Colorado Day 1: In Which Our Intrepid Explorers Encounter Harsh Elements, Crazy Insects, And Dinosaurs!

We touched down in Denver in the early evening after a somewhat bumpy flight. After picking up our rental, we headed south to Colorado Springs. As we left the airport, the kids kept remarking on how the airport was "in the middle of nowhere." They talked about how big the sky looked, how there were no trees, how the land rolled.

"You're looking at the start of the plains," I said. "You think this airport is the middle of nowhere? Not really. You'll see Denver in a few minutes. If you drive the other way? Now that's the middle of nowhere!" (My apologies to anyone reading from Eastern Colorado or Western Kansas. I know there are people and towns there. But from what I can remember driving through almost 35 years ago, they were few and far between.)

I offered a buck to the first person to spot a mountain. After driving a bit, we saw some hills. Impressive hills--especially when you are coming from Indiana--but hills nonetheless. The kids all began squawking over each other, 'Mountains! I see mountains!'

I explained that, yes, those would probably be considered mountains where we live, but in Colorado, mountains didn't have trees on top. In Colorado, I explained, mountains were rocky at the top and had a treeline where the trees stopped growing. They were disappointed, but settled down and kept looking. After a bit more driving, Maggie and James both spotted an actual mountain and were very excited to tell me. Then they began arguing over who said it first. I told them they could both have a dollar and then distracted them by mentioning the snow that capped the mountains.

"Dude! Look! It's June and there's snow!!" they exclaimed.

"And in a few days, you'll be in that snow," I said. "We'll be driving up a mountain and I'm pretty sure that you'll find some snow there."

As we neared Colorado Springs, the sun set and the rain started. We followed our directions and I called out names of places I'd been as a child, places we were going to see on this trip. We were all very excited. And then.

And then we had to start making our way up. In the dark. In a driving rain. On unfamiliar roads. On unfamiliar winding roads. On unfamiliar winding roads with big rock walls just waiting to smash us to bits.

I know that I am given to exaggeration, but you need to know that I am not exaggerating when I say that I was praying without ceasing as we drove to our cabin. Also, I had a hand cramp from gripping my door handle so tightly. I might have also worn out a hole in the floorboard from stomping on an imaginary brake. This is not a commentary on my husband's driving skills. In fact, I squeaked at him several times that I was glad he was behind the wheel, because if it had been me, we would have slept in the car on the side of the road and waited for daylight.

As we pulled off the main road to the road leading us to our house, we were all thankful that we had rented an SUV, because dude, the roads were dirt. And not the smooth dirt roads that you sometimes find out in the country. These roads had ruts worn into them and were seriously bumpy. But after bumping around for a few minutes, we arrived at our house. Patrick found the key, turned on the lights and we all came in. And then the screaming started.

It seems that my family is a bit citified. Here we were, in the middle of the piney woods and my husband and children were, um, surprised to find that there were a few moths that found their way inside our house. Okay. Maybe more than a few. A lot. But what do you expect when you are up on a mountain in the middle of the dark, dark woods and you turn on a light? Moths are gonna find you. Still, I couldn't help but laugh at my screaming children and my grossed out husband.

"They're just moths," I said. "If they were bees or wood roaches, I could see getting all worked up. If we shut off the lights and go to sleep, they'll settle down."

Nobody listened to me. (Surprise!!) Instead, while I did a once-over of the cabin, my husband and offspring declared all-out war on the moths and used their footwear to begin the extermination. Soon, we ushered our tired children to bed and got to bed ourselves, deciding that in the morning we'd head into Woodland Park (the nearest town) to find breakfast and buy groceries before doing anything else.

After spending most of the night tossing and turning and waking up often with my heart racing, trying to catch my breath, I finally managed to fall asleep about the time the light was turning a soft gray. I mentioned my crazy night to Patrick and he said he had experienced the same thing. I'm guessing it had something to do with the altitude and the air being thinner and considerably less humid than what we were used to breathing. We roused the kids, who were anxious to see where we were in broad daylight, and headed into town to breakfast.

Our first treat was that once you got off of our crazy dirt lane and pulled onto the highway, we were met with a stunning view of Pike's Peak. We had completely missed it in the dark and rain as we drove the night before. This is what we got to see each day as we made our way into town:

I am still amazed at how blue the sky was. Taking pictures here was wonderful. The light was amazing!

