Family Portraits

Please to enjoy some photos which dad took while he was in town! He's still my favorite photographer!

We didn't have any school pictures for Adele. But didn't these turn out???

I'm so glad to have these photos. I have a feeling we might get something in our many photo frames over the holidays. Something besides a stock photo of a Happy Family™, that is.

El Pueblo, again

 Thanksgiving Saturday sent us on another local sightseeing mission. We had to take Dad to El Pueblo!

First we let Adele open some more of her birthday presents. Agnes sent her a fully functioning doctor costume, complete with equipment! She set to work at once fixing and healing her stuffed animals. "How bodies work" is an abiding interest of hers just now.

 El Pueblo Museum is known to readers of this blog, but there are some novelties. There's a new exhibit featuring people and places of the Salt Creek Community. It starts with a new mural:

 And it contains a gallery of gorgeous photography of Salt Creek residents with their memories recorded beside them. Here is just one lovely example:

Something got in my eye after reading this one....

 I love museums and events which love their communities.


Of course, we lingered in the El Movemiento section. I am so inspired by the activism of the Chicano movement in the 70s.

 The kids dressed up as usual as Mexican dancers and as Mormon pioneers, and then we had another photobooth moment:

That was one of our better days at the museum. We got a personalized tour of the historic trading post (since it was a low-attendance weekday) and learned a lot. Our hour-long tour ended with dad and the tour guide spontaneously singing an old gospel hymn they both knew. There's really no better way to get to know Pueblo, in my opinion, than to visit this place. 

 Once again, the kids ended the day curled up for storytime with Grandpa Jim. They treasured having him in their very own home. And so, apparently, did Koopa!

 Up next: results from Dad's photography shoot!

Thanksgiving at altitude

 The children had off all week for Thanksgiving. We had a peaceful couple of days spent mostly at home, with a few outings to the library or around the neighborhood. In the evenings I'd send the children across the street to take Koopa for a run around the church garden. The glorious sky over the mountains lifts all our spirits.

On Wednesday, I made my yearly attempt at an apple pie.

On Thursday, to our joy, my dad arrived to spend the Holiday weekend with us! He had his first look at our home, our community, and the landscape surrounding Pueblo. You can guess our enjoyment of those days.

It was our first Thanksgiving dinner at home, for which we cooked and hosted the dinner. And thought it was small (attended only by the four of us, Grandpa Jim, and Eli, one of Jon's work colleagues) I think it was a rousing success! My pie joined an entire feast prepared by Jon: Turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes (made with unpeeled red potatoes, the way I like it!), sliced and seasoned sweet potatoes, and fried brussels sprouts with bacon. Our guest brought rolls and vegetables and pumpkin bread, and along with the pie I made and the one we bought, we had more than enough feast to be getting along with. Poor Dad was pretty much done for after dinner, as he was both jet lagged and tired from travel.

But we woke the next day ready for a small adventure! and drove to Colorado Springs to have it.

The mountains above Springs loom larger and more impressive than in Pueblo

The kids finally got to see the Garden of the Gods! If you ever visit us and are interested, this free park is breathtaking. As usual, the sky was an unbroken clear blue.

the "kissing camels"

There are natural playgrounds of rock in places. The kids had a jolly time "getting stuck" between these rocks. They called for Tom Bomabadil to save them. 

From time to time, we stopped to watch climbers. The kids were very impressed at the younger adventurers:

 
 

By the time we settled in for the evening, we were all wiped again. But it was a good tiredness, a satisfying soreness, that a day spent in the late-autumn sun brings.

The kids got a nightly story from Grandpa Jim. Koopa took to him right away and usually curled up at his feet to hear the story, too.

More pictures and doings with Grandpa Jim to follow!

November in Review Part 2: Five.

 My tiny red-headed Scorpio ginger duchess turned five years old on the 20th! It was Christ the King Sunday, just as it was the day she was born, at 10 minutes to 11 am, in our Nissan.

Blowing out the candle on her pancakes

 One of the first gifts she opened was her Peppa Pig family! Peppa is very hot with Adele right now.

 Adele's birthday party this year was at the Pueblo Zoo. Yes, in Pueblo you can have an outdoor birthday party in late November! It is astonishing.

 Adele wanted her friends to dress as animals for her animal-themed party. Adele dressed as one of her current favorites: the peacock.

