Winters Last gasp!

We have a super sleet storm going on right now...Jonathan says the university may be closing..conditions are truly horrible! Predictions of warm sunshine next week are keeping me going!

Seven become three again!

The Squire family have just left for the long journey back to the UK. They have been fantastic company and the boys have been really good to Maja.
Highlights of their trip were skiing, a road trip clocking up nearly 1000 miles, hikes, snow shoeing and copious hot tubs. We had some great meals together and many glasses of wine! We will miss them. The photos show the kids messing around in the garden, making some "garden art".

Friday eve

Just having a lazy chill with Maja (watching a sort of Barbie movie...mmmmmm.... when 5 or 6 deer appeared in the garden...amazing. Hope they eat the weeds.

Alex enjoying a lite American lunch!!!

Daniel's Poem

Daniel has written a poem...I love it so I thought I would put it on the blog as a reminder of our holiday.

I Can…

I can fly up in the sky,
I can ride my bike with no handlebars,
I can see through the back of my head,
I can donate both of my kidneys,
I can boogie better than John Travolta,
I can win the Olympics for somewhere like Andorra,
I can feed the world; I can dance the can-can,
I can have my cake and eat it,
I can roll uphill – backwards,
I can rewind live sports matches, and not just on TV,
I can speak any language except German,
I can climb the crags of Kilimanjaro and I can swim the seven salty seas,
I can do anything blindfolded and with my hands tied behind my back,
I can put two and two together,
I can make it rain in Spain, though mainly on the plain,
I can scare bears because I barely care for their welfare,
I can run faster than a cheetah,
I can play Michael Jordan at his own game,
I can pull a better poker face than Gordon Brown,
I can beat the system, keep the faith, live the life, save the day, seize the moment,
I can break a mirror; I can walk under a ladder,
I can force a hand, shake a hand, lend a hand,
I can blow your mind, read your mind, change your mind – as long as you don’t mind,
I can sort out all the things wrong with this world because…

I can imagine!

Three become seven!

The Squire family from Bristol (Simon, Ruth, Daniel, 15 and Alex, 12) have joined us for two weeks of Boulder magic!! They arrived on Thursday to bright warm sun and have so far experienced sun, rain and a big dump of snow and thats in less than 40 hours!!! The house is now full of big boys, which means big shoes and big noise!! (actually mostly Maja!) So far the highlights have included hot tub, air guitar (don't ask...but it involved Queen on the i-pod) a bit of shopping and a snowball fight. This morning Jonathan has taken them for a hike while Maja and I enjoy some chilled out girl time. The Squires are coping well with jet lag and altitude and I'm sure we will have lots of fun over the two weeks they are here.

Winter returns to Boulder!

At present there is a snow blizzard going on! Maja and I got caught in it on the way home from school!!I could hardly see where I was going. It's coming down at a terrific rate so we should have lots of snow tomorrow!

R and R in Los Alamos

The journey to Los Alamos was memorable for a few things: Long, long drags of road through Native American Reservations....trailer parks......casinos (advertising loose slots!!???) It got more beautiful as we approached Santa Fe and Los Alamos.
We arrived in a snowy Los Alamos early evening, to a cosy fire, glass of wine and yummy dinner. That set the tone for the weekend! We had a wonderfully chilled out weekend with Aimee, Steve and Maya (nearly 4)
The two Maya's had been friends in Bristol when Steve was a colleague of Jonathans and they were more than delighted to be reunited!!!
They played, sang, danced, dressed up and hiked furiously all weekend and exausted themselves completely. The adults enjoyed good food and conversation (not to mention a couple of cool hikes)
We all hope to meet up in Boulder before we return to England.

Time for some exercise!

After spending so long in the car we leapt up next morning ready for a hike. We decided to do Bright Angel Trail which snakes round into the canyon. it is a challenging walk in the sense that it is a little precipitous in places and what goes down....!!!
Maja managed really well. We hiked for about 4 hours with plenty of stops to let mules past and to refuel. The sky was clear and afforded utterly amazing views. It snowed a little, which added to our adventure, as we were ascending. Maja enjoyed lots of praise from other hikers who kept praising her for being "such a great little hiker"
We had a relaxing hot tub back at the hotel,then tracked down some spaghetti and tomato sauce at a cafe for Maja who by now was so shattered she was on the verge of a massive meltdown!
We all crashed out very early and I woke at 5pm to see Jonathan getting ready to check out sunset at the Canyon! He followed this with an 18 mile run into the canyon!!!!
Maja and I slept late, breakfasted late and generally lazed about until Jonathan got back then we said goodbye to Grand Canyon, resolving to return one day and continued our road trip to New Mexico.