Tabitha – jesser

September 22, 2017

Here Comes the Sun

It’s a little hard to believe it’s been over a year since I posted. I’ve thought about doing so a few times, but not as many as I thought I would. I miss it, more because I can’t go back and see what was going on than because I miss doing it. If that makes sense.

I am resolving to add some more recipes and updates on the kids and us when I feel like it.

Mentally, I’m feeling better than I did a year ago. Not that it’s always been easy. I miss the special people (and canines) that are no longer with us. Friendships are sometimes less than satisfactory as people move on and lives diverge. It’s not hurtful. But it hurts.

So what’s been going on?

Family Life

We’ve continued our family meetings with reasonable success and minimal grumbling.
We continue to cook good food and eat well. The kids are both learning to cook.
We strive to read together, but it is often a casualty of crazy schedules.
We continue to travel frequently, including camping, and have had some absolutely amazing trips this year.
The kids started at a brand new school this year and it’s been an interesting and exciting change of pace.
The kids were away from us for over two weeks this summer. They went to Flordia with their Nashville grandparents and to camp for a week. We missed them like crazy.
The kids are constantly begging for a dog and for now, we’re holding firm on the no. We just travel too much!

Ben

Ben is doing well at school. He seems to really excel at math, but is reading is really strong too. Penmanship is a challenge.
He LOVES gym and placed 2nd in his class for the pacer test where you run like a maniac.
He continues piano and has recently learned the Imperial Death March from Star Wars.
He is a hilariously funny kid and he cracks me up on the regular with his wittiness and interesting turns of phrase.
He has continued with karate and scouts and started swim lessons again a couple of months ago which he’s doing really well at.

Tabby

Tabby has changed a ton over the past year and is all little lady these days.
She is currently wearing the same size shoe as me. We both view this as very handy and I hope it lasts.
She is super super into music right now, playing really cool pieces on piano (Hall of the Mountain King, Morning, Linus and Lucy) and has just started violin for her school’s orchestra.
She adores being a Girl Scout and doing badge work and having experiences with her friends.
She is not too much into physical activity but enjoys her swim lessons and skiing.

Matt and Me

Matt and I celebrated 15 years of marriage this summer. We are doing great and love being together and working as a team.
We celebrated with a group trip to Mexico and also took a weekend away while the kids were in Florida to do a little trip to Telluride.
We are both leaders in the kids’ scout troops. I have continued into the juniors’ second year and Matt is an assistant den leader with Ben’s pack. It’s challenging but rewarding.
Matt continues on in his job and is doing well at it. I have recently been promoted and get to take a more active role in company leadership which is something I’ve wanted for a while.
I have been working out for a few months now at Orange Theory Fitness which I really enjoy.
Matt and I also took up tennis this year. We had both played in jr. high and high school and we have a number of friends who play, so it’s been a very nice activity.
Matt has been working hard in his wood shop. We built a console table that goes behind our couch and he is currently working on a large-scale closet system for the master closet. It’s an unbelievable amount of work.

Overall, a very good year. Lots of personal growth, positive changes and some bumps in the road. No complaints.

July 28, 2016August 2, 2016

Wilderness Girls

Our fourth, and final trip for July was a split ticket. Matt and Ben went on their annual Boys Backpacking Trip and Tabby and I took the ladies to Vail.

Gram had just passed away and it felt oddly appropriate to be going there with friends to relax and reflect. I also brought a laptop full of scanned photos to turn into a memorial slideshow (linked in the last post).

Not all of the crew was able to join us on Friday, but myself, Kelly and the other Jess (Mitch as she’s called), headed out Friday. We made dinner, put the girls to bed and went to bed ourselves (everyone was exhausted!).

The next morning we got up bright and early to hike to Nolan Lake in the Holycross wilderness. This is the same hike Matt and I did a few years back on our anniversary and we were auditioning it for our final backpacking trip of the year.

It was an absolutely beautiful hike.

Tons of wildflowers. Everywhere.

EVERYWHERE! Also beautiful mountains…

And interesting flora. We called this guy the impressionist log.

The only bad part about the hike was that it was BUGGY. This is not a CO thing. But we must have all killed about 1000 mosquitos and buzzy stingy flies over the course of our 6+ miles. And unfortunately, after all that, we didn’t make the lake. We were close, but exhausted.

