It’s the end of the world as we know it

September 30, 2014 By

As far as husbands go, Jamie is really easy-going and most of his demands have to do with his stomach. Being fed at 6 p.m. Having a steady supply of ice cream in the house.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned his ice cream addiction before but I’m not exaggerating when I say that he is obsessed and has to have it every night before bed.

Can someone put me on that diet plan to stay lean and svelte like him? #MetabolismFail

Before we started Whole 30, I did The Unmentionable: I ran out of ice cream. Two very long days later, I finally went to the store, only to find this in the ice cream section:
I sent Jamie a picture, entitling the email “your worst nightmare.”

His response: “It’s the apocalypse! Stock up with everything they’ve got!”

If you need any ice cream, you’ll know where to find it.

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie

Kenosha Pass: Colorado’s best place for fall colors?

September 23, 2014 By

Shortly after we moved into our house 10 years ago, our neighbors Lisa and Mike had just returned from mountain biking Kenosha Pass a.k.a. what they deemed “the most beautiful place in Colorado to see fall colors.”

It has taken us a decade but on Sunday, we finally made it!

Kenosha Pass wasn’t an easy victory. Church had just ended at noon, Jamie wanted to watch the Broncos vs. Seahawks showdown at 2:30 p.m., the kids begged to chill out for a couple of hours and the sky was threatening.

I knew Jamie wanted to go least of all but to his credit, he knew how much it meant to me so he rounded up the troops for the hour-long drive on U.S. Route 285.

When we got out of the car, Bode was emotionless, Jamie was counting down the minutes to the game and Hadley whined she was cold. “Let’s just stay for a little bit and then leave,” she suggested to Jamie.

Until we really arrived at Kenosha Pass. (I just wish my iPhone pictures did it justice).

Located atop a large granite batholith that forms the spine of the Front Range along the eastern side of South Park, Kenosha Pass is a part of the Colorado Trail. Colorado’s premier long-distance trail extends 500+ miles from Denver to Durango (read my adventures where the trail starts in Waterton Canyon) and this particular portion of the route is a cut of autumn heaven with swaths of endless aspen groves that look like golden pipe cleaners and staggering views of the Rocky Mountains and South Park valley.

Within moments, the kids were racing, climbing, exploring and laughing. I was initially disappointed by the brooding sky but Jamie observed, “If anything, the contrast illuminates the color of the trees and they look neon.”

He would know. He wore a jacket that made him an instant winner in our Camouflage game.

Accidental shot of a butt scratch

This South Park valley shot atop the boulder was much better

In typical Hadley fashion, she was ignited the moment she started exploring, begging us to go to the summit.

Jamie: “Do you realize that whenever you don’t want to do something and we make you do it anyway that you end up loving it?”

Hadley (sheepishly): “Yes.”

We still didn’t let her climb to the top.

This was one of my favorite photos I took as we were wandering back to the car. This shot of Kenosha Pass should be an album cover. The title would be “they whined about going and we couldn’t drag them away.”

 

Filed Under: Bode, Colorado, Family travel, Hadley, hiking, Humor, Jamie, travel

When your daughter conspires with the enemy

September 15, 2014 By

I went through two horrendously awkward years. The unfortunate thing about it was I had no idea just how goofy I looked. In fact, I thought I was Queen Bee and gosh darn it if I wasn’t at the top of my class in academics and sports in fifth and sixth grade.

It’s just my appearance that was severely lacking.

Frizzy hair? Check.

Geek glasses? Check.

Tacky ’80s clothes? Check.

I have justifiably burned most pictures from those years but my brothers have held onto a few gems for blackmail purposes (my brother Jade posted the above picture on Facebook a couple of years ago).

During my courtship with Jamie, I lived in Salt Lake City while he was in Denver.  When we got engaged, Jade dug into his secret stash and sent one of said Horrendous Pictures to Jamie. And being the horrid person that he is, he enlarged one of them, attached a “Welcome Home” sign and taped it to the front door the first time I ever came to his condo.

Jamie claims he could hear my blood-gurgling scream from the hallway.

When I was in Calgary over the summer, I went through some old boxes containing church manuals and magazines. I was thrilled when I discovered this treasure that was given to my mom by her beloved mother.

I love the inscription; Grandma always had such beautiful handwriting.

“Dear Chris, I hope you enjoy the book for your family home evening lessons. Love, Mother.”

My family loves snuggling up and reading the scriptures every night so I asked my mom if I can could carry on this tradition. What I love about this book is it is beautifully illustrated but also contains real scriptural passages (versus being summarized/paraphrased). I think it’s so important for kids to learn to understand scriptural language vs. just the stories because there is power and a strong spirit behind it.

So, what does this have to do with Hadley? As we were settling down to read the scriptures, I discovered something inserted into the book lo-and-behold, it was my seventh grade class picture. I was at the tail end of the geek years–I’d chopped my hair and the following year I got contact lenses so I was almost quasi-cool.

I won’t mention the trauma of how my mom liked my asymmetrical cut so much she got the identical style.

Hadley squealed, grabbed the picture and said, “I MUST DO SOMETHING WITH THIS!”

Even my sweet Bode turned against me. “Did you really look like that?”

I only wish I was dressed up for Halloween, Dude.

All was forgotten until I returned to my bedroom and discovered Hadley’s creation.

Now I’m just waiting for Fat Kitty to turn against me.

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor, Jamie

The Death of a Giant Pumpkin

September 12, 2014 By

My life has been such a whirlwind. Returning from a month in Canada. Family in town. Starting school the next week. Getting sick. Crazy schedules. Seriously, last night we had the kids’ piano lessons, Hadley had Activity Days, Bode had Scouts, she had a volleyball game and a school disco dance that night while I had an event at the church.