We found a restaurant that looked promising, called The Hungry Bear. It was perfect. Pancakes as big as your head, crispy bacon, Diet Coke(!!!), and for the kids, hot chocolate with a veritable mountain of whipped cream drizzled with chocolate. (Did I mention that it was about 54 degrees? Well, it was. It was nippy. But in a good way, because it was the complete opposite of the humid Indiana air.) James discovered crepes. James also discovered that crepes are very, very good. In fact, I believe the word "love" might have been used.


After getting groceries and taking them back to the house, the kids just wanted to stay out of the cold and rain and play air hockey. We let them do this for awhile, but then my control freak gene enthusiasm kicked in and I told them it was time to find something else to do. Something vacation-y. We had seen a dinosaur center in town and decided that that sounded like a good thing to do on a cold rainy day.We headed to the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park. It was impressive. After wandering around and looking at all the dinosaur exhibits, a guide mentioned that she would be giving a free tour, so we joined in. Our guide was knowledgeable and terrifyingly overenthusiastic goofy straight-up geeked out friendly. The tour was a little long for some of us, but it contained a lot of information and we all learned some cool stuff that we didn't know going in. Then I blew a million billion dollars in the gift shop for the kids souvenirs.


See this big sea turtle? He was found in Texas. Every time we saw him we'd do our best DudeCrush impersonation from "Finding Nemo" and say 'Fin! Noggin! DUUUUDE!!'


Mary is seeing how far she can jump. I believe she was solidly in the ova raptor range. The rest of us landed somewhere between raptor and bison. Nobody could make it to T. Rex.

We thanked our guide, said goodbye to the dinosaurs and headed home for dinner. After cooking, eating, and cleaning up, we decided that we were up for one more thing. I remembered seeing that Cave of the Winds was open until 9p.m. I remembered going there as a kid and really liking it, so I was excited for my kids to see it.

We piled in the truck and wound our way down the mountains. We marveled at the scenery that had been hidden from us the night before and found the right exit for the cave. Then we began the terrifying** winding road up to the cave. After going into the gift shop and inquiring, we discovered that the only tour left that day was a flashlight tour. Apparently at 5:30p.m., the cave's lights get turned off and they only do "eco tours" by flashlight. We decided that since at least two of our children still like sleeping with lights on, that perhaps we'd wait for a regular energy guzzling lighted tour the next day. As we made our way back the parking lot, the sky began to clear.
So we took the opportunity to pose for goofy pictures.
Let me just say that we weren't at that moment considering throwing Mary over, but she did make us think about it a few times later in the trip.



My boys. So funny.

Poor Maggie. She has to put up with all of us and our goofy humor.

Oh well. At least she wasn't rolling her eyes at us in teenage disgust.

Tired and cold, we headed back to the house for a soak in the hot tub and adult beverages. We sat in the hot tub watching the hummingbirds until we were well and truly pruny and the stars began to come out. Then we settled in for another night, hoping to get up in the morning and make the drive up Pike's Peak.

**After driving up the Pike's Peak Highway, the drive up to the cave wasn't so terrifying. Everything's relative, my friends, everything's relative.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig!

After a wonderful week looking at this fabulous scenery Pike's Peak . Photo taken from our drive up the Pike's Peak highway with a Canon Rebel xti. Wet pants not included.

we are home again. Laundry awaits. The mudroom organization beckons. There are things to do. But fear not! I shall be posting pictures (ahhh, the web version of someone's vacation slides!) and filling you in on our trip. It was a good one. We are glad, however, to be home again in our own house--moth free!--in our own beds, and in our nice, thick, humid air. (Okay, maybe I'm sorta joking about the humidity. Although I did miss seeing my curly-haired children's hair being, you know, curly. It was just kind of wavy in all that dry air.) We have all retreated to separate corners and are enjoying a little "alone time" after so much family time this week. Family love and fun only goes so far, you know.

Stay tuned. Pictures and tales to follow.

Back In The Nest And Flying The Coop

All of my little birds are back home. Patrick and I went to pick up my children and they all looked like they had grown three inches in the last seven days. As we got out of the car we were met with cries of "mommy!" and "daddy!" and very exuberant hugs. It was awesome.

