June 5, 2008

Good news, my new lens arrived safe and sound yesterday, so now the Bird Project can truly begin.

Here's a House Sparrow. Before we got our guide book, we thought it was a chickadee:



And today we saw our first real Black-Capped Chickadee. It rained nearly all day, this guy looks a bit miserable:



And then our most exciting bird today, we got these guys that look like finches, but aren't. I couldn't find them in the guide book so I turned to google. Finally, I found an image captioned, "Finches with Pine Siskins." These guys are Pine Siskins! I've never even heard of them before!



Kinda a cool one of a House Sparrow in flight. I took this at 1/800 seconds to give you an idea of how fast he's moving:



And here's our Bird Book. My pictures and the kids' drawings (and our notes, but this pages doesn't have any). Today I made picture index tags. The gap is for robins and mourning doves, which we haven't seen since the new lens came:



7:15 Drop off. Breakfast - half a bogurt and one bite of oatmeal.

8:15 Excitement over the Pine Siskins. Alex was content calling them Grey Yellow Winged Finches but I HAD TO KNOW.

8:45 Took Alex to camp in the car due to rain. Driving was not fun, the parking lots are busy and hard to navigate. Alex was very concerned about borrowing my umbrella since he'd never used one before.

9:00 Ariel and I went to the mall. I hoped to say hi to some Stroller Class gals but class had apparently been moved to yesterday and I only ran into Lara. The instructor is ending class at the end of this month. Ariel and I still had fun though. I got a mint mocha, my first since I got the Starbucks card and my soymilk and mint were free. Then we looked at the kittens at the pet store and then we spent a long time at the dinosaurs.

Ariel and a mammouth:



Ariel and a dinosaur:



11:15 I had a salmon crepe. Just because I could. Ariel had some goldfish because she won't eat anything else.

12:00 Picked up Alex. Still raining. Parking lots still crazy. I couldn't find any teachers so I took Alex without signing him out.

12:15 Got home. Got a call from camp, I need to sign Alex out. Huh. And how do I do that when no one is there?

12:30 Ariel declined lunch and went down for a nap.

2:30 Ariel woke up.

3:00 Took Alex to get his hair cut. He's getting so grown up. He told the stylist our phone number, then ordered his own #2 clippers with scissors on top with no help from me. He earned a lollipop, Ariel got one by default:



Checked Michael's to see if they have the crystal growing kit. The Boulder one does not, and I made Alex very sad by telling him we would check the Superior Michael's on Sunday, because there's no coupon this week. He is quite sure he cannot possible wait three days to grow crystals.

3:45 Got home. Tried to take more bird pictures. Took a picture of Alex with my new lens to check it out. I don't plan on using it for work, but it's nice to know it's a good lens. This was at 140mm, f/50, 1/30 sec, ISO 500. Did I say this is the 70-300 3.5-5.6 IS lens? That IS is pretty cool, hand holding at that focal length at 1/30.



4:30 Ariel went home.

June 3, 2008

7:15 Drop off. Breakfast - bogurt was eaten with enthusiasm, not so much the with the oatmeal.

8:25 Left for camp on bikes. We took a different route today, per Alex's request. I forgot to blog about something yesterday that happened right after Alex's accident. About 2 minutes down the trail they were mowing the lawn. Right as we went by, the lawn mower hit an old road kill skunk and skunk bits went flying. Luckily it was an old animal, there wasn't any juice. But on the way home there was still a paw laying on the path and both Alex and I were pretty grossed out. So yeah, we went a slightly longer way but Alex still did fine.

9:00 Dropped Alex off at camp. Afterwards, I did a bike ride around Boulder, ending at the Dinosaur Park. That was just the right distance, Ariel was starting to kvetch.

9:45 Dino park. I ran into Sheryl, Lauren's mom and talked to her for a while. The Har Hashem camp was at the rec center. They play outside in the morning and swim in the afternoon. Alex will be there next week, he'll love that.

Ariel had a pretty independent morning at the park. She decided that she really liked the roller slide, even though her finger got pinched once:



11:00 Convinced Ariel to leave park with promise of donuts. I was really craving Chipolte but I didn't think I could get over there and to camp on time, so we had to make do with Starbucks.

11:15 Starbucks - I went with just a java chip today to save some money (and maybe a chocolate danish. Darn you Dad!). And Ariel ate the chocolate frosting off her donut and called it quits.

12:00 Picked up Alex from camp.

12:30 Got home. Put Ariel down for nap and it didn't take.

