Elitch Gardens

There was a lightning storm last night and everything I wrote was erased. I don't have the heart for a second attempt at being witty about sharing Elitch Garden's Amusement Park with a couple thousand eighth graders (you'll just have to guess how much I enjoyed that) but here are some pictures:

First ride was the Tea Cups. I have become much more choosy about rides and will go on any roller coaster or thrill ride but don't enjoy spinning for the sake of it anymore. It gives me a headache. Here is Jacob, Sammy, Erin, Seth and Michael. Michael and Jacob had their cup going extremely fast and we adults who were watching, wondered if they noticed the look of worry on the younger faces. They must have because after a minute, they slowed down and told us afterward that they didn't want to get thrown-up on. Good choice.

Rex martyred himself and took the younger two: Brooke and Henry. His heart was bigger than his stomach, however, and he felt sick the rest of the day.

Next up was one of my favorite rides - the octopus (or spider). The up and down combined with the spinning makes me giggle. Of course, since Henry and I don't exactly equally distribute the weight, we only spun in one direction. Still... it was all fun except for the minutes we were hanging out in the air while the other people loaded on and off and Henry kept trying to stand up and see what was happening. Not good for a mother's heart.

I took off and rode a couple of coasters with Sam, but Jay stayed with Henry and took some pictures of him enjoying the park's kiddie rides. He's all smiles here, but Jay said he found this smooth swinging boring.

What he really liked was the roller coaster. The operator gave a spiel each time with the gist that if they wanted to go around again to give a thumbs up. Henry spontaneously gave this gesture each time. He loved it.

Sam was all thumbs.

click to enlarge to see the faces of glee.

Each time around, Sam and Brooke tried something else. Arms up. Eyes closed. Eventually tongues out. They made the little coaster as scary as they could.

Tough guy brothers, Rex and Jay.
It was not a warm day on Tuesday and the high was only 61, but somehow they thought a ride whose sole attraction is to get wet was a good idea. Here is the initial splash when the boat comes down the ramp....

Then they pass underneath a bridge that drips more water onto the already wet passengers....

And you're left with cold and wet riders. Some (and I'm not mentioning any names) handled it a bit better than others.

Wet and happy Rex and Brooke.

Sam had a good time and wanted to ride again but his boring mom said, "No."

Jay finally got in on the action and rode the Sea Dragon with the rest of the family. He'd been on Henry duty the entire day while I went and rode some of the big roller coasters with Sam (so fun...except Sam got a little scared when I put us in the front cart on the Boomerang coaster), so watching him sit on the back row, the seat that goes the highest in the air, was funny to watch. He never took his hands off the bar and told me he thought the boat was going to flip upside down for sure.

Once Jay got started and most of the eighth graders left, the lines for the popular coasters shortened considerably and he wanted to ride the Twister II with the boys and Erin. That left me on Henry duty and we headed back over to the Octopus. Here we are on the top as Henry struggles to get out. As long as we were going, we were both having fun, but Henry doesn't have the patience to stand still.

This is one of the best roller coasters. It's called the Half Pipe and it mimics the motions of a skateboard going up and down in a U-shape. The seats also spin and the feeling of being completely vertical while spinning is unique. Unfortunately, you can't see Seth, who is sitting on the other side of Rex, but he is quite the coaster junkie now.

Nothing like expensive food and sodas to get us through the day.

It was another fun day in Denver and if we can manage to plan it around Free-Pass-For-Eighth-Grade-Day, I think this will become a nice addition to our Bolder Boulder tradition.

How To Run A 10K The Fun Way

If you happen to be an out-of-shape-non-runner signed up to participate in a 10K road race because it is your husband's idea of a good time, I offer the following advice:

1) Make sure the 10K is the Boulder Bolder. While I'm no racing expert, I do recognize competent organization when I see it and this race has all of its I's dotted and T's crossed. They've been doing it for 30 years now and except for the annual "Where to park" challenge, the whole process couldn't proceed smoother. I love the starting waves format. I love the timing chips for our shoes. I love the festivity. Even before we started running, I wondered why I had been dreading it because the entire atmosphere oozes fun.