My mother complimented them on their behavior for the week and said that she and my dad had had a great time with them. Then, when we got all settled in the car and took off for home, they all told on each other. Ahhh, sibling love.

It was fun to hear them singing the songs from VBS and listen to them tell of the mission for the week and how it touched them. Then there was a little bit of ragging on James because he had a couple of girls who had eyes for him and he kinda sorta had eyes for one of them too. And then, because a good time in our family can never be just a good time, someone took a joke too far and there was some bickering and a slap or two exchanged. I may or may not have said that I was over my joy of seeing them again.

We arrived back home and the kids tore upstairs to see the work that Patrick and I had done. We finally finished Mary's room (started right after Christmas). We're not fast, but we do good work. That's worth something, right? (Hint: Say yes.) So we got her moved in, and got her old room painted for James and got him moved into his new room and then got Sean's furniture rearranged in his room that had suddenly gained area after losing an extra bed and two dressers.
Whew!

All of this just in time for everyone to spend one night so that we can fly the coop. We are headed to parts west so that my children can lay eyes on mountains for the first time in their lives. It should be a good time. It will most certainly be less humid, which is worth the price of spending lots of money to be cooped up in a flying metal petri dish tube, having peanuts flung at me by surly flight attendants, and being asked 7,853 times if we are there yet.

So! I will be busy next week engaging in vacationy, family type things and will not really be taking time to post here. However! I will be here when we get back with pictures--OH! the pictures you'll see! There will be pictures of the kids' rooms, there will be pictures of children on mountains, there will be pictures of me trying not to pee my pants whilst standing atop great heights. Okay, maybe not that last one. I do, after all, have a wee bit of dignity. Maybe.

Have a great week. If I'm not back in a week or so, well, then maybe my husband got his wish and we'll be holed up in a mountain cabin, living off the land.

BWAHAHAHAHA!! Yeah, right. I'll be back. Trust me.

Letters

Dear Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper Potato Chips,

I love you. Unfortunately I love you with the kind of love that is not healthy. Yes, you are there for me when I need you with your delicious flavor, but then you linger too long, causing occasional heartburn and certain weight gain. You are lovely and really, I've enjoyed my time with you, but you're just not good for me. Please, if you see me in the grocery store, don't call to me. Don't be offended if I ignore you. I just feel that it's better if we keep to ourselves. You stay in your bag on the shelf and I will admire you from afar. I will remember you fondly.

As Ever,
Me


Dear Dumb Dog,

How is it even possible that you still have fur flying off of your body at the lightest touch? You have been bathed and Furminated within an inch of your life and I still see hair floating in the breeze. I am considering shaving you bald. But don't worry. It would only be for the summer and I promise I would coat you with sunscreen. C'mon! You know it would be much cooler that way and you could possibly start a trend among the neighborhood dogs. Short of that, I am thinking that I might put velcro strips on you so that when you lay down you'll be picking up at least as much fur as you are leaving behind. Now, go wag your furry butt somewhere else.

Love, but quickly losing sanity,
Your Alpha


Dear Person Who Did That Thing That I Can't Write About Here,

Seriously?! I mean really, SERIOUSLY?!?!?

Whatever,
Me


Dear Mudroom,

I am sick of your mess. Get up off of your dirty tile floor and pick yourself up already! I have better things to do with my time than pick up after you.

Get busy,
Me


Dear Washer and Dryer,

Please believe me when I say that I still find you very shiny and pretty and highly useful. I am sorry that I haven't seen much of you this week. (What do you mean, calling me a liar?) It's just that with the children gone I just don't have that much laundry. Perhaps you could offer your services to my mother? Or, maybe you'll just want to enjoy your little vacation. They will be coming back, you know, and then I fear that with your longer hours, increased workload, and no pay increase you will want to go on strike. Hey! We could hit the picket lines together!

You are still wonderful,
Me


Dear Dishwasher,

Please see the above letter.

Love,
Me

Dear Garden,

You are becoming a jungle and I love you! Thank you for the lettuce. It was awesome. And you were so kind to have enough to share with others. I see the way you are busy growing the peppers. And don't think that I haven't seen the flowers on the tomatoes, peas, zucchini, cucumbers and strawberries. I know you've been working hard out there in the heat and the rain. By the way, the basil and rosemary? Perfection! Keep up the good work!

