June Happenings

Since coming back from vacation, life has kicked into full-blown Summer Mode. This summer is a big first for our family - for the first time ever, our children will not be attending a camp or daycare during the day in the summer. Instead, we have hired a nanny with our great friends Melendra and Joe, so that our kids get to hang out with Sage and Bryn every day and do awesome things like work on math or reading or go on outings to places like the pool or library or museum instead of being structured all day long. 

Our children are loving having more free time but even more so, they seem to be enjoying being together. Since our children are four years apart and have always attended full-time child care, they have never actually been in the same place together during the day. Even in our after-school program, they are in different clubs and different classrooms. Our nannies are awesome (they are a married couple who are graduate students) and I cannot believe how lucky we are to have found them. 

One thing I have not done much of since vacation is take a lot of pictures - considering that I took over 500 pictures at Yellowstone alone, that is somewhat shocking. So here is what we have been up to post-vacation, as seen in pictures: 

The pools are open! Daniel had a blast swimming with his buddy Collin. 

So far we have only taken the kids to City Park, since it is $1/person from 6-8 p.m., which is realistically the only time that Will and I can go. The city pools are truly amazing and I think our children honestly have as much fun here as at a water park like Schlitterbahn.

The engineering building is under construction! Will has reported that the sound of incessant jack-hammering is slightly distracting, but it's the price of progress, I guess. Will is teaching a summer school class for the first time - it is a circuit theory-type class for non-majors, so mainly upperclassmen. I have a summer research grant for a research project and am trying to work on about 12 other projects at the moment, which is easier because there is no jack-hammering in my building.

After much internal strife and debate and dragging Will along, I got new eyeglasses! I have had my current pair since 2010 and have needed new ones since 2011, but have put it off this whole time. After freaking out over the fact that I was unrecognizable, I have gotten used to my new look (new ones on left).

We cleaned out our van! Yay! This is very important because I can now take other passengers without needing to make sure that everyone is current on their tetanus shots. We have not yet cleaned out the car, though, which is full of things like the business card below....from 2005.

Our Estes Park marathon is approaching! Will is going to run the full since he is crazy, and I am going to walk the full with some friends because I am sane. We did an 18-mile "adversity walk" in 96 degree weather to get ready and tried to go up as many hills in town as possible. The race is 1.5 weeks away now and we are as ready as we will ever be!

My cousin Jeremy is staying with us this summer! He has a project in Junction City so crashes with us during the week since he lives in Wichita. We are loving having Jeremy around. One of the many ways that Jeremy has been helpful to us in identifying our noxious weeds. Yes. He informed us that we had three plants like the ones below growing in the area where the new topsoil/mulch was put in last summer. After freaking out, I pulled all of them out....only to find that yesterday, four new weeds had grown, seemingly overnight. Fastest growing weed, ever.

I was home for a few days from vacation when it was time to turn around again and go to....my very favorite conference in Washington, DC! I loved the view of the Flint Hills from the airplane.

This conference is the Behavioral Tax Symposium and is held every year at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. The conference is held at the Mason Inn, where we stay, only I learned that the hotel was literally being turned into dorms after the last day of the conference.

View of campus from my hotel room. I enjoyed running through the campus on the different pedestrian trails. Still, my favorite part was catching up with all of my best tax friends and having awesome discussions about tax experiments.

While I was at the conference, Will held down the fort at home. Daniel played in his first t-ball game and Will helped with coaching - he informed me that it was hilarious on all accounts. Daniel had a great time, telling me tips such as, "You have to throw down the bat and THEN you run to 1st base." Adorable. Jeremy was sweet and came along, too, and then the whole family hit Our Very Favorite Restaurant, McDonald's, to celebrate after the game.

The family also hooked up with Melendra and Joe's family to Arts in the Park, which is one of a series of free concerts in City Park over the summer. This event was the Wallin' Jennys, of which neither children was particularly a fan (notice Daniel's hands over his ears and Annika playing with Will's phone), but tolerated enough that the adults could enjoy.

