Two Plus a Handful

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Skoolie Progress

I hate tinting happy, fun memories with my current state of affairs, but it's hard not to on this one. It's a dead project. I'm selling the bus and going the RV route instead.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

Everyone wanted to help with the flooring project we decided to jump into.

Peeling up the previous owners' floorplan tape.

It works best if you hike up your shorts to get the job done.

See?

Thora was in heaven with all the dandelions and wildflowers. I'll be honest, I genuinely LOVE dandelion bouquets! Never cared for any bouquet from a florist (when I worked in the bakery at King Soopers, my friend in the floral department knew just what I thought!), just from a field.

My job was to reassemble the dashboard.

This one is a struggle for me. I'll just copy and paste from what I wrote on Instagram:

"Mmmm, yeah, baby! Flooring, guy, snowcapped mountain...breathe it all in!"

Yeahhhh, I dropped a can of clear coat. That was a pain in the ass to wipe up. With the roll of toilet paper I had in the van.

A wildflower from...okay, at this point I can't remember if it was Katie or Thora.

Finished!

Yeahhhh...so we still hadn't gotten the keys put on our keyrings, so we had to break in and out.

Thora wanted a picture in her fancy new outfit!

Katie made me breakfast.

We got snow.

A boy was sick. A mom was in a mood slump.

And then the stinking floor pulled apart. Those cracks were not there when we left it on Sunday!

I decided to start swimming laps while the kids were at their swim lessons twice a week with the goal of swimming a mile and then adding in cycling and running and I'd do my own gym triathlon just for me. I got up to 1/2 mile at one point...that's as much as there's time to do during their lessons. But this day of swimming was 1/3 of a mile and it kicked my ass for some reason. I felt like death when I got out and it took me a good long while to recover. But then I remembered, "What do we say to the God of Death?" Not today.

And then the next day, my yoga instructor's sub didn't show up, so I stepped up. No music, no experience teaching, just my 30-minute post-natal DVD routine memorized in my head. The rest agreed that some yoga was better than no yoga.

Friday, July 12, 2019

Capulin Volcano National Monument

Saturday, April 27, 2019

We drove down to New Mexico to meet Dan, Tabitha, Ryan, and Will to climb a volcano! I don't think Christmas morning carries more excitement than this morning did for Samson!

Ah, Spanish Peaks!

Approaching Capulin.

Yeah, it's okay, cow. I'll wait for you.

Those are all volcanoes, too.

I was a little disappointed we couldn't hike up the volcano, but driving in a circle for 3 minutes to get to the top was fun, too!

We started by taking the short trail down into the volcano cavity.

360

And then up the rim trail and around.

We love wildflowers! I teach my kids not to pick them, so we talk about what we can do with them instead. We can look, touch, smell, count, and take pictures.

And all the lichens!

There's something awesome about standing on top of a volcano, being able to see for what seems like forever, and looking over dozens of other volcanoes at the same time.

Cacti

"Let's sit and have a rest!"

These two are such fantastic little buddies sometimes!

"Tabitha, don't be jealous!" --Katie, as she and Thora take both of Dan's hands.

Every time Shad held Will, he fell asleep.

Down on the lava flows around the volcano.

This babe loved my straw. Then I taught him how to get water from it and he loved it even more!

The hike was a strenuous one because of the very rocky ground. It was very challenging and frustrating for Thora. She fell several times and was cheery about it at first, but then started to get upset. We all tried to boost her spirits and confidence by telling her she's doing a great job and that this is hard even for adults. She wouldn't believe it from Tabitha, but after a few tries, she finally believed it from me when I reminded her that Poppy fell so many times but what did she do?! "Get back up again! Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohh! Get back up again!"

And then Thora stopped being mad at Tabbie and consented to let her help by holding her hand.

This is a place of fairies!

Cow skull!

Porous lava rock all over!

Capulin at a distance.

I love this name!

At this point, I told Sam and Thora that we were past all the difficult ground and that they could be "independent hikers" and not hold my hands the whole time. So we practiced being independent hikers!