Fall

Fall is my favorite time of year in Colorado. Eager to experience the arrival of fall we headed out to Estes Park on Sunday. We managed the swirly curvy ride with minimal car sickness in the backseat. Chris and the kids explored while they waited for me to finish taking pictures so we could go out for the promised (bribe) of ice cream.

Chris loved this pic because he thought it looked like the tree was on fire.

It was hard to meter this picture correctly because the elk is in the shadow and the sign is white so I just gave up and snapped the shot.

There and Back Again

By Bilbo Baggins. Nah, not really by Bilbo. I'm plagiarizing from a hobbit. Hurray, Chris has a job! Soon he'll be among the working again and off of the couch....er...I mean all of the hard work he has been doing on the house. But seriously I am going to miss my favorite companion. Even though there have been days when I wanted to shoo him out of my hair and my routines, I've gotten used to having the guy around. Sigh. He's going to be working at a company that had actually offered him a job previously a few years ago. They were very excited to find that he was back in town and sent him an offer before he barely had time to change out of his interview clothes. He's going to be working as a Senior Engineer Project Manager doing something engineeringish and project managerly. We are grateful.

In other news, Aidan and Chloe have both started school and soccer. They are loving the casual atmosphere and learning environment. Roscoe has a fierce onesided rivalry with the neighborhood bunnies. Yesterday he sat and longingly looked out the window and tried several times to communicate with me that he wanted to go out front and chase the plump little morsel. Finally, frustrated, he went and got the plastic container we dish his food out in (which he often brings to us when he's hungry) and put it on the windowsill in the direct path of the bunny.

Between Here and There

I have meant to update this blog so much more often but the internet connection that we are borrowing (with permission this time ;) from our neighbors is sketchy and temperamental. But let's see, where did I leave off? We safely arrived in Lafayette. We soon discovered complications we were not expecting. Like the fact that the mold remediation company did not completely remove the mold in Aidan's room. Which in turn led to dismantling all of the newly finished Sheetrock. One thing led to another and to sum it up, Aidan's room in the basement is being completely dismantled and we are planning on redoing the room to conform to safety standards and make it to code which it was not previously. We are in the process of trying to get our $$ back from the mold company. So far, it has been over a month of emails and calls without any return contact from them. Frustrating. We also discovered that our new washer had been broken in our absence...Chris ran over a rock with our lawnmower and broke that...then part of the fence fell over...and Roscoe had to get treated for a bacterial infection in his ear... Chris doesn't have a job yet. But he has been busy working around the house and the kids are enjoying having two stay at home parents.

Waiting has never been my favorite thing. In fact, I loved sprinting because you could see the finish line from the starting line and the only goal was to get there as hard and fast as possible. I think that I live much of my life that way. And so waiting is hard. Especially when I can't see the finish line or even know where the finish line is. I think that I have gotten better over the years. But I still feel a bit like Chloe when she is so impatient to finish eating and go play that she stands at the table and wiggles, dances and hops on one foot. We are waiting for Chris to find a job and have a little more definition on the "Here". And in the meantime I have been trying to focus on enjoying the simple things like chilly mornings with warm tea. Painting. Drying the clothes on a clothesline. Coffee with my hubby. Colorado wildflowers and hikes in the mountains. And I confess that if I had written this blog earlier last month it would have breathed with more thankfulness to be back in Colorado. And I still am. I'm delighted to walk outside and see the mountains every single day. But in all honesty, the waiting is beginning to feel more burdensome. I guess I need to practice more long runs. =)