I flew back late Saturday night - since my flight came from Chicago, I had a great view of western Manhattan and could almost see my house as we flew in over town. I had to miss the last session of the conference to make it home Saturday night, but it was worth it.

Sunday morning, my friends and I had an 11-mile early morning walk, which was a piece of cake after the Adversity Walk. Post-walk was an exciting event at church....Worship in the Park! We had worship service out at Anneberg Park, followed by a family potluck.

Our children's favorite part of the park? The dead fish. There were actually several dead fish, but they only required me to photograph one of them.

Walking along the pond.

Catching frogs, tadpoles, and froglets. These creatures never cooperated for a picture but brought immense delight to our children.

I am hoping to do more reading for fun this summer, so put a lot of requests for books on hold. I slightly miscalculated how many were available at the moment, and think I might have been overly optimistic about my free time available to read...

Monday night was full of torrential rain and flooding, culminating in our sump pump failing to turn on and our entire "deep basement" (the unfinished part) being flooded in several inches of water. The kids thought this was great fun, and while it was a huge mess, we ended up just throwing away a lot of items that we won't miss anyway, and Will and Jeremy got the basement cleaned up and a new sump pump installed. I did not take any pictures of that mess because it was kind of depressing, but instead, took pictures of what we did during the rain - Bake a Cake!

Stirring is the best part.

I am proud to report that as of Wednesday morning, the cake was already mostly eaten. Winning!

We had a family game of Imaginiff, which is nominally for ages 12 and up, but is great fun for the whole family as long as we read Daniel's questions and screen the cards used. Will got a fire going in the fireplace - rare and delightful.

The other big activity that our children are participating in this summer is a summer play put on by Manhattan Parks and Rec but housed on the K-State campus. Annika decided that she wanted to do this drama program (since so many of our friends were, I think); Daniel, never one to risk being left out, decided that he wanted to participate, too. They meet every day from 9-12 in the morning for 6 weeks and it seems to be a great chance for the kids to learn a lot about drama. The play they are doing is "Captain Louie" and we found out yesterday that Annika is cast as a School Kid and Daniel as a Bird. He is super excited that he will get to procure a bird costume, such as perhaps the one below.

And finally, I am behind on life. This is just the "personal" side of my to-do list (the "work" side is on the other and is equally pathetic), and I am super behind on everything. I really should put "Write Blog Post" on this list and cross it off, just to convince myself that this is being productive....

We hope that you have had a wonderful start to the month of June!

Day 9 of Vacation - Rocky Mountain National Park (and Home!)

Better late than never! On our final day of vacation, we drove from Yellowstone down to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, visited Estes Park, had a late dinner with Will's family in Longmont...and then decided to drive home through the night (aka, Will drove home while the rest of us slept).

Leaving Yellowstone in the morning.

We got to see the Grand Tetons one more time.

They are absolutely stunning!

We drove back through Yellowstone a different route than on our trip out, and all agreed that the landscape was much more scenic this time.

Colorful Colorado! Although it was less colorful in the rain.

We drove super close (within 5 miles) of where we had previously been at Snow Mountain Ranch and then went on to....Rocky Mountain National Park! Trail Ridge Road, which goes up and over the mountain, had just been open for a few days so we really lucked out with the timing and weather.

And even better...we saw moose!! Finally!! We drove through starting on the west side which our friend Heather had shared was the best place to spot a moose, and they did not disappoint. What an awesome way to cap off our trip!

We think that these were juvenile and/or female moose. Still so majestic.

Starting to get higher - Trail Ridge Road goes up and over the mountain, so we got to go over the tree line and into where the tundra began. Everything was covered in very deep snow at this point, although the roads were quite clear.

We stopped at the top! The visitors' center had closed for the day, but we took the chance to look around (and write words in the snow).

View from the parking lot, with the sun breaking in as the clouds below part. It was breathtaking.

View from the lookout spot. So gorgeous. I am already ready to go back!

