At the top of the Manitou Incline

This weekend we decided to do something active. It had been a while since we did the Manitou Incline as it was closed down for several months this summer because of Covid. They opened back up a few weeks ago with a reservation system which actually made it more enjoyable as there were fewer people on the climb.

Marcy and Anna reaching the top

The Manitou Include goes up 2,000 vertical feet in less than a mile. It is basically 2,768 steps straight up without a break at average grade of 45% (getting as steep as 68%). It is such a great workout. Jude crushed it climbing to the top in 31:28, I also did pretty well in 48:01, beating my record from March by six minutes. Marcy stayed back with Anna who was having second thoughts halfway up but she pushed through to make it to the top a second time.

The obligatory family photo at the top of the Incline

There are bunch of doodle-mix dogs around us these days. There is often an impromptu doodle-fest at the park around mid-morning and Olive loves playing with the other dogs.

Meeting up with Olive’s friends at the park

Today was a very chilly morning, humid and 38 degrees. Jude had his soccer game and was unfazed. He had to be convinced to take a jacket and hat. He had another solid game and scored his first goal of the season in their 2-1 victory.

Anna with her birthday cheesecake and 12 candles

Anna turned 12 on Wednesday. She got to call the shots, apart from having to go to school, of course, and she decided on a cheesecake instead of a regular birthday cake. Marcy does make a fantastic cheesecake so we all enjoyed her birthday dessert. She decided she wanted steak and baked potatoes for dinner.

Showing off the birthday cake

Anna decided she wanted a birthday party this year. It was going to be an afternoon party with an early dinner. Anna and Marcy spent a lot of Saturday making a special rainbow cake for the birthday dinner. But no candles on this cake, one of the bummers about the new world we live in.

Playing games in the backyard

Anna had an afternoon of games organized and judging by all the laughing and screaming they all had a good time. She decided on Marczyk’s burgers for dinner and, of course, a delicious rainbow cake for dessert.

A birthday dinner with close friends

Finally, Jude has been playing with the Rubik’s cube for the past month. He watched some YouTube videos to help figure out how to solve it. And now he has been working on solving it fast. His record before this weekend was 1:45 and after many timed tries he managed to get his time to solve it down to 58 seconds.

Jude has become quite the expert at solving the Rubik’s cube

At the TV studio where the big LendIt conference took place

I have been insanely busy the last few weeks (which is why it has been a while since our last update) with our big annual LendIt conference. It happened this past Tuesday to Thursday at a TV studio in Denver. It went pretty well and it was great when Marcy and the kids came down after it was all over and got to see how it all came together.

Jude in his refereeing uniform

Jude is back refereeing again. He passed his exam in February but them the pandemic hit and all spring soccer was canceled. Now, they have started back up again and Jude is doing a couple of games every weekend. The pay is excellent once you become fully qualified, he gets $25 a game and the little kids (U9 or U10) are over in a bit more than an hour. For a 13-year-old that is great money. But the most important thing is that he really likes doing it.

Anna washing my car

Anna has been doing some babysitting but she is keen to earn more money. So, this weekend she washed both Marcy’s and my car (including vacuuming) and she mowed the front and back lawns. She is saving up for her own iPad mini and with the work she has been doing she is already 15% of the way there.

Anna has also started cheerleading class. She really missed gymnastics and they still hadn’t restarted classes at DU yet so Anna went searching for cheerleading classes and found one down in Highlands Ranch. So far, she loves it.

Helping out with some computer work

Marcy has been doing some volunteer work for the election. And we know Olive likes to stick close so she tried to help Marcy with her work.

At the top of Breckenridge ski resort, just off the Colorado Trail,  with a stern warning sign

Last weekend Jude and I decided to go for a long hike from Copper Mountain to Breckenridge on the Colorado Trail. I have been wanting to do a long hike on our state trail and Jude agreed to come with me. It was 13.5 miles and about 3,000 vertical feel so not quite as hard as a 14er but it was a tough hike nonetheless.

Anna had four friends spend the night over last Friday night, it was actually our anniversary (we realized after saying yes to the sleepover). Anna had a blast, meanwhile Marcy, Jude and I had a delicious sushi dinner to celebrate our anniversary.

This weekend Jude started back up his refereeing career. He had three games for eight and nine year old kids and enjoyed it. Plus he gets paid good money now that he is a fully qualified referee.

Anna in her new basement bedroom

Anna decided to move her bedroom to the basement this week. She wanted her own space and more privacy and so she has her own bedroom and bathroom and really her own floor of the house. She is loving it and spent a lot of this weekend moving clothes and her accessories down here.

