It’s Canada Day (and that other American holiday)

July 9, 2014 By

I’ve long whined that no one ever comes to visit me in Colorado. I mean, how could they not? Colorado is gloriously gorgeous and one of the top tourist destinations in the United States. I now realize that it’s because I never actually invite anyone and having an “open invitation” isn’t enough.

Case in point: I invited my childhood bestie Stacey to come visit and she came. Imagine that! Not only did she fly down to visit me but she somehow agreed to accompany the kids and me on our two-day drive back to Calgary at the end of the week. Now, that is friendship.

And being the swell friend that she is, she brought the kids Canada T-shirts and I’m sure she bought out the Motherland’s maple leaf paraphernalia so we could celebrate Canada Day!

We kicked off the holiday by a glorious hike around Evergreen Lake and, of course, I converted yet another person to Country Road Cafe.

Evergreen Lake


One of the reasons why I love our summer hiking group is because it’s not just about the hiking, it’s about falling in love with the outdoors and truly exploring. It took us nearly 2 hours to hike the 1.3-mile loop around the lake because of stops like this by Evergreen Dam.

A visit to Colorado isn’t complete without stopping by Red Rocks, one of the most famous concert venues in the world.

I won’t mention how Hadley kicked my butt on a race up the stairs. Am I really getting that old or maybe she’s just getting that fast.

That night, there were revelries. Maple leaves. Red and white. Yummy food. Canadian geography puzzles. And a whole lotta fun.

I forgave Hadley for kicking my butt when she not only painted her face red-and-white but insisted on doing mine as well.

Fat Kitty was not impressed with the celebration.

Fat Dude wouldn’t even hold the hockey stick I tried to put in his paw.

It is just me or has Jamie never looked hotter?

A few days later, we threw yet another party with friends but this time with red, white, blue and pies….

Not to mention star-styled hair.

And since the fireworks are shot above our neighborhood, we had to throw another party.


Sadly, this is the only picture I got of the whole evening. No disrespect to the Americans but after a cram-packed week and throwing two fetes, I was all partied out.

There’s a first time for everything.

Filed Under: Bode, Canada, Colorado, Hadley, hiking, Humor

Rolling Video Games Denver: The Ultimate Surprise Party for Bode!

July 7, 2014 By

My soon-to-be 8-year-old son Bode’s friends have varied interests. Some are soccer and track stars, others like math, reading, basketball, riding their bikes and swimming. But the one thing that binds every single one of them together is they love video games.

When Bode announced he wanted to have a video game birthday party, I balked. We tried to pull off that theme a few year years ago with our Wii and various DS gaming consoles but it was so anti-social as each child retreated into their little gaming space. Video games are fun, but the caveat for throwing a similar party was it had to be a bonding, social experience.

I also wanted it to be a surprise. A few years ago, I threw Jamie a surprise bash for his 40th birthday and Bode thought it was the coolest thing ever.

So I let Bode think he was planning the party for the following day and surprised him with Rolling Video Games Denver (RVG) parked in front of our house.

I first connected with Mike Worley’s company on Twitter several months ago and thought the concept was brilliant. A 32 -foot mobile video game theater chock full of your favorite video games that comes to you? Sign me up! (Or rather, my son).

Mike, a father of two, left Janus Capital two years ago to start RVG. Though he doesn’t consider his family “gamers,” he loves the idea of providing parents with a fun, easy and memorable party for their kids. His gaming trailer is now used for all kinds of events–everything from tailgate parties, private tournaments, employee appreciation, church events and farmer’s markets. When you book a party as a result of seeing them at your kid’s school, they donate money back to that school’s PTA/PTO.

“This weekend, I have two birthday parties: the first is for a 21-year-old and the other is a man celebrating his 40th birthday,” says Mike. But his most popular demographic? Boys ages 8-14.

Ever since we threw my husband Jamie a surprise party a few years ago, Bode has been begging to have one so I figured this was a perfect opportunity. His 14 friends gathered in the RVG trailer and when Bode arrived after lunch with his dad, he was bombarded with ecstatic boys yelling “SURPRISE!” Dumbfounded, Bode responded, “I had no idea!!!”surprise1

I think his sheer joy will only be comparable to his wedding day and maybe the birth of his firstborn child. So long as its name is Steve.

If you love Minecraft, you’ll totally get the reference.

The trailer has four 46” HDTVs with two more outside (allowing a total of 24 gamers) and offers more than just Xbox, PlayStation and Wii gaming consoles. They also have DirecTV satellite and can customize their party package so the kids can play video games inside the trailer, while the adults can kick back and watch the Broncos game on HDTVs mounted outside the trailer.

