Surviving (and thriving) a class camping trip to Mesa Verde National Park

November 7, 2012 By

The main reason we switched Hadley to her new Waldorf charter school was for their experiential, arts-based education. The week before school started, we received an email from her new teacher announcing the first class field trip in early-October would be a three-day camping trip to Mesa Verde National Park.

[Insert Haddie's squeal of delight here. OK, if we're really being honest I did it, too. Hence the reason I signed up to chaperone.]

Spruce Tree House

I had only been to Mesa Verde briefly many years ago when I was writing about the Four Corners region (see the article here). With some of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in a world, the 81-square mile national park in southwestern Colorado features more than 4,000 archeological sites and 600 cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloan people.

In third grade speak: “This is soooooo cool.”

It had the makings of a disaster: 23 kids, a 7.5-hour drive and many children were away from their parents for the first time or were camping newbies. But it was one of my most enjoyable camping trips ever. Not only were the kids angels but 12 incredibly capable parent chaperones took three days off work to accompany the class.

Getting There is Half the Fun

Remember the 7.5-hour drive? That’s not counting gas stops and a lunch break so we spent a good portion of our day in the car. Before you start feeling sorry for me, it was one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever done in Colorado and the fall colors were at their peak. In the wintertime, Wolf Creek Pass outside of Pagosa Springs is treacherous. In the fall? A different story.

Durango, Colo.

View from car window from Mesa Verde

But still, after a long drive like that you have to wonder is this going to be worth it? That, and more.

 Campin’

We stayed at Morefield Campground in Mesa Verde, which has single and group camping sites. The first item of business was helping the kids set up camp. Hadley was assigned to a tent with five other girls and my co-parent Christine and I helped them set-up, after which there was plenty of time to explore, eat, snuggle up for storytime and eat some more.

If there’s a tree, Haddie will climb it

The party grove. I was never invited. #shocker

Tent mates at breakfast

Dinner

Bustling camp

I scored and set-up my tent in a cossetted site tucked away in the trees.

Christine made the mistake of pitching her tent mere feet away from the girls so guess who they went to all night long for their needs? “Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I’ll take care of them on our second night.”

They miraculously slept straight through. [Insert evil, relieved cackle here]

For once, luck was on my side.

Stay tuned tomorrow for our adventures in Mesa Verde National Park, including scaling a 30-foot ladder. Go here to read that post.

Filed Under: Colorado, Family travel, Hadley, hiking, outdoors Tagged With:

It’s a fall frenzy: in pictures!

November 4, 2012 By

My computer refuses to read my iPhone picture files so I have a backlog of pictures waiting to be uploaded. Which means I’ve had to email myself each picture and then save it on my desktop. Which means I can’t be bothered to do it.

However, fall is flying by and I’d be remiss if I didn’t make mention of at least a few things we’ve been up to. Haddie has started piano lessons and Bode has wrapped up soccer. Other activities include:

Swim team at the YMCA. Haddie is loving it and I’m loving I can go workout in the weight room during it.

Except for on Fridays when I bring Bode and his bestie Sean to swim. And yes, I said swim. If you’ve followed Bode’s swimming missteps, you’ll realize how truly miraculous it is that he’s finally swimming.

Then there was the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey’s DRAGONS.

Tennis. We’ve been playing every Monday night for FHE for almost two months. Bode, in particular, is obsessed and is begging me for lessons.  I told him he has to wait ’til spring. Even this Canuck has standards about running around the tennis court in the snow. But apparently no standards when it comes to taking over the skate park and using the bumps as a net.

Bode started basketball at the YMCA. Though all the players were a year older and a full head taller, he held his own. This is Jamie coaching nervous Bode about the rules moments before his first basketball game ever. It’s called death-bed repentance.

There was stargazing with our besties at the Pine Valley Ranch Park observatory.

That activity deserves an entire post unto itself. Which I plan to write in all my spare time.

Though I’ve been crazy-busy with work and meetings, I try to carve out a few days every week for an adventure. I’ve become moderately obsessed with biking every trail at North Table Mountain Park in Golden.
Well, in this case hike-a-biking because some parts were STEEP.

Then, there was Mount Falcon Park. Denver recently received a healthy dose of snow so my hike started with views like this. And changed to this as I reached the summit.
And yep, I was in my element.

Speaking of snow, we hit the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Expo where we skied.
If you count that makeshift ramp.

The kids also attempted the Gibbons’ Slacklines (think: hip tightrope), an insanely popular up-and-coming sport. They attempted it over and over again, only venturing out a few feet. Apparently balance ain’t our thing.

And my favorite activity of all: the Denver Curling Club brought a curling demo! As a Canuck mom, I finally felt like I was not failing my little half-breeds in the Ways of the Motherland.

