Yay Daddy!

Congratulations Joel, on a great 10K today!

HARK! I think I see him!

ME TOO! ME THREE, and, my "hark, I see him" pose is seriously awesome - check it out! We are so proud of you, Daddy!Now, let's go home and take a nap! 4:30 a.m. is way too early for little hawks to be out of bed!

That last caption, by the way, is what I wish my sweet little hawks would have said after the race. Joel is napping, and Emma is napping, and Mama would dearly love to be napping. But Eli, Josh, and Hannah seemed to have forgotten they woke up at 4:30, and are full of energy!

Today the kids and I dropped Joel off at the starting line of a 10K race, drove to the park where the finish line was and waited to cheer him across! Joel's pretty fast, so we didn't have to wait long, but here are some highlights of how we passed the time.The girls decided it would be fun to collect leaves from the ground, and this kept them occupied for the better part of our wait:
Eli got in on the action, but in typical Eli fashion, he wasn't content to simply collect leaves:

No, he had to build something out of them. By the time Joel finished the race, he had turned the structure you see below into a two bedroom, 1.5 bath townhouse with running water: In between foraging for attractive leaves, I was able to get some sweet photos. Okay, I made them stop looking for leaves for a few minutes so I could take the following pictures, but I think it sounded better the other way:

Josh hit the picture wall fairly early, I think he's going into a phase where it's going to be a challenge to photograph him!
Now, this next photo is our solemn secret, got it? Josh would kill me if he knew I'd taken it, much less posted it. I just love the face he makes when he stretches. He's made this same "stretching face" since he was a baby and I think it's the cutest thing, and therefore couldn't resist posting it: Just a pretty view down one of the paths at Monument Park:
Now some race spectators are starting to show up, must mean the runners aren't far behind! Doesn't Emma have the sweetest profile?

Tiny Dancer

The Girls

Summer Is Winding Down . . .

I am turning out to be the summer's worst blogger! I wonder if there is an award for that?

In any case, I've thought up an excuse. My sister has a new baby to post pictures of on her blog, and everyone knows that pictures of a new baby trump every other kind of picture. So, maybe I'm not posting many pictures out of respect for my sister's moment in the limelight? I mean, you wouldn't get married on the same day as your sister, right? Or, maybe we just haven't been doing anything very "picture worthy" lately - you can decide which excuse you like better.

The past few weeks have been pretty slow, with the kids playing with neighborhood friends and me drifting through the much slower routine of these last summer days. It's hard to believe that we have only a few weeks of summer vacation left! The proof sits beside me as I type - in the form of four backpacks lined up, ready to be stuffed full of newly purchased school supplies. Josh, Emma, and Hannah are excited - especially Hannah as this will be her first year! Eli looks uncomfortable whenever school is mentioned, and seems to think he learned plenty last year and shouldn't be expected to return.

The other day I was talking to a friend about one of my favorite books, Dickens' "David Copperfield". It's been nearly 10 years since I first read it, so I decided to take it out and read it over again. I only tell you this because it amazes me how your perception of a book and its characters can completely transform as you gain more life experience. When I first read this book, I was newly married and childless. Alot has happened in my life since then, and my experiences have dramatically changed how I see some of the book's characters. One thing that has not changed is the thrill I experienced reading, what I still believe is the best opening line in literary history:

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

In fact, my life experiences over the years have only served to make that line even more poignant. What an amazing point to ponder - if your life story was told, who would be the hero?

Love,
Jen
Ps. If you haven't read "David Copperfield", you really should - quick, before the summer is over and you are back to required reading only!

Catching Up, The Grand Finale

You people knew that this flurry of posts could not draw to a close without an appearance from the family pets, right? If you didn't, then this must be your first visit to my blog!

Now, before we commence with photos, there are some things you should know:

• Yes, we have acquired another animal.


• Yes, Joel feels that he is now officially living on Noah's Ark.


• No, we will not be adding any more pets to our family, I do solemnly swear.

So, without further ado, I am pleased to introduce Jane, our new cockatiel.

Jane is a cinnamon pied, Joshua's first official pet, and the sweetest little baby you could wish for. We are all enjoying her - well, I guess in Joel's case enjoy would be too strong. But Joel isn't not enjoying her, which is the best I could have hoped for! Joshua chose her name, and I think it's such a sweet name!

