Feeling the Love from a 4-year old

As we got in the car after church yesterday, Elizabeth made a very interesting observation. "Mommy, your tummy is growing as big as a tree!" She must be thinking of some dwarf tree because I don't think I'm that big but I think she's getting obsessed with the size of my baby belly. With that, I thought we'd try doing a questionnaire we got tagged for so here is the result. Enjoy the honesty of a 4-year old.

Question: What is something mom always says to you?

Do something

Question: What makes mom happy?

When I do good things

Question: What makes mom sad?

When I don't do things, even when she misses me

Question: How does mom make you laugh?

By making jokes and silly faces and saying silly things

Question: What was mom like as a child?

When she was small, and big (???)

Question: How old is your mom?

14 (wow I'm young!)

Question: How tall is your mom?

That tall (about 6 inches)

Question: What is her favorite thing to do?

Play with me and go with me somewhere like the movies

Question: What does your mom do when you're not around?

Put me in my room

Question: If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?

Nothing (ouch)

Question: What is your mom really good at?

Playing with me

Question: What is your mom not very good at?

Carrying heavy things (true especially right now)

Question: What does your mom do for her job?

Go to the store sometimes

Question: What is your mom's favorite food?

Chicken Nuggets

Question: What makes you proud of your mom?

Doing things I want her to do

Question:If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?

A silly one

Question: What do you and your mom do together?

Go to the store and the movies

Question: How are you and your mom the same?

When we have the same skin

Question: How are you and your mom different?

From one of us doesn't have the same skin (????)

Question: How do you know your mom loves you?

From doing good things instead of bad things

A Day in the Life of a Denverite

I thought I'd show an example of a nice summer day here in Denver with you. We went to the free children's movie at the theater yesterday morning with some friends and then played in the splash area afterward in the 90 degree heat. Later in the afternoon after naps, both the girls and I were exhausted, a good storm rolled through and we sat watching the rain and enjoyed the 60 degree breezes coming in. Elizabeth and Rachel donned their raincoats and umbrellas to enjoy the rain too.

The weather people say it's been a really dry summer for Denver so we'll take all the rain we can get! Today it's back to the 90s as we try to beat the record of 18 days over 90 degrees, we're at 11 right now.

Elizabeth always with the silly face.

Rachel checking things out first.

I'm singing in the rain.

Here's an attempt to capture the sunset from our upstairs window. Don't the mountains look great, never mind all the houses between us and them?

Our superhero

Not much went on this week, I went through withdrawal from no family here but besides that we were boring this week. Anyway, here's a picture I took this morning of Rachel being cute.

Watch out it's the Sesame Street Princess! She's wearing a CTR Hero cape that I actually made (Super Saturdays are great), a pink princess shawl, a Big Bird puppet, and of course her sunglasses.

More family fun

In addition to going to Rocky Mountain National Park with my family, we went to the fireworks at Southlands Mall on July 4th and then downtown Denver on the 5th. Eric had fun with the AC as he posted below but we all managed to make it downtown to celebrate Mark's 15th birthday. Theresa even flew in from Boston for the occasion, or maybe she was done partying there and wanted to stop over here before going back home to Arizona. Us girls went to the Museum of Art before joining the rest of the gang at REI and dipping our feet in the Platte River. I can't seem to find any pictures of this but I assure you we did it. Sunday our house was full for a fabulous turkey dinner with Lisa and her family, Lynne who decided to visit from Utah, and my family minus Melissa who had to go back to Provo Sunday morning and we celebrated Grandma Schultz's 85th birthday.

Monday I took Patricia to the airport (I know the Denver airport very well now) and the rest of us minus Eric who had to go back to work and then crash his bike (see post below) traveled down to Colorado Springs. We picnicked at Garden of the Gods and then crammed everyone in one car for a ride up Pike's Peak. Yep, I've been up a 14,000 ft mountain now even though I cheated by driving, don't worry next time I'll hike it with Eric. Hopefully the baby didn't suffer pulmonary adema from my actions but I feel her kicking right now so I think she's okay. It was cloudy at the top and everyone else must have taken the panoramic pictures from just below the summit because these are all I have.

Don't jump Rachel, it's not worth it!

The gang minus Elizabeth who refused to come out of the car and Grandma Schultz

I finally persuaded Elizabeth to come out and take pictures

After Pike's Peak we drove over to Woodland Park and visited my mom's cousin Leni and had a nice dinner with her.

Tuesday the hoards left (mom, dad, Mark, Grandma Schultz) and my house became very quiet and I was worn out. Theresa stayed until Saturday and I'm glad she did so the house wasn't so empty. Wednesday we went to the beach, or Aurora Reservoir as some call it with Lynne & Lisa. Thursday we went to the free kids movie in the morning and then dropped the kids off at Lisa's house to go swimming while we sisters went to Costo (woo-hoo!) and the only retail resort in Colorado, aka Park Meadows Mall. We got some decorating ideas from Pottery Barn for kids and here's what we made on Friday. Thanks Theresa for all your crafty know-how, we always seem to work on one project or another when she visits.

Just as I promised Trisha--our cute homemade hangings for the girl's room.

Friday night Eric and I went on a date while Theresa watched the kids, I love the live-in nanny thing! We ate buffalo burgers and saw Hancock which was a little different than expected but very good. Saturday we went to Castlewood Canyon State Park and out to lunch with Lisa & family and Lynne before I had to take Theresa to the airport. Now I will be depressed all week with everyone gone but look forward to future visits, hint hint, as we just barely touched on all there is to do in the Denver area.

So who will win favorite aunt award? The jury is still out but here are Rachel & Elizabeth with Aunt Theresa.

The Heat Is On!