I love you, I love you, I love you,
Sara


Dear Mole(s),

You are really starting to get on my nerves. You think you own my yard? I don't see you ponying up when property taxes are due. No! It's just dig, dig, dig, eat, eat, eat. I thought that perhaps you got the hint when the Dumb Dog came to live with us, but it appears that you just made yourself scarce for a while. Now you are back and dude, you are squatting on my land! Don't make me go all Caddyshack on you.

I hate you,
Sara

P.S. You are ugly!


Dear Paint,

Why do you take so long to dry? I just want to finish the stupid room. Please hurry.

Thanks,
S.


Dear Books,

You are awesome. I love how you take me away from the everyday and stimulate my brain. I love how you feel in my hands. I love your smell. I love that when I'm with you, hours pass by so quickly and I forget myself. You are amazing. I hope our love affair will continue happily for years and years and years.

Yours Always,
Sara


Dear Camera,

I know I haven't spent much time with you lately and I'm sorry. I've just not felt in the mood to take pictures. I haven't felt very creative. In fact, I've been pretty tired, so I just let you stay in your case. But have no fear! Vacation is coming and I think that you will be seeing some pretty good sights. Rest up.

See you soon,
S.


Dear Colorado,

Watch out. We are going to invade very soon. My apologies in advance. Looking forward to seeing you!

Adoringly,
Sara

Shhhhh!

Listen. Do you hear that? Me neither. My house is silent. With the exception of the distant mumble of my husband upstairs in his office and the click-click of the dog's nails on the wood floor, my house is as quiet as a tomb.

My noisemakers children, you see, are not here. They have all hit the magic number this year--the magic number being 5. Here's the deal: My parents have offered to take the grandchildren for a week during VBS at their church, but the grandchildren must have reached the ripe old age of 5 before being allowed to come stay sans parents. Last year Mary missed the cutoff by a couple of weeks. This year, however, all of my children are either attending VBS or working at VBS and staying at my folks' house. This year, my husband and I have a week alone without all of the children. It's the first time in nearly 14 years that we've been alone for this long without at least one of our children making an appearance at some point. It's a little weird. Thus the sort of unsettling silence in my own house.

Last year at this time I had a million and one things planned for when the kids were gone. My big project was painting the laundry room. Project-wise, this year is no exception. This year's list looks a little like this:
Have the carpet guy come and reinstall the carpet (that I have been tripping over for 6 months) in what was once the loft and will now be Mary's room.
Have an adult beverage.
Go to a nice restaurant and have dinner with my beloved.
Move all of Mary's furniture and crap toys and books and clothes from her old room into her new room.
Go for a run without worrying if WWIII started in my absence.
Have an adult beverage.
Go to a nice restaurant and have dinner with my beloved and some of his customers.
Wait for my husband to paint the ceiling in Mary's old room/James' new room.
Have an adult beverage.
Do some laundry.
Take a drive in my beloved's fun little race car that I haven't been in since approximately 2002.
See a movie.
Paint James' new room.
Go for a run without anyone asking how long I'll be.
Have an adult beverage.
Clean the house.
Revel in the fact that once I clean something it will stay clean for longer that 7 minutes.
Celebrate by having another adult beverage.
Move James' furniture and crapbooks, clothes and toys from his and Sean's room into his new room.
Settle down on the couch and read the last of the four books I checked out from the library a week ago.
Plant some irises.
Have an adult beverage.
Wander to the pantry just to look at the food.
Go back to the couch and watch any channel that doesn't have M at the beginning or Jr. at the end.
Head back to the pantry and realize that all of that food that I'm looking at has been there for over 24 hours.
Celebrate the fact that I won't have to go to the grocery store for DAYS by having an adult beverage.
Head to the laundry room and laugh at the paltry amount of laundry to be done.
Ponder where to have dinner.
Peek into the mudroom and consider getting it cleaned up and organized.
Decide that this task can wait until I have children home to help me.
Laugh hysterically at the thought that my children will voluntarily help me clean and organize the mudroom.
Take a shower uninterrupted.
Talk on the phone uninterrupted.
Read on the patio uninterrupted.
Use the computer as much as I wish.
Go to a nice restaurant--one without a kiddie menu--with my beloved.
Enjoy both an adult beverage AND dessert while there.
Sit downstairs at night without having to a. make several trips upstairs to break up fights/parties, b. threaten children that if they don't go to bed, I will dip them in salsa and eat them, c. yell "GO TO BED!!!" 742 times.
Wander into my kids' bedrooms and miss them.