So exhausted. And we needed to go home. So we did.

It was overall a great weekend and so good to spend time with just my little girl. Love that kid.

June 27, 2016

Weekend Riding

We did lots of fun things this weekend: went to REI, had a block party, played Bunco (me) and Catan (Matt), went to a pizza party at a friend’s house, had friends over for dinner, etc. etc. but probably the most memorable thing we did was a bike ride.

Because this wasn’t just any bike ride. It was a nearly 3 HOUR bike ride.

Normally when we take the kids to a new spot, we scout it out first. But we had … kinda. See it’s a trail we used to ride before we had kids and they recently added some pieces to it making what we thought was a full loop. Turns out we were wrong. It basically improved it and made about a 3/4 loop. Which because it isn’t a total loop we rode twice … for a 1.5 mile loop. Or 50% more. The worst part is that in addition to the 50% more, we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at a dead end … at the END of a giant hill. And then we had to go down and back up another giant hill. It was exhausting and no one was having any fun by the end.

Hate that. BOO.

Ben was the “total trooper” winner award this go around. Little if any whining from him.

That kid is becoming an amazing mountain biker. Anytime he encounters anything where he needs more power, he’s straight out of the saddle and powering up the hill. He didn’t have to stop much at all. So cool.

Tabby tried hard and did pretty well, but she just doesn’t have the same stamina Ben has built up. Hopefully we didn’t permanently ruin biking for her and she can get some muscle built up.

We did have a couple of fun bright spots! Tabby was very excited to see the tipis above and even more excited to hear you can rent them out for a night (we will do this sometime this summer). We also got to see the goats!! Goats of all colors, munching weeds and making very funny noises. Glad to have a little bit of comic relief in a pretty brutal ride.

June 10, 2016

Raingutter Regatta

Being as that I am a girl with no brothers, I have little experience with the boy side of scouting. Which is actually part of what makes Ben’s Boy Scout events so much fun. It’s lots of new stuff.

For the uninitiated, like myself, the Raingutter Regatta is the maritime equivalent of the Pinewood Derby. You build a boat, paint it, make it a sail and race it in rain gutters against your fellow scouts.

We (of course) discovered that this event was sooner than we’d thought on Monday right after Matt left for a business trip (that wouldn’t have him home until today), so I got tasked with turning the rectangular wooden piece and dowel we were given into y’know … boats.

Fortunately, I have been paying attention during shop time. And I was able to complete the task with little fanfare.

The kids painted them and off we went.

Ben competed against fellow Wolf Scouts and Tabby was in the “family” (mostly sisters) bracket.

It was a double elimination tournament (I learned how those work yesterday), and both kids won their first 2 races and lost their third.

Which netted them 3rd place in each of their brackets!

Not too shabby for our first go. More importantly, they had a great time!

June 8, 2016June 10, 2016

Tabby Bakes

This kid loves to cook. So when I suggested that as a potential summer goal, Tabby jumped all over it. Better still, she decided she would be in charge of producing the dessert for our family meeting.

The first week, she tackled caramel stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I’d love to link to the recipe for you, but I have no idea where she got it. She found the recipe on her own, had me buy the ingredients and then she executed – beautifully. She did have me help chop the caramels and preheat the oven, but that was it. She even did cleanup.

And they turned out beautifully!

This week, she tackled pretzel cookies, which I’ve had pinned forever. I picked this one (it was my turn) partially because it intrigued me, partially because it was easy (we were coming back from camping that day) and partially because you could stuff them with ice cream and we had a 1/4 tub of vanilla in the freezer just taking up space.

The hardest thing about this recipe was making the “pretzel flour” in the food processor, only because getting the thing together so it will run without some practice is tricky. She had some help with that and stuffing the sandwiches.

As you can see, they were a hit.

I can’t wait to see what she comes up with the rest of summer! And maybe next summer she can start making dinner!!

June 6, 2016

We’re on Lake Time

We got out of town Thursday night and headed Jackson Lake. It’s a nice state park about 90 minutes from our house. It’s also in the opposite way from most of the traffic, so it really is 90 minutes.

