We're finally beginning to understand the rest of the country's fascination with the Weather Channel

When you live in Southern California, there's rarely a compelling reason to make frequent checks of the weather forecast. Most of the time the weather is what the paper says it's going to be, and most of the time that's dry, sunny or partly cloudy, mildly chilly in the winter and warm the rest of the year. Being a native, I could never understand how weather forecasts could warrant their own cable channel and numerous Web sites. Now that we live here in Boulder I have a whole new appreciation for Americans' obsession with weather forecasting.

Ironically, the forecasts here are rarely accurate. But they do lead to some excitement. In the middle of last week United Airlines and Frontier started canceling flights out of and into Denver, due to predictions that a big storm was going to dump in Denver on Thursday night, and bury the foothills (us) in 12-18 inches of snow! What we did get was some disgruntled airline travelers, a light rainy misting, and the sum total of about 100 weak little snowflakes. Then temps in the mid 70s over the weekend.

Of course, it's not just local weather that affects us. Jason was due to leave on a trip to New York yesterday. We were on the way to drop him off at the airport at 9:30am when he got an alert on his phone that his flight was delayed 5 hours due to weather in NYC. We decided to turn back to home, he spent 2 hours at home and then went to the airport, and after two more delays and finally cancellation of the flight, he was home at 6:30 or so to put the kids to bed. Since we're headed to LA at the end of the week, he scuttled the trip and will do his meetings by phone. We're hoping for warm, dry and sunny,by the way.

PS some more cute pictures I meant to post with the previous entry...

To Matt and Jill: Have we mentioned that Logan's got plans vis a vis your daughter? He's already drafting up invitations (dictating - writing courtesy of PopPop) and planning her name change...








Zach has begun that charming phase of toddlerhood that includes tantrums. Here, he's lying on the floor in protest of some offense I've committed. I can't remember what but I wanted to capture for future blackmail purposes.












Zach also loves climbing into any empty drawer or cabinet he can find. They're getting rare, but here's a picture of him in the last empty cabinet in the kitchen.

Has it been three weeks??? Yikes!!!

Well we're back after a 3-week hiatus...we've had a busy few weeks and there's no way we're going to be able to remember everything so I'll try to do a quick re-cap. Apologies to my mom and dad, because their visit is going to get condensed much more than it deserves. But that's life, I guess!
So first of all, as Jason so slyly mentioned in our last post, we are officially ready to announce that we have baby Berk #3 on its way, due to arrive sometime in late September/early October. We're about 15 weeks in at this point and so far all tests have pointed to smooth sailing. No word on boy/girl yet - that won't be for another 6 weeks or so but we'll post it here as soon as we know. For now, a baby picture...takes a little imagination, but this is a 3-D picture of the baby's face and upper torso. It's oriented vertically, and the baby's face is the upper middle blob. looking slightly down and to the right. If you really squint, you can make out the nose and the shadows of the eyes and mouth. Anyway, I went to a baby shower recently where a mom-to-be was proudly showing off her 3D in-utero photo, and quite frankly I thought the baby looked horribly deformed. So no offense if you just don't see it or think it looks awful! The doctors assure me that everything looks normal. :-)

Now to take us back in time to our wonderful visit from my parents, which followed on the heels of our wonderful visit from Jason's dad Herb. The arrived on a beautiful, warm and sunny but windy Wednesday afternoon and got to tour our house and grounds, and of course spend quality time with the boys.

Then they got a taste of the incredibly bizarre range of weather conditions we have here in Boulder; we all woke up Thursday morning to a yard blanketed with snow and big, fat flakes falling from the sky. But we took advantage of it, bundling the kids up to take them out. Logan got to make his first snowpeople, and Zach took a ride on the sled. Mimi, PopPop and Logan also had a snowball fight. BTW, sorry about the layout troubles here...

The snow stopped falling that afternoon and disappeared over the next day or two. By the time they left on Monday, it was as warm and sunny as the day they'd arrived. In the meantime, we took them around to visit Logan's school, see some of the parks we love to go to, and they also watched the kids for us while Jason and I got a rare morning to ourselves to go out furniture shopping. We went back to the store at which we'd bought our bedroom furniture and made our saleswoman ecstatic by buying dining room and living room furniture. Now, in just 10-12 more weeks, we'll finally have furniture in our two front rooms!

