one more... for summer

We didn't let go of summer without a fight.  We decided to squeeze the last drop right out of it.  David and the biking guys decided to do a little trek of a ride up in Colorado on the Continental Divide, getting us home just hours before the first day of school.  It's pretty near our dear friends' amazing family cabin, so the wives and kids got invited up too.  Ok, let's be honest, the other wives ride as well, so I got invited to join.  I wish I liked riding bikes more than I do.  It would make our friendship group a much better fit.  I'm grateful they don't seem to mind too much.  I do like doing lazy little rides with the kids on flat, paved ground.  But I have absolutely no desire to go beat myself up over a rock on a single track trail in the mountains.  Nor, do I have any desire, to ride on a city street with cars streaming past me, only inches away.  Just give me those little 45 minute bike path rides along the river, or through the desert, and I'm good.

Suffice it to say, I didn't bring my bike.  But, we all had a really great time.  Grace did bring hers and she and her little BBFF (boy best friend forever?), Dallin, took off on dozens of little rides by themselves.  

I did enjoy the 2 little hikes we did.  We bush-whacked our way to the top of the ridge above the cabin one morning and then hiked to an awesome waterfall the next morning.  

 Dallin and Grace at the top of the ridge.

My girls and Dallin - overlooking the cabin below.

Crossing a little stream.  Thanks a lot (GRACE) for getting all the rocks wet BEFORE mommy crossed. Unlike you, I didn't want to fall in.

My good little hikers.  They really are great.

Grace and "Papa Sego" (Dallin's grandpa happened to be up there for the weekend) 

riding his antique tractor.

I got very lucky and he let me drive it too.  Fun stuff!

I just love these two pictures of Dallin and Grace.  Look at the way he looks at her.  They are the most darling of friends.  Muffin (his mom) and I keep wondering when it will get weird as they head into the pre-teen years.  But for now, they really are just fast friends and love doing the same things.  They get together and just talk for hours, like adults.  I hope they can make a smooth transition and not lose this friendship as they get older.  

 Leaving the high-tech world of gadgets behind leaves you time for complete imagination too.  I'll have to ask Grace what they named this pole of wood.  It was something like "big mamma."  They tried to break it in half for 2 days.  They never succeeded, but in the process, figured out, that it made for a great home-made teeter totter.  The funny part was watching them try to get each other off the ground.  Great science experiment too - they learned a lot about pivot points and length of levers.  I was just a tiny bit relieved that they finished the project without flipping it through one of the car windows or impaling themselves.  I'm trying to let go of things like that...

These photos were also taken at the waterfall.  You can't see the water, but the rocks they are standing on are in the middle of the river.  Grace with Dallin, and Harriet with Sam.

I have to include a little story... They were playing with these same two boys a couple of weeks ago at their house.  When I went to pick them up and put them in the car, Dallin had packed a bag to come home with us (complete with bow and arrows), hid it in my car, and tried to hide himself too.  They really thought it would work and Dallin would come home with us.  When we finally got Dallin and his stash out of the car, my girls burst into tears.  They cried all the way home.  Grace was crying because she wants a brother, like Dallin, who likes to do all the same things she does.  (Little sister won't do.)  Harriet was in tears because Sam had played with her so well and she wants her own brother who will play with her and be nice to her (Grace hadn't been doing those things much in the past few days as summer was winding down.)  I tried to explain to them that I had provided them each with a sibling - a SISTER and they better be grateful for it because the brother was just not going to happen.  They think we need to adopt 2 boys their own ages.  Sometimes, it does sound like a good idea.

More than anything, it was just SO nice to be at this beautiful cabin with friends.  I could hang out, chatting and eating good food, forever.  The surroundings were absolutely gorgeous to boot.  It was great to unplug from the world too.  It is a rare place these days, where you have absolutely no internet connection or phone service.  So, we just turned off our phones, left computer and ipad behind, and had no connection to the outside world for 2 days.  Don't let that fool you into thinking that I didn't thoroughly enjoy the fact that the cabin has nice beds, running water, flushing toilets, showers, and heat.  My kind of camping.

I'll say it a million times.  We just love living here, so close to the mountains and opportunities like this. We are so grateful for our good friends here too.  They make life so much sweeter.

