Hot dogs at A&W

Dinner tonight was a bit uninspired, but at least we walked there and back and had fun watching the cars go by.

Growing up at the Bounce House

To cap off our day, me and Alex went to the Bounce! House in Loveland.


The last few times we have gone, I have accompanied Alex into all the bouncy castles; This is one great feature of the venue. Generally Alex is very timid around large groups of other children, even those his own age.

I began to get worried that he is not being social. So today I started out playing with him in each bouncey castle. But at a certain point I stepped back and sat down in a nearby chair between two of the inflatable rooms.

Alex ran over to me and snuggled between my legs. He clearly wanted me to come with him. I told him that I would sit right here and wait for him if he wanted to go over to one of the bouncey castles. At first he resisted, but eventually his sense of adventure and the promise of jumping up and down frenetically got the better of him.


He ran over to the entrance and climbed halfway up, then climbed down and ran back to me. I was right there waiting for him.

Then he ran back over and climbed in all the way. I waited for a 3-mississippi count, and he climbed back down and ran back over to me. Very cool!

Then he ran over, climbed in, and started to bounce. Hooray!








He still got a little shy when another boy climbed in, but he stayed in for a few seconds past that.

Then I thought we'd have some real fun, and I managed to coax him to climb up the big slide and slide down on his own too!






The next thing you know, he'll be driving. :-)

Finals Season

This week marks the beginning of finals season for DU Law. That means Alex and daddy are spending a LOT of quality time together for the next 2 weeks.





Also daddy found a new iPhone app for writing blog posts on the go, so expect more frequent dispatches.

Today Dana is at a study session in Denver. Me & Alex are going to try flying his Cars kite at the park, and maybe go to the bounce house.

Farm Supply Store

Yesterday me and Alex stopped into Murdoch's. This is baby chick season.


Alex inspects the baby chicks. They had goslings too. One of the clerks picked up a chick so Alex could have a better look.




Of course no visit would be complete without trying all the riding lawn mowers and mini tractors.

Here Comes the Sun

This morning the sun came out at last, after 2 days of cold rain and grey skies. Alex insisted on going to the backyard to play.

He got muddy and cold (stopping every few minutes to warm his hands on me) but had a ball and was upset when I insisted we go inside.

Preparing the Garden and other Happenings

There was much work to be done last weekend in the backyard.

First thing's first. Our poor, lone aspen tree is nearing the end of its life. We've been told that aspen trees just don't like it that much in these lush, low altitudes. What's more they really like having other aspens around to keep them company.

What remains of the aspen and its surrounding planter box

I'm not ready to completely chop down the aspen, but last fall I cut off all of its dead branches. This left little more than a glorified telephone pole. In preparation for its eventual demise, I'm downsizing the big planter box that it lives in, at the south-west corner of the yard. As part of this mission, we decided to move the huge rhubarb plant that was growing in that planter across the yard to the garden, where we already have several other rhubarbs growing.

Digging a new hole for the rhubarb

Moving the HUGE rhubarb and parts of its root ball, using our snow sled

The rhubarb, in its new home in the garden with all of its friends

Last weekend I also helped to prepare the garden for Spring. Our next-door neighbors Bob and Marion have a dandy little rototiller that I borrowed for a few hours. It rained just enough to get the soil moist, but not enough to make a huge muddy mess.



This photo captures Alex and Dana's bond perfectly


After the garden was tilled, it was time to play in it with Alex's huge dump truck

Now for some completely unrelated photos from the last 2 weeks...

Alex will make a terrific corporate executive

Earlier this month we caught a huge centipede. We kept it for a day, and fed it a big white spider. It devoured the spider, legs and all, in just a few minutes! Amazing critter.