The 2020 covid look

This weekend marked the start of both the Premier League and the NFL, so Jude spent a good many hours in front of the TV this weekend. But he spent a good amount of time at the park as well as soccer practice, not to mention refereeing, so he was outside quite a bit too.

Olive hanging out on the couch

The red sun appears through the smoke at sunrise

With fires burning in Colorado we had a very smoky start to the week. Every day this week was in the high 90s until Friday and so we had to keep the windows closed and the a/c running. But we actually had our first rain in weeks and the smoke cleared and we actually saw our first blue skies which was so nice. And I was able to do a run around Wash Park run for the first time in several weeks.

Anna showing off her handiwork in my office

We had a pretty quiet weekend with nothing much scheduled. Marcy did have a Ridhwan weekend and Jude had soccer practice on Friday night and Sunday morning but apart from that we were home a lot. The kids ended up playing a lot with the neighbors in the park and then on Saturday night we had dinner with the neighbors.

I had one project that Anna helped out on. I had no photos on the walls in my office and so ordered some frames and prints and Anna helped put everything on the wall. She did a great job I think.

Olive at her favorite vantage point

Anna holding Socks, one of the new kittens

Marcy and the kids decided to do a surprise visit to Iowa a couple of weeks ago. The main motivation for the trip was to see the new kittens but it was also the last full week of school holidays and there was nothing else on. I had a lot to do at work so I stayed home and Marcy drove all the way by herself with the kids and Olive. Everyone did really well on the trip and they made it in record time to surprise Baba, Grandpa and the cousins during dinner.

Jude with Boots, the other kitty

It was another fun-filled week. They went to their favorite breakfast place, Perkins, and Jude learned how to make Monster cookies from Baba. They also had a lot of time in the pool as always and then the Anna and the twins decided to spend 24 hours in the garage just for fun. They even set up beds, played games and listened to music. They didn’t last through the night but they did make it all the following day. Jude made everyone dinner that night, spaghetti bolognese.

Getting ready for 24 hours in the garage

They were supposed to come home last Sunday but the air quality was really bad in Denver with the fires in the mountains so they decided to stay until Tuesday which was the last day of their summer break. So, they arrived back home around 6:30pm on Tuesday night and it was back to school on Wednesday.

Back to school…in person no less!

We are lucky that both kids have in-person school this year. Both schools went back on the same day, Wednesday, and they were SO happy to be back in class. Things are obviously different than it was last year but they don’t mind, they are just happy to have a semblance of normalcy.

At the top of Mt Elbert, the tallest mountain in Colorado

This weekend Jude and I did our annual fourteener hike. This is now the sixth year in a row we have done a 14er and Jude chose Mt Elbert, the tallest mountain in Colorado. We hit the road early, around 5:45 and we were on the trail by 7:15am. We took 7 hours 20 minutes not including 30 minutes at the top. It was a grueling hike but we had a great time and the smoke wasn’t nearly as bad as we expected. We were going to stay up in Keystone Saturday night but the smoke was too bad so we came home and had a quiet day today at home.

Marcy and Anna color their hair and have a dance party

With Jude off at camp Marcy ana Anna indulged with some special girl time. They had a spa day at home with painted nails, dyed hair and makeup. They went to Boulder one day where they rented bikes to get around town and had some delicious gelato. They had a dance party with karaoke and snacks. They did some bike rides around Denver and they did a Gilmore Girls marathon.

Anna made herself smoothies every day this week

This weekend Anna and I went up to the mountains. I got a new screen for my phone in Silverthorne while we were staying up there and I was having trouble with the new screen so I needed to get it fixed. They needed the phone all day so Anna and I decided to go to Leadville and scout out some camping spots for our Labor Weekend camping trip. We found some good places to stay. Then we did a short hike along the Colorado Trail, something I have become a little obsessed with this year.

Hiking the Colorado Trail near Turquoise Lake

Jude really enjoyed his camp in Wyoming with Avid4 Adventure. They did some rock climbing, standup paddle boarding, white water rafting and mountain biking. Jude also did some cliff diving and what they call “cowboy camping” which basically means sleeping under the stars (no tents). Jude loved staring up at the stars in the middle of nowhere and so he got very little sleep those nights. He was in good spirits when he came home although he was really tired. So, he had a low key weekend just playing soccer, video games and watching some of his favorite shows.

Jude’s camp group doing some rock climbing (Jude has the yellow face mask)

Everyone on the hammock!

