Colorado Road Trip: The Wonders of Older Cousins!

Zadie and Skip building a fort with their cousins Lauren (left) and Callie (right).  Tori and I got to cozy up inside the house while the cousins took them on outdoor adventures!

The very best part of our trip to Colorado was seeing how well the kids played with their Colorado cousins. Yes, it warms the heart to see your children playing so joyfully with kinfolk.  Even better, it meant that we could just relax all day long while the kids were thoroughly entertained by their older cousins -- we even got to go out to brunch one time while they babysat!

My uncle John is hands-down my very favorite uncle.  That's easy to say since my mom is one of four girls and my dad only has one brother.  But even if I had a slew of uncles, it's hard to imagine liking an uncle more than I like my uncle John.  He's kind of like my dad, except totally different.

He and his wife Connie have four kids ages 8 through 12, which was good for me to think about when I used to feel sorry for myself (self-inflicted, I know!).  They definitely had it even worse than we did.  Then again, they have three perfect little girls and one decently-behaved boy, so I think we've got the edge in that department.  Little boys are about twice as much work as little girls and I think Charlie was the work of three normal little babies!

Anyway, John and Connie's kids are really sweet and down-to-earth.  Zadie adored Lauren and followed her around like a little puppy.  She also slept next to her every single night and pretty much didn't give anyone else the time of day.  Skip split his time pretty equally with the three girls and also wrestled and played roughly with little John.  As for Charlie, naturally it took the special gifts of Callie to entertain him for hours on end.  It was total heaven to see our kids so completely entertained and occupied with their cousins!

Zadie had such a great time that she ended up extending her time with them.  Because their family was also heading to San Diego for Thanksgiving, Zadie rode with Connie and two of the kids to go to San Diego and then stayed with them in San Diego for five whole days until we arrived to claim her.  That Zadie is very independent and never once got sad or lonely for her moms.  And certainly not her brothers.  She loved all her time with her older cousins and all the special attention she got from John and Connie!

Colorado Road Trip: Snow!

I arrived in Denver the same day as Tori and the kids, although I took the easy way out and traveled by plane (flying without children is so fun!).  We got in on a Friday night and it snowed most of Saturday, which was pretty exciting for our kids, and Zadie most of all.  They've definitely seen snow before, but I don't think they've actually seen it in verb form.  Zadie kept running around screaming like it was the most exciting thing in the world, while her Denver cousins just kind of chuckled at her like she was crazy (more on that later).

Anyway, Zadie was super excited about the miniature snowman she made (see below).  Other snow activities included sledding, building a fort, and throwing snowballs.

She was pretty proud of this creation.  Don't ask me where she found those perfect little glasses!

This was after most of the snow had already melted, but how cool is it that you can see all these elk bugling right outside the guest room window at my uncle's house?!  We city folk were quite impressed.

Colorado Road Trip: A Few Nights in Moab

Skip scrambling at Arches National Park!

Uncle Mike let Skip drive this very old-school tractor all around their property and he was in heaven.

I like the colors in this photo.

Tori's destination was my uncle's house outside of Denver, but she stopped the first night in Las Vegas and stayed over at a friend of her sister.  Tori doesn't flinch at staying with people she doesn't know very well, that's for sure.

The second and third nights she stayed with Uncle Mike and Aunt Mary, who live in Moab, Utah.  Uncle Mike is Tori's mother's brother, and so naturally he's a great guy who is very outdoorsy and fun.  Although I wasn't there, Tori said that Uncle Mike was great about engaging the boys in the outdoors and on the tractor.  And apparently Zadie gardened with Aunt Mary for four whole hours and said she wanted to garden at our house when they got back because it was the most fun thing in the world.

I went through Moab once on a road trip in college, but I would love to go back and stay with Mike and Mary.  They used to actually run a bed and breakfast in Moab, so they know just how to treat their guests.  Tori said they had grilled salmon and healthy veggies and of course Tori loves it when other people cook for her (since I do not).

Tori and the kids got in two very nice visits in Moab, once on the way to Denver and once on the way back.  Thanks to Mike and Mary for hosting our family!

Colorado Road Trip: The Car My Grandma Gave Us

On long road trips, Tori keeps a cooler stocked with food in the front seat and then straps a little screen across the seat backs for the special treat of a movie!

I want to do a series of posts about a road trip Tori recently took our kids on.  Since she will be starting a new job and quitting her current occupation of being a stay-at-home mom, she wanted to hit the road for one last hurrah before she gets hemmed in by a lack of vacation time and too many work commitments.

The subject of this particular post is our family workhorse, the Honda Civic. We love this car so much.  It used to be my grandma's car and she loved driving around the streets of Jacksonville, Texas and checking in on things around town.  This habit of passing the time through driving intensified as she got older and a little lonely, but even when I was a kid some of my clearest memories are of driving around with her looking at certain houses while she told us stories about the people who lived there, or who used to live there.  It's a small town and she had lived there for quite some time, so she had some pretty good stories to tell.  

Since she worked as an assistant in an accountant's office, she also had special access to people's financial situations and I especially remember her pointing out the modest homes and old cars of people who she knew to be extremely wealthy ("oil money," she would say), but who never cared to show it.  Those were my favorite stories, I think partly because I felt like she and I were in on some big secret that nobody else knew about (and to some extent we were since all the information she shared with me was highly confidential!).  

Although my grandma wasn't driving me in the Honda when I was a kid (it's a 2000), I feel connected to those memories through this car.  And I still logged many miles driving around Jacksonville with her in the Honda, which she loved dearly.  In small town East Texas, it's big American cars that rule the road, so her Honda Civic really stood out (my uncle had taken her all the way to Dallas to buy it).  Grandma was always talking about her "little car" and how she liked being able to zip in and out of places -- she couldn't imagine why people liked to drive those big wasteful cars.  She was very proud of it and talked about it constantly.

