Ethan's 1st 8th birthday

Ethan's birthday fell on a Wednesday this year and right after we'd all come down with the horrible plague. So, his party was postponed until this coming Saturday, the 13th. On the 3rd we had a simple family dinner (he requested steak and macaroni & cheese) and birthday cake. We also opened presents from family.

I *think* he liked his presents, but perhaps we need to re-examine the photographic evidence!




Oh and this little guy likes cake.

Halloween

Pictures from our Halloween:

As usual, Mark and I did all of the pumpkin carving. The boys lost interest the minute the "yucky guts" had to be scooped out.

Mark's driveway art.

Mark was a Jedi, the boys were barbarians.


What's in YOUR bucket?


Ethan loved having his face painted. Ian refused. Though, to be fair, Ian had a rather rough day as far as his face went...


That band-aid is covering up a gash right at the corner of his eye socket. Pre-school can be rather dangerous, it turns out. Thankfully the cut was not deep enough to require stitches, but it did contribute lots of blood on his costume. He was a VERY authentic barbarian warrior.

Working in a Coal Mine

Ethan's class did a presentation for "Constitution Day" that focused on the history of our town.

This house, as I've mentioned before, was painted three or four different shades of muddy yellow. We've been busy repainting since the week we moved in, because there is only so long you can look at that color before becoming irritated. I finally finished the kitchen and sitting room in August, but of course I'm just now getting around to showing off my work.

The morning sun coming in that window is very bright, which made my camera over-correct the color. It was never that orange.

See the swath of wall on the far left of this picture? That is the actual color that the wall behind the couch was. This time the color variances in the picture are not the fault of the camera- the room really was painted two different colors (three actually when you count the accent wall).

Speaking of the accent wall... Also, please note the random stacking of all our books.


I do still want to install a glass-tile back-splash, but I'm having trouble finding the tile I want. The paint will work, for now.



The doorway pictured here leads to the laundry room, powder room and the garage. That strange yellow and black box on the wall is our house-wide intercom and music system.
This room is now my favorite room in the house. In the morning the sun streaming in warms up the couch. In the afternoon there's a cool breeze from the windows. The color is so soothing, this is the perfect spot to curl up with one of the bajillion books we own. (Please note that said books are now neatly organized!)

The flowers add just the right touch of color.

I'm hoping to find some colored oil for our oil-lamp, so that it stands out more on the mantle.

Over- color corrected, AGAIN. I had to include this shot, though, so Teresa could recognize the poster that hung in my dorm room and the glass bowl her parents gave us for our wedding.

Faire, Soccer, and Yellow Trees

So, what did you do this weekend? Here in lovely, though oddly warm, Colorado we had a fun filled weekend.

We started the weekend Friday evening at the Superior Elementary "Fall Fling".


Yes, his name is now "el Mustachio!"


There were activities galore for the boys to take part in while parents volunteered and spent a lot of money! Thankfully all of the money raised goes directly to Ethan's school.

Saturday we had soccer. Both boys won the sportsmanship award for their teams. Ethan caught a ball right in the face but he also scored a goal.


Sunday we drove up to Lily Lake to take pictures of the aspens.

Back to school and work tomorrow!

Welcome to the West

Welcome to the West: with thanks to the comedic genius that is Joss Whedon:

Yes, this is a good land.

We shall thrive here!

And we shall call it...

.."this land".

Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

Four Mile Canyon, NW of the city of Boulder, erupted in flames this morning around 10:30 local time. These pictures were taken at 4pm. The fire has spread to over 3,000 acres and, sadly, consumed several homes.

The winds, which were as high as 45mph this morning, have abated tonight. Air tankers are now flying in to help fight the flames. Barring a catastrophic shift in the wind, we are in no danger at our house. Still, the sky today has been an abrupt and eery reminder that living in the West is never "ordinary".

Soolk Boy

My little baby, who is not so very little anymore, started preschool today. There was a lot of testing and drama and indecision leading up to this point, but I'll go into that later. Right now I think it's just important to realize that Ian is a big 4 year old now. He insists upon drinking out of "big boy" cups, putting on all of his clothes, and doing everything "Efan" does.

I really, REALLY, hope he enjoys school.







(By the way: the title of this post is, for once, not a typo. That is how Ian says "school".)

Soccer Monsters

Both boys are playing soccer ( football for our British friends and relatives) this Fall. Ethan had his first game on Saturday morning.
This would be one of the only times he was staying in position!

Waiting on the sidelines, hoping to get in the game. His game this week was in Lafayette at the Arapaho YMCA. They have REALLY nice fields.

Ian decided to do a bit of practicing.

Ian is in the "Little Kickers" program. They have a 25 minute practice before their 30 minute games. Their first practice and game were Saturday, in Superior.

