Occupy Washington

This was the year: Fall Break found us taking advantage of the hopitality of family and the taxpayer dollars of Americans everywhere...staying in Virginia with Matt's brother and his fabulous family, haunting the greater D.C. area freeways, Metro stations and public landmarks. You might recognize this little joint: while we were wildly appreciative of Senator Mike Coffman's efforts to arrange a tour, the 7 a.m. start time was a bit of a kick in the teeth: we left our digs at 5 a.m. (that's 3 a.m. Colorado time, folks)...

Monticello, home of my hero and yours, Jefferson. Charlottesville has seen warmer days, I imagine, but I'm good with it: Virginia in the summer would kill me. The more I learn about good ol' T.J. the more my admiration grows: what an amazing set of personalities set in a certain sphere at a certain time to make the impossible come true: government by the people, for the people. The grand experiment. If any of these men, and women, I suppose, were once ounce less than what they were, we'd still be the biggest colony in England, drinking our overpriced tea.

Though time didn't allow the tour of Ford's Theater I would have preferred, we saw those monuments in all their glory (MLK's was thronged with people as it was newly dedicated), the Mall, the Smithsonians, Udvar/Hazy, Union Station, the White House, the Capital, Colonial Williamsburg, Wolf Creek Lodge, Monticello, the University of Virginia, Mount Vernon, Manassas, Gettysburg. So much to see, so little time, but we made a fair dent, I'd say. The hope is that we made an impression on the noggins of the kids in tow, gave the something to think about and be grateful for.

Who drains a Reflecting Pool? I mean, kill the entire moment, people.

Not the best shot of Jefferson's Memorial, but I wanted to capture the cool reflection. Vivid memory of this building: a group of teens miming a piece about God and the writing of the Constitution. It was...um...

But what a great trip. Proud to be an American and all that. Even the OWS protestors were a great springboard to discussions highlighting what makes this place the shining light on a hill: we're the best thing going on the planet right now. What a privilege to live here and be able to take it all for granted. God bless America.

Shane Roman

A caveat: this will be picture heavy. It's Shane. I don't have a more photo-worthy child. Or, at the very least, I don't have a more visually entertaining child. He's now 9, which boggles the mind, how quickly he seems to romp through his days...

Sunday birthdays are the absolute worst, but this little man soldiered through without a scratch. Here he kneels before his homemade personalized sports quilt courtesy of Grandma Norma: check the square boasting his mad swimming skills.

Just a pricelss pic - you never have to guess with this fella. Does he like his new catcher's gear received as a present earlier that evening? Ya think?

His only gift request. So perfect for him - he's a good hitter, he can chase down your grounder, but what he really wants to do is stop you from scroring, because to allow you to do so would render his own accomplishment as worthless. I know, I know, we're working on it. But, really, I've learned with him: it's much more about how you do than how he does. Let's embrace it, shall we? If you're too busy judging him, you don't have time to love him.

So back to that Sabbath birthday...we have that horrible 8-11 a.m. block for church. Which we hate directly before it occurs and while it's slogging on, but once we're home at 11:30? Suh-weet! All day to ourselves. And when your birthday falls on Halloween Eve, hey now, festivities abound: carving pumpkins, eating garishly decorated cupcakes, roasting seeds, watching Linus and the Great Pumpkin as well as 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'...which he loved because of the core violence and creep factor, but one which I really should have checked more thoroughly beforehand.

Great Pumpkin Meet in Longmont, birthday eve. Which he swam with Eve. But once he was dry, the whole lot of us headed downtown to Elitch's for what is turning into the annual Crawford family boys' birthday party - this year Grace could ride most of the 'big kid' rides with Dad and the fellas. I took one early turn on the teacups and was out for the duration. No rejoicing.

Without this kid, it would just have been another routine drive up to Aspen for a swim meet and just your average death-defying trip through blinding snow and ice up Vail Pass in a vehicle without an operating defroster. See the joy he brings to all occasions?