2) Plan to run with a nine year-old. Seth, Sam and I all started at the same time (wave NE with a start time of 9:01 am), but I only ran with Seth as Jay came back after finishing his race to be with Sam at his Bolder Boulder debut (I ran with Seth when he was six and doing it with a six year-old is a very different ballgame.)


3) Be-bop to Pink's "So What" while shuffling towards the starting line with the other NEers.

4) Shout and woop it up when the gun goes off. Make sure to make some goofy faces for the camera overhead.

5) If someone has a hose out for spraying, make sure you run through it.

6) Run by and shimmy with the Mile 2 belly dancers.

7) Go as fast as you can over the timing chip sensors....just in case you get extra points for speed.

8) Get to the 5K marker and realize you have made it halfway!

9) If someone happens to have a large bowl of Doritos and is offering them to the racers, grab a handful.

10) Don't be in so great a hurry that you don't have time for a homemade slip-n-slide.

11) Accept someone's kind offer of a free banana.

12) Convince your mother to dump a cup of water over her head.

13) Run through every sprinkler along the way.

14) Dump two cups of water over your head at every water station.

15) Make your way up the final stretch of road before entering the stadium.

16) Smile when you realize you only have 0.2 miles left to go.

17) Give as many people as possible in the stadium a high five on your way to the finish line.

18) Realize that not only did you finish, but you finished exactly at your goal time of 1 hour 30 minutes.
19) Watch your six year-old son and brother jubilantly enter the stadium with a proud papa.

20) Understand that you just succeeded in doing something that was very hard.

21) Watch skydivers carrying the flags of each branch of the military and eventually the American flag jump out of an airplane.

22) Cheer as they land in the middle of the field while Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA" plays on the loudspeaker.

22) Tear up as the military gives a 21 gun salute and plays Taps for every fallen soldier.

23) Watch in amazement at the precision of the jets on their fly-by.

24) Leave just as the rain begins to fall with this year's family representatives.

25) Appreciate this guy, who ran his personal best at 37:44 (his watch said faster but that is his official time), who then ran back to the starting line (two more miles) to do it again with patience and love with our Sam and then ran two more miles to get the car to pick us up. He probably ran about 17 miles in all.

26) Last but definitely not least, have a wonderful friend offer to watch your squirrely three year-old. Liz, a friend from our old Denver ward who also happens to be my sister-in-law's sister, graciously entertained Henry and his cousin, Brooke, while the rest of us raced. It was an almost eight hour commitment from start to finish (including us re-fueling at the scrumptious Pei Wei after the race) and we returned to the house to a happy Henry. Thanks, Liz!!!!!

It was a great day. If you ever have the chance to be in or around Denver on a Memorial Day weekend, consider participating in the Bolder Boulder. Not only is it a great race, but it is exhilarating to be around so many people joined together to honor our country's brave soldiers.

In spite of my previous complaints, I'm glad it is our family tradition.

And So It Begins....

I keep hoping for words to come to me, but I'm dry. I sat down to write a book review and kept typing the first sentence about eight different ways until I clicked to another website, disgusted. I don't know if I don't feel like writing, or don't have anything to say, but in the meantime, here's how we spent our first weekend of summer vacation.

First breakfast of the summer and I went all out with three different kinds of cold cereal.

Yesterday, I thought the novelty of "no school" would be enough to keep the boys happy. I didn't think boredom would set in so quickly, but at about 1:00, Seth came upstairs after playing the Wii and said, "Are we going to do anything fun this summer?" I promised we would but suggested that today we could just relax and unwind. Sensing his dissatisfaction, I asked, "Do you wish you were in school?" and do you know what he said? He said, "Yes." Yes! Thankfully, Jay was off and took the boys to the library to get some books from their summer reading list and I went and got myself a pedicure.