With Anna away at camp Jude was an only child for a week. Every day Marcy would encourage Jude to go and do something and every day he would say he just wanted to stay at home. He is very much a home body and so he played a lot of soccer, did some runs and of course, played Minecraft. He and Marcy did play lots of SkipBo, and Marcy took him and Olive to go for a hike one day this week which he actually enjoyed.

One thing that we did this week was get a key to the All City Stadium training field. With the soccer goals now gone from Veterans Park Jude was getting most despondent about the lack of good soccer training options and Marcy did some investigating. For $25 you get a key to the training facility which is just 300 yards from our house. They have a full athletics track AND four soccer goals. Interestingly, Jude has most wanted to do some running at the track. He has done several 400m runs and 100m sprints at the track.

Hiking at Beaver Brook in the foothills

Anna came back from camp on Friday afternoon and she had a great time. She said many times that her camp counselors were the best ever and she loved the kayaking in the rapids. Anna’s camp was actually right by where we did white water rafting just a couple of weeks ago, she even recognized her campsite. Anna wanted a pretty low key weekend and today we just basically did some back to school shopping.

Great to have my girl back with us

This morning Jude went off to his camp. He is heading to Wyoming where they are having a multi-sport camp. This is also an Avid camp and Jude actually has some of the counselors from Windy Peak (his sleep away camp last summer).

Jude goes off to camp

Anna goes off to camp

This was a quiet week after all the excitement in Keystone last week. The kids enjoyed being back at home after three of the last four weeks away. Lots of time spent in the park, on the trampoline and then we bought Jude a new goalpost after they took the ones at Veterans Park away. Marcy and I started playing one on one soccer with Jude in the backyard again with the new goal.

A big downpour bought some flooding near our house

We had several afternoon thunderstorms this week as is typical this time of year. Anna decided to get out in the rain and go to the corner near the park that always floods.

At the lake on the Herman Gulch hike

On Friday, Marcy took Jude and Anna (and Olive) on her favorite hike. Just off I-70 before the tunnel is Herman Gulch and the kids had not done it before. They managed to do it quite easily and were done in time for lunch at Chimayo in Silverthorne.

Snuggling with Olive this week

Today, Anna went off to camp. It is an Avid “Paddling” camp in Buena Vista where they are camping. One of her best friends from school is going and we think she will have a blast. This is the only camp of the summer for Anna (I think she did four camps last year) and we were comfortable that they are minimizing the health risks. It gives just a little bit of normalcy into this crazy year for the kids.

Everyone in their Covid Camp No Camp shirts

Every summer the Dahlens come out to Colorado for a week. And during that week the kids usually do camp at Keystone Science School. But this year we decided against it due to covid and instead we came up with the idea of doing our own “camp” which we called Covid Camp No Camp (CCNC). Anna made t-shirts for everyone to celebrate this unique year.

Playing by the river and trying to catch some fish

We had a full week of activities here at CCNC. It started off with the kids doing some exploring in the wetlands around the condo. We had a bike ride down to Lake Dillon and on several evenings we played golf at the River Course. Anna, Jude and Chloe were the keen ones here although Ella came along for the ride one day. There was a lot of time spent by the river with Olive who just loves the water and plenty of hiking too.

Anna teeing off on the signature 7th hole at the River Course as the sun sets

One day we decided to head down to Buena Vista for some white water rafting. All the kids had been rafting before and loved it so we thought it be a fun activity for us all to do together. With nine people we thought we would be split into two boats but they gave us their largest boat which just fit us all. We got lucky with the weather as it threatened to rain the whole time and it wasn’t as cold as we expected. We all had a blast with several of the kids saying it was the highlight of the entire week.

Enjoying the rapids on the Arkansas River outside Buena Vista

We had a hiking day where several of us drove past Breckenridge to do a beautiful hike to some lakes. Anna and Lily did their own thing, hiking up the mountain behind the condo.

On the hike to Mayflower Lake outside Breckenridge

Speaking of hiking Jude and I decided to tackle Buffalo Mountain outside Dillon one day. This is the mountain that looms over Lake Dillon and I have been wanting to climb it for years after Marcy did it solo some time ago. The climb is just under six miles roundtrip with 3,000 feet of elevation gain. Jude carried the backpack the whole way and he had plenty of energy left when we finished in just under five hours.

At the summit of Buffalo Mountain

Today, we did the big bike ride to Frisco marina. I did the same ride last weekend with Jude and Anna but all nine of us did it this time and everyone did well on the 27-mile roundtrip. Again we got lucky with the weather as it threatened to rain but we stayed dry the whole time. It was a big achievement for the nine-year-old twins as it was their longest ride ever.