How do families of more than two kids juggle it all?

I realized the other day that I neglected to give an update on Jamie’s pumpkin season. Sadly stated: it’s over.

On the day Bode got baptized in August, Jamie’s grower group did their annual patch tour where they caravan around the city looking at each other’s pumpkins. It’s a highly-anticipated event but this year brought some bad news Jamie had long suspected: his pumpkins “Bo” and “Lucille” had developed yellow vine disease. Though they both had a great start, they never really took off and then stopped growing altogether.

“Bo” in happier days. A gorgeous pumpkin!

Tissue tests came back stating that the plants had low nitrogen but then yellow leaves started popping up, which means doomsday for giant pumpkin growers.

So he pulled the plants and started soil prep for 2015.  There will be no pumpkin parties, though he is buoyed up by the fact that the kids’ pumpkins (which are grown in another area of the yard) remain unscathed.  We’ll call that Jamie’s silver lining.

Just don’t mention the color yellow.

Filed Under: Jamie, pumpkins

Vernon, British Columbia: A week walking on water

August 5, 2014 By

My entire family hasn’t been together since our glorious trip to the Outer Banks four years ago (how could you forget our poetic and HILARIOUS crabbing by moonlight adventures)?

My brother Pat and his family are big boaters, have top-of-the-line everything and are so generous with their time and expertise with our family of newbies. The kids and I joined them in their lake house in Vernon, British Columbia for the second year in a row. New this year were Jamie, my brother Jade and his boys. It was surely a week to remember.

Though I’m just trying to forgot those 100+-degree temperatures. Remember how I like to spend July in Canada to cool down?

Regardless, if you’re going to have searing heat, 135-km-long Okanagan Lake is a good place to be and what a fun week we had full of crazy adventures.

Of course, there was the boating where the kids tubed, kneeboarded and my sister-in-law Jane taught them to wakeboard while she tutored Jamie and me in surfing. We spent oodles of time on the boat cheering everyone on as we marveled at my family of experts…

Wakeboarding Hadley

Pat clearing the wake

My bro Jade and his boys

Perfect views, perfect day while getting her wakeboard on

Meet the parents

Sisters

The pumpkin man and me

Boat babe

Nerves before wakeboarding

With my technicolor nieces

I love boating over to the West Side where the water is calmer and the views prettier. We jumped overboard and splashed, played, dunked each other off the tube and competed. Least memorable was Jade’s “crack dive” (just say ‘no’ to crack; I’ll leave that up to your imagination).

Even more disconcerting was Jamie’s initiation into the family dive-off. I had high hopes for him. He’s the strongest swimmer in our family and I just knew he could dethrone Pat and my niece Ashton for being able to dive the longest and furthest.

Oh, how quickly my hopes came crashing down.

I’m not sure what happened. We counted down and everyone did their sleek missile dives into the lake. Everyone except my dear husband who unceremoniously plopped into the lake. Sadly, my brother Pat was once again crowned king of the dive-off.

Jamie represented himself in his defense case. “I was pushed!” he accused and I believed him. Until I reviewed the photographic evidence. He is on the left in front of cousin Connor and there was no physical contact in the previous photos.

There was only a man who apparently slipped and entered the water looking like a prissy school girl skipping to school.

Better luck next year, Honey, and remember: say “no” to crack.

Stay tuned next time for more Vernon adventures!

 

 

 

Filed Under: Bode, Canada, Family travel, Hadley, Humor, Jamie

When the cat’s away, the mouse will play

July 15, 2014 By

Sure, poor Jamie is left alone for much of July as we embark on our 3,000-mile Canadian road-trip every summer but don’t feel too badly for him. He’s working a ton (like always) but apparently he’s finding time for play, as was evidenced by this discovery I made.

As some of you know, Jamie donated one of his pumpkins to Elitch Gardens, our awesome 70-acre amusement park and water park in downtown Denver.

When I was on Twitter the other day, I read this tweet from Elitch.

Apparently The Pumpkin Man is making some celebrity appearances in my absence but it makes me wonder if he will now expect us to call him The Pumpkin Whisperer?

Follow Elitch Gardens’ pumpkin “Cornelius Longbottom” on their Twitter feed here and of course, go to denverpumpkins.com for Jamie’s pumpkin updates (he’s on track for another 1,000+ lbs pumpkin). The beast will soon start putting on 30-40 pounds a day!

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie

Day of rest?

July 13, 2014 By

I’ll admit it. I was feeling a wee bit depressed on the first day the kids were at Camp Chief Ouray. Since I’ve been going non-stop since summer break started, I opted to force myself to stay inside, chill out and get some work done. To emphasize my point I stayed in my bathrobe and vowed to Jamie that Fat Kitty and I would be working from bed all day long. The good man that he is, Jamie ordered in lunch and dinner and we ate from bed.

By mid-afternoon, I moved to my office but I was still unshowered and in my bathrobe. Jamie walked by and looked at me quizzically.

Me: “I had to move from my bed because it was hurting my back to type on my computer.”

Him: “Who knew laziness could be so painful?”

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie

Love, marriage and theft

June 25, 2014 By

Sometimes Jamie buys me things because he’s sweet and thoughtful.

But mostly he buys me things so I’ll stop using his stuff.

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie

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: , ,

Why you cannot ever have a normal conversation with The Pumpkin Man

June 13, 2014 By

Me: “Have you ever heard of ‘Orange is the New Black’ that everyone is talking about?”

The Pumpkin Man: “Totally. I’ve been saying it for years.”

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie, pumpkins
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