End of Summer randomness

Well, once Mo-Deb left, we only had about 4 weeks of summer left.  In traditional Chapman family style, we crammed as much as possible into those weeks.

First stop:  DJ's wedding.  Grace's guitar teacher invited our family to his wedding and reception.  My heart might have melted when they did the "dollar dance" and Grace got in line to pay for her dance with the groom.  Her first dance!   (Hattie paid to dance with DJ's pretty bride.  It was so cute.)

Next stop:  orthopedic office to get rid of that cast!  (I thought we would get rid of it, but it is now stowed away in Grace's closet.)  We took a bunch of pictures of all of her special signatures on it and then we went and had it zipped off.  ahhh.....

We weren't quite prepared for how long it would take for Grace's arm to recover though.  She did do a good job of trying to use it and it's all better now, but for a while there, it was almost worse than having the cast on.

Changing subjects; we do enjoy the big wide open desert mesa where we live.  David took the girls on a few bike rides and hikes.  

There is this cool bike path that just goes straight through the middle of the Petroglyph monument property.  

 Hiking the volcanoes one Sunday night:  I love that Harriet hiked in a skirt (and no, not the one she wore to church either.)  She's my girly girl for sure.  Neither of them would put their hair back, so the wind had its way with their tangly blond mops.

Finally!  Swimming without the cast... feels soooooo good.

Then, little Miss Muffet decided she's too big for her britches and wanted pierced ears.  I have always told my girls that they can pierce their ears whenever they want.  But, they have to want it and ask for it.  Grace still hasn't asked.  I don't know if she ever will.  But Hattie got a brave bug one day and decided to go for it.  She really was brave and let them do her ears one at a time.  She cried for a few minutes, but immediately enjoyed having the jewelry so much that she didn't worry very much after that.

Before:

 After:

Then, she went and got too big for her bike.  Little stinker - she's growing like a weed.  Good thing we had this hand-me-down pink version in the garage from cousin Janie.   Grace never wanted to ride it, but I think it has found it's new true owner now.   She does ride in dresses from time-to-time too.  Normally, I insist on good shoes and helmets when riding, but I couldn't resist this photo with the flip flops, dress, and flowing hair.

What else?  A night at the planetarium. A baseball game with Daddy.  

And way, way too many late nights staying up and watching the Olympics.  

It really was a great summer, but entirely too short.  As I write this, we are already on the 3rd week of school?!  (and, it's still August)  We did so much big traveling last summer, it was nice to mostly stay local and enjoy our New Mexico home.  We truly love living here and all that the weather and surroundings have to offer.  It was fun to get a true monsoon season too.  I just love desert rain.  Half the time, the sun is still shining when the rain is coming down and it smells so good when the rain stirs up the sage and desert plants and makes the dust settle and the air clean.  Even when we get cloud bursts or even if it rains all night (it did that a couple times,) the sun still shines in the morning, and everything dries out in a matter of minutes.  

Well, I'll catch up soon and hopefully post the back-to-school pictures before Halloween.

MoDeb comes to ABQ

It's not often anymore that we get my mom completely to ourselves, so we were way excited to bring her back to Albuquerque with us.  I felt bad she had to ride in the car with us for 10.5 hours, but, it wasn't too bad in the end.

We only had her for 3 days, so we had to live it up.  It was a crash course in Chapman life for sure.  She even took her only free minutes and made apricot jam for me with the fruit from Melissa's tree that we absconded with from her house.  Well, maybe abscond isn't the right word.  Melissa had more apricots than I've ever seen in my life and was happy to give them away by the garbage-bag-full.

We took her to all our favorite haunts - restaurants, kid places, movies... even the rattlesnake museum in Old Town!  (why don't I have a picture of that?)

Ok mom, you are in trouble.  I'm looking for pictures of your time here and I have like 5.  Mom is such a camera avoider.  You can hardly tell she's been anywhere or done anything in her life because she's not in any of the pictures.  Apparently, I didn't try to take very many either.

We did take her to our zoo. 

We spent at least 1.5 hours in front of the duck pond with her.  My kids would have stayed here all day feeding the ducks.  Harriet was cautious at first considering what happened the last time she was at the duck pond!  I thought - after all Grace has done and kept her cast dry, this would be when she fell in the water.  Thankfully, that didn't happen.

Cowboy Max was incredibly nice and let us come out to the ranch to show Grandma around and let her see the kids ride.  

