Estes Park

In the middle of July my brother, J, his wife, M, and my nephew, M, along with my parents, came to Colorado and rented a house just outside of Estes Park for a few days.  We were able to visit them for a couple days and have a lot of fun with them.  We were able to do several short walks/hikes, as well as a drive along Trail Ridge Road.  Some of our favorite easy walks were Lily and Bear Lakes and Wild Basin (the falls) and Coyote Crossing.  Here is our photo log, in no particular order, apparently I jumbled them somehow in the process.

 My nephew talking to a rabbit during a rest stop on one of our hikes.

 The Boy, mountain climber.

 Actually not Lily Lake...on the Bear Lake hike.

 Uncle J gave origami lessons to all--here we see a flower and a throwing star--frogs were another popular creature.  We also used this table to play a lot of card games and plot our next adventure.

Best little retro mini golf course in Estes Park.  My brother and sister in law both won free games by scoring a hole in one on the 19th hole.  I really like the alligator. It is called Tiny Town, ironically, the same name (but a different facility) as a tourist trap southwest of Denver.

The view from the balcony.  We sat out here a few times, enjoying the view and the cool breezes.

After another round of mini golf, at another center, Mr IM and the kids did a round of go-carts.  The Boy is too short to go alone, but The Girl got her own car.  She almost lapped her dad--she was pretty excited.

The lake, just down the road from the rental.  We walked down almost every night we were there and looked at native plants, skipped rocks, and looked for wildlife.  One night on the way back we found part of an elk spine, which was either really cool or icky, depending on your point of view.

See our friend?  She surprised Uncle J and The Boy the first evening we were there--bounding out of the grass and across their path.  The last night of our stay we watched her from the balcony for about twenty minutes as she grazed her way across the meadow.

Here are Mr. IM and my brother, trying to figure out how to cook the pizzas.  For future reference, you can't put four pizza in the oven at once.  They were yummy though.

Selfie!

Some more wildlife, from our Trail Ridge Road drive.  Don't worry, I zoomed...other people were that close though...yowsers.

More wildlife--he, he!  This little guy was a show off--we joked he was saying "I'm ready for my close-up"

The Boy, resting.  The Girl was stalking us like an African Cat.  She announced she couldn't walk another step, then followed us at a distance when we told her she could just sit on a bench a wait.

Dinner our last night at the lovely restaurant within walking distance of our rental. Check out that view!

And the food was yummy, too!  The ,Boy is showing off his "wild game burger", while my "wild game meatloaf with garlic potatoes and sweet and sour green beans".

Thanks, family, for the fantastic trip!  We had a great time and are looking forward to next summer's adventure in Alaska!

Are vacations work or fun?

There was a meme floating around the internet a while back that said something like "When you're a mom, packing for and going on a vacation is work and going to Target alone is a vacation.".  No kidding!

The kids and I are getting ready for our big Midwestern Adventure (IM has to stay home and work) and I've generated a whole typed page of "things we can't forget".  Of course, if we really forgot any of them, I think it would be fine...there are stores where we are going, and honestly, some of the stuff on the list we would be just fine without!

Every time we do this I weigh the advantages and disadvantages of driving and of flying. So far, driving has always won for these big trips.  Barring any problems, we can get to Indiana in two (long) days of driving--one hotel stay--and from there, it is a progression of couch surfing across the midwest until it is time to drive home again. The biggest advantage of driving over flying, though, is that I can pack my car full of stuff, knowing that we will accumulate some things as we off load others.  For example, I'm taking a couple bags of "girl clothes" to a friend in Indiana, where I will meet my parents, who are bringing a hand crank ice cream maker for a friend of mine to take camping.  Then I'll pick up my grandma's dishes from a cousin in Michigan...so those two actions will empty a spot in the car and then fill it back up. We'll have a bag of sand toys for the beach at the cabin (I'm hoping, that like the last visit, some of our sand toys are lost, broken, and/or given away to other children...it seems silly to have so many sand toys when I don't live near a coast.).

We are already stalking the books on CD section at the library, to scoop up some treasures that we haven't heard yet or would love to hear again.  The Harry Potter series have been our standby for years, supplemented by anything else read by Jim Dale (he is the best...you really must listen to something read by him), but we are in search of something new as well...perhaps "The Westing Game" or some other Newberry winner from the 80's? And Gary Paulsen, but only some of them...some are too sad.  We tried listening to the Percy Jackson series a few years ago, but the reader's interpretation of Percy's friend the Pegasus was too annoying.  It has to be soothing enough that the children enjoy listening (and the Girl can sleep, to avoid being carsick) but interesting enough that I don't get sleepy.

Other "must haves" on the list include beef jerky (The Girl says she thinks it is too expensive at gas stations), a couple board games for rainy nights at the cabin, and clothing for all the midwestern seasons we'll encounter as we travel (swim, rain, hot, cold...).

The kids and I are looking forward to our trip and promise to give you updates on what we are up to...sometime!

Never a dull moment

So it's been an interesting week here.  On my way home from my next to last day of school on Monday my car died, like died-died.  Sigh.  So I coasted off the interstate, onto the off ramp about three miles north of my exit.  I called AAA and Enterprise and had the car towed to our local car dealer. I think it is a sign of what an "Un-Suburu Suburu" my car is that I sighed, pulled out my cell phone and my AAA and Enterprise cards and made arrangements before I even called Mr. Ranch or the kids. I ended up with a rental for the last day of school--they had to upgrade me to a Mustang, so that was fun.  Our drive way looked like a scene from Fast and Furious.  When one of Pete's cousins saw this picture on Facebook he asked where Vin and Paul were.  Giggle.