When her children insisted she stop driving, my aunts and uncles were kind enough to gently nudge my grandma to give the car to me, partly as a thank-you for having spent a year living in Jacksonville with her.  It was a very special gift, not only in the sense that it's a whole car (!), but also because I know how much my grandma loved it and how hard it was for her to give it up.  I think we've done a pretty good job of getting the most out of it and cherishing it as much as she did.

Though she's now suffering from severe dementia, for the longest time talking with her about the Honda was the easiest way to connect with her -- she would always have a twinkle in her eye when she talked about that car.  And although she was of course upset that she wasn't able to drive anymore, she seemed genuinely happy that my family was now getting so much use out of it.

In some ways, I think our little Honda Civic has a lot in common with my grandma, which I guess is kind of a funny thing to say about a Japanese sedan built in 2000, given that my grandma is an 86-year-old woman who grew up on a dairy farm in East Texas riding horses and milking cows.  But both are about the most hard-working, no-frills, reliable, and "best of class" models that ever existed.

For about a year after we first got the car, I could still smell my grandma's make-up and face cream every time I got in.  With time and children, of course, that smell has gone away.  But I can still see some of her make-up smudges on the steering wheel and on the door, and whenever they catch my eye I always smile at the memory of my grandma driving this very same car.  Grandma would probably be horrified at how dirty the car gets, but I think she'd really love to see our three kids squeezed in there like sardines and if she were driving around with me she'd probably point at the other cars and say that people didn't need those big old cars just for hauling around a couple of kids!

Grandma Linda on the Trampoline

I don't know if there are a lot of grandmas out there genuinely excited about trampolines.  But Grandma Linda isn't your regular grandma!

Linda came for a visit during the week of Halloween (she was the driving force behind us going to see The Book of Mormon).  Especially now that she's very busy helping raise Zach's kids, it's an even more special treat when we get to see her and have her all to ourselves.  We got in a few fun outdoor activities in the park where I work, including a beautiful bike ride and picnic, as well as a night hike looking for owls.  We forgot to bring flashlights and we didn't see any owls, but it was still cool.  While I was at work she and Tori also managed a few amazing beach days, which is great considering the time of year.

The Day People Voted for Gay Marriage

I've written here and there about gay marriage cases in the news over the past few years, with the most impactful being first the ability for us to marry in June of 2008 and, subsequently, the amendment to the state constitution that banned same-sex marriage.  Obviously this is a deeply personal issue for us and I am hopeful that the Defense of Marriage Act will be repealed in Obama's (recently granted) second term.  The process of following all the various court cases and ballot initiatives often feels like an emotional roller coaster.

So I'm quite happy that, after a string of THIRTY-TWO straight losses at the ballot box, voters have finally ruled in favor of gay marriage.  Not in one state, but in three and a half (the Minnesota initiative was a gay marriage ban that voters rejected, so it wasn't quite the same as approving gay marriage).

This story has been somewhat lost in the discussion of the presidential election, which is certainly important and, I hope, will also play a role in progress on this issue (side-note: Tuesday was also the first time we elected a president who supported same-sex marriage!).

It's hard to say for sure whether this will be the tipping point -- of course opponents of same-sex marriage say it only passed in very "blue" states -- but I don't think you can overstate the significance of losing 32 times and then finally winning.  And although I think the very idea of asking people to submit their vote on whether a person can marry the person he or she loves is totally ludicrous, I think the movement needs the popular vote (not just the court cases) to be successful in the long-term.  I hope there is a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court that affirms the right to marry as a basic civil right, but I'm worried that if it happens too soon -- before the mainstream vote is behind it -- it could become like the abortion issue and continue to be extremely contentious.

These results make me feel very hopeful about the future.  So much has changed in such a short period of time.

Ditching Your Kids on Halloween

Halloween has always been Tori's favorite holiday, so I was surprised when she suggested we go see "The Book of Mormon" on Halloween this year.  A friend of ours got discount group tickets and that was the only night available.  I felt some parental guilt about ditching our kids on such an important kid holiday, but the savings were too great to pass up.

Our friend Sidney was kind enough to babysit and we took the kids trick-or-treating on our cul-de-sac before we headed out.  Then Sidney took them for a more extended trick-or-treat experience with our dear friend Erin's family, so they had a pretty wild and crazy night and apparently didn't go to bed until 9:45pm, which has got to be a record.

As for us, we had a great time at the "The Book of Mormon" and it was particularly fun to watch with ex-Mormons like Tori, her mom, and her sister.  They pretty much had tears running down their cheeks throughout the whole thing.  I'm more of an "I'm laughing really hard on the inside" kind of person, but I also thought it was pretty hilarious, though maybe just a tad too vulgar in some parts.  Let's just say I wouldn't recommend it to my parents.

Without further ado, here are some Halloween photos of the kids!

Charlie was a stubborn-ass cowboy/farmer who refused to wear his hat except for this photo op (which required bribery), Zadie was Pippi for two years running, and Skip was the tin man from Wizard of Oz.

We went to a work party a few days before Halloween and the kids wanted to be cowboys and cowgirls.  These are some great vintage suede outfits that my mom bought them.  Zadie and Skip can really pull off the cowboy/cowgirl look, but Charlie looks more like a chubby farmer.  Charlie, if you ever try to say that the third child doesn't get photos taken, please note that it was only because of your stubbornness not to appear in said photos!