Living in Munchkinland

  Davis has gone back to Heritage for 10th grade. His school is on a hybrid schedule so he goes to actual school with the second half of the alphabet on Tuesdays and Thursdays and does the other days remotely. Sam went back to Anastasis for 8th grade for his last year there. (Sniff). I am teaching at Anastasis as well. I'm teaching theater and a class I created called C³ short for Creativity, Collaboration and Connection. I teach Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays this year. I teach two classes inside and all the rest outside. I have a dedicated theater room this year as well as a mobile outside classroom. I've only taught for one day this week with my full schedule (school started on Wednesday), but it seems to be working so far. I really love teaching and it is a joy to be with the kids, though of course, it is SO hard being in masks all the time and trying how to keep kids socially distanced. Plus it was so hot last week so teaching outside was exhausting.  Both boys are thr

  We celebrated Michael's birthday on three different days. The Sunday before his birthday, Suzy and Jason made us dinner and we ate out on our deck and played a game of Catan. I bought an ice cream cake and it was so nice to get to celebrate with our friends. Michael's actual birthday was the first day of school, but we celebrated that evening with gifts and cards and a family movie night (The Fifth Element- his choice). I made homemade poke bowls and we had the other half of the ice cream cake. The next night we hopped on the train and went downtown to Mom and Paul's new condo and had a drink and he opened more presents before we walked over to Jax Fish house and ate outside. We had a marvelous dinner and really enjoyed being with mom and Paul.  I bought him a new game, Scythe and new hiking shoes and a hat. Kids got him some shirts and a hammock. We also planned his big 50th pubs and castles tour for next summer. This has been on his bucket list forever and we went ahead

 We spent another weekend in Winter Park in August with our mountain bike family. We took Garrett and Peter with us and Alex stayed with the Rileys. The older boys mountain biked Trestle all day every day and we took Garrett and Sam to the skate park and for ice cream and hiked up the mountain. (so far! So high!) We ate lunch on top and took in the view. Colorado is on fire and the smoke was pretty bad, but better in the valley and it wasn't so hot in the mountains so that was lovely. I wish we could afford a place up there. It's the best thing ever to get out of town be outside.

Colorado's numbers improved during August. There was a statewide mask mandate at the end of July and it helped. We spent our summer days watching Davis race XC. (Not the high school series, that's been cancelled). We ride bikes with the neighborhood kids to get ice cream outside. Michael and I finally felt safe enough to celebrate our wedding anniversary with dinner at Stoic and Genuine and a martini in Union Station where we were the only ones inside listening to our favorite lead singer of La Pompe. We swam at the public pool almost every day. The kids had nerf wars every day. I tended my flower garden and battled japanese beetles. I did my medical training for school and then went back to work. I did two weeks of inservice and got training in how to deal with covid and how to teach distantly. It was hot this August. Dry and hot and all of Colorado was in drought. I stayed up past midnight two different Thursdays listening to the school board meetings. I cooked and walked the

  At the end of July, my sister and BIL and nephew drove up from Texas and visited us! Kade spent a couple of evenings with us. He went to snobahn with Davis and Sam. We ordered in Thai food and played games. It was fun! Another evening we went up to see mom's new condo and had dinner at Marco Osteria with mom and Paul. Then we drove up to Snow Mountain Ranch for a long weekend and shared a cabin. Our friends Maggie and Mike were up there too and we hung out with them a bit as well.  Snow Mountain Ranch was super closed down due to Covid and didn't have nearly as much happening as usual. There was no zipline (cancelled day of), no summer tubing hill, no Kiva games except for roller skating, no cafeteria, no reunions at all. But we still had fun! We played dominoes, and Code Names, we fished at the resevoir a lot, we read in our chaise lounges, I hiked a bit (still aching ribs made it tricky), the kids did archery, we skated for a bit and had the entire Kiva completely to oursel