Though much of it lacks shade, we got a great loop to setup on and had decent shade. The first night, we setup, got the kids to bed and did some camp fire hanging.

Friday was the beach day. I got to paddle board …

and the kids got to swim.

I’d say they had a pretty good time (this might be my new favorite pic of Ben – look at those freckles!!) …

… even this big girl who’s getting way too sassy.;)

… and especially this old man dog, who got naps and shade and pets and walks and illicit foodstuffs and a dip in the lake.

May 24, 2016

Scouts and Hiking and Denver!

We had a wonderfully full weekend (again).

We got things started off right by hosting a couple of our closest family friends (friend families?) for dinner and the planning of our EPIC road trip, scheduled for August. Matt cooked jerk chicken. We drank mint juleps and wine. The guys played around in the shop, the kids watched a movie and the ladies took a long walk around the ‘hood.

Matt and I got up earlyish on Saturday and took a run around our neighborhood. With views like this, even an early morning run is pretty awesome.

We met this little guy (probably 6″ long) on the trail. He was still cold and immobile in the shade and I was fine with that.

After our run, the kids headed to karate. They had to make up the lesson they missed Thursday while we were at the school art show and anniversary celebration. They’re both doing great and Ben is ready to test for his purple belt!!

Following karate, Matt and Ben went to see a man about a new tool for the shop and Tabby and I went on to event #2 of the day – Girl Scout field trip to the animal shelter! I don’t think Tabby could have picked a better field trip.

I of course, was inundated with requests to take home a new pet, particularly a cat. As I am severely allergic, saying no was easy. Though Tabby did meet this guy and even I had to agree he was pretty awesome. His name is boss and he’s about 2 years old and he’s the biggest love bug. All he wants to do is snuggle and is practically climbing out of the cage to do so with everyone who passes. Ahh well. I know he’ll find a good home.

After the shelter tour, we went home and had lunch and after that, we headed off to Ben’s Cub Scout bike rodeo where I took (somehow) 0 pictures. What’s up with that?

We went back home for the second shower of the day and headed off to my cousin’s graduation party where I again took 0 photos. Seriously, what’s up with that??

Sunday I got up and went to the store while Matt worked on our picnic lunch that we took when we went hiking with friends. We hadn’t hiked at Red Rocks before (just gone to concerts and movies) and it was a fun place to hike! The kids were minimally cranky and kept asking us for math problems the whole hike. Ben is doing multiplication very well and Tabby has advanced to solving some pretty good equations (3x²-8=40).

The trail was particularly fun for the kids because there were some neat nooks and crannies to crawl up into (see first pic above).

Our old man dog had a nice hike too, but he does show his age. Lots of huffing and puffing and a little limping at the end.

We had just a little free time between the hike and heading to my dad’s house for dinner. He made us ribs and potatoes and corn on the cob, plus a rum cake to celebrate Matt and Ben’s birthdays (belatedly).

Who could ask for anything more?

May 20, 2016August 29, 2016

Family Meeting

A few weeks ago, I told Matt that I wanted to start having regular family meetings. I said I wanted to have an agenda and a family credo and snacks. This is exactly the variety of corny/cheesy stuff that Matt instinctively rolls his eyes at and internally GROANS. We’ve both been through way too many corporate team-building sessions with mission statements to be wary of this sort of thing and I get it. But to his credit, he heard me out.

I made the following argument: The kids are getting older. School, activities, friends, devices, etc. are encroaching more on our nuclear family and while that’s not wholly bad, it’s important that we are deliberate about protecting family time. We need to also be deliberate about communicating what values, activities, lessons, etc. are important to us and teaching the kids a few things. To his credit, he saw what a fabulously great idea it was and got on board. 😉

Continue reading “Family Meeting”

March 7, 2016

Tabby Turns 9!

Miss Tabby had a crazy good birthday. I’ll skip the drama about how I can’t believe she’s 9 (I can’t!) and tell you all about her big days.

Friday was the official birthday. She got to open a couple of presents before school – the ones her grandparents in Nashville sent and then it was off to school. She likes school anyhow, but she totally lucked out – they had a field trip at school and not just to any old museum or park, but to the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory! Tabby loves tea almost as much as I do and this was, of course, a perfect birthday trip for her.