The best news of all? The kids wanted nothing to do with me so I wandered around dazed, confused and downright grateful. It was my best and easiest party, ever.rollingvideogamesThat is until our two hours were up, it started raining and instead of holding the rest of the festivities in our backyard, I had 14 squirrely 8-year-olds racing through my house.

Next time, I think booking the three-hour package with Rolling Video Games Denver is in order.

Filed Under: birthday, Bode

Buying Hawaii (at least in my dreams)

June 20, 2014 By

To fuel my moving-to-Maui obsession, I discovered a show called “Buying Hawaii” on Destination America, which follows home buyers on their journey to purchase a home in Hawaii. What I love is that most of the episodes feature average families looking for realistic properties, not the multi-million dollar dream homes 99.9 percent of the world can’t afford.

But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming, of course.

When I informed Jamie about my find, he rolled his eyes and said, “I saw that show when I was going through the channel guide. I was hoping you wouldn’t find out.”

Though Mr. Realism is a dream-killer, the surprising thing is that Bode loves the show. One afternoon when I wasn’t feeling well, he curled up beside me and watched back-to-back episodes. I thought we’d seen them all (there were only about seven) but I was thrilled to discover one more. When Bode came home from school, I made the grand announcement.

Without hesitating, he crawled up next to me and, all business, he asked, “What’s their budget?”

Now, that is a kid who gets me.

 

Filed Under: Bode, Humor

Father’s Day Celebrations and Camp Chief Ouray: Colorado’s best overnight camp for kids!

June 16, 2014 By

I can’t say enough how blessed I feel to have a wonderful father, father-in-law and be married to an amazing man who is a fun-loving, hard-working father to my children.

Father-son matching pumpkin-colored ties

Our Father’s Day was a whirlwind. The Primary kids performed a Father’s Day medley of songs in Sacrament Meeting and yours truly was the accompanist. This would have been fine and dandy if I was able to play one of the songs but ended up faking my way through and fortunately nobody noticed.  Turns out they were too enamored with all the cute kiddos, which is a very, very good thing.

In our Ward, we have the best tradition ever: a social after church where everyone brings pies and proceed to stuff our faces with them. Well, not literally. Though a pie-throwing contest would be a pretty fun tradition, too.

We then raced home and drove 1.5 hours to drop the kiddos off at Camp Chief Ouray at YMCA of the Rockies near Granby, Colo. I’ll have much more to come on that but I’m having very mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’m thrilled they are spending six days at the glorious camp, which is the longest-running and one of the most reputable in Colorado that is heaped in traditions and fun.

Bode’s counselors Andres and Kevin; Hadley was too cool for hugs and posing for pictures

On the other hand, I’m missing them terribly. Though Jamie and I have been on couple’s vacations, this is the first time we’ve been alone together at our house in 10 years. Fat Kitty is feeling it, too. He woke us up at 3 a.m.with “the meow of death” and acted like he was dying. When we saw nothing was externally wrong, we ascertained he’s lost without those two cherubs of his. As you can see, he quickly got over his angst-driven, sleepless night.

We all mourn in different ways.

That includes Jamie. As we were walking away after dropping off the kids, we followed the steady procession of parents walking to their cars.

Jamie: “Have you noticed something we all have in common?”

Me: “What?”

Jamie: “All the parents now have smiles on their faces.”

And believe me, so did the kids about spending the week in such a magical place.

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor, Jamie Tagged With: , ,

Here Comes Summer!

June 9, 2014 By

Week 1 of summer vacation was two things: horribly unproductive for my work and indisputably fun!

Since the kids and I will be in Canada for most of July, June is our month for camps and friends so we’ve had a blast cramming it all in. To kick-off the week, we wrote down our summer goals–fun activities, keeping up on schoolwork and earning technology time. We decided they get an hour of free TV every day and beyond that, they had to earn it by reading daily and doing math four times week. Technology (i.e. iPod, video games, etc.) is four times a week after they get their work done. I put together a sticker chart with their daily responsibilities and my gosh, it’s working.

I’m as shocked as anyone.

Lest you think I’m a summer killjoy, I assure you I’m not but I wanted some kind of structure to our days in June. Particularly for Hadley who she has made awesome strides in getting caught up in math and we’ve poured  hundreds of dollars into a tutor. I’d hate to see it all go down the drain from slacking off this summer. So far, she’s been willing and I try to keep it simple and fun with a small handful of math problems that take her a few minutes.  Just say no to laborious summer workbooks. That may work for other parents but we fight enough homework battles during the year that there’s no way I’m doing that in the summer. We’re all about play like the kick-off to our summer hiking group at Red Rocks!

