Halloween, pumpkin patch and the last warm days of fall

 Beautiful day at the pumpkin patch with hayrides, horse feeding, hay fort playing, hot cider and yes, even AMELIA! They are so cute.

Cute little 2 month old horse.

The boys love the hay fort that is set up each year and spend a great deal of time jumping and climbing

Ready, set.........

This is their idea of "say cheese" these days.

 My handsome boys!

 "Mom, it's too big to pick up".  So he kicked it. Hmmm....that didn't work.

 Ah ha! Rolling it worked! It was fun to watch him solve this little problem his own way.

Colter, having been to the pumpkin patch more times, brought the wagon to haul his. Dylan took notes for next year.

The wagon conversion was a fun family project night. Colter made all of the tools and both boys helped paint. This year we got to dress up twice, once for the parade down main street on Friday and again for Trick or Treat time. We have always said that Telluride will shut down and show up for ANY chance to dress up in costume and party.

Lily is still one of Colter's favorite girls. We had a fun night trick or treating in Telluride with lots of friends. I love living in a place that cares so much for it's children and goes all out for holidays, real and made up! Most of the town is out running through the streets or hosting haunted houses, all ages dressed up and laughing.

Ok, you think this made his day? Seriously, he thinks he is a fireman now.

Yes, the fire truck wagon and Colter's mouth both had lights!








We are staying busy with school, karate, playdates and all the rest. Colter has made many new friends and Dylan has too. Dylan's current favorites are Magnus and Ryder. We had a fun, but fast, visit with Grandma and Mac Mac last weeked. Very relaxing and mellow, rare for us I know. It was the last warm weekend of fall and it is now cold and snowing. Hasn't made it over 35 degrees since they left! The countdown to ski season is underway, 13 days left and the lifts come to life!

Falling into winter

This is a picture from Finn's birthday party down valley. Colter was showing off his hop scotch skills by crossing up his legs and doing tricks for each square. Fun party on a beautiful day that included snake hunting, pond swimming, dragon fly chasing, fort building and a scavenger hunt. September was a blur of beautiful late summer weather, getting into the new school routines, birthday parties, Blues and Brews, getting in those last sunny, warm days and a bit of travelling. It was one of the best fall leaf shows in memory. Colter is loving his school (and so are we) and learning so much already. He has made many new friends, is starting to read, write and sound out new words, learning Spanish and loving art. He has found his love for singing and performing again and we are enjoying all of the new songs he is learning. One of his favorite things is called the 100 board and teaches counting and math skills. By the end of the first week he had his first girlfriend, Amelia, and professed his love and admiration with rolling eyes and fainting on the couch. The other night he told me how he and Amelia met and that it was one of the "unforgettable" days of his life! Very expressive guy we have here. He is kind to the other children, always saying hello, good bye and calling them all by name. He is very charming and thoughtful and I am hearing from other Moms that their children are talking about him alot at home-makes me smile. Their class pet is a gecko and it is Colter's job to feed it crickets this week. They allow him to learn with his own style and do not require the kids to sit still for long periods of time, he is loving it and thriving in this learning environment.  His near constant questioning continues and he remembers so many details of what he is told, google is still a close friend of mine.  Blues and Brews was a blast this year. Three days of fun in the sun and a huge kids play area with blow up jumpy houses, slides, a climbing wall and all the running we could handle. Colter and Eli spent an entire morning making necklaces, ankle bracelets and beanbags to sell at the festival. They set up a display, did a great job selling and ended up making enough money to buy a sno-cone each. So great to watch the boys following through on projects, problem solving and accomplishing their goals-and so cute to see them create and sell their own stuff!

Dylan had so much fun on the kids stuff this year. He must have done the big slide 50 times a day. He was very determined to climb the rock wall but his favorite was jumping off and sliding down the rope. Dylan has become a non stop chatter box. He can tell a great story, is starting to set up his own pretend games and assigning characters for each of us. Recently it has been "nice guys and mean guys" or "babies and big boys", but his favorite is playing superheros-no one ever has a name, it is just "you are a superhero". Dylan wants to be 5 (still) so that he can go to Colter's school and play. He is doing a few days here and there at the Munchkins preschool that Colter went to last year and doing great. He is such a happy guy and enjoys playing with everyone. Right now he is learning opposites, counting and "sometimes", as in "sometimes you let me help you cook and sometimes no". Dylan keeps tabs on everyone and reports back to me. He lets me know if anyone has "mean havior" or "nice havior", not tattle taling, just status reports. He is very independent and will try to do most everything "by mine own self" if his requests aren't immediately accomodated. The other day I looked over to the kitchen to see him in the fridge getting his breakfast. I mentioned that I would help him in just a minute. looked up again and he was cracking eggs over the pan on the stove, and on the counter and floor........ He loves to have everything clean and is often cleaning up before he even gets started playing. "just get one thing down and then clean it up, then just get one more thing down and clean it up" he will tell me as he puts stuff away. Dylan is good at sharing and is careful when he borrows his brother's stuff. He still loves to ride his bike and his little four wheeler and is looking forward to ski season. He loves to let people know when he is too "big boy" to do something or has learned a new skill. It has been a bit lonely around the house since Colte has gone to school and we are still sorting out what to do with our time together. I'm sure we will spend lots of time at the library and skiing this winter, for now it is boring ol' clean the house and get caught up with all the pre-winter tasks.

