The title of this post are the cliche directions that people sarcastically give when you need to go to Boulder, CO…funny thing is that you actually have to turn right to get into the downtown. More on Boulder in a little while. So there was no post done yesterday, are you doing okay? Any withdrawals? I suppose that we are allowed a day off of the blog every once in a while – it simply turned out to be a pretty busy day – but this longer post should make up for it.  

On Sunday morning we all awoke to find some yellow stuff in the corner of Ezra’s right eye. We spent most of the day bouncing back-and-forth between wiping it away, researching on the internet as to the problem, and worrying about how he was feeling. We came to the conclusion that it was probably a blocked tear duct and not a dire emergency; but decided to call the ‘after hours’ line at our pediatricians office anyway. The nurse consulted with us and told us basically the same thing that we were thinking, along with the strong recommendation that we head into the doctor’s office the next morning – just to be sure of the problem and due to his age. The puss and swelling gradually got worse throughout the day, then turned for the better over the night….however, every time that we let it go for more than a hour (mostly due to the fact that we were asleep), his eye glued itself together. Generally speaking, he did a great job with his first ‘illness’ and wasn’t too difficult to deal with. True enough, there were moments of near inconsolability, but that’s to be expected.

Yesterday morning we diligently headed to the doctor’s office at 0830 because that is the time that their phone answering machine said they opened…alas, the people that work there think it’s closer to 0900 – so they changed the signage on the door. After getting some coffee, we went back to the office only to discover that they don’t take walk-in’s. AARRGGHH. We never saw any mention of “appointments only” on anything: not on the phone message, not on their brochure, not on their web site. Oh yea, they don’t have a web site (!). For those of you who own businesses out there – and I don’t care how big or small – that don’t have a web site yet…please join the 21st century (e-mail me, and I will help you create one for a small fee). Anyway, when we were there, the receptionist told us that this was an extremely common problem and that we probably wouldn’t need to come back for an appointment and waste a co-pay; a nurse would call us. She did (about 30 minutes later, back to great service!) and gave us some more home remedy instructions…which to this point seem to have worked just fine. As the day progressed, his eye seems to have gotten better, and the progress continued this morning. Hopefully the tear duct will clear itself over the next day or four and we won’t have to resort to antibiotics. 

Back to Boulder. We needed out of the house and a destination to aim for. Originally, we intended on going up into the mountains, but those plans were changed with the eye situation. So after the phone call with the nurse, we drove up to Boulder and spent the afternoon there. We had lunch at a favorite spot – Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery – and wandered the Pearl Street shops for a couple of hours. The rain held off just long enough for us to enjoy the afternoon and we headed home before the Denver traffic heated up. It was good to get out and about and we are looking forward to doing more of that in the next couple of days. 

Speaking of the next couple of days: my cousin, Gil, arrives this afternoon from Israel! He is coming to the US for some military training in Pennsylvania, but decided to come out here and visit us for a couple of days before the training starts. More on his trip in the next couple of posts. 

One more thing, the countdown to my return to work has begun. I ended up taking an extra tour off of work on FMLA, so I will return a week from Friday. It is still 10 days away, but already difficult to imagine not being here for every great moment. 

The Town of Castle Rock sponsored it’s first ever fireworks show last night (there have been fireworks here for years, but they have either been sponsored by a neighborhood or the county) at a park in town. Jay, Karen, David, Cyrilla, Tanner, The Kirgans, Big David, and a few other friends returned to our now annual tradition of gathering for the 4th and staked out a place at Rhyolite Park. Food and drinks (non-alcoholic since they didn’t allow it) were plenty and so was the fun.

I have to admit that I was extremely skeptical about going to this and didn’t know what to expect, but the town pulled it off in high fashion. They had food vendors (although not enough), a few local artists selling their craft, a fire department display, a police department display, water rides, air-filled rides (bouncy stuff), a DJ, live music, and of course: the park itself…all free. Tanner and I jousted in one of the bouncy structures; and he knocked me off the pedestal once.