I have wonderful friends of all denominations whom I adore but my gosh, I’d be lost without my LDS Church clan. Someone who left the church recently commented the thing she missed most was the iron-clad LDS community…and that they haven’t been able to find anything that remotely compares. Anywhere you go in the world, you have a literal ward family where you belong–through moves, deaths, births, you name it. Having a religion so focused on the family and serving one another makes it all about love in its truest sense.

I adore all of the amazing moms who go above-and-beyond to teach my kids and love them as their own. These are truly incredible women in action, like my friend who organized our summer hiking group.

Sometimes I can’t believe I really live in this gorgeous place.

A mom who spent some time at the Carnegie Mellon University’s acting program also pulled together a weekly drama camp where my kids are learning about improv, developing their own skits and will be performing them later in the summer.

It’s nice to have drama that is actually good.

And for the fourth year in a row, I coordinated two weeks of summer swim lessons with several of my friends from church.

Bode with a water gun = no friend of mine.

We have an awesome neighborhood, too. Our neighbors’ three boys were all born within two weeks of each other so every year they throw a huge birthday blowout. It’s a highlight for not only the kids but for adults with oodles of food and activities.

The kids were still going strong six hours later and I had to drag them away for bedtime. They would have partied until midnight if I’d let them.

There was Hadley’s own birthday bash at the movie Maleficent, followed by a party in the rain.

I’m in the planning stages for Bode’s surprise party for his birthday in a few weeks because we haven’t partied enough.

Even the ladies are partying. We had a going away/retirement party for our dear neighbor Nancy who recently retired and is moving to Texas.

 I absolutely love these ladies and feel fortunate to be surrounded by such wonderful, supportive neighbors. While I was playing with the girls, Jamie was at home with the kids. Hadley’s friend Alex somehow convinced him she was a great cook and could make an angel food cake with her sous chef, Hadley.

She lied.

I let Hadley redeem herself  by making tie-dye cake with her friend Alicia the next day. It turned out really cool…until they decided to take the decorating to the next level.The next level would be a downward spiral.

We’ve have plenty of backyard water fights and are cram-packed with playdates.


And we wouldn’t have our kick-off to summer any other way!

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley

In Summer: Mom of the Year or Snowwoman Imbecile?

June 3, 2014 By

I get it: I’m an annoying morning person. I’m not only awake before dawn but am boot camping, working or solving world peace, all before 8 a.m. But just ask my husband: by 9:30 p.m. I’m barely functional and just want to sleep.

Now, imagine being a child of such a mother.

Bus buddies on the final day of school

Though it takes Bode a few minutes to get coherent he’s an early riser and prefers it that way. In fact, he would actually set his alarm early during the school year because he’s so obsessed with being “responsible” and likes the extra time to be prepared. I know, right?!

Then there’s Hadley. Lately she’s been pushing the bedtime boundaries and we have let her. Though Bode is ready for bed by 8:45 p,m. she’s frequently hitting the sack between 9:30-10 p.m. On her first night of summer break, I saw she was still awake and caught her crafting into the wee hours.

At least I think that’s what it was. There was a lot of yarn and unidentifiable objects.

The next morning, she was toast. When we don’t have anything scheduled, I’ll let her sleep in during the summer but she had her birthday party later that day and a laundry list of responsibilities.

So, I waited until 9 a.m. before I burst into her bedroom blasting “In Summer” from Frozen on my iPhone and channeled Olaf as I lip synced. Unfortunately she was already a awake but that didn’t stop her from being deeply moved, particularly when I started tap dancing and singing opera at the end.

Pumped by my brilliant performance, I bounded down the stairs and squealed to Jamie, “It’s official, I should have gone into snow business!!!”

Pun not intended but by gosh, it worked.

 

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor

Sentimental Fail

June 2, 2014 By

While I was in the kitchen preparing dinner, Bode asked from the family room:

“What’s the best thing you’ve ever done?”

Without hesitation, I replied, “I married Daddy and had two beautiful children.”

“No, Mom. I was talking to Fat Kitty.”

Filed Under: Bode, Humor

A birthday to remember at The Broadmoor

May 29, 2014 By

If you have done something two years in a row, does that make it a tradition? If so, I’d like to officially declare staying at The Broadmoor our annual Memorial Day/Hadley birthday tradition!

We can all dream, right?

Sure, the weather didn’t cooperate but we still had a fabulous time at this iconic AAA Five-Diamond Resort in Colorado Springs. I mean, how could you not? The gourmet food is divine at The Broadmoor’s elegant restaurants. When we dined at La Taverne on our first day, they brought Hadley a birthday treat.

