Jason makes the front page of the paper - again

Once again, the Boulder Daily Camera has seen fit to publish my picture on the front page - this time with Logan as well. This time, we were mentioned by name in the caption. Check out the article by clicking HERE

Jason made the front page of the paper!

Ok, so you can only barely see me in the background - I'm the guy way in the back with my hand on my forehead, but I'll take it. This was the above the fold picture on the front page of the local paper. Here's a link to the story (which is not about me):

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/jul/30/tour-stays-popular-in-boulder-two-wheels-still/

Sorry we haven't been blogging, things are crazy - we promise to try to start up again.

Love to all!

Jason

Daddy update

Jason reporting. I've been working like a dog, so Jeanne's been doing the heavy lifting on posting to the blog - now it's my turn.

I took a business trip (drive) to Colorado Springs this past week to visit an air force and army base to meet with their job outplacement people to talk about how our clients can recruit transitioning military personnel. On that trip, I must have picked up a bug, because I've been having major stomach issues - probably not helped by the stress of how busy I've been at work. Earlier in the week I had promised Logan I would take him to the Denver Science Museum on Saturday - just the two of us for "Logan and Daddy day". Despite feeling pretty bad, I didn't want to break Logan's heart by telling him we couldn't go, so I sucked it up and we drove the 45 minutes into Denver to visit the museum.

I knew within 60 seconds of walking in that we would have a good day. Logan has been obsessed with the robotic Mars rovers since seeing them on Little Einsteins a few months ago. Well, right inside the door to the museum they had life sized models of the two Mars rovers on loan from JPL and Logan was MESMERIZED.

We ended up spending about 3 hours at the Museum, which is just an amazing place full of hands-on exhibits and demonstrations for the kids. There was a cool fan table where kids could explore how different scarves and parachutes would fly up in the air current.

Logan was particularly fascinated by a display of vacuum. In a demonstration of why we have to wear space suits in space and on Mars, a volunteer put a marshmallow cookie into a vacuum tube and pumped out all the air, causing the marshmallow to basically explode.

By the end of the day, Logan was pooped and crashed for a nap in the car on the way home.

I've been working pretty much around the clock, so the challenge of amusing the kids has fallen on Jeanne and she's been doing a great job - helping Logan press flowers and teaching Zach about the beauty of Sushi.

Also, Zach is getting big enough to start pulling his weight around here - Jeanne has shown him how to help her unload the dishwasher and he is a great little helper. Now we just need to teach him the difference between clean and dirty dishes so he doesn't "help" by unloading the dirty dishes!

That's about it - love to all.

Jason

Family Green Report

Composter: so far, so good - no funky smells, either from the kitchen scrap bucket (my biggest worry) or from the big composter itself. I haven't brought myself to look inside since we started adding kitchen scraps though. Yikes.

Compact Fluorescent Bulbs: We've replaced all of our eight kitchen spotlights and our 14 basement can lights (at 65 watts each) with 16-watt, dimmable CF bulbs. They take a little getting used to - although they're warm-ish, soft white, they are still just slightly cooler in color than the incandescents. Also, they take a minute or so to warm up, so when you first turn on the lights they are very dim and uninviting, but within 60 seconds or so they reach full luminescence and are really quite an acceptable substitute. At $15 a pop they were quite an investment, but supposedly they last for five years or so. We'll see. We have about a zillion other recessed lights in the house so we'll be making it a project to eventually replace all or most of them. Incidnentally, if you're in the market for these (dimmable CF are a little tough to find) we bought the NEPTUN-R30-16W-Dimmable reflector bulbs from www.1000bulbs.com

May 15th is planting day!

Very interesting...I stopped by the local hardware store today because Zach and I had a few minutes to kill while waiting to pick Logan up from school and I thought Zach might enjoy looking at the nursery plants. Unlike in California, when there is never real danger of a hard frost, the nursery plants here are labeled as to their cold hardiness (e.g. many of their pansies are hardened to 20 degrees) and there was a big sign basically saying "buyer beware...last frost date is May 15 so you're taking your chances if you buy and plant frost-tender plants before then." What a nice service - I guess I don't need to buy a Farmer's Almanac after all.

Zach was a little TOO interested in the flowers, by the way, so we had to move on before he did any damage. But I'm planning a trip to the nursery in two weeks to pick up some goodies to add to my garden.

