photos

fishing

Chipmunks at St. Elmo
Buried

Blogger has recently changed the way that photos are posted. Please bear with me as I figure this out.

Mid-July

Updates:

We went to Six Flags at the end of June. It may be a function of my age (…..Nah) , but it seems like roller coasters nowadays achieve their thrills by trying to beat you to death while seated. Julia was gung ho to ride the “Mind Eraser”, which, as advertised, asks you to willingly be hung up like a chicken in a packing plant and accept as much blunt trama to the head as you can stand in a 2 minute coaster ride. I asked “are you sure?” 15 or 20 times, took my two preventative aspirin for the headache that was sure to follow the beating, and got on the ride. I’m pleased to report that I won’t have to that again very soon! The kids did some of the round and round rides. Wendy and I are well past the point where we can tolerate the human centrifuge rides, and I’m getting so I can hardly bear to watch other people ride without feeling a twinge of nausea. We then we went on one of those big splash water rides a few times. Everyone had fun, but the Kaz kids noted that things go a lot faster than here than they did at the amusement park in Taraz.

Our friends have hosted us several times this summer for water skiing/tubing/kneeboarding outings, and those have been great fun. Jack spent some time learning how to kneeboard, and with a tenacity that we’re recognizing as a hallmark of his personality, stayed with it until the muscles in his arms were on fire. He spent the rest evening saying “ouch” and rubbing his arms.

We spent the 4th of July with my parents and went to the festivities in Brush, CO. Brush has a wonderful fourth of July celebration. Rodeo, parade (with lots of Shriners, tractors and fire trucks), and Lions club pancake breakfast. It’s kind of a quintessential Norman Rockwell small town cowboy America type thing, and does a good job of knocking some of the shine off the city cynicism we build up through the rest of the year.
The kids spent the rest of the week with Grandma and Grandpa at the farm, did a little farmwork, swimming, horseback riding and had a chance to get to know their cousins a lot better.

Mid-July featured a camping trip to the mountains near Buena Vista, CO. This is a lovely Spanish name that should be pronounced “Bwayna vista” and means “beautiful view”. That being said, it does offer a beautiful view of several 14,000 foot peaks and has been pronounced “Beoona Vista” since the beginning of time. Call it anything else, and the locals will know you’re a greenhorn from out of state. We stayed at a campgound that bordered Chalk Creek, and the kids learned how numbingly cold Rocky Mountain streams can be, even in July. We fished a little, spent a day at a hot springs and visited the well-preserved Ghost Town of St. Elmo. There’s one business in St. Elmo, and it sells snacks, antiques, and lots of sunflower seeds to feed the hordes of nearly domesticated ground squirrels and chipmunks that live in a pile of old lumber across the street. “Chipmunk Crossing” was a huge hit.


Adjusting to materialism is an ongoing work in progress. I’m convinced that it is less a societal thing and more of a symptom of humanity in general. We only want what we know about, and Jack and Julia have moved from a tiny pool of “stuff I don’t have” in Taraz to a huge pool of “stuff I don’t have” in America. Sentences that start with the 2 words “I want….” were becoming a very common refrain, so now everyone does chores, gets an allowance, sets priorities, saves, and finances their own purchases.

Jack has become fixated on skateboarding. A family from our church bought him a skateboard as a birthday present. He approached me later and said that it was ‘not good’. I immediately jumped to conclusions, thought he was being ungrateful and went off on my parent lecture (in English, of course, and with no commas) about how it was a very nice skateboard that a generous friend was kind enough to buy for him and it was better than the one he had looked at in Walmart and it had Spongebob Squarepants on it and he was thrilled with it a few days before and should be thankful for what he had because I’m not made of money and we can’t buy everything all at once etc. etc. He said “No Dad….skateboard no working no more”. I said “Jack, you’ve had your skateboard for 10 days—you can’t tell me it is worn out”. Then he showed it to me, and by golly, he was right. It was shot—probably had 250 miles and 100,000 “ollies” on it. As a parent, I have only been recently been made aware of the concept that “good” skateboards are never bought off the shelf, but are painstakingly assembled from expensive component parts into a $150 masterpiece. Darn internet. We went to Walmart, I bought him a $10 skateboard for practice and encouraged him to continue to save for the good stuff. Brooke, Jack and I built some nice ramps out of scrap lumber, and enjoyed the double benefit of a nice family bonding activity and saving some money.
Julia is working hard on her English. She is interested in swimming lessons and piano lessons. We’re going to do the swimming lessons first and wait until she’s got a better handle on the language to start piano. Survival trumps the arts every time. Her favorite movie is “Freaky Friday” and she generally watches it at least once a day. She says it helps her with her English, and I think she’s right. We have had to go through some of the “words we don’t say in our house” (no ‘stupids’ to animate objects and no ‘shutups’ ever) We make them watch Sesame Street every morning, even though it is decidedly uncool.