As always, my favorite thing to do with my mom is stay up late to watch TV and drink herbal tea and we did get to do that a few times too.  

ahhh... a picture of Grandma with the grandkids.  It does exist!  It's like a finding a unicorn.  Well, thanks Mom, for coming.  We really loved having you.  Too bad we had to send you home on the plane.

forgotten pics

I'm becoming a picture hoarder and I just can't move on unless I include a few more pics of our trip to SLC:

Kate and Harriet love to dress alike.  Kate is the little sister Hattie wishes she had.  They are the perfect age difference to be able to wear the matching hand-me-down clothes that Grace and Harriet wore as sisters a few years before.  Although, these pink dresses aren't hand-me-downs.  Harriet and Kate sometimes go shopping and pick out the same things too without even knowing it.  I wish I had a picture of all 4 kids on this day.  Grace happened to bring her white lace dress to Utah to wear to church, and Sean wears his tuxedo to church every Sunday, so they looked like a wedding party with pink bridesmaids.  It was terribly cute.  

Broken arm?  No problem.  Grace really didn't let it keep her from much of anything, including bike riding.

I just kind of like this one.  It shows more of the actual kid madness that goes on when the cousins are together.  Kate looks wiped out.  Harriet looks concerned about something (as always,) Grace is heading back to check out why Sean has crashed (see his bike laid out on the sidewalk.)  Getting these kids together is absolutely fun and absolutely exhausting.

And, I just like this sister 4th of July picture.  Harriet bought that pink leopard at the zoo the day before and didn't go anywhere without it afterward.

Girls' Summer Trip to Utah

It's a recurring theme, I know.  Took my girls to Salt Lake again.  I do try to get them there about 3 times a year if I can.  It's getting harder and harder with their school-year schedules.  When we lived in Boston, I HAD to go during the school year because I couldn't afford plane tickets in the summer or during the holidays.  Now, we are pretty much held prisoners by that darn school schedule, so we aim for summer, post-Christmas, and spring break when we can.  The drive really isn't that bad during the summer when it is light long enough to get there before dark (I am the WORST driver in the dark,) and if I don't have a single threat of a wet road, I'm much more relaxed about going.

So, we gave Janie to Grandma to put on a plane and we got in the car.

Contrary to last summer (when we took no less than 5 major vacations from coast to coast,) going to Salt Lake would be our only summer trip.  So, we decided to live it up!

First stop:  Hogle Zoo
We've been here dozens of times, but we were way excited to see their new Rocky Shores exhibit that they had just finished, complete with polar bears, seals, grizzly bears, and birds of prey.  This zoo day, we got lucky and the docents were all over the zoo holding different kinds of owls.  Grace was in heaven.  She is such an owl fan right now.

my two little baby eagles:

 polar bear... where ARE you?  come swim!

And...swim time!  Grace got to get in the pool, almost.  We ordered a cast cover hoping that she could go swimming.  It was too leaky at the top, so she couldn't get in all the way, but at least she didn't have to worry about anyone splashing her or getting it wet.

We were so excited to be there for the 4th of July.  We decided to leave daddy home by himself.  He really doesn't get into the 4th of July celebrations anyway and the Mitchells are all over it.  It's Melissa's favorite holiday, so she totally goes all out and makes it super fun.

Here are all the cousins, decked out in their red shirts, ready to go to the Evergreen Ave children's parade!

cousin candy dash...  this is such a funny thing to watch.  Sean and Kate are pretty good at it since they go to this parade every year.  Grace tries to grab any piece of candy that falls.  Sometimes she'll elbow someone for the last taffy, other times, she'll grab as much as possible and then share her spoils.  Harriet tries to figure out first, if it is a candy she likes.  She spends so much time trying to decide if she should pick it up, that someone else beats her to it every time.  I tried hard to train her to just go grab it and then decide later if she wants to eat it.

Man it was HOT. Harriet and Kate spent a lot of time playing in the water in the yard.  There is nothing that these 2 girls like more than a swimming suit.  Actually, they are both such little nudists, it's a miracle they have anything on at all.

Good thing Emily and Brandon came over.  Brandon provided some great entertainment for the kids.  

 Nothing beats jumping on the tramp while Uncle Randy throws smoke bombs.

group meditation (or therapy?)