Posing with the wandering Pueblo Zoo peacocks

 Several of her friends from preschool and Pueblo were able to come celebrate with her.

The kids raced around the zoo, from animal to animal, breathless and delighted. I had no set up, no clean-up, and very little planning. Would book again!

Happy birthday to my baby! At age five, Adele has a very strong will. She alternately wants to be a doctor, veterinarian, or fire fighter when she grows up. Adele loves pigs, peacocks, princesses, "how bodies work," gymnastics, pizza, playing dress-up, goldie blox, her dog, and her brother most particularly right now. She snaps and sparks and sasses and shines, and I love her so.

November in Review: Part 1

I am woefully behind. However, the holiday and all of my coursework being done (insert Charlie Brown happy dance), there is a significant chance that I will be caught up with blogging by the end of the week. 

You will be getting the Cliff's Notes version of November. 

On November 13, we took a badly-needed family day and went to Free Day at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. 

view of Denver from the top floor of the museum

It's splendid! There's the usual variety of hands-on activities, and a truly impressive number of dioramas complete with museum taxidermy! This being right up Jon's alley, we spent a lot of time with faces pressed against glass, admiring the tableaus.

We really needed to get away, after Jon being out of town and my being so busy finishing my coursework.

Speaking of which.. on Tuesday, November 15, I successfully defended my thesis, "Enterprising Women in Novels of Manners: The Social Economies of Austen, Thackeray and Wharton," over Skype! I'm so grateful for the way my committee and other faculty have worked to make it possible for me to finish a Virginia degree from Colorado. It was truly a dream come true to have finished, and to finish within a semester of leaving Virginia and have such minimal unemployed time is simply a gift from God I could not have looked to have. 

the view after hanging up from the Skype call which congratulated me for passing the defense. 

My face, just after hanging up from that wonderful call.

I finished my coursework just before Thanksgiving, but I have also been actively pursuing employment. Please continue to pray for an opportunity for me! I have interviewed for two jobs, one I know that I did not get, and one that I expect I did not get, because I was supposed to hear from them by the 18th. I have applied for many more from which I have not yet heard back. I am trying to be patient! I'm used to being able to gain everything with hard work and persistence, so this is a trying time for me.

Adele celebrated Thanksgiving at her preschool with a special "Grandparent Lunch" to which she invited our beloved neighbor, Mr. Dave. He befriended the children immediately after we moved in, and has been a friend, a loaner of tools, dispenser of ice cream for the kids, and a surrogate grandfather ever since. We are so lucky to have moved right next door to this man and his wife (who is limited by illness).

Mr. Dave not only attended Adele's lunch event, but he brought her a corsage!


Stay tuned as we count further blessings by recounting Adele's birthday and our Thanksgiving. Happy DiNovember!

Dias De Los Muertos

 Once again, I am behind. This week's excuses reasons: A job interview on Monday (I did not get it), the election (I have been struggling, shall we say, with the result), and Adele's sickness. We think it's croup. She's had it since Tuesday. We'll head to the doctor today.

This week's been hard. Please pray, first and foremost for our nation, that our leaders will make wise, responsible decisions which protect the environment and vulnerable people.

Secondly, please pray that I can find employment! It's past time for this.

We celebrated Halloween like never before this year! Pueblo LOVES Halloween. I have never seen a level of Halloween decoration like what I saw in our neighborhood (and around the city). And the trick-or-treating was equal to anything in my childhood neighborhood. It may be the Dia De Los Muertos aspect of the culture here, but they reeeally love Halloween. I embrace this old-fashioned joy in the holiday.

The kids came home after 2 hours of trick-or-treating with an amount of candy that I can only describe as obscene. It broke their buckets.

For the first time, we have a home to decorate! It was modest this year, but I hope to step it up next year.
 

Jon and Koopa model their costumes. Koopa is koopa-troopa, of course.

Miles was Miss Frizzle! And Adele, Hermione. Both characters are current favorites for the kids.

From the parade at Ascension Preschool:

Miles, about to go to school as Miss Frizzle:

 

Adele at the Haunted Rides

My family. Celebrating a holiday. In our own, first, home. What a gift.

 

By Halloween, they were beginning to sag. But maybe that just made them spookier?

When the Dinos invaded for Dinovember, they found the soggy pumpkins delicious.

 

I defend on Tuesday. Adele's birthday party is Sunday the 20th. I hope to have all my coursework done by Thanksgiving.

And whither then? I cannot say.