If his career playing Halo in our basement doesn't pan out, he's all set to be a cartographer. Here he navigates the corn maze during his field trip...

dares to pretend he is cowed by his buddies' fervor at his party...

and pulling the poker face at the Pack Meeting wherein he scored all this bling through Scout Camp and proudly advancing to the Wolf den. Ah, Shane, seriously? All of your siblings are fantastic, and I adore them. They make me cry and laugh, I love them with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. But without you...? Can't even consider it.

Ty Clark

Our suspicions were confirmed when we received neither owl nor letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (though, technically, we could receive one prior to the next school year, yes?), but it was still the happiest of birthdays for our 11-year-old Ty.

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The sheer dumb luck of having a Wednesday birthday in the Crawford household makes it necessary to receive gifts on a Tuesday...the inconvenience was more than offset by yet another Wii time-waster...

and this amazing bat. I'm still mesmerized by the fact that a whittled down and polished piece of wood can inspire this level of reaction, but, there you are. Birthday dinner was served at Gunther Toody's, a fabulous '50-s themed diner just up 'in town'.

Wednesday is anathema in this family - if you need to be there, it's scheduled on a Wednesday evening. Between the hours of 6 and 8. So, Wednesday, October 12, we had a birthday, as well as pack meeting wherein our boy was awarded his Arrow of Light and crossed over to Boy Scouts, and, not a group of people prone to lounging about haplessley, said boy was promptly afterward trundled over to the not-even-remotely-close ballfield where his fall ball team geared up for their first playoff game.

But that's all we had on the agenda. Before Ty went on to hit a ground triple allowing the go-ahead runs in the game and accordingly awarded the Offensive Player of the game, his magnificent 11-yr-old scout leader, Monte Pierce, walked us through the drill of what to expect as Ty continues through Scouting...

Ty knew all the right answers and gestures for the whole shebang, which, if you know Ty at all, is crucial - he's not one to wing it.

Proud and happy days. Payoff days, if you will, for the seemingly endless shutting between practices and camps and meetings. Eleven years of plain good fun with a darling boy for whom we will be forever grateful, who has taught us so much, required so much and given so much.

Just One More Level...

Every now and again, data comes to light that proves, irrefutably, that you are, indeed, the best mother on the planet.

This decade, the proof came in the form of the annual Ty/Shane joint birthday extravaganza, this year brought to us courtesy of the fine folks at Games2U, who are truly revolutionary: what you do is take a small-ish semi, fill it with four huge screens displaying four different games and tiered seating on the inside, place a few Wii screens on the sides, park in front of some kid's house, and let the attendees play unlimited games for 2 1/2 hours.

And, as it turns out, because my sister is a Groupon devotee, I got it for half-price - even full price would be a steal, but half-price certainly works. One party for two boys with 20 guests, no prep, no clean-up? I'll call that a bargain, the best I ever had. Here's the view...

for these fellas on the inside...

especially that enormously handsome one on the right...

and the dashing specimen on the left.

The horde. Say what you will about boys, I contend that 20 young men are a sight easier to handle than 5 young ladies.

Shane felt that the vocals were a bit boisterous. Which involves at least 17 levels of irony.

Wishes en route, or so the rumor goes.

Mission accomplished. Best party ever, says mom, and everybody said the same. You need the small pats on the back whenever you can get them.

Ready...Set...

Because the transition to middle school isn't squirrely enough...Evie added 7th grade Girls' Volleyball to her overflowing schedule. But so did everyone else: there were about 75 girls on the C squad, a rite of passage and a social opportunity, really, rather than hard-core volleyball. Buses to away games, uniforms, the works.

It's designed to be a purely fun, developmental squad, but the first weeks had its share of bumps: Eve was still swimming each day after practice, and though she's been on a team of some kind every year and every season since she was 6, she's unaccustomed to team sports where you're this dependent on other people to do well, and vice versa.

As you'd expect, by the last game, those Lady Blue Knights had made tremendous strides: Evie even made most of her serves over the net. They weren't there to kick tail and take names, even though some of the parents were under that impression. We're all just relieved she made it through and didn't give in to the made desire to leave mid-season - how much better to stagger across that finish line than to walk away untested and without the sense of accomplishment. Life lessons, baby.

Fall Ball

Nope, he just can't get enough.