I know, I know. It's an ambitious list. I'm fairly certain that I won't get everything accomplished. You can bet that I'm going to work extra hard to see if I can, though.

I've talked to a couple of the kids and they seem to be having a great time. I don't think they are missing me at all, which is good I suppose. They don't seem to be anxious to return home anyway.

Of course, that could be because Patrick and I have told them that we'll be making out in every room of the house while they are gone. Too bad I'll have used up all the money from their therapy jars on adult beverages and nice restaurants. Guess they'll just have to be scarred for life.

The Dumb Dog:Evil Genius Or Idiot Savant?

I have come to a conclusion of late. Well, actually, I guess it's not really a conclusion since I'm really of two minds about this particular subject and I can't really decide. Perhaps laying out the details here and seeing it in black and white will help me to actually come to a conclusion. It has to do with the dumb dog.

I know, it's been a while since I've related anything about Tilly. It's not really a falling-down-on-the-job on my part. It's her fault. She's the one who has been normal. Well, normal for Tilly, which, you know, is said with a snort and an eye roll. But lately? Lately I've been trying to decide if Tilly is an evil genius or an idiot savant. Let me back up.

The last week of school, my class celebrated with a morning at a nearby park and then a picnic at my house. That's right. My class of four and five year olds and their parents and siblings came to my home to eat. The teacher I work with totally volunteered me for this plan. And because I am, as you well know, not right in the head, I stared at her, agog readily agreed.

The weekend before the said invasion picnic, I scoured and scrubbed my home. Well, my main floor anyway. I threatened my children with bodily harm if they so much as dragged in a blade of grass on my newly cleaned floors. As you can imagine, I was a joy to live with. But, my house was spotless, which is what I was going for. (It has since fallen into a state of crapification that will require my children, with their fluent Whinese, to help decrapify.)

I cannot overstate the coming sentiment: it was a joy having my class at my house. Let me say it again, and be sure to take it without my usual sarcasm--it was a joy having my class at my house. The kids were delighted to see where their teacher lived and that she is (relatively) normal. The parents were gracious and very sweet. It was really fun. And to prove that I am totally insane, I am stating here that I would do it again.

So! Where does that leave the dumb dog? You see, I had put her in the mudroom and closed the door. I knew that she would be okay there and that as long as no one opened the door, she would stay put. Sure, she would wish she was out with us, and she might whine, but soon enough she would settle down and take a nap mudroom rug.

Now, we have a crate. We bought it the same day we adopted Tilly. We were working on crate training the dog and we would leave her in it when we went to church and stuff, but she slept out of it. She really was not a big fan of her crate. And when I say "not a big fan" I mean it brought her to the brink of her slim hold on sanity each time we put her in it. She wouldn't go in it on her own as I'm told some dogs do. We had to trick and bribe coax her in gently and then when the door was closed she proceeded to lose. her. tiny. little. mind. We would leave, assuming that, like a toddler with separation anxiety, she would eventually recover herself and be okay. Wrong. We would come home to the sound of crazy barking and her claws scraping the floor and clanging on the bars of the crate door. Our house smelled like anxiety and fear and overwrought dog. Then we'd let her out and she'd tear around the house before eventually falling in a heap and having a hard snooze. After several experimental trials of letting Tilly have her run of the house, it was decided that she was trustworthy enough not to tear the place apart in our absences and the crate was taken down and stored in the basement. Ever after, when we would need to keep her away from guests, we'd either put her on the leash until she calmed enough not to lick our guests to death, or we'd put her in the mudroom.

So on picnic day, I gave the children the boundaries of our yard and home: they could play in our yard and on our swingset, they could see whatever they wished on the first floor, but they weren't allowed upstairs, as Mr. Ganey was in his office working, and they should not open the mudroom door, because that was where Tilly was resting. Then I showed them her picture so they could see her without, actually, you know, seeing her.

