Tooth #2

Last Tuesday (Twos day?  Tooths-day?) Alex's second baby tooth finally wiggled free.

His grown-up tooth is already mostly grown in where he lost the first tooth, so he's not missing too many at once.  We just have to keep reminding him to keep his fingers out of his mouth; hopefully we can avoid some of the 1st grade germs.

I'm told the tooth fairy was generous again this time around.

Ballet Class

This weekend Genevieve had her first ballet class. She's taking it with her friends Julianna and Violette. She was so excited to get a leotard, tutu, pink tights, and ballet slippers!

The ballerinas introduce themselves

All the ballerinas in a line, jumping up and down!

Genevieve and Julianna

And Off Go the Other Training Wheels!

Much to my surprise and delight, Genevieve decided that it was time to lose her training wheels.

Inspired by her brother's success just a few weeks ago in July, she was ready to give it a try.  After a week or two of noodling around on her little bike which I'd taken the pedals off of, she insisted that we go over to the "pedal park" (just up the street from us) to try it out on the hill.

Her first time down the hill with pedals!  Alex (in the green shirt) is cheering her on

She went around the loop at the park exactly once before declaring that she was ready for her pedals.  I tried to gently suggest that we should probably practice a few more times just coasting without the pedals, but she insisted she was ready.  So I dutifully re-attached her pedals, she climbed back on at the top of the hill, and was pedaling by the time she was halfway down. 

Brakes...  Who needs brakes?

She still has some work to do on braking.  Her fallback right now is to either aim for some soft warm grass, or put both feet out and burn some shoe rubber to stop.  While either technique works great at the park, I think she's going to need a little more brake practice.

First Day of School

Alex started First Grade this year, and Genevieve began her second (and final) year of Preschool the week of August 26.

I was surprised to find how easy the transition was this year, since all of us had been thru it once before last year.

Genevieve with her teachers Lois and Kristen

This isn't actually what Genevieve wore on her first day, but she was so ridiculously cute.  Here she is standing in front of her animals alphabet

Alex and I wait patiently at the bus stop on the first morning

Alex waits for class to begin outside his 1st grade classroom

Alex gets situated at his table on the first day in Miss Dohn's class!

A few days before school started, Grandma Carla came out for a quick visit.  We had a lot fun (of course!)  We drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park one day, and stopped at the Trail Ridge visitors center.  Grandma and the kids decided to wait in the back of the car.

...while Dana and I took a quick walk...

In other news, Alex and Genevieve have taken a keen interest in some of my old childhood toys.  One that's received a lot of attention is my old Construx set.  It was one of my favorites as a kid too!  I was sad to find that they stopped making Construx many, many years ago.  It's too bad, since mine are rapidly deteriorating with renewed used.

Camping at The Hut

For my birthday, Dana had a surprise in mind. For months (years?) I have been lamenting our lack of backpacking. Before kids -- indeed, before Dana -- it had been one of my greatest pleasures.

Dana found a back-country cabin in Grand County that was far enough away to allow us a long hike, at least by kid standards: 2 1/2 miles each way. When we left on Friday afternoon, accompanied by Ali, Eric, and Olli, the only instructions Dana gave me were "Meet up in Idaho Springs." We rendezvoused there, and from there headed up over US 40 to Berthoud Pass, and then Winter Park, and then, up.. up.. to?  Some strange guys in a big pickup truck were waiting for us at a pull-out along the dirt road.  Ali and Dana had already loaded most of the stuff into the pickup truck.  I was completely clueless.  As it turned out, they had planned to send all the stuff ahead in the truck, and trick me into thinking we were all backpacking for the weekend!  We just arrived a few minutes too early for the ruse. 


But even without the trickery we were in for an outstanding mountain adventure and an amazing birthday surprise! 

The Stangels and Bulsons headed into the woods

All of the kids handled the trail pretty well.  Always thinking several moves ahead, Dana borrowed our friends' jogging stroller to help any tired legs.    Eric and Olli had fun tromping around together.

Alex was a champion hiker.  He hiked the whole way there and back!  And on a couple of long hikes during our stay.

He's from Colorado

Genevieve spent a decent part of our hiking time on my shoulders -- which was ok with me.

Dana and Genevieve exploring

Genevieve pretends to be a "beautiful tree"

Is it possible that everyone is looking at the camera and not crying?

"The Hut" was pretty awesome too.  It has solar power for lights and small electrics (laptops and phones were no problem - a toaster oven probably would have been a bad idea), and propane and wood for cooking and heating.  A potable well, propane hot water heater, and working flush toilet, shower, and sinks completed the package! 

Outside "The Hut"

Inside was very cozy. It easily sleeps 12, so our 7 was not a big deal.