View from another lookout spot down lower.

After we left the park, we headed in to the town of Estes Park for some fudge, ice cream, and....chocolate covered marshmallows.

I failed to take any pictures, but we stopped at a Burger King in Longmont and got to have dinner with Will's Aunt Terry and Uncle Steve and his cousin Mike. It was so wonderful to see them and we wish we could have stayed longer, although we are looking forward to when we come back to Estes Park for the marathon in just 2 short weeks!

Finally, Will was a Super Trooper and loaded off on ginormous cups of coffee and drove all through the night. The kids were very excited about the prospect of getting home a day earlier than planned and having a Completely Free Day. We finally arrived home at 5:30 a.m., only to discover that our very diligent house sitters had locked the door between the garage and house....and that we had no key of our own. Thank goodness for our awesome friend Melendra, who did not disown us after we called at 5:30 in the morning to ask if we could come get our key!

The kids had a blast on Free Day hanging out and catching up with friends. The culminating event was heading to City Park Pool for an evening swim....you can't beat $1/person this time of day!

Overall, our family collectively gives Yellowstone 8 thumbs up out of 8. There is really nothing like it out there! It has no inspired us to try to visit all of the National Parks in the 48 states since it seems that they are all such fabulous, inspiring places.

Three cheers for a wonderful vacation....but three cheers for being home again, too!

Days 7 and 8 of Vacation - Yellowstone

Today wraps up our final day at Yellowstone - we depart for home via Colorado in the morning. It has been an amazing trip. We have seen abundant beautiful scenery, geological formations, and wildlife (11 bears, 1 wolf, 1067 buffalo, a lot of elk, pronghorns, deer, etc. - but no moose). This is truly the Most Magical Place on Earth, I think. 

This morning, we made a list of some of the remaining items that we wanted to see. First up were the Kepler Cascades. 

Next up: Searching for a moose! We received information from the park rangers that our best bet was to look in the southern part of the park - we searched there and even went into the Grand Tetons, but alas, no such luck. We did enjoy seeing Lake Yellowstone and the beautiful ice that was breaking up.

We also stopped along the way to see a bear on the side of the road. Will and I spotted it way, way off in he distance (bringing our Bear Spotting total to an amazing 11 creatures), but Daniel couldn't quite be convinced that the tiny black spot was actually a bear.

I wanted to see the famous "Fishing Bridge" over the Yellowstone River. There has been no fishing there since 1973, but it still retains that name.

Lots of ice here, too. The temperature was in the 70s so it was disconcerting to still see snow and ice in so many places.

We checked out the Fishing Museum Visitor's Center, which was full of information on birds. I wish I was interested in birds, but they kind of all blend together.

Ice cream!! I think that every day should include ice cream. Daniel and I each had Moose Tracks Ice Cream, in honor of our search for the elusive moose.

Next stop: Mud Volcanoes. What was most remarkable about this was that there was a buffalo right next to the path. The buffalo was very chill, and the exact opposite of the one we saw yesterday, which stomped around and ended up behind our van on the road, looking angry.

Mud Volcano!

Dragon's Mouth Spring. This was really cool and made a "hissing" noise - we captured it on video.

Black Dragon's Cauldron. After seeing this, we journeyed nearby to visit the Sulfur Cauldron again - I was brave this time and actually got out of the car to see (I mean, smell) this exhibit.

We next traveled to the Artists' Paintpots. This stop was a little out of the way but so worth it.

Very gloppy mud.

The mud pot was very gurgle-y and shot up splatters of mud into the air. We were thinking that we were certain to get sprayed with mud at any second.

The kids were totally over pictures by this point.

 View looking down from the paint pots. Beautiful.

This evening, Will and I each got a run in, and then celebrated with take-out pizza for dinner. Speaking of dinner, it was around 8 p.m. when we got ready to go eat, and Daniel asked, "Is it morning??" All of this vacation time is clearly starting to confuse our children. 