Lest you think we’re all play and no work ’round here, service is always worked into our routine. Here are my boys at building clean-up day at the church. Haddie’s charter school threw a huge harvest festival that was a throwback to yesteryear with butter making, straw crowns and corn husk doll stations, chili and a charming dragon play.

My little bird

And, of course, these activities don’t even touch upon all our Halloween festivities, pumpkin patches and parties. This week, I’m supposed to go to Dallas for a conference Thursday through Sunday. Poor Bode and Jamie are sick so I’ll be nursing them back to health with chicken noodle soup and lots of snuggles the next few days.

I think we’ll all welcome the break after a fabulous but frenzied fall.

Filed Under: biking, Bode, Colorado, Hadley, hiking, outdoors, skiing

Halloween 2012: The Slime Bucket, Digging for Eyeballs and the Pumpkin’s Celebrity Encounter

November 2, 2012 By

This year, Jamie was delighted when The Great Pumpkin had an encounter with celebrity. TaRhonda Thomas of 9News fame was at our house interviewing me for an unrelated story and was flabbergasted with what she found when she pulled up to the house. And unlike some broadcast journalists I’ve worked with in the past (read: snobby), she’s every bit as fun and lovely as she appears in the picture.

One of the bonuses of having kids at different schools is they had their Halloween parties at different times so I was able to give each of them my undivided attention. I started with little B. The volunteers were divided up into different stations. The Room Mom asked if I wanted to do the craft.

“Err, no thanks,” I politely declined.
“Really? You look like the crafty type,” she responded.

I assure you that’s the first time THAT has ever happened.

I instead volunteered for the messy slime bucket, which was green jello that was refrigerated with plastic body parts. To demonstrate, I stuck my hand in it and pretended it was getting devoured. What’s Halloween without a bit of traumatizing?

For Dorothy’s party, she was thrilled she was the kid who got to put the finishing touches on her teacher’s mummy wrap and did a muzzle over her mouth.
I’m sure she was thinking, “That’s for all that miserable math homework.”

They did plenty of crafts and games and once again, I volunteered for the messiest of them all (sensing a pattern here?): Searching for eyeballs (marbles) in a mass of brains (spaghetti) with their feet. Disgusting. Especially when the brains got accidentally flicked down my shirt.

That evening, we met at our fire station where they handed out drinks, cupcakes, cookies, free HarperCollins children’s books and then a fire truck led a parade.

From the archives: 3-yr-old Bode at the parade. #Love

Our neighborhood pretty much rocks Halloween.

This is the first year we’ve been able to carve The Great Pumpkin because it’s usually rotting down the driveway. Since the weather was so nice (it’s been 70 degrees), we sat on the porch to hand out candy and could hear the stunned reactions of the trick-or-treaters. A large crowd was usually congregated around the pumpkin to take pictures. The Pumpkin Man was in his element.

Our neighbor Steve told us his wife Angella took a picture of their family with The Great Pumpkin. She’s a pharmaceutical rep and made it into a card to hand out to various doctor’s offices and clients. He said it was an awesome conversation-starter and opened a lot of doors.

Next year, I’m demanding a commission.

Filed Under: 9News, Bode, Hadley, holidays, Humor, pumpkins Tagged With: ,

Apple Dunking and Halloween Bashing!

October 31, 2012 By

Saturday was our ward’s annual Halloween party. The youth were in charge, which means as a youth leader I was a part of the planning and implementation.
Pretty much, I have the best calling ever working with these beautiful young women.

Jamie and I wore our annual costumes. I was the pumpkin widow dressed in black (see my shirt) and Jamie was (what else?) a pumpkin.
It’s like art imitating real life. Every. Single. Day.

We just finished reading the 100th Anniversary edition of Wizard of Oz that I bought as a souvenir in Coronado Island. Much to my delight, Hadley shunned the pop culture costumes of many of her peers and opted to be Dorothy.

Bode, on the other hand? He spotted a Mario costume at the thrift store and the begging began. “Bode, you were Mario two years ago. Don’t you want to be _______” and I listed off a number of costumes. Obviously, I lost.

Blurry action shot eating doughnuts on a string

We had a spookiest appetizer/dessert contest so I whipped up a graveyard 7-Layer Dip. I got a ton of compliments on it but it was a result of improvisation. We didn’t have any refried beans so I used Madras Lentils (my fave wintertime lunch) and layered sour cream, cheese, green onions, salsa and guacamole. For the graveyard, I cut and baked some red chile tortillas into tombstones, a cat and a ghost.
I thought I did a pretty good job until I saw my friend Wendy’s entry.
Overachiever.

The young men were in charge of a haunted grove in the forest behind the church.

Teenagers with a real chainsaw = terrifying.