I'm bummed because I already chipped the paint off my big toe when I cleaned the floors yesterday. I should have worn socks. Speaking of socks, my little heel-fixing-toe-less socks have worked wonders. I still have cracks, but no longer crevasses, and I'm happy to report that the person giving me a pedicure not only didn't say anything BUT didn't even have use the blade!

Miracle of miracles, I had a babysitter for the evening so that Jay and I could go to the Star Trek movie. Like most babysitters I hire, this 13 year-old was a bit uncommunicative, so I can only guess that everything went well with the boys, but Jay and I had a great time. The movie is really entertaining and really funny at parts. Jay and I are good at spending our evening hours together when we can, but it's different when you leave the house. I liked it.

Today, we woke up early and took the boys to watch the annual bike race against the train. Neither Jay nor I have any desire to ever compete in the event, but it's fun to see the bikers working their way up the mountain. Seth is a natural cheerleader and clapped for every biker. Jay had two of his co-workers he wanted to cheer on, but those bikes pass by pretty quickly and we didn't see either of them.

Everyone watching except Henry who, as usual, likes to do his own thing.

The peloton. Or group of bikers for those not in the know. Apparently, they like to ride really close together to reduce drag. I can't even walk that close to someone without smacking wrists with the person next to me. I can imagine the kind of tangled mess of spokes and wheels I'd make riding a bike that close to other people.

This afternoon, the whole family went to see Night at the Museum 2. I thought there were some very funny parts, particularly when the night guards were going at it with the no-touching (who was that actor playing opposite of Ben Stiller? Funny, funny, funny.) Henry was wiggly and I felt tired after the movie was over, but at least Seth wasn't telling me how bored he was. No...wait. He did later when I told him he couldn't play the Wii. Serenity now!

I don't know why I wasn't looking at the camera, since I was the one with the camera and knew when I pushed the button, but that flash is bright in a darkened theater so I only took the one shot. Since we go to the movies so rarely, we justified spending our kids college education fund on theater treats.

Now we're heading to Denver for our annual Boulder Bolder run. I'm secretly dreading it (I guess the secret is out) but this is Jay's thing. He loves this race. He loves this tradition. I love him. I walk/jog 6.2 miles among 50,000 other people because of that.

School's Out!

I am a big fan of the school schedule here in Colorado. I love that they end the year before Memorial Day. What a bummer to have the tease of a long weekend, only to go back for another week or two. The weather is perfect and the boys and I are ready for lazier days and more relaxed schedules. Now...exhale!

Sam's kindergarten teacher ended the school year in a most charming way. Rather than having a graduation ceremony, which I'm not sure kids that age understand (we adults do, but I wonder if they get the flat hats. Actually, I don't get the flat hats. But I can always Google), she had all the parents come about a half-hour early to listen to our littles read the poems they wrote whose topic was something about Kindergarten.



Last story!

They were each wearing vests and wings that they had sewn earlier that week and after their poetry and a story, we all headed outside. She took all of her students to one end of the playground and had all of us parents line up at the other end. Then, one by one, she hugged each student and told them good-bye and they came running across the field, flapping their wings...flying to us. I got tears! So cute.








He sewed this bone onto the felt himself!

Report cards came as well and both boys have earned great grades. Seth went down a bit on his behavior marks (responsibility, attention, uses time wisely etc. all went from E's to S's. There were even some S-'s) and I need to spend this summer figuring out why. He has developed a significant mental block when it comes to writing. If his homework or school project involved writing a narrative or summary, he almost always turned it in late or incomplete. He seems to struggle with his fine motor skills a bit and as his writing assignments have become longer, his dislike of writing has increased. If you have any great ideas that would get him writing this summer, without it seeming like writing practice, let me know. Somehow, I think he'll rebel against a summer journal assignment.

Still, I'm satisfied that he's brilliant. He has a way of understanding math and concepts that really blows me away. And he loves to read. I guess I'll be happy with two of his three "R"s.

Now...onto the business at hand...

We're off to play (as much as my cold and cough will allow)!