Thank goodness, it finally got dark enough for some fireworks.  Thanks to the crazy people in Utah who decided to LIFT the ban on aerial fireworks?  (let's not talk about how many wildfires were raging during this week.)  You can buy some pretty sweet supplies on any corner.  Melissa and Randy sure had a good stack of them.

Not too shabby of a show, I'd say.  Even crazier - all of their neighbors had equal stacks so the fireworks went on all night and we didn't have to leave the backyard.

Sorry Mom, I know how much you hate to be on the blog, but look how happy Harriet is to be sitting by you!

And, Gracie loves her Grandpa Lyle, that's for sure.

 4th of July hangover... seriously.

Aunt Jess asked if we wanted to go boating.  DO we?  Wait, what about that cast?  Remember when I was freaking out about her standing on a rock in a stream with 4 inches of water?  Less than 2 weeks later, I was throwing her on a tube behind a boat on a lake.  

Somehow, though, our hot weather got cold and rainy just in time to go boating.  Nick thought we were crazy, but offered to still take us anyway.  Let me say that we were THE only boat on the lake.  I was so happy about that because I knew I wouldn't have to worry about the kids falling off and getting run over by someone else... until this LAME jet-ski group came up and decided to circle our boat and play on our wake.  I was so stinkin' mad.  I couldn't believe people would do that when we clearly had little kids on a tube.  The whole lake was empty!  Go find your own corner.  Sheesh. 

Don't worry, we were all SUPER careful that Grace didn't come off.  Nick found the perfect speed for the boat, Jessica watched our rope so we wouldn't go under, and I hung onto that kid like we were boating on lava.

 I didn't get any good pictures of Jess and Nick.  But, they were seriously good troopers to take the sisters and little nieces and nephew out on the lake in a rainstorm.  I can't wait to meet their little boy when he is born!  (oh ya, I was at the top of Sandia Peak in June when Jessica texted me that she was having a little boy.)   I'm just not quite sure how they're going to throw a baby in the middle of their 3 giant horse-dogs!  Dante is bigger every time I see him.  I tried to capture his size on camera, but nothing does it justice.  You just can't imagine how big he is.  Grace wants to take him home.  I'm pretty sure our 0.05 acre yard is not big enough for him.

We spent a day in downtown Salt Lake too.  I have been so neglectful of my friends the last few trips, so I tried to make a decent effort this time to see people I haven't seen in ages.  We met Jenny Agle and Julie Russell at the new City Creek Center!  Julie and Jenny are friends from my years in Massachusetts, but Jenny spends summers in Utah and Julie moved back to Utah last year.  It was SO unbelievably great to reconnect with them and fill in the holes that you just can't fill with facebook and blogging.  The girls had a great time exploring City Creek too.  What a cool city Salt Lake really is.  Wish we could have spent more time downtown.

I also got to see dear Molly in Park City and meet her new daughter Zoe.  And, then, I was able to sneak in a late evening chat with our friends of decades past, the Covili family.  Jared made a comment that has stuck with me - that is so important to maintain these touchstones.  Even when your friendships have lasted a very long time and you think they will last forever, they are so much better if you continue to do a little maintenance now and again.  I couldn't agree more.  To make that point even more potent for me, I got a little package in the mail yesterday from my friend, Linda, in Boston.  It was totally unexpected and out-of-the-blue.  I haven't spoken with her since our time on the Cape last summer except for a few text messages.  It meant the world to me to know she was thinking about me and still missed me and that she went to such an effort to tell me.  In a world where quick communication by texting, e-mail, facebook, etc is so easy that it can be done without much thought, time, or effort, the other gestures of friendship mean all the more.  A physical package in the mail, a paper letter, a phone call, a visit.  They really are things that weather through long stretches of time.  It makes me want to adjust how I keep in touch with people and put forth a little more effort.  It goes for family too.  But, I digress.. back to our time in Utah:

Randy came home from work one night and suggested we all hop in the car for a drive up Millcreek canyon.  My kids have never been up there and I hadn't been there in a lot of years, so it sounded awesome to me.  We all love a little hike too.  After Kate had a VERY scary incident with the seatbelt  in the car (keep a knife or scissors, stowed safely, in your car if you have little kids!), we finally made it to the top of the canyon and did a little sunset exploring.  