1:45 Ariel finally fell asleep.

2:45 Had to wake up Ariel for our playdate with Riley and Kyler. We rode our bikes over there, and this time Ariel rode her own bike. Well, she sat on it and I pushed. What she lacks in ability, she makes up for with enthusiasm.

3:00 Riley playdate. Ariel was still a bit grumpy from being woken, but a creamsicle helped. So did Kyler's cheese. Alex and Riley played science by mixing up leaves and seed pods and water.

4:15 Biked home.

4:30 Pick up.

June 2, 2008

Lucky for you, today is a picture heavy day. Over the weekend, Becky and I were emailed our Bolder Boulder pictures. Here's our wave at the start line. Uh, yeah, we don't know where we are either. For 54,000 registered walkers/runners, the race officials did a great job of keeping things moving on time, though:



Here we are, somewhere near the finish line. And I'd just like to point out, woman in the corner was NOT in our wave. She started sometime before us. I'd like to think maybe even hours before us, we are so cool. Look how determined we are (Becky is probably shouting, "Michelob Ultra, I run for you!"):



And our geeky hand clasp in victory at the finish line:



I got another picture but I look fat and sad so I'm not going to share it.

7:20 Drop off. Ariel declined breakfast, though soon after broke open her cheerio/goldfish tupperware.

8:15 Left on bike to take Alex to science camp. Lucky for us, I left plenty of time. ½ a mile from home Alex took a nasty tumble and cut his forehead. It was a bleeder but between my stash of kleenex, wipes and single band-aid we got it cleaned up. And in a surprising show of toughness, he didn't want to ride home and get more cleaned up and put his bike back. He was determined to make it to camp on time.

9:00 Official camp start.

9:10 Kids actually left with their teachers. Ariel and I decided to bum around this morning. First we went to Varsity Pond. They must be cleaning it, half the water was drained. After I got sick of the repetitive conversation, "Where da turtles?" "There they are, on the other side of the pond." "Where da turtles?" We moved on.



Next we took a little bike ride over to the 29th Street Mall Starbucks. I got another mint frappachino and Ariel played on the playground.

10:30 Headed over to Borders for storytime. It was L.A.M.E. I guess the regular Gymboree guy didn't show up and so there was a sub. But afterwards we got free mini frappachinos and cookies in the cafe so that was nice. Ariel especially approved of the frappachino:



11:15 Headed over Home Depot. I only bought a 7 lbs bag of bird seed last week and I needed to get more. I went big and did the 20lbs bag. I shudder to think how much I've spent on bird seed already this year. You know those commercials that show you can feed some starving 3rd world child on pennies a day? Let's just say our birds are doing a heck of a lot better than that. And, in all randomness we ran into Riley and Kyler and set up a playdate for tomorrow afternoon.

Ariel cares not for bird seed but she does love those riding mowers.



12:00 Picked up Alex from camp.

12:30 Got home without any further bike catastrophes. Ariel fell asleep in the trailer and transfered to bed.

I cleaned out Alex's cut and re-bandaged it. Looks bad, huh?



So, my husband is in India. I've had to do things this week that I would normally defer to his manliness. I mowed the lawn. I took out the trash (and every time I do that I realize it's actually more work to remind him to do it than to actually do it). And I installed a hook on the garage to hang the hummingbird feeder. I thought I'd share how this chore went.

I did find the drill and since Jeremy had just put up the hook for the seed feeder it was all ready to go. I drilled the hole without falling off the ladder. Then I broke the drill bit in half trying to get it out of the hole. After some fanagling (and a nasty cut on my thumb), I got the bit out. Then I tried to get the screw in the hole but only got it half way. I tried to use the drill to get it in but ended up stripping the screw where the hook goes on. So, back to square one. I got a new drill bit, drilled another hole and put another screw in it. I still couldn't get the screw in all the way. I put the hook on it to give me more leverage and ended up breaking the end of the hook off. Finally, I gave up on perfection. And even not-even-close-to-perfection.

The hummingbird feeder is currently suspended from our garage. I miss my husband:



Another funny story is how I tried to pump up my bike tires Saturday and ended up letting out all the air instead but I'm too demoralized to share more.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Adam is spending the week at Camp Grammie. He left yesterday morning and Alex and I had a nice day together. We rode the bike with the tagalong (yes, I had to switch it from Jeremy's bike to mine) to Pearl St. and went to the ritzy rock store. I let Alex pick out a geode and he has lost it not once, but twice today. And he loves it very much:



3:00 Ariel woke up. I thought she'd be hungry but she didn't touch her sauce and only had half her mac & cheese.