Tuesday I finished packing up my office at school, in the hopes that the district will really hold firm on their promise to put in at least new carpet an maybe new paint. I was supposed to go to the end of year office party, but instead I came home and took the kids out to lunch then ran as many errands as I could think of and returned the car.  Enterprise is wonderful, because they will "pick you up", but their "call in" price was "meh".  Sorry, Enterprise, next week I'll be renting from your competitor who will rent me a car for a week for the amount you asked for for two days.

Wednesday and Thursday the kids and I spent the day around home--went went to the pool, started summer reading and math activities, nothing too exciting.  We did an adventure when the home inspector (we are in the midst of re-financing the house and needed an appraisal) showed up an hour early.  After corralling the dogs for the  inspector, he was able to finish his appraisal and we were able to go back to the pool.

Friday, The Girl had an all day youth group activity so The Boy and I got up early and went for a walk.  We got about a block before we decided it was really cold, so we came back and got sweatshirts.  Then we left again.  We decided to go on the trail in the open space behind our house.  We took the right branch instead of the left we usually take to the top of the hill and ended up, not exactly lost, but not sure where we were going to end up.  At one point I thought maybe we were going to end up in town, which would have been a bit of a bummer, since town is 3.5 miles from our house and all I had was my phone (no wallet or even library card).  Eventually we came off the trail, started walking along the sidewalk and discovered we were really only one neighborhood to the west of our neighborhood.  Ah, very good.

While I found some breakfast and made some calls--to the auto shop checking out my car (still dead), and to Suburu National Customer Service to ask if they had any great advice (tow it to a dealert). The Boy and I discussed walking to a movie in the afternoon, but the theater is about 3 miles away and a six mile hike for a movie didn't sound worth it to The Boy.  We made salmon cakes for lunch (tasted fishy...no surprise, I guess, but I was hoping for less fishy and more salmon-y) then decided to learn more about Marvel Comic characters by watching Wolverine.  In the middle of our movie my phone started buzzing--surprise!  A tornado warning for "our" area!  Eeesh.  Turns out it was a potential for tornado activity (I thought that was a watch?) so we finished our movie on the Kindle in the powder room and then watched X2.  I feel like an XMen expert.  Or not.  I kept asking, "um, who is that?  what is going on?"   The Boy kept showing me "everything I needed to know" out of the Wolverine book from the library, but I'm still not sure I can pass an XMen quiz.

It has been interesting being a one car family this week.  There are some things that I like about it--not needing to "run out and pick up something" when we realize we "need" it, but that is also the downside, I suppose.  The poor dogs have had to eat Iams instead of their regular food from Costco because Mr. Ranch was able to dash into the grocery store, but didn't have the checkbook to go to Costco. Liberty does not like Iams...she'll eat it, but looks at us like we've lost our minds.  Indy won't even look at us, I think she knows I'm going to Costco on Monday and figures she can live off her fat reserves until then.  Alice, on the other hand, loves this dog food, as she loves all dog food.  Weird cat.

This has been a good way to start the summer though--there is no pressure to "get moving" because there isn't anywhere to go.  We've played frisbee in the park almost every evening and completed a lot of "cleaning" (ok, really just dragging mass amounts of paper from the school year to the recycle bin).  I've spent some time researching new (used) cars and emailing with the re-finanace folks and most of our laundry is done (!).  It did reinforce though that we need to teach The Boy to ride his two-wheeler--if we had bikes (and time) we could (in theory) ride them to the library (although that "big hill" worries me a bit...going down into town and up to get home!).  The Boy has started reading Sherlock Holmes to me and is very impressed that I haven't been falling asleep like I did last summer when he read "Gulliver's Travels". I think that is a comment more about Gulliver's Travels than about me falling asleep... I even started reading one of the books on the summer reading list for my students.They are assigned by the English Dept and next year I won't teach any English classes (probably) so I'm reading "for fun" so I can discuss the books with the kids when we all get back.

Then on Saturday we had the most interesting adventure of all...The last time we took Indy to the vet, they gave us a list of symptoms to "watch for".  We were told that if she started exhibiting them, to get her to the vet right away because, well, that would be a sign that her heart murmur had changed from a murmur to heart failure.  So on Saturday, while Mr. Ranch was out exercising, she had every symptom.  (Google "congenital heart failure in dogs" if you want to know).  To make a long story short,  the whole family was a hot mess, we bundled the dog into the car, took her to the vet to discover that (wait for it) she has indigestion.  So we are the opposite of the old men who don't go to the hospital for a heart attack because they think it is "just" indigestion...The vet gave her basically pepto bismo and a sedative and sent her home.  Indy is definitely showing her age today, I think the whole adventure wore her out (it wore me out).  The vet sent us home with some overpriced dog food that Indy won't eat (we only opened one can though, we're going to return the rest, per the vet's directions). In trying to get her to eat I boiled a chicken breast for her (Indy's favorite food, the only "people food" she has even stolen from us).  She will "only" eat it if we pretend to drop it though--won't eat it out of her bowl.  Crazy dog. Speaking of which, I guess it is time for me to go cook my dog some lunch....