Because Castle Rock's rec league fall baseball schedule offers Sunday-only games, the search began for a local club who could give him what every Mormon boy wants: the right sport on the right day. We found it in Parker through the Hawks club team...Parker's only about a 20 minute drive from home, but no fast way to get there. No matter. You do what you must for the love of the game. And your boy.

This version of the Hawks (they field about 12 teams in the Fall and I don't even want to know how many in the spring - Parker's got a LOT of kids) was hands-down the best team experience any of our kids have ever had - one of those magical conglomerations of people and events that's just purely positive. Every single boy on that team was a gamer, and really encouraged Ty to keep pace. Their coach was spectacular. The parents were stellar. I just...sigh every time I think about it.

From a mom's perspective, I love the emphasis on sportsmanship, the amazing open-minded way the parents participated and encouraged without jockeying for positions for their child at the expense of another, how the best was expected and delivered...so fun to watch and so fun for Ty to play. A lot of growth, a lot of confidence gained, I could go on and on.

Most of these kids have played together for awhile, and Ty was the newcomer, but he soon enough earned himself a nickname a long with Soup, Squeaky and the others...may I introduce 'Pickle'? Not his first choice, I would gather, but apropos: that kid was by far the best base runner on the team, and at least once a game, if not twice, found himself in a jam between bases - never thrown out.

He was also a clutch hitter; not a power hitter, but he could always ground one to some poor unsuspecting baseman or outfielder, and was your go-to guy for an RBI or two...is the season really over? Is he actually not going to wear cleats again until Spring? Is that him right now shooting free-throws by the score in the backyard? Has he moved on already?

What Happens in Vail Stays in Vail

Tramming. Try it sometime. You'll like it.

Turns out I'm still in a funk - 2011 has not been my best year. Most days I get a tremendous amount of things done while leaving a larger amount of things undone and wondering: A) Where is all my time going? B) Why am I not enjoying anything? C) Am I even capable of relaxing?

So do I jump at the chance to spend Labor Day weekend in Vail with my sister Diane in their timeshare? I do.

We had a splendid time. And it became very clear that however much fun we manage to have, I still need a vacation from vacation.

Above, Eve will serve as our representative mini-golfing child at the base of Lionhead. Here, the other three demonstrate the myriad joys of a water fan once we rode the tram up to the Glenwood Adventure Park, perched high atop our favorite mountain town of Glenwood Springs, about an hour west of Vail.

Labor Day weekend brings the mega-crowds to Vail: they had a street fair featuring A Taste of Vail, and one of their great over-priced bakeries hosted a cookie-decorating tent. Irresistible.

And speaking of overpriced...only in Vail, right?

Accosting a moose sculpture, of which there are many. Well, at least large bronze artworks of various sizes and shapes, along with gorgeous landscaping, ladies in short-shorts and Uggs, a pampered lab or two on a leash per couple and/or family...no tiny dogs in purses for the moneyed mountain folk. Just lots of overpriced shirts, bottles of beer, sunglasses, vests and cars. It's reassuring to know that there's still money to be made somewhere, I guess.

Awesome Alpine Coaster in Glenwood - what a great invention, an alpine slide as coaster. Almost as great as the zipline over the canyon.

What can I say? I'm a mountain gal. And I'm raising the next generation.

How the Locals do Platform 9 3/4

Why yes, yes you WILL hear a lot of Potter-speak from this blog these days.

August 1, the ridiculously early start date for my little Clear Sky Bison, and the new principal has retained our annual first day Clap-In Tunnel...here's my first grader. Yowzah. The last Crawford, and now they're all in school, all day, 5 days a week. One could get used to this.

Shane's entering third, and we couldn't be more thrilled that he's involved in Mrs. Mann's 3/4 grade split class...the challenge suits him quite nicely, thank you very much.

And Ty enters Ms. Rankin's 5th grade homeroom (they rotate them around by subject, two years' prep for middle school. They lose a recess with all the transit time. Neither of us is a fan)...and so it begins. Sigh. It's love/hate, really: I love to have them home, love to have them at school. Just hate that they lose a prime weather month. Apparently, I'm not alone, and the rumor is that the district is listening. We shall see.