As I mentioned, we toured several parks with mom and dad, some pictures of which follow. I should mention that both of these locations are very close to our home - the first, Birmingham Park, is about a 15-minute drive into the mountains, the other, Boulder Creek, is a 10-minute bike ride from our house. Logan has discovered that his favorite thing the in whole wide world is to throw sticks, rocks and pinecones into running water. What child wouldn't be fascinated by that? Zach loves it too, of course, but he has that 21 month-old combination of enthusiasm and lack of good sense that makes me inclined to leave him home when we go to these parks.

I should also thank my mom and dad for helping us out so much around the house. They put on their handy hats and gave us some great advice about the house in addition to physically helping us make progress on settling in. There was so much else that happened during their visit but There just isn't time to get it all down now, not to mention the two weeks since they left. Jason's traveled a bit, we've had some beautiful family adventures and there have been rough patches too. But overall we are incredibly happy here and hope some day you'll all get a chance to see Boulder in person.

Rainy, then not-so-rainy weekend

So Friday night as we ate dinner, we had pouring rain, and thunder and lightning. Saturday morning arrived with gray skies with rain ranging from drizzle to downpour. I had to work on and off throughout the day, but was able to take a break long enough for us to drive 15 miles or so to a local furniture store that carried a bed we wanted to buy (which we had only seen online and we wanted to see in person before buying). The kids were in good spirits, but as soon as we arrived at the furniture store, it became apparent that they would have no part of furniture shopping. As a result, we made the salesperson's day by walking into the store, finding the bed we wanted and literally saying "we'll take that bed, those bedside tables, and that dresser" and then paying and leaving - all in the space of about 10 minutes.

Sunday morning we awoke to sunny skies and 70+ degree weather. A friend of ours who went to college here (Hi Amanda!) once told us that on a good day, Boulder sparkles, and Sunday was one of those days.

After breakfast we loaded the kids into the bike trailer and went for a family bike ride - me with kids in tow, and Jeanne with fetus in tow (in case you haven't heard, we're expecting again - early October - yeah!). We rode from our house down the Boulder Creek bike path which winds through town, past the most gorgeous creek and woods you could imagine. After toodling along for about 30 minutes we came to a park with a giant rocket for the kids to play in, so we pulled over for 45 minutes or so for them to play.

By the way, in case you haven't noticed this, if you click any of the pictures we post on the blog, it will pop up full size so you can see more of the detail. Try it!

After the park it was getting to be lunch time, so we cruised back into town to Pearl Street where we grabbed lunch at the Boulder Cafe. Zach was enjoying the bike ride so much he refused to remove his bike helmet when we got off the bike, so he ended up wearing it throughout lunch, despite Jeanne asking him every five minutes if he wanted to take it off. Zach's new favorite word, by the way, is "Nope". Not "No", but "Nope".



















So the lunch conversation went something like this:

Jeanne - "Zach, do you want to take your helmet off"
Zach - "Nope".
Jeanne - "Ok. Logan how is your hot dog? Good? Zach, do you want to take your helmet off"
Zach - "Nope"
etc.

So after lunch, Jeanne and - I stuffed to the gills with shrimp Quesadilla, pulled pork sandwich, and french fries - proceeded to bike home with the kids. One minor problem. We live right up against the foothills. Hence, everything in Boulder is DOWNHILL from us. Hence, if we start from anywhere in Boulder, we have to go UPHILL to our house. Hence, if we eat a big lunch and try to bike home we are going to be VERY unhappy. Well, long story short, we made it home with a bit of huffing and puffing (especially me, since I was pulling 70 pounds of kid and bike trailer) and spent the rest of the day relaxing at home, and running around the back yard enjoying the sun.

Sunday was one of the days that made us 100% confident we made the right choice moving to Boulder - we were outside as a family, getting exercise, and enjoying beautiful scenery. Truly idyllic.

Jason

And today...

Don't miss the post below recapping our visit with Herb...but I had to do a quick post about today...the big event for today was Logan's first playdate with a classmate. A week or so ago as we were leaving school, a little boy who was leaving with his mom told her "look mom, that boy is new in my class." We stopped to chat and she (Pam) was wonderfully friendly and suggested we get the boys together for after-school play dates. Patrick is just a few months older than Logan so it's a good match, and they seemed to get along well. Today after school we met at a nearby park, and the boys ran off and played together the whole time while Pam and I chatted. She and her family moved here from New Jersey two years ago, and she just seems like a really nice person. The boys were disappointed when it was time to go, which was a great sign. So, Logan has a school friend. yay!!!