Not really sure why all that is underlined, but we'll go with it.

 Hike on the Galloping Goose trail after school one day. Colter was exploring "evidence" of a an old train track.

Colter took part in his first art show this month. He made a bow and arrow and beanbags out of recycled material from our local eco building supply company. It was called the "Repurposed Art Show" at Ecospaces and he won a prize for being the youngest artist. It was a great experience and we were all very proud of him. He enjoyed seeing what the bigger kids came up with and even spent some of his birthday money on a shark sculpture.Dylan can put SuperDad to sleep now too. The green around Trevor's neck is his superhero cape.

Fall leaf piles are the best!

I just got back from my first "girls trip" since Colter was born. I went to the east coast with my good friend Penelope and had a wonderfully relaxing and fun time. We went to Boston and then drove to her mom's place on Mount Desert Island in Maine. We sea kayaked, hiked, leaf hunted (the colors were just starting to change) and ate a ton of seafood! I loved it up there and look forward to taking the boys in a year or two. Their place is surrounded by water on all three sides in Pretty Marsh and has so much to offer, I could easily loose a month or two there.

While I was gone Uncle Dave, Tim, Tracy, Modee, Pappy and Trevor played with the boys. From my little reporter Dylan, I have heard of every infraction of normal rules that occurred and it sounds like they had a great time! It is being referred to as "the boys weekend" and I am thankful to everyone that helped out.

More birthday events and summer fun

He was so proud of himself. "Mom, I have my helmet on!"Our favorite Kathleen and Everett came to visit for a few days and we turned it into a month of fun! The boys had so much fun playing together, Dylan and Everett were two little peas in a pod. Kathleen and I went to Moab for a camping and ducky adventure with the boys. As I floated down the river with my two boys, I had the overwhelming feeling of being outnumbered. It was a scary moment, but then I realized we were fine and we continued on. Colter was a great firstmate and paddled with me. Dylan sat in the back and sang "Rubber Ducky, you're the 1!" and "Duck, Rubber Duck, Duck, Rubber Duck" the entire time. The only "boy overboard" incident happened when Dylan leaned too far over to reach a stick. It was a beautiful warm day and I love the freedom of travelling and sharing new adventures with the boys. Colter got a new river hat at the end of the day and we renamed one of the rapids "Hat Eater". We also spent some quality time in Crawdad Canyon and brought Claude the Crawdad home to live in the fish tank. He lived for a long time and enjoyed chasing the tetras. We have a couple of pyromaniacs in training around here and they would love to have a campfire everyday. We are still loving our time with friends in the desert and mountains that we call home.Next up was a boys camping weekend at Alta lakes with Daddy. They had fun fishing, four wheelin' and running around the old mining town of Alta with Colter the Tour Guide. He had just finished his first Telluride Academy camp called Alpine Detectives and he was full of new stories. It was a great week of camp and he loved exploring the region with his detective kit, new friends and teachers. They went on mine tours, long hikes to old mining cabins and ghost towns. We are looking forward to more camps next year.As part of the fall birthday season, we went to a party at the secret down valley pond and had a great day playing in the sand and water. The boys were worn out from paddleboating, exploring, swimming and yes--kayaking! One of the boys had a kids kayak, Jackson Fun 1 and all the boys had a great time padding around. I am saving these pics for when my boys are gnarly kayakers doing first descents all over the world.Ok, I left these two pictures bigger because they were both epic in their own way. We planned a weekend long birthday bash on the Upper Colorado for Trevor and Penelope. As Kathleen and I were driving there we got trapped between two mudslides on McClure pass outside of a little town called Redstone. It was a somewhat funny, mildly traumatic experience that involved many strange looks at the two "crazy" moms in the minivan from Illinois. We had them all fooled, the other vehicles held mildly panicky people from various backgrounds that thought our reaction was a bit mild. We busted out the PB and J's, lifejackets and raincoats and then settled the kids into a DVD of Dinosaur Train. Guess they didn't think we were serious when we said we were fine, we had swiftwater rescue training and would help them, if needed, once our kids were safe.  We ended up getting evacuated and spending the first night of our long weekend at a "romantic"' hotel in Redstone. Colter said he was "not impressed" with the whole flash flood thing.  We retreived the car around midnight and left the next morning. This is a picture of the smaller mudslide, the big one was about 8 ft tall, covered the entire road and blew the guardrail into the river. Nature always impresses me.