Right when Alicia's family was visiting last week and we had 11 people in the house our air conditioner broke. It must be Murphy's Law (I HATE that Murphy). It was a Saturday of a Holiday weekend (July 5). We were having my sister over the next day with her family too. The Fourth of July was in the high 90's so it wasn't looking good. I was pretty distraught.

Luckily I had my father in law there to help. We pulled the fuses and Bart cleverly used the garage door opener switch to test the fuse. I'm an electrical engineer and I understand the theory, I just wouldn't have had the guts to try something like that. Of course, the real crime is that I didn't own a muli-meter, an oversight that was soon remedied.

After realizing a fuse was blown we went to Home Depot and bought a new one. Unfortunately the problems ran deeper. After almost dropping the fan motor by loosening the wrong screws I finally got to the right place and saw what was wrong. Have I mentioned the Internet is great? After some searching it appeared the problem was a blown capacitor. If the capacitory is swollen, like below, then it's busted.



We searched all over town, but couldn't find anyplace that carried these things. Some people told us there were some warehouses downtown but they all closed at noon, if they were even open for the weekend. I found it online for pretty cheap, but time is money.

So I called all over the place and finally got lucky on a place that had a guy in the area who could come around within 15 minutes. It's frustrating to have to pay someone a service visit when you know what's wrong, but this company was pretty helpful. (Gravlin for those in the Denver area).
I explained the issue and the service man agreed right away, blown capacitor.

For reference, if this happens to anyone else, the house fan would turn on and we'd hear a click at the A/C, but the motor wouldn't come on at all. This cycle would repeat itself I think indefinitely (which is probably why the fuse blew). I am glad we had someone come though because he taught me the capacitor was in wrong previously. It was upside down, which he said is probably why it blew in the first place. Apparently this happens very frequently to people, I might even buy one and keep it on hand. Luckily the weather was actually quite nice that day.

Once that was fixed we went out and celebrated Mark's birthday by spending some money at REI, putting our feet in the nearby river, and going out to eat. The day ended much better than it started.

Crash Test Dummy

I had my first real bike crash the other day (I've had other very low impact "falls" before). I wish I could say I was weaving in and out of traffic at 30 mph and a car pushed me off the road or something to that effect...but I can't. I was all alone on a bike trail. It was totally my own fault. Nothing on the trail at all. I really don't want my follies to be written here for time immemorial and the whole world to read, so we'll just leave the cause at that.

I was going relatively slow, probably no more than 15 mph. The damage is a scraped up elbow, even less road rash on the knee, and a sprained wrist with contusions that hurt enough for me to go to the urgent care. I tell you what, the adrenaline rush after a crash is real. I rode 7.5 miles home with minimal pain.

My first thought, of course, was how much my ego was hurt. That's why I jumped right back up and almost got on the bike immediately, in case someone was watching. Then I thought better of it and realized I should at least check out the bike to make sure it was still rideable. Somewhere down the road I thought I might want to assess my injuries :-) After all, my body can usually heal itself but my bike hasn't developed that ability yet (hmmmm...I wonder...).

The most notable thing initially was that I smacked my head on the concrete. It's amazing how good of a job helmets do at reducing impact. I heard a large SMACK as my head whipped to the ground. It hurt right away and for a minute or so but that was it. TheREE's not eveN ANNY brane damage!!!! Anyhow, like a good boy I did as I was told and threw away the helmet.

I knocked my front wheel out of true pretty bad. I'm not sure what else happened to the bike, but I think the headset may have some issues too. Things felt looser and there was some clanking and clicking. Luckily it was on my hybrid bike and not my road bike.

The worst is my wrist. I'm pretty surprised it isn't broken. It doesn't hurt nearly as bad as the last two times I broke my wrists but there's a sharp pain when I bend it to it's current full range of motion. That's the real reason I'm quite upset, it happened Monday and I haven't been able to bike to work since then and it will still be a while before I can. Just the pain of supporting my weight on the handlebars is too much. But it's getting better much quicker in the past few days. It's amazing how many calories I burn biking 20 miles 3 times a week to work. I find running kind of boring and not great for my body but I've had to do that and ride a stationary bike (even more boring). Plus running really gets my exercise induced urticaria going, but that's a topic for another day.

Rocky Mountain National Park

So many pictures to show, so little space. My family came up from California, Arizona, and Utah for the July 4th holiday so we took them up to the mountains camping. The crew--Grandma Schultz, my dad (James), my mom (Debra), Patricia, Melissa, and Mark. With the cars fully loaded we made it up to Rocky Mountain National Park on Wed. the 2nd and set up camp in our group campsite at Glacier Basin. We had dinner and then went to a presentation about national parks at one of the visitor's centers.

Thursday our manly hikers--dad, Mark, and Eric--went on a hike up to some glaciers while we women "hiked" 1/2 mile trails to a few lakes--Bear and Nymph Lake. Then we went to Sprague Lake and Rachel and Elizabeth were done. In the afternoon we went for a car ride up the longest/highest paved road in a National Park. The views were beautiful and the air nice and cool. We then went to mom & grandma's hotel in Estes Park and went swimming to clean off some of the camping grime. That evening we sat around the campfire and enjoyed yummy smores.

Friday we slowly packed up camp and walked around Sprague Lake once again and then headed back home. We were reluctant to get back to the heat, especially since our AC wasn't working the best but were glad to miss all the crowds on the way out.
Overall it was a great trip as the plethora of pictures will show, thanks everyone for taking lots of pictures and sharing!

Eric adds:
Alicia forgot to mention all the hard work I put in cooking Dutch Oven dinners, maybe I'll give it up :-). Anyway, I made pineapple upside down cake, cinnamon pull-apart bread, pizza, and I ruined our Mountain Man breakfast. The pineapple upside down cake was very yummy.