I don’t know that the official estimate on the number of people is going to be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was around 10,000. We got out there just after 5pm, and left when the fireworks show ended at 1015pm. The evening was rather perfect, except for the exit strategy (seems to be a problem with government these days)…and lead to a 1 hour drive home – for 5 miles. The ending of the fireworks show was dissapointing, which we later found out (from the news, not from anyone there) was cut short due to grass fires starting from the falling embers. Here’s the pictures:

Somehow the word “that” made it into consecutive blog entry titles. Hopefully it won’t happen three days in a row. We went to the Colorado Rockies game last night (against the San Diego Padres) to celebrate Tanner Dunn’s birthday – each of the last three years we have teamed up with Jay and Karen to take Tanner to a ballgame as his birthday gift. Also there with us were the Capocelli’s, Cyrilla, and the Allen’s. We got to the stadium right at 7pm, just as planned, to allow for Ezra to nurse while we where in the car…he decided to make it a 30 minute session, so we listened to the game on the radio and made it in during the second inning.

The game was fun and frustrating at the same time…the Rockies stormed to a 8-3 lead at the end of the fifth inning, which was fun…then gave up 5 runs in the sixth, which was frustrating. Right around the time that the Rockies laid a crapper, so did Ezra. He was in a sling (Hotsling that we used for the first time last night, and liked it. Perhaps a review coming in a few weeks) and it leaked out his diaper, through his shorts, onto his onesie, onto his shoes, and through the sling. Oh boy. We headed to a family restroom (if you have any influence over the temperature in a family restroom, please make sure it’s somewhere below 90) and changed everything. At that point we had been there for two hours and it was getting to be time to go…so we took the opportunity to leave while we were already out of our seats.

On the way home, we listened to the last two innings..and based on the final result, we are glad that we left when we did: the Padres scored 7 runs in the top of the ninth to win 15-8. And the other final result? Ezra nursed within 5 minutes of walking in the house. Here are some pictures taken using our camera-phones:

It turned out that yesterday was surprisingly full of good-byes. We knew that my grandparents were leaving early this morning to drive back to Florida, so when we went over there for brunch yesterday we knew that it would be difficult. We also invited Joel and Jenn down to brunch since we hadn’t seen them yet and they had yet to meet Ezra. As predicted, it was in fact sad to say good-bye to my grandparents, and they had a tough time saying good-bye to Ezra. It was incredibly special to have them here for a month, to share in time before Ezra was born, and to be there at the hospital as soon as he came to us. We sent along a bunch of pictures with them, but the good news is that we are thinking about flying there to visit with them and my Aunt and Uncle in October. 

We went up to Denver for our first Family Dinner since Ezra was born. For those that don’t know, there is a group of friends family that get together every week for a dinner (we rotate who has to cook and it’s location). This summer, we have decided to move the dinner time to Sunday evenings to coincide with Jazz in the Park – a summer tradition in City Park with free jazz and a few thousand people. We met up with Jennifer and Tori and enjoyed the very comfortable June evening. Ahna made some dinner (orzo goodness), Tori supplied us with some watermelon and margaritas, and Jennifer brought the most important part of the meal: cookies. We were able to make it up there and back in between feedings and while he was sleeping.

Following dinner, we had to say good-bye once again…this time to the Columbine House. Six years ago, Ahna, Tori, Mary, Jennifer and Erin moved into the house and set up community. Since then, Ahna and Erin have moved out, Sarah has moved in, and Gabe and Charlotte lived there for a while (by the way, this is the Family Dinner group). The house holds a lot of great memories (my favorite was learning to play craps) and lots of stories; but it was time to move on. All of the ladies that lived there are taking up residence in other parts of the city, so we all will still be in town. Returning the key to the house was closing a chapter of life. It’s so hard to think back and imagine that we all would be where we are six years later…