Hot Air Balloon Ride

Last September I turned 40 and among other wonderful gifts, I got a gift certificate for a hot air balloon ride from my family in South Africa. After over 8 attempts to schedule the flight (cancellations due to babysitting issues or weather), we finally pulled it off today and it was the perfect morning for a hot air balloon ride.

Last night I had a few dreams about the flight - I dreamt about oversleeping and missing it, I dreamt about being late to get Taylor who came to babysit for us (at 6:50 am - she's a great babysitter!!), I dreamt about bad weather and I dreamt about having a horrible flight. Taylor woke me up at 6:15 am with a text message to ask if the flight was still on and I confirmed it was. In the past if the weather was bad, I received a call from the pilot at 6 am to cancel the flight.

So I fetched Taylor and dropped her at home with the boys and then Warren and I went to Chatsfield State Park where we met Ken from Rocky Mountain Hot Air Balloon Rides. After signing a disclaimer and reading the safety regulations, we watched Ken and his crew set the basket and balloon up.

Me in front of "Bandit" the balloon.

Then it was time to fly and 6 of us squished into the basket. Ken slowly let the balloon rise and played around a little by pretending we weren't going to make it over the treetops but of course we did. Besides the loud burst of the burners, it was so quiet and gentle. We floated around the area and 2 other hot air balloons joined us in the sky. The flight was for an hour and at the end we came to a very gentle and quiet stop.

We all helped get the balloon back into its container and left with a bottle of champagne from Ken which we will consume next Saturday (Valentine's Day).

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

my dear family for a wonderful birthday gift and experience!

First Friday Art Walk

On the 1st Friday of every month galleries within the 6 blocks of Denver's art district open their doors to viewers for the First Friday Art Walk. Naomi invited me to join her and Jodi (Naomi's new art friend) to see their art piece at one of the galleries.

The theme at the gallery was Valentine and Naomi and Jodi did a piece together called 'First Base'. They made the sculpture out of trash and it depicts a couple kissing. To commemorate the experience, Naomi and Jodi made matching necklaces which they wore to the show. Their sculpture sold within a few minutes of the gallery opening which seemed to shock them both.

Naomi's had a few pieces on display (above and below)

The gallery where their artwork was displayed

Other pieces by other artists

Jodi with her friend (BTW, Jodi's wearing a wig).

Sick Day

My boys both have Strep and so we've spent the last 2 days running back and forth to doctors (I had a chiropractor's appointment too) and doing homework and projects at home.

Next week the kids will be at school for 100 days and so Cullen needs to take something to school that represents '100 items'. I went looking in my cupboards for one hundred of something and came across sunflower seeds so Cullen painted the picture of the tree and we used the sunflower seeds as tree leaves. (I embellished the picture a bit by making the bees, the butterfly, the hive and the flower less like colored blobs on the page). I am pleased with his project because I frequently find myself behind the 8-ball and scrambling to help the kids pull a project together the night before or the morning of the project is due. (For those who are counting, there are 10 falling leaves and 10 leaves on the ground). Also, I love that he used untraditional colors for the tree and grass.

The boys also had to make Valentines boxes for school so we found a shoe box for Jordan which we covered with wrapping paper and we found a Christmas gift box for Cullen which was already decorated with red. Jordan spent some time decorating his but Cullen didn't have much to do with is Valentines box. I painted his name on the front and fixed the hole that Jordan had cut out of the lid. He was trying to help Cullen but the rectangular slot he cut had to be changed to have more of a wavy edge.

(The circled 'Y' on Cullen's box is the initial of his teacher's last name so that the kids know they are putting their Valentines cards into a fellow Kindie's box and not into the box of a child from another class).

Then the boys wanted to do 'spin-art'. Jordan was been given a spin-art thing for his 5th birthday and still enjoys creating pictures with it. The use of glitter came into play this time and they loved that. Needless to say, I have glitter in all the wrong places in my kitchen!

Tomorrow its back-to-school with them and I'll be back at work too. It was a fun Sick Day.

Crazy Cullen

Cullen was playing his Nintendo DS in the basement last night while we watched Open Season 2 together. He prefers to play in quiet and create a 'room' for himself. Crazy kid!

Cullen's Kindie Classroom

I stopped in at Cullen's classroom after the rodeo had ended and took some photos of the class and the classroom.

Note that the computers are all Apple Macs (love this school!)

Cowboy Jack

The Stock Show comes to Denver every January and I went on a field trip earlier in the month to the Stock Show with the Kindergarten classes. We saw & touched farm animals, went into the basement of the coliseum to see the cattle that were being groomed for the show, saw the show-jumping horses and sat through a short show hosted by one of the rodeo clowns. The highlight of the morning for Cullen was riding in the big yellow school bus...without a seatbelt!

The Kindergarten classes had their own rodeo at school on Friday and I volunteered to help. Cullen wanted to dress up as a cowboy and we already had some chaps and a vest (waistcoat) plus a cowboy hat which he wore to school. As we were walking to line up Cullen got very shy and was unsure of himself. He wanted to take his costume off but then realized that other kids had dressed up too and then was OK with it. Thats the first time he's been unsure about that kind of thing - usually he doesn't give a hoot about what others are doing - so I was surprised that he was self conscious about his costume.

The gym was decorated with everything 'cowboy' and there were stations with activities scattered around the room. The kids were divided into small groups and each group had a Kindie Mom to take them from station to station. There was a 10 min time limit for each station and I soon learned that 10 mins with 6-7 kids each time is actually very long!! I was assigned the barrel racing station which meant that 3 kids at a time had to race on stick horses around trash cans that were decorated as barrels. I showed them how to do it but invariably they did their own thing and it was pretty amusing. My voice was hoarse (pun intended) by the time I was finished. Four Kindie classes meant 2.5 hours of barrel racing!

Cullen had a great time and after the rodeo was over, I had lunch with him in the cafeteria and then he went off to recess with his mates. The 2nd graders then went into the cafeteria for lunch and I joined Jordan for lunch so it was a great day for me.

Story-time around the campfire.

Eating a 'smore at the campfire.

Milking the cow

Yeehaw!!