Howie's 10th Birthday/ Arches National Park

In the morning we celebrated Howie's 10th birthday and Buddy's First Anniversary with chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, a birthday banner and birthday balloons!

Today is Howie's 10th Birthday! My baby is 10 years old, we've had our Minivan for 10 years, we've lived in this house for ten years. A decade has gone by and the world has changed, technologically especially, look at me I'm blogging.

And today I finally sunk my teeth into Micah's siddur... First draft pretty much completed. Stayed home from work in the morning, the phone guy came over and updated our wiring and fixed our internet connection. And I cut and paste, cut and paste and made a list of copies I needed to make, and cut and paste and cut and paste. 42 pages.

Then around 2 pm I went to the store. Full on snowstorm outside. And I'm having all my snowtires taken off, of course it's snowing. Did a little work at the store, making phone calls, moving things along, getting things done, keeping my employees happy and working. Then went to Beth's office to make copies. Then back home to the siddur. Jackie was working on Howie's birthday dinner and a couple of the pages we need to write for the siddur.

Now it's already after 9 pm, Jackie is sitting in the living room looking at Howie's baby album. The oven is beeping for Micah's dinner who just got out of the shower after getting home from soccer practice. I'm trying to catch up on my blogging, I was just too tired last night after traveling to Bozeman and back for Micah's meeting with the rabbi and his torah tutor.

And soon we will be having Howie's Birthday Cake. Homemade by Jackie a White Chocolate Raspberry Cream Cake Roll... Micah has just announced that not only is today Howie's Birthday, but it is also National Dance Day. Pictures of the cake above...

And now for our arrival in Moab to our campsite on Tuesday evening, April 18th and our wonderful day in Arches National Park on Wednesday, April 19th, in pictures...

We hiked over 7 miles in Arches at Devil's Garden. It was a beautiful day that a couple of thunderstorms blew through, leaving us at the end of our hike with a beautiful rainbow, yet another natural arch!

Snowmass...

and so today a day that I really wanted to sink my teeth into creating the siddur for Micah's Bar Mitzvah became a store work day till 12:45? then my stop at the post office lasted an hour as I kept running into people, then talked to Jean about forwarding Dad's mail to Big Sky and getting him his own PO Box, then I ran into First Security to see Tom, then ran into Josh and visited with for awhile. Got home to make Jackie some lunch but she was asleep, still feeling sick, then my phone rang and the back of the house computer at the store was dead after a power outage, so after trying to trouble shoot it over the phone I realized I needed to go down to the store and figure it out. Jackie was awake at this point so I made her lunch and ran off to the store. Figured out that it was the surge protector battery pack that was dead, borrowed a surge protector from a neighbor, plugged it all in and presto it was working. Then back home to see if Jackie was feeling any better. Then off to school to pick up Micah and his soccer buddies. Fed them some quesadillas, then took Howie to the bike shop to shop for his birthday present, then back home just in time to grab Micah and friends and drive them to soccer practice an hour away, then back home at around 8:30 pm for a quick thrown together dinner and now time to blog...

So many details left out, all my conversations, with many different people, many different small acts that one does every day, it makes me think of James Joyce's Ulysses, I need to read that again and write about a day in my life in 2010...with all new millennium references... conversations with my Dad, brushing my teeth with my battery powered brush, the New York Mets, looking for Howie's baseball mitt, and now for our two nights and one day in Aspen...

April 18 -19, 2010

we arrived at Aunt Susan's house late at night, probably around 10:30 pm or so, and figured out our way in and how to press the right buttons to turn out the right lights... even though it was late we took a hot tub under the stars and then very tired from another long day of traveling to bed in this ultra modern automated house with giant beds...

in the morning we headed into Aspen where we walked the quiet off season streets, found a good latte place and finally a breakfast place still serving breakfast after 11:00 am. We walked the streets some more found some fun t-shirts and then Jackie discovered a sign advertising an indoor swim and fun center. The kids were into it so we ended up dropping them off and then Jackie and I took a hike along a closed road with some snow still on it towards the Maroon Bells. After our 3 hour hike we picked the boys up from the swim center where they swam, played air hockey and had fun, we freshened up and headed back to Aspen for dinner where we had a great meal at Bad Billy's, watching the Mets game in the mirror as the t.v was behind me, and just enjoying the only busy place in town... then we drove on back to the "Art House" where we almost figured out how to work the movie screen and ended up watching The Blind Side on the flat screen t.v. instead. Too late and too tired for a hot tub we all went to bed and slept and slept and slept. We made a late breakfast, sat around and read for awhile then packed everything up in the car and left for Moab...

the driveway...

the Maroon Bells...




At Bad Billy's...

The "Art House"

Howie eating edamame beans at Bad Billy's...

Back from our trip

Saturday, April 16th...

So, today I was back at work, have not had internet until today. We arrived home on Saturday night, but our internet was down so I couldn't blog. Now I have my work cut out for me to try to blog our week of adventure one day at a time with pictures of all the fun with just a little commentary...

Saturday I spent the day with Liz and the kids, Ella, Cassie and Nolan. Hung out in the yard playing baseball with the kids. Nolan is a crazy good hitter for a 6 year old, knock the ball to the outfield almost every time, plus lays down perfect bunts, likes to load up the bases before he blasts his inevitable grand slam. Then we road bicycles to the Boulder Farmer's Market, Cassie wanting to stop every 30 seconds for a water break, but we all made it without any trouble and enjoyed the booths of mostly produce and bakery products.

After Farmers Market it was time to head out to Nolan's Little League Baseball game. As soon as we got there, it started to drizzle, but not enough to stop the game. Nolan hit the ball out of the infield all 3 of his at bats. After the game it was off to Target to buy treats for the kids. Cassie was really wanting some dry erase markers for a dry erase board that Liz's employer gave them, so a big package of dry erase markers, a small white dry erase board, plus hockey and baseball cards. I can't help but want to spoil these kids...

While I was hanging with Liz and the kids, Jackie and Andy, and Micah and Howie were skiing Copper Mountain with Kerry and Barry and Ian and Annie. Jackie had the camera so the picture's from Saturday are of skiing not baseball...

on Saturday night our skiers returned and we went out for some noodles for dinner and some crepes for dessert down on Pearl Street....

On Sunday (April 17th) we just hung out in Andy and Liz's back yard with all the cousins...

and then in the late afternoon it was off to Aunt Susan's house in Snowmass with a pit stop in Avon, neat Vail where we met Micah's ski coach Kelli and her husband Creston for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. I will try to fill in the rest of our Spring Break road trip as I get back into the swing of things here at home we have lots to do as we get ready for Micah's bar mitzvah weekend at the end of June... invitations go out this week!!!!!

trampoline jumping with Aunt Jackie... and ski jumping with Uncle Andy....