The young women stayed inside and oversaw all the carnival games.

Best. Bean bag toss. Ever.

And then there was the most unsanitary game of them all: bobbing for apples. In sixth grade, I had a Halloween party that will go down in infamy as The Best Party Ever and I still wear my Queen Apple Bobber Badge proudly. When the young women taunted me to do it, I rose to the challenge.

Or rather, bent way, way over for it. Haddie and Bode joined me and I dove in preparing to leave them in my salivated-apple-bobbing wake. When all of a sudden, I was being submerged way way way under. I flew up sputtering, only to realize my own husband dunked me.

It’s a good thing we drove separately; otherwise dude would have walked home.

Haddie ended up being the winningest apple bobber of the night. As it turns out, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Literally.

Filed Under: Bode, Foodie, Hadley, holidays, Humor, Jamie, LDS, pumpkins Tagged With: ,

A warning to parents everywhere regarding Halloween candy “taxes”

October 29, 2012 By

I have some bad news for parents who claim a “candy tax” by taking a portion of their kids’ Halloween candy: THEY ARE ONTO US.

On Saturday night, we went to our church’s Halloween party and my kids came home with bucket loads of treats. For the most part, I let them have at it but started putting on the brakes the next day. After all, they have to save their gluttony for The Main Event on Wednesday.

I made a healthy dinner with the one thing my 8-year-old daughter abhors most: eggs. She usually chokes them down but we are entering the tween moody stage (hurray!) and she suddenly thinks she should have a say.

I don’t know when she started thinking this was a democracy, not a dictatorship.

My husband and I have never forced our kids to eat everything on their plates but usually have a bare minimum. If they choose not to eat, they don’t get any food the rest of the night. Period.

So, I gave her our usual ultimatum that she needed to eat five bites and told her I’d later throw in some candy for good measure. But, she’s a stubborn little miss and declared she’d rather go hungry.

That’s when I pulled out the big guns.

I grabbed her bag of candy and started deliberately and methodically eating it. Steam started erupting from her ears and her temperature rose as fast as a thermometer in boiling water.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she spewed.

“Taking candy taxes,” I calmly responded. “For every minute you sit here, I’m going to have another piece of candy. Oh, look–Butterfinger. Isn’t that your favorite?”

And then her clincher. “YOU KNOW EATING THAT STUFF IS EXACTLY LIKE…STEALING!”

Let’s keep her little revelation just between us.

**The featured pictures is 2-year-old Hadley stuffing her face with suckers at her Halloween party. Girl loves her candy.

Filed Under: Hadley, holidays, Humor Tagged With:

On inheriting the recessive gene

October 18, 2012 By

Remember this post about banging our heads against the wall a.k.a. attempting to help Hadley with math? Well, it gets better as per this conversation I had with Jamie the next day.

Me: Hadley tried to convince me she’s over it.
Him: Over what?
Me: School. Third grade. She told me she doesn’t need to do homework. I asked her if she wanted to be a third grade dropout.
Him: What did she say?
Me: That third grade doesn’t really matter. It’s only high school and college that count.
Him: Oh.
Me: What?
Him: I was in third grade when I had the same conversation with my mom.
Me: WHAT?
Him: Yeah. I told her I knew everything I needed to know to get through life. Math, how to read, etc. Why should I bother with school anymore?
Me: SO THIS IS YOUR FAULT?
Jamie: Pretty much.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog
Filed Under: Hadley, Humor, Jamie

When Mom Has a Warped Sense of Humor

October 17, 2012 By

In case you haven’t seen the hilarious article from CBS news that documents numerous candids of terrified people in a haunted house, you need to go there now!

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504784_162-10014097.html

See? I told you!

Last night, the kiddos and I were getting a kick out of all the pictures and I had a brilliant idea. Remember that YouTube video of a casual drive in the countryside that ended badly? (Don’t want to spoil it if you haven’t seen it).

Welp, I plopped the kiddos in front of it and tried to video their reactions. Sadly, it didn’t record but their response left an indelible imprint on me. Both were startled and then Haddie started laughing while Bode looked like he was going to cry. “MOMMY!” he yelled.

It gets better. That night when we said our prayers, Hadley (the melodramatic one) pleaded with the Powers On High to not have nightmares thanks to the video. That’s when an instantaneous plan was hatched. Upon her “Amen,” I jumped out screaming, freaking the gourd out of both of them.

I’d like to think God has a sense of humor.

I know Bode sure didn’t.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog
Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor

I laughed ’til I cried

October 16, 2012 By

This is a must-watch for anyone who has ever struggled in math (or has a child who does). This is a glimpse of what it’s like to help Hadley with math.


