A few pictures from the past couple of weeks:
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- exactly 1 mile high
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- hike in Castle Rock
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- hike in Castle Rock
Photo Dump
October 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Nighttime Balloon Festival
September 24, 2011 by 1 Comment
Each Labor Day weekend, Colorado Springs hosts the Colorado Balloon Festival, which is an amazing event to bring your kids to – and it provides something cool for you to look at as well. This year we again met up with some good friends and went down, except instead of going in the morning for a launch (click here for the photos and story of the first time – wow, it’s crazy to look at pictures of Ezra at that age), we went in the evening for a nighttime display. While they don’t actually launch the balloons, they put on quite a display as they fill them for everyone to see. One of the things that makes this such a huge draw (tens of thousands of people have been there each time we have gone) is that you can walk up to and all around the balloons as they are getting unrolled, set-up, and filled. You also have the opportunity to talk with the balloonists and find out more about the process or their balloon in particular. If you are ever out here during that time, make it a point to go there – it won’t let you down.
39 Months!
September 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment
A new angle this month…..laying down. Don’t forget that you can go back to June 5th-ish of this year to see the last three years.
Ezra’s First Day Of School
August 9, 2011 by 4 Comments
Yup, that’s what it said: his first day of school. Crazy to us as well.
Ezra started preschool this morning, a venture that will land him there twice a week for a couple of hours in the morning. He is in the class with a few other friends of his and he has been super excited about it all summer long. So the day arrived this morning, and as certain as we were that it wouldn’t be any problem to drop him off, he tried hard to prove us wrong by crying as Ahna left the classroom – she was able to peak back in just a few minutes later and found him to no longer be crying and to be having a grand time with the other kids.
As the day shaped up, I had to be at work. And for any of you out there who think that the schedule that I work is grand and delivers lots of time off, I can tell you one thing is for certain: having to miss your child’s first day of school because you can’t get vacation time is a really, really tough thing. Days like this, the schedule that I work is a tough one to have. So how lucky is it that I have some amazing friends at work? I called one of them at the last minute – on a day that he was spending with his family – and asked if I could be on the receiving end of a huge favor. With little hesitation at all, he zipped into the station and worked for me for almost two hours to afford me the chance to go and pick Ezra up from his first day. A massive thank you to a great friend, and an equally as big thank you to his family for their understanding. I hope to get to repay him sometime with something half as meaningful. So, long story longer, I was able to be there to pick Ezra up (and snuck in there a little early to see how he was doing).
He told me that he had a super fun time. One of his teachers said that he did great. It was great that Ahna was able to take him, and that I was able to pick him up. And thus is the beginning of a tale of semi-formal and formal education that will last us the next 18 years-ish…..
New Wristbands
July 24, 2011 by 2 Comments
Well, after much consideration (possibly too much), a decent amount of thought, a lot of recommendations, and finally a much anticipated delivery; we have gotten our new wristbands. We have previously written about the wristbands and what they meant to us here and here, and then about the interim ones here.
We spent a lot of time perusing the internet looking for ‘that perfect one’ only to not want to get committed. The funny thing about it is that we know that even these wristbands won’t last forever, and if we don’t like them we can keep looking….but since they are something that we are going to be wearing all of the time, it was something that we really wanted to get right. And I think that we found the right ones (at least for now) at a place called The Vintage Pearl. The Vintage Pearl allows customization on size, font, and wording…as long as it fits within a certain character count – which leads to a whole different consideration about what to write. I settled on a leather band, and Ahna got a really nice bracelet and necklace.
They arrived while we were on vacation in the midwest, and once we got them on, we were really happy with them. They have been a nice permanent fixture, and have already become conversation pieces – leading Liam to be thought of and remembered by even more people.
Father’s Day
June 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment
No sense in lying about anything here….Father’s Day was a day that was full of turn-it-on/turn-it-off emotions: very up and down. I was treated to a wonderful breakfast meal of pancakes made lovingly by Ahna and Ezra in unison. Ezra did a great job helping to measure, pour, and mix before retiring to eat some of the first batch that came off the griddle. We spend the rest of the morning with my Dad working on putting together a swing set down at their house for Ezra to use (it was given to us by some great friends when they were done with it). There was a really tough stretch about mid-afternoon when I spent a lot of time thinking about Liam, but I was graciously helped through it by Ezra (with some Ahna love in there too). Ahna and Ezra made it really special, although it was a lot tougher that I even thought that it was going to be.
Photographic Happenings
June 22, 2011 by 2 Comments
A little pool time.
A little family time.
A little yoga time.
And a little Colorado Rockies baseball time.
The Dr Appointment Update
June 16, 2011 by 5 Comments
Well, this has been interesting. Two days ago, we received the results of the allergy test, and it turns out that Ezra’s got a few minor things to keep an eye on: eggs, milk, wheat, walnuts, and peanuts. All of the possible allergies came back very minor to minor, and we weren’t told to completely avoid any of those….just to perhaps do them in smaller amounts than before. We have started to attempt some small dietary changes (rice milk was completely unsuccessful) and will see where those take us. The Doctor thinks that he might grow out of them as he gets older, but just in case something happens before then, she gave us an epi-pen to have for “when you go someplace like camping and are a long way from anyone else.”
The next unexpected post-doctor event has been the development of what we think are a few pox. He got the chickenpox vaccine last week, and apparently getting a small outbreak is uncommon but not rare. We aren’t convinced that they are in fact pox, but we also don’t have a reasonable other explanation for the red lesion-type things that have shown up on his inner right knee. We spoke with the nurse this morning over the phone, and she wasn’t too worried about them – especially since he isn’t bothered by them and doesn’t have any other symptoms. In fact, she even said that he would be fine around other kids and they wouldn’t get anything from him. Even though, we are going to keep his exposure to other kids limited for the time being until we can either figure them out for sure or they go away. Anyone else have any experience with this happening?
Ezra The Artist
June 14, 2011 by 2 Comments
This is how ‘A Starry Night’ began, right? Ezra’s artistic side continues to impress and grow, and here are two examples of that talent. The one is a person and a car, and the other (with a P and a S) is his attempt at making me a name tag for the library’s story time. I know it’s not going to land him on The Today Show, but we’re really proud of the burgeoning skill set of the not-even-three-year-old (at the time).
The Life of a Little Hippie 