A Mountain Run

Joseph is pretty good to me. I love that he spent so much time working on those crazy valentines just for me! Emily is in awe of his paper-crafting skills and Caleb definitely appreciates the Minecraft pop-up.

So, living in Colorado is an adventure. Yesterday I mapped out a run for this morning, and it ended up taking me a good two-and-a-half hours because of a few things. First of all, it was up in the mountains and I was not always totally sure which way I was supposed to be going, so I backtracked a couple of times to check signs and things. Secondly, check out this picture:

 

 This portion of the trail was solid ice. There was really no way to run on the side, so I had to pick my way across it. And it was like this for a good quarter mile. It was thick and slick and unavoidable. Slow going.

The third factor was the steepness of my carefully selected path. I did not check on the change in elevation when I mapped my run. I took the picture below because it was an awesome view and a good break in the trees, but it was right before the final, steepest ascent of the run, which lasted about a mile and a half.

I'm pretty sure I ran up one side of a mountain and down the other. It was hard. And slow. But beautiful.

Joseph gave me a call when I was two miles from home and reported that Jake had stuffed a bead up his nose and needed to be taken to Urgent Care. I made it the rest of the way home chanting, "Jacob's got a bead in his nose. Just keep running!" to myself (in my head). It's all taken care of now though. He's fine. And Joseph made a play dough baking soda/vinegar volcano with the older kids while we were out! It was an eventful morning.


These have all been cell phone pictures I've been posting, since Joseph likes me to run with a phone when I'll be gone for a while. As I was putting the pictures on the computer, I came across these gems from a long time ago.  Can you tell which baby this is below?

 Yeah!! It's Baby Elinor, enjoying the Texas heat. Isn't she just a doll?

 

And these guys. They look like an oddly matched celebrity couple headed out to their sweet ride (a 1998 Ford Windstar).

Be mine. Be crafty?

I wanted to give Amanda flowers for Valentines. Here's what we ended up with:

Amanda said that it looks like the kind of thing you'd buy for a dollar from the Savers knick-knack shelf. I'm not sure if that means she likes it or not. But Emily's a fan. We've been having daddy-daughter craft sessions to make new kinds of paper flowers.

Feeling inspired, I decided to try my hand at some kirigami.  I don't think Amanda has ever played Minecraft.  But the kids play frequently on the Kindle.  I haven't played for a while, but it used to be quality family time.

This Valentine's a little "Creepy".  When closed, a pair of eyes look out at you. 
I'm afraid that our printer's on its last legs. So the colors didn't come out quite like I had hoped. Still, it was fun to design.

I played around with various phrases, "I pick you." or "You're a blast!" or "Even when I'm a blockhead, you build me up."  But the old classic, "Be Mine", just seemed right.

Emily is so fun. She will shut herself in the office for hours at a time to craft decorations for the house, props for a theater presentation she wants to perform, or toys she wants to have. I loved this decoration she put up. Our home is erupting with love.

Happy Valentine's.

cell phone dump

So, right now I am trying to distract myself from the $300 of running clothes in my Zappos cart... so I thought it would be a good time to put some of my greatest blurry cell phone pictures up here for my mother's enjoyment. (Love you, Mum!)

About a year ago, Jacob got pretty sick. Joseph and I feel like we are experienced parents (at least of babies and toddlers) by now, so we felt pretty calm about it all. We noticed his cough sounded a little croupy, so we did the shower treatment... repeatedly... all night long. Around 4:30 am I decided I'd had enough and his breathing was scary enough that I took him in to the children's hospital in Austin. They took one look at him and took him back to a room right away. Apparently his breathing was what they called "stridor" and is pretty serious. They gave him a steroid and then a breathing treatment of racemic epinephrine, which helped for about ten minutes. Then they gave him another breathing treatment, and another, and then they admitted him. He totally perked back up and was normal again by mid-morning so I requested that they send us home ahead of schedule.

Here is Jake mid-treatment...

and a couple of hours later.

This one other time, one of my wonderful young women was fiddling at a food trailer park in Austin. Em and I went out to enjoy and support. And to play with this giant Jenga set.

Pretty awesome.

If you look closely at this picture below, you can see Emily standing on a make-shift stage wearing a red baseball cap on her head and holding an unlit torch. This picture was taken back in her street performing days when she was trying to raise money to buy gifts for her siblings. Not really, but she did make $5, which she later used for Christmas presents for Caleb and Emily. She's pretty awesome.

Okay, what really happened was that we were wandering down Pearl Street and this street performer was looking for volunteers to help out. After a couple of other girls chickened out, Em stepped up. She's a natural.

One of El's earliest experiences with Autumn leaves.

Caleb trying on Em's elephant costume for an Anansi play that her school group did.

Jake experiencing the snow.

Okay. I think I'm alright now. I'm just going to head back to Zappos and weed some stuff out of that cart.

My run this morning...