Now, in a family the size of ours, you really can't please everyone all of the time. Pidge the budgie does not find Jane remotely interesting or amusing. Jane returns the sentiment. Dobby the budgie thinks that Jane is absolutely enchanting, and dances around her singing his sweetest songs and clucking and bobbing his little head. This scenario always ends with Dobby offering to groom her, and Jane promptly knocking Dobby off his perch. Poor little Dobby, some women just can't be pleased. While I can't imagine any girl not being completely charmed by his advances, I don't think Jane is going to come around.

Pidge and Jane squaring off - Dobby very wisely backs way up. Or did he back up to get a better view of the impending "catfight"? I know some guys are into that.

Nope, I guess Dobby isn't one of "those guys", he can't even watch as the tension mounts!

So, now you are caught up on the little hawks and critters - and I hope that I'll be much better at keeping the blog updated from now on!

Love,

Jen

Here are the little hawks having a blast at a local play place called Pump It Up. It's an indoor inflatable slide nirvana, and one of the kids' favorite outings. As you can probably deduce from the state of Emma and Hannah's hair, I wasn't there with them ;) !!

I was on my way to Vail to pick up Joel's sister and bring her back to Colorado Springs for her flight home to Houston the next day. I had some much needed alone time on the gorgeous drive there, a fabulous lunch with Marta and her son Eric (who lives in Vail), and a wonderful time visiting with Marta on our drive back to the Springs. We miss you Marta, our time together was too short!

Here are some more Pump It Up pictures - they are pretty blurry - I'm sure due to the fact that Joel must have had a very hard time catching those split seconds when the children were actually still enough to photograph!

In case you can't tell - that's Hannah under all of the black hair, and Emma's sporting the summer's latest hair trend - the "Shaggy Dog"!

Catching Up, Part II

I always hear about how rarely Joel appears on my blog. Some have even hinted that they doubt his existence. So, I decided I would dedicate a whole post to Joel to prove that indeed, he does exist, and indeed, I consider him blogworthy. This past week, Joel got another 14er under his belt, Mt. Princeton. For those of you unfamiliar with that term, Colorado has 54 mountains that reach 14,000 ft. (or over) at the summit. Here in Colorado, they are commonly referred to as "fourteeners". Many avid hikers/climbers (what do you all call yourselves, incidentally?) have a goal to climb them all. Joel is halfway there! Here are some of his climb photos:

On the trail to the summit, he met another lone hiker and they traded cameras to document one another's climb - the photo above this caption was taken by the other hiker, a guy from Maryland! The next few photos Joel took using the timer on our camera:

Isn't that an amazing sight? Had I climbed with Joel, I would not have been able to enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed the photos. I don't know this for sure, but I have a strong suspicion that nature is more beautiful, and more apt to be enjoyed by the viewer, when said viewer's knees are still tucked safely within their sockets. My knees and their sockets would not have reached the summit together, and I find that life is all about setting appropriate priorities.

Now, the pictures below are my favorite. I don't know who began this tradition, but many climbers commemorate their 14er summit with a mid-air jump photo. This time around, Joel had to take his photo with the timer, since there was no one on the summit with him. The resulting shots were hilarious, but Joel wouldn't let me post the really good ones. In fact, I'm pretty sure he disposed of the evidence altogether. That's okay, I have them stored in my memory, and I'll take them out from time to time whenever I need a good chuckle. I do have his permission to post these, so here you have my husband, aka Superman:

Is it just me, or is he Walking Like an Egyptian? Could Joel be a closet Bangles fan?

I Have Some Catching Up To Do!

The day before we left for California, Emma had her first Ballet Recital! She was so excited! The performance was wonderful, and of course I cried during Emma's part. I'm so happy that she enjoys her classes so much and wants to continue with this. I don't have any pictures of the actual recital worth posting, though. We were only allowed to take pictures at the Dress Rehearsal, and I forgot to charge my camera beforehand! BAD MOMMY!

I managed to get some shots before my battery died, but they all came out blurry and dark. These photos were taken by my Mom at Emma's last class before her performance, and I'm so glad we have them!

Emma's teacher, Maria, was a dream come true. She was fabulous with the kids and had a way of being a gentle encourager while at the same time not accepting less than their best work. I'm so sad Emma won't have her in the next few levels, as Maria primarily teaches the higher level students.

Emma starts ballet back up again next week, and she can't wait!