All went well until nearly the end. Then somehow, Tilly got out into the house. Of course she made a beeline right for the center of the circle of children sitting on m family room floor trying to do a craft. Do I have to draw a picture for you of the chaos that ensued or do you have a pretty good idea? Yeah. I thought you would.

After reassuring the children and families that while Tilly was, um, enthusiastic, she would not harm anyone on purpose. She was a nice dog. Just, well, overly so. I apologized and the families were very gracious.

I didn't know how she got out. I assumed that in the mess of children somehow a toddler sibling had just been overlooked for a second and opened the door. I gave Tills a stern warning and closed the door on her, checking to be sure that it was, indeed, closed.

Not 15 seconds later, she was out again. After corralling her again and apologizing again, she got out again! This time, one of the moms agreed to hold the door closed until we were done with our activity. Meanwhile, I was mentally scratching my head about how the dog was getting out. Thankfully, she remained in the mudroom until we all headed outside to end our day.

But in the last several days, Tilly has escaped not out of the mudroom into the house, but out of the house--out of the house!!-- through the door that separates our garage from our mudroom. She is opening a door--that opens inward--and getting out through the open garage door. (I must mention here that she manages to trap herself in bedrooms all. the. time. She has been unable to open the doors inwardly.) I leave the garage door open, because I encourage the children to come and go through the mudroom so that the rest of the house doesn't get trashed with shoes and wet beach towels and toys. (No, the rest of the house is trashed with shoes and books and blankets and wrappers, but whatever. You say tomato, I say give me a Bloody Mary!) Several times over the last few days we have had to give chase to the dog, who is, I must say, having a grand old time tearing through the neighborhood.

Just yesterday I was sitting on the patio reading a book and watching my kids play when I registered somewhere in my brain the clink of her dog tags. I looked up, confused, when I noticed the back end of a dog trotting around the pine trees in our yard and headed into our neighbor's yard. I went back to reading and thought, "Huh, I guess a neighbor's dog came for a visit." About a minute later, the mental picture of that dog and its perky tail floated to the top of my brain. I ran inside and asked Maggie, who was sitting in the family room, where the dog was. "Inside somewhere? I dunno," was her reply.

I called for the dog. Nada. Then I walked into the mudroom and saw the door hanging wide open. I bypassed yelling and whistling for the dog, knowing that the attempts would yield me nothing for my efforts, and grabbed my purse and got in the van. After chasing her around the neighborhood in the van and watching her give us the doggie equivalent of "Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah! You can't catch me!" we finally tired her out enough that she slowed down and deigned to climb in the van. By the way, this is now my go-to way to catch the dog. She climbs in the van as easily as a trusting child when approached by strangers with candy. No wonder she wound up at the pound.

So, now, we have to open and close the big garage door every time, lock the mudroom door, or have the kids enter and exit through another door. Which, you know, sort of defeats the purpose of a mudroom. I don't think, although I haven't checked closely, that Tilly has somehow sprouted opposable thumbs. I think the problem is the door handle, which is a paddle style rather than a regular round type handle. So guess what's going on my beloved's To Do list for next week? Did you guess "install a new door knob"? You are amazing!!

So what's your opinion? Is Tilly an evil genius with a Houdini-esque style for escape? Or is she a doggy version of a savant, with her area of, um, savant-ness being mastering opening inward opening doors--but only inward opening doors that lead to the outside?

I'm coming close to forming a firm opinion, but I don't want to sway you. And I am honestly thinking of setting up a "sting" and rigging my video camera to catch her in the act. That could either be wildly entertaining or as bone-crushingly boring. I think I'll have to sit on the patio with a glass of wine and think about it some more.

Good Money Up In Smoke

This weekend my children celebrated the end of school. They stayed up late. They played outside in the dark. They had friends sleep over. They slept in. And, they burned their largely unused workbooks. Yes, that's right. We had a little bonfire of books that we paid for with book fees (free and public education what, now?) and that my children barely used. If I hadn't been sipping an adult beverage I might have shed a tear or two at the thought of that money drifting into the air.
So, yes, we started our Memorial day celebration with a bonfire. Because nothing says "Goodbye school, hello Summer" like flying ash and wafting smoke, right?