Jamie said it’s only hilarious because it’s sadly, sadly, sadly TRUE.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog
Filed Under: Hadley, Humor, Jamie

The road to popularity is paved in orange

October 9, 2012 By

Popularity is elusive. Some think you need to wear the right clothes. Or have the right friends. Or it’s all about your parent’s connections.

Last Monday, my kids learned the key to their popularity: showcase an orange monstrosity to your friends. Yep, that’s all it takes. I took The Great Pumpkin to both of my kids’ schools and it was a HIT.

First stop was Hadley. Coincidentally, it was her school’s fun run fundraiser so I caught a glimpse of her.

In Action.

Inaction.

She did 14 laps, which equaled 3.5 miles–waaaay more than I thought she’d do. And it made me regret I didn’t pledge a lump sum but tried to motivate her by donating per lap. 

I’ll know better next time. #PoorHouse

Jamie stayed for a little while but had to get back to work, which was a shame because he loves nothing better than catering to his adoring fans. And believe me, there were many. The entire school needed to walk by The Great Pumpkin on their way back to class.

Haddie did a great job explaining the ins and outs of pumpkin growing to her third graders.

And judging from a couple of the boys’ gaga reactions, she also cemented a few crushes. She’s cute and grows huge pumpkins? That’s hot.

Then, it was off to Bode’s school where all three first-grade classes came to check it out.

He did a fantastic job talking about his growing strategy, after which we opened it up for questions. Big mistake. While most kids were great, there was one little boy I couldn’t get to quiet down. After about a minute of expounding upon what he’d do if he had a giant pumpkin, I tried to move on by talking over him.

And he kept talking. I kept ignoring him until finally, he shouted, “I AM NOT FINISHED YET!”

Believe me, I was.

At the end of the day when I picked up Bode from the bus stop, I asked him:

“So, what did your friends say about the pumpkin?”

“They thought it was cool. I was second in line to come home and the boy at the front gave up his spot to me and said, ‘You have a big pumpkin so you can be first.’”

As far as the first-grade pecking order goes, that’s as good as it gets.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog
Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor, pumpkins

The Children’s Division–Or Would That Be “Division Among the Children?”

October 3, 2012 By

At the Great Pumpkin’s weigh-off, the children’s division is almost an after-thought. “Ahh, look at the cute little pumpkins! Hurry them through and let’s get on to the big daddies.”

This year was the exception.

The rules are the pumpkins need to be dropped off well in advance of the competition. The children’s started at 10 a.m. and the adults were supposed to follow at 11 a.m. Much to my annoyance (as one who HATES when people/events are late), this event has never started on time.

At 10 a.m., Hadley and Bode had the only pumpkin in the children’s division. Then 10:15 a.m., 10:30 a.m. By 10:45 a.m., we started doing our victory lap but no, wait! Our arch nemesis from years past showed up with three humdinger pumpkins. Meaning: HUGE.

The kids had not noticed their competition so we settled back, waiting for it to begin. When we saw the first pumpkin that was going to scale, Hadley was unimpressed.

“Wow, that’s small,” she scoffed.

 I tried to shush her but not before the mohawked kid and his brother in front of us turned around without missing a beat and snarled, “That’s my pumpkin.”

“And it’s a very nice one,” I assured him before lecturing Hadley about being a good sport. Turns out, she needed that lecture because out of the five pumpkins, hers was among the smallest.

To build suspense, pumpkins are measured from smallest to largest and Hadley and Bode’s was next. They were excited about the results: 203 pounds. And a great-looking pumpkin to boot!

But they didn’t win. In fact, there were three kids from the same family whose pumpkins got progressively bigger. By the time they got to the largest pumpkin–from a 5-year-old girl–the pumpkin was a foot taller than she was.

“622 pounds!” Jamie (the MC) announced.

Now, that’s impressive for any grower but common consensus was there was no way a kindergartner who couldn’t remember what city she was from could have grown it. The dad even later later it slip that they were all his pumpkins.

Disconcerting? Sure. The father should have just entered them in the adult competition and he still would have beat out half the competition. And it wasn’t that little girl’s fault–I’m sure she didn’t put herself up to it.

Haddie is a perceptive one. “I don’t think she did it by herself. In fact, I’m 100 percent sure she didn’t.”

Regardless of the fairness of the situation, there was a lesson to be learned. “It doesn’t matter,” I consoled. “Sometimes things just aren’t fair. But you got fourth place and you grew a really great pumpkin. That is something to be proud of.”

When the ribbons were handed out, I insisted they cheer for their competitors. Hadley begrudgingly obliged but mild-mannered Bode had been nursing a brutal blister from the monkey bars.

“I can’t,” he contested. “It hurts too much to clap.”

I couldn’t have agreed more, Little Dude.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog
Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, pumpkins
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