...stopped to smell the wildflowers... 

...and admire the quaking aspens....

 where did this girl come from?  I really don't know what to think about her sometimes.  I guess I'm just glad she is her own person and doesn't let anyone (including me) influence her otherwise.

 Thanks for a great trip up the canyon guys :)

Don't forget to stop and spend some time with Grandma Pearlie.  Melissa's kids have us calling her "Grandma Curly."  They play with the same toys and games we played with when we were little at her house.

And they swing in the swing that we remember well too.  We found out on this trip that the swing belonged to my great-grandma Johnson.  Guess we better be careful with that!

To cap off the week of fun, we went to Lagoon!  It's what fun IS, after all.  (that was the slogan they used to use on their commercials.)  Grace and Harriet had never been and I hadn't been in at least 15 years.  I kind of used to hate Lagoon, and it never sounded fun to me to take the girls.  But, times have changed.  The girls are big enough to actually have fun and they have added so many more rides and attractions (no more waiting 1 hour for Colossus because it's the only big ride!) Plus, with the discount Emily got for us, it was really kind of inexpensive in the world of amusement parks.  Definitely a big bang for the buck.  We had SO much fun!!!  I was really glad we went and the girls had something big in their summer vacation.  

Grace didn't want to stick around with the little kids on the baby rides.  Good thing Emily and Brandon came with us.  We had enough adults to divide up and go wherever the kids wanted.  We started with The Bat ride which ended up being the crowd favorite for the night.  Then, Emily and Brandon fearlessly led the daredevil team.  Here are Emily and Grace waiting in line for WICKED.  That is really a great name for it.  It was WICKED!!!  I am pretty sure I'm too old to enjoy it the way it is intended, but I went on it anyway with Grace.  I can't believe she will do things like that!  She begged me to go on the skycoaster.  That was where I drew the line.  She'll have to go when she can go as a teenager by herself.

Everyone went on the train ride.  I kind of forgot about the Lagoon train and its little trip through a (sad and pathetically maintained) mini zoo.  They had some seriously exotic animals though, including a WHITE tiger!  Grace was so happy.  She has waited her whole life to see a white tiger in person.

And why didn't we do the water rides when it was hot out?  Of course, we waited until sunset.  The log flume was a hit, cast-cover firmly in place.  We went on the raft ride too and I'm pretty sure I have been more dry taking a shower.  I was soaked hours later when we got home.

Grace and Sean on the umbrella ride...

 Harriet and I driving the bumper cars...

 And, a little carousel ride to finish off the night.

We closed the park at 11pm.  Fun times.  Good thing Melissa has 1:00 church so we could sleep in the next day.

Thank goodness Sunday was a chill day.  A good dinner at mo-Deb's, some TV, 

 and some more trampoline meditation.  Seriously, I found them like this, it's not a posed picture.

Then... Grandma turned 60!  This was the real reason for my trip, especially the timing of it.  My mom's birthday is July 9th.  I really wanted to be there for her birthday and her party with all my sisters and family.  I must have been in denial that she was 60 because I went and bought birthday candles for the cake and got home to realize that I had bought a 50, not a 60.  (it wasn't a mistake either, I distinctly remember picking out the 5.)  I guess it's a good thing she's not 50, because that would have made me into a jr. high pregnancy for her!  yikes.  But, no, she had me in her 20's.  That makes me old too.  Curse you, advancing years.

Check out my mom though, not one grey hair.  She doesn't dye it either.  She's a pretty young 60.  And if she ever thinks about getting old, she's got plenty of little rug rats who force her to drag her heels about that.  They keep her hopping.

 They won't even let her open her own presents.  She had to beat them all off as she opened it!

I seem to not have a picture of her blowing out her candles on her cake.  I did a video instead and it was mostly a video of people pulling the grandkids away from the candles to keep them from blowing them out before we finished singing happy birthday.  A little anti-climactic.  Still, it was fun to celebrate my mom's birthday and all my sisters did something major to contribute, so it turned out really nice.  

Anyway, I was super glad I got to be there.  I really love my mom.  I love her so much that I took her home with me the next morning and kept her for the rest of the week.  (neener neener, we stole Grandma!)  She was in for a big treat to get to drive 11 hours to Albuquerque with us.  Do you have those Taylor Swift songs memorized yet, mom?