The Great Experiment

Oh beautiful Colorado! Which by the way means red or colored red in Spanish. We drove up and came home through the mountains and back ways which was so much fun. And do you know what one of the best parts of the trip was? The mini DVD player broke even before we pulled out of the driveway. That turned out to be the best thing ever. The kids were forced to look out the window, color and play with each other in the back seat (well as much as you can play being strapped into place). We really had a great trip. We spent 5 days in Ft. Collins playing with Aunt Lindsay, Uncle James and cousins Henry, Ellis and Clara.
Jason turned 33 on Tuesday August 11th. We had a special birthday party and birthday cake for him that afternoon before we left to go camping. He said he wanted summer cake for his birthday. And then he requested a "special shapes" cake. I did my best to oblige with a special shapes summer cake, a new challenge. Happy Birthday Jason- with his own personal Fourteener. Can anyone tell me how many mountains over 14,000 feet CO has (a little fact I learned on this trip). Jason's cake was to scale with each inch representing 1000 feet. Ok maybe not but that's the idea.
The Halgrens came with us up to Wyoming where we camped overnight and hiked around Vedauwoo (a very neat place of which we have no photos). While in WY we got to spend the afternoon and evening in Laramie with the Bluemels. Dave Bluemel and I were in the same MTC group. Do you realize I have been home from my mission for 10 years this past May? Crazy. And we didn't get any pictures of the Bluemels either.

We left Ft. Collins and camped for 2 nights in central CO near Glenwood Springs (after driving through Rocky Mountain National Park- highest paved road in North America). We splurged and went to the natural hot springs (turned resort with LARGE warm swimming pool). It was the perfect tempurature for the mountain air. Wesley swam non stop. In the "deep" end. Jason and I have learned to watch for the bubbles to know when he is ready to come up for air. He will rest for a second in your arms and then dives right back in. It is hilarious to watch and so inviting to strangers to comment and stare. Of course we have no photos and this is when we decided we really want one of those underwater point and shoot cameras that are almost indestructible. Perhaps then we would have more photos to share.

We drove home and stopped for dinner in Creede. It is a cute little mining town tucked back in the mountains. The city park had a little mine train and cars. You could barely pull Luke away to eat and bite and then he was right back at it.
A close-up of Wesley's new thumb and scar in case you haven't seen it.


And what was the great experiment you may be wondering? We never ate out- no restaurants, fast food, nothing. All meals came from Lindsay's kitchen and the back of the truck (so ok, the grocery store). It was great. What is funny is that is how I remember traveling while growing up so it really shouldn't seem that novel.

Nature provided some treats of her own. Fresh mountain raspberries. Yummy!
A baby moose we saw while driving home. So cute. But where is mama?

Lindsay and her amazing yummy swiss chard from her gorgeous garden.
We had a wonderful time. When we asked Allie what her favorite part of the trip was she said "Playing with Henry". Aw - cousins. So fun!
The end.

Channeling John Denver

We left Albuquerque about 11:30 Friday and decided to take the scenic route to Ft. Collins. We had a goal to not stop at a restaurant on the way up and almost didn't succeed. Our first stop (pics below) was about 5 miles north of Tres Piedras, NM. The kids didn't want a bell pepper and Swiss sandwich w/ some some kind of tomato/eggplant ooze from Sunflower market, so Joy and I had seconds.

(Pardon the unfocused pics; we need a new P&S camera...)
We picked a random dirt track off the side of the highway and wound up finding a cool rope swing under a tree where we stopped. There was a huge puddle along the way that made a good splash and got the kids wet through their windows. That was a hit.

Our second stop was about 10 minutes south (and above) Breckenridge, CO. We stopped again off the side of the road and Allie was starving, begging to go to a drive through. I promised her she would love dinner. We made an instant hot water meal (freeze dried backpacker food)- Pad Thai noodles with real peanuts and peanut butter. Yummy - I was OK in her eyes again.
We were next to a stream and with sun setting were being eaten alive by mosquitoes. So we packed up and drove up near a pass, 11,600 or so... The sunset and the snow fields on the mountains made for a great view. Thai food doesn't quite match, but oh well...
Wesley's hair is crazy from a little run in with a tub of Vaseline. We have tried washing it with shampoo, bar soap, Dawn and have probably tried each a million times to no avail. Finally our neighbor E. Hedrick put some corn starch in his hair which seems to have worked reasonably well after we washed it.

Joy and Lindsay have taken the chance to get some girl time in so James and I have been playing with the kids and eating peas all day in their nice back yard.

Halgrens here we come!

Off we go on a much needed vacation. Here we come Lindsay, James, Henry, Ellis & Clara! We leave tomorrow to go visit Lindsay and James in Colorado and not a moment too soon.