4:00 The kids and I adjourned to the front porch for popcicles and beer, respectively.

4:15 The mailman came. I wonder if he thinks I'm a lush yet.

4:30 Pick up.

Jeremy's Indian Update

Jeremy and I have been chatting most every morning and evening. He said that that had some monsoon weather yesterday and got a ton of rain. He spent Saturday relaxing at the hotel and I think he did some sight seeing on Sunday but we haven't talked yet. But he did send some pictures, and even with some brief captions.

dinosaur is at chicago airport

Wendy's note - an interesting juxtaposition of an ancient skeleton and a modern sign.



and my room

Wendy's Note - Looks pretty 5 star to me.



next one is the strange mannequin in my room

Wendy's Note - Jeremy has mentioned this a couple times, I think it freaks him out. The wood part is a drawer. I guess Jeremy could hang up all his fancy suits on it, and maybe store all his fancy jewelry and watches inside?



next one is singer at cricket

Wendy's Note: Ah, yup.



crazy rainy garden I went to yesterday

Wendy's Note: Ah, yup.



state capital of katarnka

Wendy's Note: Looks very British/American, eh?



Jeremy said he has taken more pictures but can't email them all. And countdown, only 7 days until he gets back!

Happy Birthday Adam!

Happy 4th Birthday to the "Adam I always wanted." You are 4 and you are still crazy. You still sleep in a sleeping bag every night next to your perfectly good bed. I promise you, if you sleep in your bed, Sponge Bob will not get you. And I hope this is the year I can stop doing underwear checks to see if you are trying to sneak out of the house comando. It's not so much the cleanliness issue (though there is that) but when your pants fall off your skinny waist, not everyone wants to look at your cute tushy. And Adam, I love you too, especially when you randomly shout, "I love you Mommy!" 10 times a day. I hope you never stop doing that.

I also hope you had a fun party. You've been talking about it for so long and there were so many details but I think I got them all. The only one I nixed was not inviting Ariel. She's your cousin and she's ALWAYS invited. Luckily you didn't seem to care.

Here's some pictures from the Pump It Up party.

Ariel watching the safety video. Ariel says, "Safety is my priority!"



Adam, it looks like you had a good time:



Carl (and I) took Hannah down the slide:



Hannah on an escape mission:



Paul with Mae and Ted:



Ted:



Adam, who insisted his hand knit wool socks were his Birthday Socks:



Hannah, mastering reverse:



And Ariel, like I've said, I'll keep doing these parties just to see how much you enjoy them. Sarah said she'd never seen anyone go up and down the slide as much as you did. But I have, at Alex's party:



The one picture I got of Alex. He had Zach, Josh and Ted to play with:



With the photo finish, it does look like Carl beat Devon in the obsticle course:



Mae, who mastered forwards a long time ago:



And the whole party group. Mom was surprised at how many girls were there. Adam did invite boys from school too, but only two could make it. And there's Ariel at the top, in the seat of honor that a princess deserves:



And the two cakes. It's either super cute and sweet or slightly sexist, but Adam wanted a princess cake for the girls in case they were too scared of the bioncle cake. Both are homemade but lack my normal creativity skill. Have I mentioned my husband is in India?



The worn out birthday boy with his entourage. That's Sam in the back being squished:

May 30, 2008

Yesterday was the last day of school. It was a busy crazy year. At the beginning I had no idea how I was going to deal with getting both boys to different schools so close together but it all worked out. Jeremy almost always took Adam to school and I learned that on bike or in car I could get between the schools in 10 minutes. Now we just have 1 more year of Adam in preschool and then they will both be at the same school.

Here's some last day of school pictures:

Alex does seem happier to be leaving than going:



And little Adam:



(Yes, I made my children wear the same clothes. Luckily they didn't mind.)

And while I am blogging not about Ariel, here's our summer project... We are going to track all the birds we see in our backyard. I'm going to take pictures and the boys will draw and we'll write notes about what the birds do. Here's my first picture, the easiest since the House Finches are most common:



A hard shot to get with my 70mm, so I went out and bought myself the 70-300mm lens. Can't wait for it it get here.

7:15 Drop off.

Breakfast - ½ a pancake. Guess Ariel is still not feeling better.

The morning was not a good foreshadowing of the summer to come. I did my normal thing of getting breakfast and running laundry and cleaning up and the kids fought and screamed and freaked out.