I wanted to post this cute picture of the kids playing in the massive pile of packing paper we've accumulated in the living room. With any luck we'll eventually replace the paper with leather club chairs and lovely library furniture. But for now it's Logan's place to pretend he's an ant in an ant farm.
Good night all!

Recap of Herb's visit

Had a few busy days and wasn't able to get to blogging while Herb was here, so here's a quick summary of what we did while he was here:

Monday March 19
Herb didn't get in until fairly late in the evening, so we did the mandatory house tour and fed him some frozen pizza (which we did reheat, of course). Then we caught up for a while before turning in for the night.

Tuesday March 20
Logan slept in later than Herb, so no rude awakening for Grandpa. We decided to keep Logan home one more day out of respect for the other families at his school, so he and Herb got a lot of quality bonding time. Which was especially helpful since we foolishly scheduled a lot of moving related activity for the day - we had a handyman in for most of the day taking care of our punch list, had a guy come by to pick up our moving boxes (gotta love Craigslist) and also had to wait around to receive a delivery of four 100-pound boxes that would eventually morph into basement furniture (see below). In the meantime we spent some time showing Herb around our back yard and then sitting in the side yard to escape the intense sunlight and heat. In an excellent grandparenting moment, Herb redirected Logan's destructive impulses from some desirable garden plants to dandelion weeds, and a marathon weeding session ensued. While scouting the garden, I noticed all sorts of pretty little flowers that I've never seen before all over the garden. Some were definitely wild violets, and then there were a number of other bulb-type flowers that I am not sure about. I'm going to need help figuring out what are weeds and what belongs in this yard!

In the afternoon, a playdate with some friends, and then dinner at the Walnut brewery, where Herb discovered that the altitude affect one's ability to hold his beer. After putting the kids to bed, Jason and Herb set to building one of the pieces of furniture for the basement. Witness the explosion of the box into a million pieces. It took three hours, but the cabinet is done save for one hinge that was missing from the box. Hence no "after" picture yet...




Wednesday March 21
Had a little more freedom today, so Herb accompanied me to drop Logan off, and then he, Zach and I headed down to the Pearl Street Mall to check out the Boulder city center. Had a nice, leisurely walk and a tasty lunch at the Boulder Cafe. Picked Logan up and played around the house and yard, and then we took the whole crew to "Protos Pizza" in North Boulder. Logan and Zach were both very hungry and Logan was demanding pasta, which we knew the place didn't have. He also doesn't like pizza, but for some reason we stubbornly decided we wanted to go to this place and he would just have to find something to eat. Thank GOODNESS we ordered a "white pizza" and he and Zach devoured the whole thing, with Logan happily declaring that he now loved pizza. The evening could have been disastrous but it turned out just fine.

Thursday March 22
Herb's last day in town. Jason played hooky from work for the morning so he could take us on a scenic drive after dropping Logan off at school. It was very scenic! Then back home so Herb could have some R&R while I took Zach shopping for new shoes. While Zach napped, Herb and I picked Logan up and ran a few errands (including new shoes for Logan). Then home to pack and the whole family drove Herb out to the Denver Airport to see him off. Poor Logan fell asleep on the way, and though he did rouse briefly to say goodbye, he didn't remember it later. He loved having his Grandpa visiting and we hope Herb will return (with Kathryn!) very soon!

A rough morning, but we're good now

So what I left out of last night's post is that just before bed Logan was really listless, feverish and I was getting worried, and then suddenly he barfed all over himself and Jason, and then his fever came down and he cheered up considerably. We did get a pretty good night's sleep and his fever was very low-grade in the morning, but he had trouble keeping anything down for the first part of the day. But suddenly he was asking for food, and ate every bit of toast and white rice we would give him. He was back almost at 100% this evening, including running around, wrestling with Zach and jumping from chair to bed in his room. We'll keep him home from school again tomorrow out of respect for the other families, but we expect to be back to normal operations tomorrow.

We were very excited to welcome Herb to our house this evening for a visit. The boys had to go to bed before he arrived, but as I tucked him in Logan was asking me if he could play with Grandpa Herb as soon as he (Logan) woke up in the morning. Sounds good to me...the guest room is in the basement, so I am all for Logan heading straight down the stairs to play with Herb while I get a little extra shuteye.

We'll be sure to get Herb's assessment of the guest accommodations and post any glowing reviews so you all know how great it will be when YOU come visit us! And tomorrow we'll take and post pictures of our adventures. G'night!