Easter Hike

I need to mention the family hike we took for Easter Sunday before I forget it. It was amazing - easily the best three hours we've spent together as a family in recent memory. To be honest, spending three hours together is highly unusual to begin with. Two hours, tops. And that's usually in front of a movie.

Three hours. 5.3 miles along the Mesa Trail between the NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) trailhead and Eldorado Canyon. No one fought, no one argued. It was bliss. I think it had a lot to do with the absence of anybody needing to control anyone else or tell anyone else what to do. Just walking and talking, some laughing, a picnic in the middle. The kids were amazing. It was the best Easter ever.

We need more of this.

Lafayette Skate Park

Wind and cold  kept other skaters away this morning so that Griffin and I had the whole park to ourselves. Lots of fun; no injuries to report.

This morning basketball.

Griffin and I went camping this weekend - up off the Peak to Peak Highway, North of Nederland. It was last minute, and I knew we weren't reserving any Memorial Day Weekend campsites, but I knew of this place from last year where we could find a place and camp on the fly at no charge. Actually, we camped at the same spot we camped last year - right by the Sourdough trailhead.

We set up the tent in no time and went about the business of making food. Unfortunately, there is a fire ban, so we had to make do with the camp stove for all things food-related. Burgers and corn were fantastic, but roasting marshmallows over the camp stove just doesn't have the same feeling. Griffin didn't seem to mind, though.

The wind was crazy Saturday night. Probably the worst night's sleep I've ever had as I sat up wondering if I should gather up my boy and get in the car before a tree blew down on us. You laugh, but you should have seen the trees that littered the area. Blow down from months previous all over the place. We got through it, though, and I managed to squeeze in a few hours of sleep.

Our hike on the Sourdough trail was fantastic. We talked, jogged, philosophized; we drew pictures; we found the boney remants of a mountain lion's dinner.

Before we'd left, we stopped at the used bookstore and picked Griffin up a book on doing card tricks. He's pretty into it. Frankly, I've never seen him study anything so hard. He's actually getting some of the basics down from this book, and I'm going to try to work with him on learning some of the tricks. I can hardly wait for July, when Griffin will get a chance to work his magic for his magic papa.

Hiking and Philosophy

Today we walked the railroad track from our house into downtown Louisville for nice hot drinks. Griffin paused to pee in the snow on the way back while Berit and I walked on (Pam and Rowan were ahead of us still). When Grif caught up, Berit asked him if he had written his name in the snow.

"No. Then everybody would know whose pee it was."

To which Berit replied, "then you should have written Daddy's name."

Barbecue, origami, and a dog.

Griffin and I are enjoying some pre hike food while he folds paper. Interestingly, the origami figure is also a dog.

Cup-Stacking

So evidently there is such a thing among the youth of America - at least in this part of America - known as "cup-stacking." It seems as though it's positioned as a sport and to hear my kids talk about it, you'll probably want to start looking for it in Future Olympic Games.

Griffin has asked me a few times over the past god knows how many months for cup-stacking cups, a request that due to my own ignorance and dismissiveness of the entire concept, I let slide by, unheard. So thankfully, Griffin's friend Grant gave him a complete set of cups, complete with cup-stacking mat and timer.

Griffin was pretty excited about this (Rowan too, actually, when Griffin will let her use his gear) and has spent some amount of time trying to improve his time on this particular sequence. Right now, I think it's 21 seconds.

Today I went with Rowan on her Integrated Class field trip. Integrated is either social studies or science. The one she is currently in is social studies. It's called "Mysteries of History" and she is studying pre-Columbian Central and South American tribes - Aztecs, Incas, Mayans.

Normally, their ADI (All Day Integrated) field trip for this class would involve recreating a pre-Columbian village - a day in the life sort of thing - up in the foothills above Boulder, but because we've had some snow of late, they switched to the Build an Inuit Igloo field trip, for which we went up to Brainard Lake - also up in the foothills.

Unfortunately, the snow was light, powdery - great for skiing, not good for igloo building - so after a morning of shoveling snow into boxes, spraying it with water, and making igloo bricks that just wouldn't hold together, we had lunch and bailed on the igloo project. Instead we went walking  - SLIDING - on Brainard Lake.

It's probably hard to tell from the photo, but Rowan and I had a blast. And also, damn it's gorgeous here.

Buried Alive

The other night, Rowan was bent on going out and playing in the snow. She donned her coat, hat, gloves, and snow pants from the ski bag, and went out after dinner in the dark. And cold. 

Very cold. Griffin went out into the yard with her, but I was having no part of it. Even after Griffin came back in to do his math homework and told me that Rowan wanted me to come out and see something, I said no no no. Too cold. But this worried Griffin - he wouldn't tell me what Rowan wanted to show me, but he did check back outside on her. 

Of course, the story doesn't really have a punchline - you've already seen from the picture. Griffin had buried Rowan in the snow, which is what I discovered when I went out there, and she wasn't moving until I came out.

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This morning, Rowan is upstairs coaching Griffin on a song to sing to try out for the Peanut Butter Players' Christmas play. Awesome.