The boys relaxing on the sofa

Ali and Dana outdid themselves cooking throughout the weekend.  Not that I'm much help in the kitchen anyway, but since it was a complete surprise, I had no way to help out ahead of time.  I tried to at least keep the kids busy with Eric :-)  We had steaks and birthday cake Friday night, and pasta and s'mores on Saturday night. 

Dana at the stove

Alex and Genevieve honing their s'more making skills

In addition to be gorgeous, brilliant, and a great Mom, Dana is also a consummate outdoors woman.  She can build a roaring fire in about 15 minutes starting with nothing more than some dry leaves and half-damp twigs. She can also pick the juiciest, most flavorful wild strawberries and raspberries along the trail!

A mug of red wine doesn't hurt, either

The forest around us was absolutely beautiful.  It was so moist and green, it felt like the Pacific Northwest -- complete with tons of colorful mushrooms decorating the forest floor. 

Our 'stirsty' hikers stop for a chocolate milk break

Log bridge

On our way home we took US 34 through Rocky Mountain National Park, and happened upon a herd of grazing elk.  We had to stop to say hi.

All in all, a perfect birthday weekend!

Mt. Sherman

People sometimes ask me - I sometimes ask myself - why do I hike 14'ers? They're generally long, unforgiving, physically challenging hikes which offer little in the way of trees or immediately obvious wildlife. Lots of rocks, dust, hypoxia, rocks, sore ankles, and did I mention rocks?

But again this summer, my dear college friend Jim asked me to join him and his stalwart Dad, Dan atop another Colorado 14'er. And again, I just could not resist. Especially Mount Sherman, which is purportedly one of the "easiest", "gentlest" peaks over 14,000 ft to climb.

Jim and I starting off, at 12,001 feet

To answer the question "why", one need look no further than the absurdly beautiful panoramic vistas from even the lower elevations of the hike.

And we did even spot some wildlife, such as this wild (famous?) grouse and her chick, nestled in the rocks just a few yards from the trail

The view to Leadville

You know you're getting close to the summit when hiking something like this seems like a good idea

Myself, Jim, and his dad Dan

Special thanks to Dan for remembering to bring the sign!

Along much of the trail were the remnants of old hard-rock mines, such as this relic perched precariously along the rocky slope of this hill at about 13,600 feet

Old Mill head..?  and/or tram terminus?

Note: A few of these pictures are from/by Dan Hillman; Many thanks to him & Jim for lugging the very, very nice new Nikon dSLR along!

Bridge Building

It was one of those opportunities that's too good to pass up.  On a lazy Saturday afternoon, Alex and I had just watched a documentary on bridges by David Macaulay.  At the end was a brief clip about how to teach the concepts to kids.  They suggested using drinking straws and pins to build a simple bridge, then figure out how to make it strong.  I realized, "hey, we have straws... we have pins!"  "Alex, do you want to try doing that?".  "Yeah!"

So we spent about an hour messing around with building bridges.

First we started with a trivial bridge "deck" 4 straws wide.  We decided to use match box cars to figure out how strong the bridge was.  With our initial design, the bridge could only hold 2 or 3 cars before buckling under the weight.

The program described trusses.  The simplified version was, "Build triangles".  So we started off with just a single triangle

That helped a little, but we soon figured out that we needed to underpin the entire length of the deck with a truss.  Using the straws, it was really easy to see and feel how the structure was stronger -- and why.

We just kept adding car after car to the load test, until finally the cars started to fall off because there wasn't room for them all!  (Not because the structure was failing!)

By the time it was all built up, the bridge was absurdly strong!  We crammed at least 25 cars onto it, and afterwards used the kitchen scale to weigh them - nearly 2 pounds!

We had a lot of fun

Genevieve's 4th Birthday

Genevieve celebrated her 4th birthday with family and friends this year.
First, Aunt Ali, Uncle Eric, and Cousin olli came out for a visit. We had a lot of fun running around with Oliver. Auntie Ali baked Genevieve pink cake (yum!)

Aunti Ali and Dana work on pink cakes

Alex is eager to help unwrap presents

I'm not sure why Olli is covering his ears - maybe copying the cousins? Or maybe we had James Taylor cranked up too loud?

Aunti Ali puts together a flamingo mobile

Happy birthday girl

We tried several times to get a picture of all three cousins together.  Although they spent lots of time playing, it was nearly impossible to capture a photo.  Here, Oliver is not a happy camper

A week after Ali & Eric's birthday visit, we had a party for Genevieve's cohorts.  In all we had about 12 friends from school and elsewhere come over.  It was a beautiful day in the back yard, and we had pizza and cake, a wading pool, a pinata, and lots of fun running around.

Too fun! Marin, Dean, Lucas & Ever, Nora, Kaylin, Freida, Alex, Brendan, Elsa, Sawyer, Genevieve, Maia, Violette, Greta, Max, Reed, Julianna