Famly adventures and fun discoveries

I guess I thought I would be drained and depressed after leaving our family and friends behind in LA for a second time, but it turns out that Jason and I seem to have gotten a recharge out of the trip. The last few days have been some of the best yet as we get more and more used to our new life here.

Thursday was spent setting up a new toy I bought for myself - my tumbling composter! It's the Cadillac of composters, because (theoretically) there's no need to fork turn it, ever, and you can add kitchen scraps continuously, with very little need for dry/brown components, and eventually it starts spitting finished compost out of the spout, with no need to close it off and wait for a month. Logan and Zach had a fine time today gathering dried leaves to help start the process, and tomorrow we'll add our first bucket of kitchen scraps. It will be an interesting experiment to see if it works or if I end up with a disgusting tub of rotting garbage. Only time will tell! But I do find that Jason's coffee grounds seem to do a good job of suppressing odors so far.

A key stress-reliever came on Thursday evening, when I finally found the right housekeeper to help me out every other week. When we first got here I was reluctant to call anyone for a while, frankly being afraid to find out how much it would cost. I finally got up the courage to call a woman who had been recommended by a friend, but the day I was supposed to meet her my friend let me know she'd had to fire her. Then I called a local service, and while the owner was super put-together and professional, the estimate was shockingly expensive. I mean shockingly. But the newest woman, Azul, comes highly recommended, also has a very professional manner and charges a lot less. So as of this Thursday I may finally begin feeling like I can keep my head above water again.

On Friday night Jason and I got out for the evening to attend a "gala" fundraiser for Logan's school. We met a few other parents, ate a lot of great appetizers and won several silent auction items, including a basket of children's' gardening tools with enough of everything, including wheel barrows, for both boys.

Jason and I were excited Saturday morning to pack the kids in the bike trailer and ride down to the Boulder County Farmers Market, which is a seasonal market that runs from April through October. The ride down was great, but we neglected to bring a containment device for Zach, who is not content to be carried in arms when there are adventures to be had. The kids were also both still a little sleep-deprived and cranky, and there aren't many veggies to be had yet - mostly plant starts and potted flowers, and lots of great stuff that we had no way to take home, so we left feeling pretty defeated. But the day turned around in the afternoon. Jason took a solo trip to the hardware store for some supplies for a project, and at my request bought me a dandelion digger (we are overrun). The family spent the remainder of the afternoon pulling weeds together, playing with the gardening tools, organizing the garage, and ending with a picnic dinner on our back lawn. While we were eating, I realized that one of our shrubs is a lilac, and then we realized that five of the tall, bare, reedy looking things I was thinking about ripping out are in fact lilacs that are just now beginning to bloom. They smell so delicious and I am just thrilled! What a fun discovery!

Sunday was even better...we took the kids on a hike in Chautauqua Park. Words can't do the day justice but maybe these pictures will help. The trail started through a meadow and eventually entered a shady forest and up the side of a steep hill. Logan was an absolute trooper, climbing all the way up, usually leading the way. Zach hung in there for a long time but eventually wanted to be carried, and this time we were prepared with our backpack carrier. He wasn't thrilled, but Daddy's special gorp (with M&Ms) kept him pacified. We stopped under some huge rocks for lunch, explored a cave, and eventually made our way back down, Logan literally jumping down every step. He made it to within about 200 yards of the car before his legs finally wore out, and I was happy to carry him the rest of the way. In the afternoon I got out on my own for a few hours - granted, it was a shopping run to Costco, but to me it was a little slice of heaven.

Today was great too. Zach and I stayed at Logan's class for the morning, helping the kids get started with a gardening project. After school Logan and I had our first whine-free grocery trip since we've been here, and in the afternoon the boys played together very nicely while I got some laundry and a few little projects done. When Jason finished with work we all ended up in the back yard together, composting and pulling weeds again. These may not sound like a whole lot of fun, but when we're all doing it together and everyone's content to be together they can be sublime activities.

