Instead, I began emptying things out only to find that, bless her little heart, she had left a half-drunk Capri-Sun in her lunch box.  Sweetie (three syllables)!  "Doh!"

So, I dumped everything in the dish drain to drip and then realized I had apple juice all over my counters.  After cleaning that up, I transferred Kristen's back pack and lunch box to the laundry room where I would take care of it later.

It was easiest just to dump the back pack and lunch box into the washing machine with my colored load and let it go.  It became a "Doh!" moment for me when I realized that I had not unzipped the front pocket of her lunch box.  It now contained plastic lunch bags filled with smushed chocolate cookies and something else.  The leakage was minimal, I think.  I'm still waiting for that load to dry.  Not only that, I forgot to empty the pocket on her back pack which she had proudly filled with a small kleenex pack the day before.  "Doh!"  What was I thinking!?

Parade of Homes

I love to look at new homes, to peruse floor plans, to watch House Hunters on HGTV. Maybe I should have been a realtor. Chris kindly agreed to go with me to view some of the homes in the Parade of Homes. Amy had a birthday party to attend on Saturday, so we dropped her off and packed two unwilling little girls in the car to go with us. Unfortunately, a large percentage of the homes were south of us, so we had a bit of a drive.

As we entered the first home in Aurora, Misha and Kristen went cra-zy. "Mom, look at this" or "Did you see that?" or "Look, there's a movie theatre." And then, "Can we buy this house?" Cra-zy. They had a little more fun than they thought they would. We ended up at a street full of million-dollar homes. The place was packed. We didn't stay very long, but it was still fun to see. And there was only one house where the girls said, "We don't like this one. Let's not buy it." Okay.

Phase 10

Kristen loves to play Phase 10 with me. During the summer she and I played at least one game a day on most days. She's good. In fact, she is pretty savvy. Today she started keeping a tally. I am not sure what she was tallying, but the tally ticks were definitely in her favor--15 for her, 1 for me. After a while, she started to feel sorry for me and my lack of ability in earning tallies and comped me 15. She was up to 20 by then, so making my score 15 wasn't a big deal for her. Surely she was going to pull ahead some more.

We have played so much Phase 10 together, that we have created a lego card holder because she can't hold ten cards in her hands very easily. Even with the card holder, she lays her cards in front of her as she gets ready to lay them down. It is impossible for me to not know what she is working toward in her phases. Yet, she still seems to win.

On our last phase, she and I were organizing our cards when she nonchalantly asked, "How many wilds do you have?" I had none. A couple of seconds later, she asked, "Aren't you going to ask me how many wilds I have?" I hadn't planned on it, but inquired, "How many wilds do you have?" "THREE." She had been lucky with cards the entire game and made me laugh with her next comment, "I know they don't have brains...but these cards really like me." I'll do my best to steer her away from Vegas!

Misha's Glasses

I remember when I was a little girl, I had a pair of plastic-rimmed, lens-less glasses that I wore around. My brother thought it was stupid to wear lens-less glasses and would hide them any chance he got. Bradley!

I took all three girls to the grocery store with me last week. As per her usual attire, Misha wore her favorite lens-less glasses. Seriously, anytime I see her wearing them, I can't help but laugh. She even wears them to school!

As I was picking out zucchini in the produce department of King Soopers, a gentleman inquired of Amy and Misha (he hadn't seen Kristen with them yet), "Are those girls your daughters?" Now, there is something about talking to strangers that causes my children to come quickly to my side. I laughed as all three girls converged upon me--Misha with her glasses--and responded, "All three of them are mine." He chuckled and indicated toward Misha, "They are all beautiful, but she has a lot of character." I laughed and agreed with him.

The cashier commented on her glasses as well. I will just have to make sure she doesn't wear the glasses for school pictures. That's my Misha.

The Cow

I don't know what Kristen has against spaghetti sauce. IF she has any with her noodles, it always has to be on the side. I usually make my sauce with Ragu, ground beef and spices. Still, she has something against tomatoes. I made noodles with sauce for dinner this past week. Kristen took forever to eat, and came in to the office to bargain with me about what she would and wouldn't eat. Finally she came in and said, "I'll eat the cow but not the sauce!" Really, since when did we start calling hamburger "the cow"?

Kristen Again

Chris and I were having a heart to heart talk with Kristen. As Chris pulled her onto his lap he asked, "Is it hard being a kid sometimes?" She nodded yes and then asked, "Is it hard being a parent?"

Kristen

Kristen was playing with a balloon which then popped. She said, "Oh no, I bursted my own bubble."

My First Grader

Kristen was the most excited of all my girls to start school. She just could hardly stand the wait. She was up, dressed and cheery Thursday morning. As she said the blessing at breakfast, her heartfelt prayer included thoughts for her mom: "Please bless Mommy so she won't be lonely without me this year while I am at school." Bless her heart. But I won't be lonely!!!!! Okay, maybe a little.

It was only the first day of school for Misha and Kristen as Amy didn't start until Friday morning (who starts school on a Friday?) The reasoning behind the delayed start is to let the 6th grade students have their first day of school without the 7th and 8th grade students to stress them out. Still, who starts school on a Thursday!?

Back to Kristen. Misha helped Kristen pack her lunch and get things loaded in to her back pack. For the first day of school, I told Kristen that I would walk with her to her school. She'd be happy if I walked with her everyday and picked her up from school everyday as well. I followed her and Misha in to the gymnasium where they lined up with their respective classes and waited for the bell to ring. I gave my girl a quick hug as she stood to leave with the other first grade kids. Just a little bit of sadness in my voice.

Later that evening as I tucked Kristen in to bed, she was quick to say that she didn't want to go back to school. What? She proceeded to tell me that going half a day was fine, but she didn't really like being gone all day. I think she missed me.

5th Grade Misha

Misha was so-so about going back to school. She was looking forward to seeing her teacher, meeting up with old friends, and well, that's about it. Seriously, she'll get back in to the swing of things quite quickly. She had her outfit all picked out since last week when she got her new jacket in Utah. I tried to tell her that it would still be 90* outside, but she was determined.



Wait for it....

Wait for it....

Misha's full outfit.

Amy the 7th Grade Girl

So, Amy didn't go to school until Friday the 19th. She definitely wasn't looking forward to the 6:30 am alarm--she's one who sleeps at least to 8:00 am. On Thursday as Misha and Kristen were in school, Amy and I ran errands in town and stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-A. Made her happy.

Since I had taken pictures of the other two the day before, I almost forgot to snap some pics of Amy on Friday morning. She was almost ready to head out the door when I said, "Wait!" She rolled her eyes.



I took one picture inside and then suggested that there would be better light outside. More eye rolling. But we were quick. Mostly because friends were walking to the school bus stop, and taking first-day-of-school pictures is so 5th grade.

Popularity

Misha was looking at Chris' most recent copy of Bloomberg Businessweek with "The Popularity Issue" written across the front and a woman adorned in a dress covered with popular consumer products. Her question to me, "Does this teach Dad to be popular?