Anna watering our new grass

After what has seemed like weeks of rain we finally had some decent weather this week. While it has still rained a little pretty much every day the weather was been warming up and the mornings this weekend were simply perfect.

On Saturday we had a morning tea at school with Anna’s new first grade class for next year. We know the teacher, Miss Brittany, quite well because she has been one of Anna’s teachers in her kindergarten class. Marcy and I both think she is great, which is important when you consider that Anna could well be spending eight years with this teacher.

Yesterday afternoon we went on our first family bike ride to get ice cream of the year and then we stumbled on the Park Hill Arts Festival on our way home where Anna got the pretty dress you see above.

Today we went to church for the first time ever as a family. We have a local Unity church just three blocks away and have been wanting to try it out for some time. While the service was nice it was very much an older person’s church so we probably won’t be back.

This afternoon Jude had two football games so we all went down to watch him play there. And then our friend Wendy came over with her daughter Laura and we went to ice cream again. Wendy and Laura are spending four weeks in Australia starting in June so we chatted about good things to do and see.

Celebrating Jude’s 8 1/2 birthday at Cake Crumbs

We decided to stick close to home this holiday weekend without really any plans. The highlight so far, at least as far as Jude is concerned, was his 8 1/2 year “birthday” on Saturday. We always celebrate half-birthdays with a treat of some kind but no presents. Jude decided he wanted to go to Cake Crumbs, our favorite local bakery for cup cakes.

This weekend we have spent a lot of time in the yard. Marcy has been doing a huge amount of work weeding and getting our backyard in order. Jude and Anna have been helping some as well although they usually gravitate towards the play set after a while.

Anna enjoying the show at Casa Bonita on our Anna and Daddy date

Yesterday I went on an “Anna and Daddy date”, something we had not done in a while. I decided to take her to this place called Casa Bonita which is kind of an institution here in Denver. It is a very popular restaurant, not for the food at all, but for the kids entertainment. They have an indoor diving pool, with cliff divers, plays and all kinds of fun shows for kids.

It is a very popular place and I didn’t realize how popular it was until we arrived. The line to get in was easily 100 yards long. But we decided to wait it out (it was well over an hour before we got our seat) and Anna was glad we did. She loved the cliff divers who really put on a great diving show.

We continue to get a lot of rain so we have been trying to get outside when it is nice. Today, we managed some soccer and a playground session but the whole weekend and for that matter the last couple of weeks have been much wetter than normal.

On Capitol Hill about to testify before a Congressional committe

There was a big day for me this past week. I was invited to testify before the House Small Business Committee on Capitol Hill and so I flew to Washington DC for 24 hours this week. It was quite an enjoyable session with the congressmen and women eager to learn about peer to peer lending.

After seemingly just getting started, the soccer season is now over. The Spring season is only six weeks and with us being away for two of them and then some washout weekends we only really had a couple of weekends of soccer. But they tried to make up for it this weekend with soccer both days. Both Jude and Anna liked playing with their team again.

Anna’s soccer team with Coach Matt showing off their trophies

While we were away in Sydney we had some work done in our backyard. We finally had a play set put in after talking about it for years. When the weather has been nice they have both played on it a lot since we got back.

Jude, Anna & Lily on the new play set

We have had some visitors this weekend. Lily and Baba caught the train out from Iowa to come for a short visit. They have trooped around to all the soccer games this weekend but also played quite a bit together at home. And tomorrow Jude and Anna are not going to school so they can be with their cousin and grandma for the day.

Lily, Jude and Anna doing some drawing before bed at our kitchen table

Jude catching a wave on the boogie board

This week started in Sydney with more crappy weather. The last few days there we hardly saw the sun at all and we had several days of rain so very little beach time. Monday was our last day and we were determined to get out and enjoy the beach. I organized with a good friend of mine to borrow some boogie boards for the day and off to the beach we went even though it was 65 degrees and cloudy. And the water was cold. But the kids enjoyed it, both catching some good waves.

Anna ready to go on the boogie board

The clouds finally departed late on Monday, just in time to see a spectacular full moon rise up out of the ocean. Then, on Tuesday morning we awoke to beautiful sunshine but we had a morning flight so we couldn’t enjoy it at all. The flight back went about as well as we could hope and Jude and Anna were very happy to be home.

The view from our apartment of a spectacular moonrise over the ocean on our last night in Sydney

Our luck with bad weather continues. As Sydney enjoyed glorious sunshine after we left when we got to Denver it has been rain, rain, rain….and snow. We awoke this morning to 4″ of snow on the ground. We have barely seen the sun in two weeks.

As today was Mother’s Day we made the best of it. The whole family went to a yoga class and then we went and got donuts. This afternoon we spent at home and this evening Marcy wanted to go out to our favorite local restaurant, Chop Shop, which is just two blocks from our house.

Mother’s Day dinner at Chop Shop

Jude showing off his commemorative coin in front of the Opera House

The weather has not been kind to us this week. After a glorious weekend we had five days of rain this week which meant not nearly as much beach time as we would have liked. Luckily there are many other good things to do in Sydney and some of them are indoors. We went into the city on consecutive days to see the Opera House and the Wildlife Experience (a small zoo) and there was also Manly aquarium.

Jude and Anna fighting with their “light sabers”

One of the great things about staying in Manly is that you have the beach, the harbour (with a short ferry ride to downtown Sydney) and the walk to Shelley Beach. We have done that walk many times and Marcy took the kids one day this week while I was with my dad and they had a blast. There is a also a nature reserve with a trail that leads to the Sydney Harbour National Park. On this day the kids saw an echidna in the wild and explored some caves as well. They also “fought” each other with sticks that were supposed to be light sabers after having watched a Star Wars movie the previous day.

Bareback horse riding down on the farm

This weekend we did two long trips out into the country. On Saturday we drove down to Uncle Mark and Aunt Robyn’s new farm. They have five horses and as soon as we got there Anna asked if they could go and ride the horses. One of them is a docile old thoroughbred named Cruise who the kids have actually ridden before three years ago when we were last here. This farm backs on to some pretty thick forest and when we went exploring Jude and Anna saw kangaroos in the wild for the first time.

The baby alpaca is curious about Anna

On Sunday we went to my friend Richard’s farm where he keeps about 80 alpacas. There were six baby alpacas that had all been born in the past couple of months and the kids loved seeing them. Then Jude was put to work at feeding time – he had to fill the buckets with new grass and the male alpacas were very happy to see him.

Feeding the male stud alpacas at Richard’s farm

This past week we caught the ferry back to our old Cremorne neighborhood, where we lived when we were in Sydney. Jude recognized quite a lot of things and Anna even ran up to the “super axe hacker” tree where they spent some time carving three years ago. We also went to the old field, a place where the kids spent many, many hours playing and exploring. We all felt quite nostalgic as we had such a great time when we lived here in 2012.

Recapturing an iconic photo from three years ago on the Cremorne ferry