Weather should cool off a bit over the next few days - we're even expecting possible thundershowers. Maybe a little more natural rain before we get our sprinkler system turned on for the spring season.

love to all! Jeanne

Los Angeles: a great place to visit but we wouldn't want to live there ;-)

Well, we're back from our visit to LA and we've had a few days to process and recuperate...despite the flippant headline, it was a wonderful but rather bittersweet visit, especially the second half, and was more difficult for us (well, me) than we expected. Our picture taking was woefully inadequate, but there are a few to show:

Friday April 20th: We got the kids up early and got to the airport, through security and onto our plane with zero time to spare. A relatively painless flight to LAX, then it took three hours to get to my parents' house - double our estimate due to traffic, rain, and airport inefficiency. But we had a nice afternoon with Mimi and PopPop and the kids, though keyed up from travel, behaved as well as could be expected.

Saturday April 21st: The big outing of the day was a trip to Underwood Family Farm. This farm has tons of animals to see and feed, play structures, rides, and pick-your-own veggies. I was amazed at how much produce was already ready, when here in Colorado the farmers markets are just opening with the first trickle of cool-season crops.

Sunday April 22nd: For some reason I can't remember what we did this day, but I know we went to a local park with my mom and dad at some point during this trip so it must have been today. Then I think (?) we had a nice dinner to celebrate my dad's 76th birthday (!) I know we did these things, but I'm just not 100% sure of the timing.
















Monday April 23nd: A nice morning around the house, then in the afternoon we packed up the kids, said goodbye to Mimi and PopPop and headed down to our old stomping grounds near Park la Brea. Soon after we checked in to our hotel, our dear friend and former nanny Udayangani came over to see us (who are we kidding, the kids!) and to go out for dinner with us. It was an emotional reunion and the kids were thrilled to see her. On her insistence, she stayed with them in the hotel for a few hours while we headed over to the O'Briens' house for a few hours of catching up. It was great to see them, but seeing them and sitting in their home like we'd never left brought on a rush of nostalgia and homesickness and I spent the first 10 minutes crying. It's not that I want to move back to LA - seeing the traffic and congestion reinforced our love of our new town - but I do wish I could somehow transport our neighbors and friends and community and some of the better aspects of our life from there to where we are now. Anyway, we spent a nice evening with Matt and Jill, and then came home to let Udayangani head home.

Tuesday April 24th: Jason had to work at his LA office today, so we took the kids to IHOP for breakfast first. Then Udayangani accompanied me to visit Melissa Disharoon and her kids, Tegan, Harper and Finn (again, me getting weepy on and off during my visit). At naptime we all headed over to the O'Briens' house, where I put Zach down for his nap and then Logan and Liv had a very sweet and happy reunion. They seemed to pick up right where they left off, and I got to say hi to Julie Stark and Sharon Bamber and Tamiko and Aimee Ishida, some of our old neighbors. We also peeked into our old apartment, which has been furnished for a corporate rental (three chefs who will be working at a new restaurant opening in town) and is not yet occupied. In the afternoon Marieke and Willem came by to play, and then Jason came home, and we saw some of the other neighborhood kids, and Christie came by, and Matt and Jill prepared a fabulous, delicious dinner in honor of Liv's 5th birthday. Watching the kids all play together in the yard as they used to for seemingly endless summers tugged at my heartstrings. I wonder how long it will be, if ever, before our kids have friends that close again here in Boulder. Is that a closeness you only get from knowing the kids and their parents since before you had memories? I don't know the answer and it scares me sometimes. To make matters worse, I have zero pictures from this day. I guess we were too busy living it and soaking it in to think about the camera.

Wednesday April 25th: Jason headed to work again this morning and the boys and I relaxed in the hotel room for a few hours. Then Mimi came down for a last visit, and to keep an eye on the kids while I got the car loaded up and checked out of the hotel. We got some lunch then stopped in to visit Logan's best friend from preschool, Penelope Goldin, and her parents Amy and Greg. Once again, the sweetness of how excited they were to see each other, and Logan's disappointment when the visit was over, was heartrending. But by the time we said goodbye to Mimi again, picked up Jason from his office and headed to the airport, Logan's spirits were lifting again and he was telling us her was excited to get home to Boulder. The kids did great on the plane - Jason and they sat together in a row and I got to sit by myself, a rare treat - and were real troopers even though we didn't make it home until late that night. A day or two of sleeping in and extra rest and they were back on track as their usual cheery selves. I am feeling better as well...still missing my friends but glad to be home, as this place really feels like home now.

Since getting back we've had some fun adventures, but those will have to wait until tomorrow, as it's 10:30 and I am really tired after a fun but exhausting weekend. Come back tomorrow night for more great pictures. Love to all!