I'll leave it to Allie to demonstrate that it is time to get away as a family for some R&R. (Maybe I shouldn't do this; she'll kill her Dad when she gets older-- good thing this is a private family blog). This is what happens when your mom takes you to the bathroom at 10:30 after you have already fallen asleep. Luke's undies were on the floor and Allie, not awake kept reaching for them for some reason. Joy just finally gave them to her and she must have thought they were a shirt or something.

You may now proceed to call CPS...

Summer Fun

So where is the picture of the kitchen? Well, we installed most of the drawer pulls yesterday, so not quite yet!

However, here are some summer fun pics. I (Jason) joined my family at the free lunch park. It actually brought back a bunch of memories of soggy free lunches in Farmington as a kid- no great culinary memories, but a lot of fun memories being with my brothers and sisters. Joy takes the kids to free lunches after swimming lessons. We found a cool seesaw at the park. The other girls are the kids of some friends of ours.

(Pardon the defocused pics in this post- our old point and shoot has about had it again).
Can you see the surprise in the picture below? I heard it before I saw it out field testing for work. How miserable- being outdoors for work- wo is me.
Here is Lukie working to find buried treasure in the kiddie pool. He is so excited to swim now; when he was Wesley's age he would just Velcro himself to you and not want to do anything but get out.

Allie has progressed substantially over the four weeks of lessons. She can now dogie paddle from one edge of the pool to the other.
One Saturday they wanted to show off for their dad so we went to the Montgomery Pool in Albuquerque where they were enrolled.

Wesley missed out on lessons, he is too little- you need to be at least 3. Joy talked to me about what you'll see in the video below. Umm... Well... Joy just said I needed to see something. The life guards were freaking out along with all of the other parents in the pool including this one. I got the hang of what it takes to be around this little guy and the new habit he picked up on his own.

See for yourself.

An Exciting Week

Last week was full of some pretty big events. I officially have my kitchen with all of the appliances in working order! It is a beautiful thing... to be able to make whatever kind of meal you want- free of limitations and freezer burn. And free of added fat, sodium, extra preservatives and packaging. You get the idea. By the way the induction cooktop... is... AWESOME. Period. I was really nervous about it. Talk about changing your mind. We had a brand new gas cooktop all ready to go. They cut the granite for that cooktop. It was after that that I became certain that what I really really wanted was the induction cooktop. I was really nervous about whether I had done the right thing to change at the last minute like that. You can only imagine how very happy I was to find out, after returning the one and buying the other, that it fit the hole that was cut.

Luke has potty trained! After having only one experience prior to my son, I am absolutely thrilled at how not miserable the experience has been. I skipped right over the stickers and went straight for the treats to reward him. He did NOT want to go #2 but when I explained the reward process there was no hesitation. In fact he put "a lot of effort" into getting that reward every time he sat down so we had to change things up- must be dry for half of the day. Well he has been dry for days. In fact he has only had two minor accidents this entire time. The other crazy thing is that after day two of training Luke started waking up in the morning with a dry diaper. I didn't realize we could take care of the day time routine and get the nighttime down as well all in one week. Hooray! He is also a year older than Allie was. I won't make that mistake again.

Wesley is weaned. Have you heard the breastfeeding statistics? "Women who breastfeed lower their risk of breast cancer. Nursing for a lifetime total of: 2 years lowers the risk before menopause by 40%, 6 years lowers the risk before menopause by 66%, 7 years lowers the risk of breast cancer throughout a woman's lifetime to almost zero." I have nursed for a total of 4 years. So I guess my risk is down to 50%-ish? I just find these figures fascinating.

Here is a sneak peak at the counter. You cannot appreciate how funny we thought the still life art was at 11pm after a very exhausting day. Two words for you- slap happy!
Grandpa just getting ready to head out the door to go swimming. It was soooo much fun to have them come.
A few more of the construction shots. We believe in child labor. Luke did a good job mopping the concrete so we could be ready for the cabinets and floor to go in. Wesley came along and was only interested in playing in the dirty soapy water. And then his mom made him stop. No fair.

The cute boy in the back mopping with Luke was our electrician's 9 year old son. He was always up for shoveling dirt or helping out in anyway that he could. However he was not interested in pretending to get married to Allie. That was exactly what she wanted to play every time he came over. I tried really hard to explain to her that 9 year old boys don't really want to play make-believe weddings with 5 year old girls. She still doesn't believe me.

We're In!

Well... mostly. We still have to get the cooktop wired in and then I will have all my appliances. I have already used the oven (1st thing I baked was enchiladas), the microwave, the dishwasher, sink (which is not an appliance but one of the best features of our kitchen and maybe ANY kitchen) and of course our refrigerator. We kept our old refrigerator because it works and we can save up for a new one later but our current refrigerator feels like new because for the first time ever we can use the water dispenser in the door! It is so awesome. I know you are anxious to see photos (believe me you cannot be more anxious than we were) but we are waiting for the finishing touches on the cabinets. They are supposed to come back and fix some things, add some things... soooo... you will just have to wait.