9:15 Rachel and Lilianna came to our house so we could all go to the park together. Alex's friend Henry also came.

The park was nice. Alex and Henry tried to dig a really big hole. Actually, Alex wanted a really big hole but didn't so much want to dig it himself. Ariel ate cheddar bunnies.

11:00 Rachel and Lilianna left. But Riley and Kyler had just gotten there so we played with them some too. Ariel was happy to see Riley. At one point a huge group of daycare kids arrived so we played on the tennis courts.



11:30 Got home. Offered Ariel some mac & cheese and she flipped out so I put her down for a nap instead.

1:30 Ariel woke up.

2:00 We rode our bikes to Whole Foods to get our salmon for dinner. Ariel enjoyed pushing the kids carts but I had to keep my eye on her. She added a lot of odd things to her cart like an avocado.

3:00 The afternoon was screamy so Ariel and I went outside on the front porch to minimize kid to kid contact. Ariel spent most of the time dancing around and saying, "I have a party dress, I have a party dress. See my party dress?"

4:00 Pick up.

Jeremy update - He hasn't had much time to do anything but eat, sleep and work. And sadly, he's been afflicted with the cha-cha-chas but is taking his dysentery antibiotics and hopefully that will work.

Update from Jeremy - May 28th

I'm just going to blog this now before I forget. Jeremy called tonight, the time difference is 12 ½ hours and he called on the way to the office. I asked him what tomorrow is like and he said, "Hot and sunny." I hope so, I'm sick of the overcast humidity of today.

He also told me more about the cricket match. I jokingly asked if there were dance numbers too because our previous experience with cricket was with the Indian movie Lagaan, which is about 4 hours of cricket and enthusiastic dance numbers. And yes, there WAS pre-game dancing. And Jeremy says he almost understand the rules of cricket now which I find very impressive. I tend to agree with Alex that the bats would be good for squashing insects with and that's as much as I understand.

He said their hotel is very nice and the breakfast he just ate was very good. At dinner tonight Adam speculated that Jeremy would have fish for breakfast since Bangalore is by the ocean. Adam, as he often is, was wrong on both counts. Though Jeremy never did get around to telling me exactly what he ate.

I can't remember what else he said... He did say in Frankfurt everyone assumed he was German and tried to speak in German too him. Hmmm, must be that, uh, GERMAN heritage thing going on. And the Dehli airport was under construction but evidently it all worked out.

Jeremy should get a phone and internet access today so I'll be able to get in touch with him more easily. Only 11 days to go!

So far, no elephant or monkey sightings. Here's another random Jeremy picture:

May 28, 2008

6:50 Becky and Ariel arrived early so I could go on a short run. It was very nice of Becky (and please, subtract some money for today) but my run was not very fun. I think I'm getting the cold that the boys started getting last week. I have a throat tickle and no energy. Blah.

7:20 Got back home, Becky went to work.

Breakfast - one spoonful of yogurt and a few rice chex.

7:55 Walked Alex to school.

8:05 Drove Adam to school on time.

8:15 Got home. Ariel and I had a very mellow morning. I finally got an email from Jeremy. He is in Bangalore. I was in the shower when he called and he said something about "India is really crazy and I just got back from a cricket match." And he sent a picture (with no description, of course). It appears to have been taken from inside a vehicle.



10:00 Ariel and I embarked on our great adventure of the day, Home Depot. I needed to get another bag of bird seed. Our family is loving the feeder. We mostly have finches, sparrows and chickadees (and messy big black birds) but in the 3 weeks we've put it up more and more birds are finding it. And the squirrels are not getting into it which is nice because if they were I'd probably take it down.

At Home Depot we also looked at the flowers, the grills, the lights and fans, the riding mowers and the fountains. And then in what I thought was a case of Toddler Tourret Syndrome Ariel walked up to an employee and said, "I want a Mickey Mouse sticker." I had to translate and to my amazement the employee pulled out Mickey Mouse stickers from her apron. You learn something new every day.

11:10 Stopped by Adam's school early so I could sign his contract and give a deposit for next year. That was due last Wednesday. I'll just blame Jeremy on this one.

11:30 Picked up Adam.

11:40 Got home. Ariel had very little mac & cheese for lunch.

12:00 Down for nap.

2:30 Had to wake Ariel.

2:35 Alex pick up. We stayed and played again today.

3:45 Got home. We went straight to the back yard so I could weed and refill the bird feeder.

4:30 Pick up.

May 27, 2008

Hard to get back to daily routines after our weekend...