The next picture also has a great story.  I would like to say that Tim and I are so cool that we pulled this stunt off and age has not slowed our reflexes at all. Those years of hucking ourselves off the dock at the lake house and the many cliffs since had implanted such a strong muscle memory that we could not fail. Well, it worked for Tim on this jump and he landed straight up and down after a beautiful lay out back flip--I, however, need to practice some more. I over rotated this one by about a third and after Tim pulled me to shore gasping for breath I had the huge bruises to prove it. Still a great pic! Tim got his bruises the next day underrotataing a front one and a half, I guess we both need to practice some more.

The somewhat annual birthday sushi dinner continues, if we can pull it off on Day 13 of the Grand, we can handle a little car camping. Dylan said "Mom, take another picture--wait, here is my fishing face".  He had a great time with his Spider Man fishing pole, didnt't catch a thing, but learned how to cast a good bit.We enjoyed the pyro show that comes with the famous Flaming Rum Cake, this time it was Palisade Peach Upsidedown Cake. In the next one, you can see the trust on my Mom's face. I think this picture is hilarious! She says she has fun rafting.Kathleen and Everett in their mighty Ducky. John, Melissa, Brooke and Bryce came along for the family fun.Tim, Tracy and Penel rounded out Team Ducky for the weekend, We also had Steve, Katie and Nicole, Brad, Sandy, Rowan and Dory. Dylan loves to row with Daddy. He is doing really well and should be captain by age 5.It was a busy weekend full of kid and adult fun, hotsprings, firecrackers and all else river.We took Colter on his first Shoshone trip and he loved it. He held the rodeo strap in the back and laughed the entire time! Now we can move on to some bigger trips with him, that is so awesome!Trevor's real birthday was spent camping at a friend's house in Norwood and having some good redneck fun. Gun shooting, motorcycle riding, fire playing and moonlight swordfighting put smiles on all of the boys faces. Colter loved the target shooting.Whew, tired yet? Up next is Colter's Camo/Hunting 6th Birthday party. Oh yeah, two front teeth fell out in one week, we'll get a pick with both teeth out soon enough. We all went down to Modee and Pappy's house to let the kids run free. Colter got his first real bow and learned to shoot at his target. He and Eli both got the same bow and are very excited boys. Dads and boys also spent some quality time building potato cannons for a little fun competition. The Dad's definately enjoyed themselves as much as the boys. By the end they were shooting corn and any other thing they could stuff down the pipe. That was probably the highlight of the party. We also did a scavanger hunt and built log cabins. It was a beautiful weekend and we are loving post monsoon summer this year. Colter helped me decorate his camo cake and put camo pudding in the middle. He is a creative guy and has been enjoying lots of cooking projects lately.Next day was Colter's first day of kindergarten. I have to say that I have been a total wreck leading up to this. I am so excited for him and know that he is ready and will do great. At the same time, I can't believe my baby boy is big enough for school! I also can't believe that for the next 20 years or so I will have a kid in school, that seems like something a grown up would be doing. I cried the entire first day. He is loving it and doing so good. He is going to the Telluride Mountain School and I feel so blessed that we have this opportunity. It is an independent school in our region that has a Montesorri focus for early education and believes in hands on learning, community service and family focused learning. They promote travel and real world experience along with physical, nature based programs. All classrooms are multi aged and allow for different learning styles, lots of art, music, languages and of course skiing. In kindergarten they start Spanish and have Ski P.E. once a week. Love it! He also started karate once a week and is enjoying it. It seems to be good for his focus, strength and balance.

I will have to cover all the fun projects we have been doing later. I'm tired from remembering all this activity! It has been an amazing summer of fun.

Birthday Season

It starts with Dylan on July 28th, then Tyson on August 13th, then Trevor on the 29th and Colter on September 5th. Very busy, very happy and a little bittersweet. In our family birthdays are a time to celebrate love, life and blessings, and also a time to remember and heal. Four years ago yesterday Tyson's short visit on earth forever changed our lives. I still wish we had him here and maybe some more pictures, time, memories and all that goes along with living life.  "Guilt is the emotion felt when trying to place today's knowledge and solutions on yesterday's problems."  This is a quote that I read during those first few months of grief and it has stuck with me through all the times that I have tried to beat myself up over the "what ifs" and "we should have's". I love it becausse it reminds me that we did the best we could given our abilities at the time and we can't change events from the past no matter how "smart" we are now!  Each year that passes gives us more knowledge, awareness and life experience to help integrate all that we have felt and learned into our beings and heal our spirits and hearts. Our life is truly blessed and we are thankful for everything that God has planned for us. We also love that Tyson's short life on earth coincided with the peak of the Persiad Meteor Showers. It is one of the brightest shows each year in our region of the world and is a great way to spend time during the bought of insomnia that visits this time of year. In many ways I'm glad that we are constantly reminded of Tyson and think of him often, I would have even more sadness if he was forgotten or his memory lost. We love our community of family and friends, your support and love is truly a gift.  We spent this past week doing alot of the things we love, including hiking, camping and playing outside. The weather was beautiful, the rainbows were the brightest we've seen all year and the love was felt by all.
Peace and Love to all,