The Rocky Mountain Regional Fly-In and Air Show was going on right over the ridgeline. That distracted the kids all morning, and led to the following photo essay:

"Oh My goodness!"

"What is THAT?!"

"Ha got your strawberry!"

In their defense, Mommy's and Daddy's were distracted as well. It's not often a C-47 flys over.

My girlie

I’ll get this out of the way so those of you who are prone to avoiding sad subjects can just skip this post: Katya died Saturday, July 31st.

She died as she did everything in life: in a manner guaranteed to give me even more gray hairs. As a puppy Katya never chewed on shoes or furniture or the carpet. She preferred electrical wires – the higher voltage the better- or the AA batteries from my pager. As a teenage mutant dog she would dig under fences, eat my plants, and randomly disappear for hours at a time on some weird “walk the neighborhood” journey of doggy discovery.

She humped pillows.

Really that previous sentence doesn’t need further elaboration. Any mental picture you’ve currently conjured isn’t 1/10 as disturbing are the actual event.

She was, however, 13 years old. She slowed down. She was quite mellow in her old age, content to lie on the floor and watch the goings on of the boys and the other humans with disdainful ennui. Granted, she always picked the most inopportune spot on the floor to lie. I said she slowed down, I didn’t say she developed courtesy.

Our house has a walk-out basement. This is wonderful for the boys, for us and for the ( hopefully far in the future) re-sale value of the home. For Katya, though, it sucked. She had to go up and down stairs every time she needed to go outside. Since she was an older female dog, she had to go out quite often. Those stairs were really hard on her hips.

Friday, June 30th Katya was her usual self in the morning. She stole a waffle from Ian, as she did every morning, and followed me around while I cleaned the house. When the boys and I sat down to lunch, Katya suddenly stood up, walked a few feet onto the carpet and relieved herself. I was quite shocked and yelled at her. I put her outside.

Typically she would have returned within a few minutes begging to be let back in. She didn’t. A few hours later Ethan had to coax her inside. She curled up by the island in the kitchen and didn’t move. She didn’t lift her head when Mark came in the door. She didn’t so much as twitch when Ian dropped most of his dinner on the floor. When I opened her food bin she opened her eyes but her head still rested on the floor.

Something was very wrong.

The next day I took her to the animal hospital where the initial examination indicated she might have a bladder infection or perhaps some sort of doggy virus. Sadly, an ultrasound of her abdomen showed something much worse. Katya had a very large cancerous tumor on her spleen. The tumor was rupturing and causing her to bleed internally. She was extremely anemic, thus the lethargy.

Mark and I discussed our options, but in the end it was horribly clear that we didn’t really have any other choice. We couldn’t put our 13 year old sweetie through the pain of surgery from which she had less than a 20% chance of recovery. Even after surgery there was a less than 10% chance that she would survive longer than 3 months, as the cancer was almost definitely spreading to her other organs.

Mark brought the boys to the vet’s office and they got to say goodbye. Mark and I cried and held her and then I stayed with her at the end.

I miss her every day, though I’m doing better about not bursting into tears at the mere thought of her. I’ve put away her bowls but her bed is still on the floor in our bedroom. I still turn around every night to check her now-absent bowl for food and water. I check the yard to see if she’s out there before I go to bed.

She was a spaz, a rug, a nuisance, a smelly hairball, in the way, making a mess, driving me insane. She was also my constant companion, a tangible link to the past. She laid down beside me on the floor and licked my face the night Adrian died. She watched over my boys, followed me through all the major life changes of the past decade plus.

I hope there really is a beyond, a better place for my darling girlie’s soul. I hope balls fall from the sky, that her bed is made of downy pillows, her bowl filled with waffles and chicken nuggets, and her yard filled with toddlers to bowl over.

I miss her.

Summer Boy pictures

We've been busy entertaining family and getting ready for more family to visit. Here are some pictures from our adventures:

First he was a lazy cowboy at the Leanin' Tree Museum of Western Art, in Boulder.

Then he worked the fields at the Centennial Village in Greeley.

Then we put him to work in the silver mines between Georgetown and Silver Plume.

A hard working boy is a HAPPY boy.

Ian learned the joys of the Etch-a Sketch at the Old Louisville Inn.

Predictably, his happiest day involved riding the steam train on the Historic Georgetown Railroad Loop.

This boy loves his trains. He liked the mine all right, but the train ride was the penultimate moment of Granny and Granddaddy's visit.

He cried and wanted to go back on for another ride- RIGHT NOW!

And this I like to call: "Stop taking my picture, Granny! It's COLD up here!"

(We were above the tree line on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mt. National Park.)