Since I was too exhausted last night to blog, let's travel back in time to yesterday! Yesterday also began with running and the chance to see some absolutely beautiful scenery. Morning Glory Pool is below. This is a pool that used to be completely blue but has gradually become yellow/green around the edges as people have thrown coins, etc. in that has altered its chemistry. It was still beautiful. 

Riverside Geyser! Very fortunate to see this erupt.

Our first journey yesterday was over to Norris Geyser basin to see some of the action there. Norris is most famous for Steamboat Geyser, which is the tallest geyser in the world....when it erupts.

We all enjoyed seeing it erupt in smaller bursts.

Cistern Spring! Researchers have figured out that this is linked underground to Steamboat Geyser, as it drains when the geyser completely erupts. (Will saw many other springs, as he took the "long way" back, but I stayed with the kids, who were not exactly energetic and wanted to go the "short way" back.)

Elk! We saw all kinds of elk yesterday and eventually the novelty wore off, but we were still very excited when we initially spotted them.

Random roadside waterfall. Our children are becoming jaded about waterfalls and did not deem this one very exciting. ;)

We next traveled north to visit...Mammoth Hot Springs!

All kinds of formations from travertine. The white deposits are the newest.

Views from the walking path.

The biggest excitement of our trip occurred shortly after this picture. Will and Annika had headed down, while Daniel wanted to rest for a bit and I stayed with him on a bench. Daniel then ran off and disappeared (!!!) and I about had a panic attack looking for him. It turns out that he spotted Will and Annika and ran to catch up with them, and they went down Mammoth a different way than we had gone up (and D neglected to mention to Will that he had run off). We managed to all find each other within about 15 minutes, but it was an awful 15 minutes. But we are all reunited now, so no harm done. :)

Annika chilling on the bench near the end.

View from the Upper Terrace Drive - this is near where the top of the walking path at Mammoth comes out.

After all of the stress at Mammoth, we decided we needed...Ice cream. I am sensing a pattern. Everyone but me ordered Root Beer Floats from a super nice cashier and they hit the spot.

We checked at historic Ft. Yellowstone and the visitor center across the street, but neither were very exciting. (The "real" visitor center was under renovation and the temporary location was really only a gift shop.)

Mammoth was only 5 miles from the Montana border, so we decided that we needed to expose the children to a new state. We also ran into the 45th parallel of latitude that was halfway between the equator and North Pole!

We made it to Montana! Very briefly - we turned around about a mile later. 96% of Yellowstone is in Wyoming, but 3% is in Montana and 1% in Idaho - perhaps we need to hit Idaho on our way out, too...

We came across the beautiful Lamar Valley. The hills and mountains really were breath-taking.

We met a nice man from Boseman, MT, who offered to take our family's picture.

Later on our drive through the valley, we saw - pronghorn!

We encountered a plethora of buffalo on our trip, but one of the most adorable encounters was seeing all kinds of baby buffalo playing with each other. Adorable.

It is hard to see in this picture, but we later encountered a mama black bear and three of her cubs! The mama bear is the black glob in the left, and the three baby cubs are all under the tree that is in the center. They were playing with each other and were too adorable for words.

Next stop - Tower Falls!

It appears that our children were done with pictures yesterday, too.

On our drive down to Canyon, we encountered all kinds of snow in the mountains. The road had only been opened starting this week and I could see why.

Finally, before we made it back to our cabin last night, we spotted a gray wolf! It is hard to see in this picture, but it is on the other side of the water and is a gray blob. The next time we go to Yellowstone, we should acquire an actual camera and not just an iPhone. And binoculars...

Since we arrived back to the cabin late yesterday, we splurged and had dinner at the "Fancy Restaurant" in the nearby hotel. This led to a long conversation with Daniel about why you needed to put the cloth napkin in your lap, which he found very confusing.

We depart for home in the morning - we will be traveling back through Colorado and hope to hit Rocky Mountain National Park. What an amazing adventure this whole trip has been!!