Anna is officially on summer break…relaxing with a video game

Anna had her last day of school on Friday so she is done with 6th grade. She is out on summer break now and has two weeks until her first camp starts. We have been lenient this long weekend on screen time so she spent a good part of this weekend playing video games, mainly Minecraft Bed Wars with friends.

Jude still has two days of school left before he graduates middle school. More on that next week.

Jude and I completed the Bolder Boulder 10k in Greenland Open Space

Today, Jude and I competed in a 10k. The Bolder Boulder is a huge race that happens every Memorial day in Boulder. It was canceled last year and this year they decided to have it in multiple locations. We chose the all-dirt trail in Greenland Open Space. While the weather looked dicey it ended being perfect for running. No rain, cool weather and soft ground. Jude ran it in 49:41 minutes and I did 58:50 (my goal was to break the hour). We went out for a celebratory Mexican lunch in Castle Rock afterwards.

Marcy doing gardening in the rain

Marcy spent most of this weekend in the garden. She bought a number of plants yesterday and has been planting like crazy since Saturday morning. Even though we had steady rain all afternoon that didn’t stop her, she still spent several hours in the garden.

Outside the museum on the wolves

When the kids were we little we spent a lot of time at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I mean a lot of time. There were some weeks we would go 4-5 times. The kids loved the dioramas with the animals and Jude loved the dinosaur exhibit.

Back in the dinosaur exhibit

There is a Stonehenge exhibit that is at the museum right now and Marcy just loves Stonehenge. So, for Mother’s Day I bought her family passes for the day. It was a real trip down memory lane for all of us as we hadn’t been back in several years. And the Stonehenge exhibit was excellent.

After the museum we went to some of our favorite Park Hill places from when we lived there. Lunch at Chop Shop and then on to Nuggs for ice cream.

Enjoying ice cream at Nuggs

It was quite a dreary weekend with lots of cloud cover and a little rain. Jude’s soccer was still on and he played quite well. But we spent a lot of time indoors.

The other big news of the week was covid shots. Both kids had their first shot on Friday with the next scheduled for three weeks time. So, when they go off to camp in mid-June they will be fully vaccinated.

Showing off her first covid shot

Mother’s Day lunch in Boulder

On this Mother’s Day we started with an early soccer game. Marcy decided she wanted to come so all four of us piled into the car at 8:20am this morning to drive to Jude’s soccer game in Boulder. He had a good game and his team won 2-0. It was a cold day and we had some rain but not for the game thankfully.

Then Marcy decided we would have Mexican food for lunch and we found a dog-friendly restaurant not far from the game. We sat outside despite the cold so Olive could be with us. The meal was delicious.

We arrived back home to rain so the rest of the day was spent mostly inside. We did a few odd jobs around the house and Marcy got to workout and also get some rest.

Hiking in White Ranch Park

On Thursday of this week Marcy and I took the day off and went for a hike in the foothills. We hiked in White Ranch Park, a nice challenging hike that is normally really crowded on weekends but it wasn’t too bad during the week.

Jude practicing juggling the soccer ball

At the start of April Jude decided that he wanted to focus on juggling the soccer ball better. His record then was just 24 juggles with his feet. He has practiced almost every day since then and now his record is 309 and he regularly gets over 100 now. It is making him a better soccer player and it gives him a reason to get to the park.

First night out to a restaurant in 15 months. Jax was awesome!

Last week I flew to New York for our big annual conference. While it was a virtual conference we were using a production studio in New York City and so we needed to be there, It was my first flight since March of last year and it was a little strange. But I managed to get there and back without incident. It was great to get the event behind me as it has occupied so much of my time and energy since the start of the year.

Toasting the end of another successful LendIt event

This weekend was all about rest and recreation. It started when I picked Anna up from school and we went to get Ben and Jerry’s. Then we had a Friday night picnic in the park which was just lovely. Saturday, Jude and I went for a hike in the foothills in Apex Park, it is the closest hike to our house that is rated as hard on AllTrails. It really wasn’t that hard and we did the 8+ miles in around 3 hours.

On the top of the mountain at Apex Park

We arrived back at home and then an hour later we were all riding our bikes downtown for dinner. We went to Jax, known for the oysters, a place we had been several times but not for several years. It was a fantastic dinner, I was commenting to Marcy afterwards that I think it might have been the nicest meal we had ever had out as a family. It was so nice to be out at a restaurant again.

Jude running strong in the Cinco de Mayo 5K

This morning we had the Cinco de Mayo 5K in Wash Park. Jude did really well with a time of 22:22, coming second in his age group and 20th overall (out of 600 runners). I was several minutes behind in 27:12 but it was good to be out racing again.

Taking a break in the hammock with Olive

Marcy spent much of the weekend working in the garden. She got a lot done and the yard is starting to look good.