7:15 Drop off one Ariel. Breakfast - not much bogurt and really not much oatmeal.

7:50 Drove Adam to school. It's been raining for a day and seemed like too much work to bike 3 kids in the wet.

9:00 Super Fun grocery store trip. Ariel and Alex got donuts, I'm becoming a pushover. As usual though, Ariel just ate the frosting.

10:15 Got home.

11:30 Picked up Adam, dropped off Alex.

11:45 Back home and lunch - Ariel had a bit of mac & cheese, turned her nose up at her tropical sauce and had a few cheddar bunnies.

12:00 Down for a nap.

2:30 Woke Ariel up.

2:40 Picked up Alex from school.

3:00 Got home. Kids commenced to destroy house.

4:30 Pick up.

Ariel did not have any accidents today but at grocery store she managed to pee on herself while using the potty. It's tough to be an Ariel.

I still do not know where exactly Jeremy is. His flight out of Chicago to Frankfurt was delayed 4 hours, messing up his connection to Bangalore and he emailed something about having to stop in New Dehli now. I hope he'll check in soon and I sent a camera with him so we might get a few pictures.

Family Reunion Fun

I think we set a record for Most Crazy Fun Weekend Ever. On Friday afternoon our Pittsburgh cousins arrived in Boulder for the beginning of our family reunion. The cousins came to our house to get acquainted. Sam and Alex met when Sam was two, so it's been a while. Sam is almost 7 and Charlie is 6 weeks younger than Adam so they were all perfectly matched. Sam was a little shy but that didn't last for long. After hanging out at our house for a while, we took them to Casa Alverez for dinner.

Saturday morning didn't slow down. We went to one of Alex's classmate's birthday party in the park at 9:00 am. Her parents brought a Coleman stove and made pancakes and then the kids played. After the party, we met up with our cousins. After some lunch fortification at Chipolte, we went to the CU campus. We started at Varsity Pond to see the carp and turtles, then checked out the stadium. Here are the boys posing with Ralphie:



We wanted to go the the UMC student center but it was closed, but luckily the little museum was open. We stayed at the museum for an hour, then went to The Hill for souvenirs and ice cream. And then it was time to got to the parent's house for pizza. The whole family was at the parents house - Grannie Shirley, Uncle Rick, Aunt Shari, cousin Debbie and her fiance Hirsh plus the usual suspects.

On Sunday we went down to Pearl Street with our cousins. The Bolder Boulder expo was there, as was the Boulder Creek Festival.



For lunch, we met Uncle Rick, Aunt Shari, Debbie and Hirsh for lunch at the Tea House. We had planned to check out the festival after lunch (we had just seen Pearl Street before lunch) but scrapped that in favor for a quick dip in the cousin's hotel pool. And quick was all the boys needed, the pool was outdoors AND not heated. But the whirl pool was ok:



We had just enough time to shower before the big party for Grannie Shirley's 90th birthday at my house. My parents arranged for catering from Pasta Jays plus appetizers and a cake so I just provided the space. And mojitos. It's not a party without mojitos.

Grannie Shirley wanted a picture of all 6 cousins. This was as good as I got. Forgive Ariel's hair, she had already had a rowdy session in the sand box:



I think this captures the kids better:



I took a few engagement pictures of Debbie and Hirsh:



And here are Jesse, Julie, Sam and Charlie:



Grannie Shirley:



And the whole gang:



Ariel's Baby Momma:



The party lasted until the kids were done, around 8:00. Becky, Carl and Ariel spent the night in anticipation of Monday's festivities...

Monday - Becky and I got up early for the Bolder Boulder 10k road race. It was a perfect rainy day for running. We had no room for a camera, so here we are before getting on the bus to the start of the race:



The bus business worked out fine and put us at the start in time to stand in the 30 minute bathroom line. I didn't have to pee when we got in the line so the 30 minutes wait didn't matter.

Our race went about as well as we could have hoped. I finished with dignity (my definition - no walking and no bodily function malfunctions). Becky and I stayed together the whole course and finished in 1:05:32. Carl and the kids met us at the end of the race - Jeremy was already on his way to the airport. Yes, it's finally India time and Jeremy is going to spend the next two weeks in Bangalore.

After the race we finally had some down time and the kids watched Star Wars while I rested. And then for dinner we went back to the parents for some BBQ and to say goodbye to the fam.

As crazy as it was, it was a great weekend and I'm so glad that all the cousins enjoyed each other so much. There was much talk by the youngins on both sides of needed to move to other's city.