My parents and Jenny came into town last week. It was so much fun! And they all worked so hard! We sanded, stained, painted, wired, dug, washed, cleaned, laughed, ate, shopped and swam- among other things. You don't have to read this list since you just read the brief description anyway but I have to write it down because I want to remember how much they did with and for us. We rewired the oven (a story in and of itself dealing with cutting more holes in more walls but we are so past caring that I hardly feel the desire to go into details), remounted the oven for the 3rd time, rewired the dishwasher, wired the outlets, jimmy-rigged the evaporative coolers (so we could actually have cool air... aaaahhhh), rewired the hall switches, filled the trench (mostly), swept and mopped the floor, painted and remudded the walls, wiped, vaccumed and power dusted and the cabinets, washed every pot and pan and spoon etc while unloading the boxes to put back into the kitchen, sanded the window seal and sealed it, cut down and pulled out the dead pyracantha bush (died in the the ditch dig), returned oodles of things to Lowes and Home Depot, washed and dried clothes, cleaned bathrooms, played with kids, went swimming, went "garage sailing" (where I bought two bar stools for a dollar each and a really cute pair of Kenneth Cole shoes, jewelry, a baby seat that attaches to the bar, running shoes- it was so exciting and so fun!), went to Savers and the temple. I am telling you it was nonstop! We took a long Sunday nap after they left. We miss them still.

And now some photos of today's rain. This was just after the rain had stopped and this is the water coming off the roof through one of the canales (pronounced canalees, really).
Here you can see that last part of my ditch that has not been filled in yet. It is now a duck pond. Except I have no ducks.

This shot is our brand new ceiling- with the hole that rain water was coming through. Might as well add "new roof" to our remodel list.

And now for a few more construction shots. Wesley's favorite tool by far was this little key hole saw. He LOVED it. And if you ever left it out he would snatch it up!
By the way that is my mixer cabinet. The mixer will be on a shelf that pops up and out and then back away again so I won't have it constantly sitting on my counter. Love it!

I Wanted To Go Green

When we first walked through our house as potential buyers we knew we would want to take out the wall between the kitchen and family room. The kitchen was 30+ years old and would need some changes. So for years now I have been thinking and daydreaming about how our kitchen remodel would be. And I wanted to go green.

Bamboo floors- a fast growing hardwood, awesome! And then we heard from several people that bamboo floors do not do well in New Mexico because of how dry we are here. No to bamboo floors.

Paper counter tops- made from recycled paper and pressed, supposedly looks similar to stone. The company that used to sell them no longer carries the product because as it turned out, they are not great in wet areas. I know, that seems obvious. The magazines I had read about them in said they were a great "green" option but apparently they were unaware that the warranty had been dropped. The recycled glass countertops? Jason thought they were ugly.

Cabinets- I liked the color of our old cabinets just fine. I looked into revamping them with pull out drawers and new doors and hardware. As it turns out it was cheaper to just get completely new cabinets. So I was excited to go with a locally made and locally owned cabinet company. We came to find out they make the pieces in the northwest and stain them in the south and assemble them here in Los Lunas (just south of Albuquerque). Our cabinet installers claim Gov. Richardson attracted the company to NM and lets them put out a lot more VOCs than they were aloud in NV. Hmmm.

Appliances- Energy Star. Which are expensive. We ended up buying appliances that were scratch and dent or out of the box which has really saved us a lot of money. And money is kind of green, right?!

Dishes- pick out one plate, cup and bowl for each person and wash them after every meal. I tried that for maybe a week or two before I caved and bought a bunch of paper/Styrofoam plates, cups and bowls.

So I really wanted to go green. Well... we have painted the walls green, Soothing Avocado to be exact. So there.

Have you seen the Goode Family? I think I'll go take a shower in my rain barrel.
*A quick note since I wrote this post almost a week ago. First of all, I couldn't find the wide angle lens so you could see the whole kitchen with the cabinets now installed. Believe me, that was not without some heartache and a couple of trips by the company to fix things. They will have to come out one more time still. But yes, the walls are painted and the cabinets are basically in.

We have recently found out that maybe we did NOT have to do all that digging. It is a long story and an issue of the city saying one thing and the electric company saying another. Again I feel crummy even complaining at all. It's not just one thing, it is the layer of everything happening. So maybe I didn't have to take out all those trees, kills bushes and flowers and bulbs, not let my children go out in the back yard for what seems like forever now, my garden over growing with weeds until I can get to it. And let's not even start with the amount of money spent for that ditch alone. The worst is the kitchen would be already done long before NOW. Aaaaauuuugh!!!!!!!

Serenity now! Serenity now.