“But it’s not even my birthday yet,” she weakly protested.
“Yes, but it is your birthday weekend!” our waitress responded.


She never looked back.

Whoopie Pie celebration while bowling at PLAY

“Mom, my goal is to get to Round 10 of the brunch because I’m 10 years old today.”
“You’ll be sick.”
“I know.”

Birthday brunch

Side note: she made it.

Dissection of a birthday girl: cute green dress from Aunt Lisa, cowboy boots for horse camp from Mom, volleyball from Dad, new purse and wallet from the family and some classic books from Aunt Sue.

And nothing says brotherly love like Bode who constructed a birthday “H” for Hadley on Minecraft.

The weekend was non-stop fun. There was Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and hiking Cheyenne Canyon. Then, we were the very first group to participate in The Broadmoor’s new summertime activity, Laser Tag, on the croquet lawn. Uncle Chris joined us for our vacation and the man will become legend in Broadmoor Laser Tag circles because, as one admiring tween stated, “That guy has to be a professional hunter.” Translation: he “killed” us all every time.

I was unsure how laser tag would work outdoors but we were outfitted with paint-balls guns that had CO2 canisters or battery-operated guns for the littles.

Laser tag with Uncle Chris


Is it just me or does Hadley look a little bit too comfortable with that gun?

Everyone had a blast except Jamie who had to leave early when an old pumpkin injury started bleeding.

I wish I was joking.

The pool was, as always, glorious!

Hadley playing the “you have to go down the slide because it’s my birthday” card with Uncle Chris

The highlight of our lives (not really exaggerating) is a poolside cabana but remember that uncooperative weather?  We weren’t able to spend very much time at the pool but still toughed it out.

If you can call anything at The Broadmoor “tough.”

We drowned our inclement-weather sorrows in a lot of food by trying their new Italian Ristorante and Bar Del Lago. With delicious family-style portions, we started with a selection of antipasti and finally stopped two hours later with Bombolini (fried pastries) and Cannoli.
Jamie is not smiling because this was taken near the end of the meal and he was literally too full to try.

Of course, we always pose for family pictures by Cheyenne Lake.


Roast s’mores.

Order room service for breakfast.

And relish every single moment at The Broadmoor as if it is our last.

Room with a view

Happy birthday, Hadley!

Filed Under: birthday, Bode, Colorado, Family travel, Foodie, Hadley, Humor, travel Tagged With: , ,

Mother’s Day Sentimentality (or lack thereof)

May 12, 2014 By

We had a gloriously low-key Mother’s Day. Jamie and the kiddos served me breakfast in bed, followed by a parade of presents, a cute scavenger hunt, secret service and a ginormous hanging basket of flowers. It’s not something you can easily hide so I asked Jamie where he had stashed it.

“In the pumpkin’s hoop house. I knew that was the one place you’d never go looking.”

Touché.

There’s no better way to spend Mother’s Day by going to church where moms are heralded, adored and, perhaps my favorite ward tradition, fed lots and lots of pie.

An all-day snow storm wreaked havoc on our tradition to walk around Evergreen Lake so Jamie smoked a delicious brisket, we ate even more pie and had a PJ/movie marathon. It was the perfect way to spend the blustery day together.

As we were getting ready for bed, those darlin’ kiddos of mine were attacking me with hugs and kisses. Brimming with love for both of them, I declared, “Without you guys, I wouldn’t even be a mommy so thank you.”

The reply from my sentimental daughter? “You’re right! So, technically Mother’s Day should be about us, too.”

Touché X 2.

Filed Under: Bode, Family, Hadley, Humor

A Minecraft Mother’s Day

May 10, 2014 By

I know we’re supposed to share in our kids’ passions but I just can’t get behind the Minecraft craze. Today was one of Bode’s technology days and he love nothing more than to download his version of allll the excitement to me after he has finished playing. Today, however, I perked up because his tutelage had a Mother’s Day theme.

As an FYI, cows roam the Minecraft Overworld, usually in herds of 4 to 10. If a cow is killed, it will drop 0 – 2 pieces of leather, 1 – 3 pieces of raw beef, and 1 – 3 experience. If the cow died while on fire, it will drop steak rather than raw beef and will only drop experience in this case if the player has hit it or started the fire. Killing a calf will give you nothing.

Got it? Yeah, me neither.

“Mom, I’m attacking cows. But not the ones with babies.”

“That’s nice of you, kind of like honoring them for Mother’s Day?”

“Yes, it would be sad to kill the cows because then the babies wouldn’t have mothers.”

“You’re so thoughtful.”

“As for the babies, I don’t kill them either. I wait for them to grow up AND THEN I’LL ATTACK.”

 

Filed Under: Bode, Humor
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