She had a friend come home with her after school. When she got home, we let her open our gift to her. We’d already given her her major gift a bit early (a watch) and so she just had a couple random fun little things …

… Rey’s Story, some washi tape (she’s a bit obsessed with this), a 3-lb bag of gummy bears, some new earrings, and some $$ to spend on a movie for her sleepover and some new graphic novels for her kindle.

Within a couple of hours, 3 more friends arrived to play. Matt picked up Thai food and though none of her friends had eaten pad thai before, they all tried it and 2 of 4 liked it and wanted more. I had buttered noodles for the others and for Ben, who used to like it but now claims he doesn’t (whatever).

They ran off to play again after dinner and we cleaned up and got ready for stage 2 – cake. I had undertaken the crazy Momofuku Milk Bar Funfetti Cake and it was in the fridge, ready to go.

This cake is ridiculously fixy with many pieces and many steps and even odd ingredients I had to order off the internets like clear vanilla extract and glucose. But, honestly, it was really darn good. My biggest beef with the cake is that it was very tall and only 6″ in diameter, so it was kind of hard to divvy up in a pretty way. Oh well.

Everyone enjoyed it though no one could finish their piece. With kids, that’s saying something!

After cake, Tabby opened her presents. She got nice gifts from all her friends – Shopkins, a hedgehog love tshirt and a couple of craft kits.

The last act of the evening was watching Mary Poppins (Tabby’s choice) on the back porch with her friends. The weather was pretty nice and we ran the fireplace to keep the chill off. They got to have popcorn and root beer and, of course, gummy bears.

I was exhausted and went to bed around 10:30 but most of the girls were up ’til around 12:30 (oy) and then up by 6 (double oy).

I finally got up around 8 and we made them crepes (a huge hit) and let them play until around 10 when I’d deemed it be official pickup time.

Tabby got a reprisal with Papa and Gaga on Sunday night but aside from the cake picture (first one in this post), I was too exhausted to remember to take any other shots. It’s what happens when you run 7 miles, hike 2.5 more and generally get too little sleep over a weekend. But I think it’s safe to say that Tabby’s 9th birthday was an unqualified success.

January 11, 2016

2015 in Review

2015 was in many ways an excellent year for me and mine. The second full year following Mom’s death had it’s own pitfalls and moments of sorrow, but it went on and was definitely more happy than sad.

Family

We soaked up lots of family time, skiing, hiking, camping, backpacking, cooking, walking, reading, playing and just hanging together. It’s odd – I thought things might get quieter as the kids got older – I think because I thought they’d take less of my time to manage, and they do! – but we do so much more together.

Tabby is turning into a young lady right before our very eyes. She’s worked hard at school and at home and generally has a great attitude and work ethic. She reads like it’s breathing and impresses me constantly with her artistic abilities and insights. She got her ears pierced over Christmas break after working hard for this all semester, and it makes her look even more grown up. She’s enjoying learning piano and getting pretty good and has fun with karate and swimming.

Benji is still our darling little guy. I’m so glad he’s not too big or cool to give me lots of hugs and kisses and snuggles. School can be a struggle for him with all the requirements to sit down and concentrate, but he does well academically and we’re grateful for that. At home he’s a huge ball of energy. He spends his freetime building either with legos or in Minecraft. We’ve also gotten him interested in running on the treadmill and we’re hoping to help him beat some winter blahs that way (fully supervised of course). He’s a force to be reckoned with on the slopes and so so much fun. He also had a major puncture this year, but it was of the unscheduled variety – he had his finger slammed and badly injured in a door at school and a few hours at the emergency room later and minus a fingernail, he is much improved.

Matt and I are doing our usual balancing act, making sure everyone’s fed, bills are paid and the house doesn’t look like too much of a disaster zone. We bought a second treadmill on a crazy sale in early December so we can workout together in the evenings … important because we’re training for another half marathon in April! We sneak away just the two of us whenever we can manage it – date nights when dad takes the kids or sometimes a day off when the kids are at school and occasionally, we hire a sitter to watch the kids so we can go for a run or a bike ride. It’s a nice little luxury.

Work

Matt took on a new and extended role about halfway through 2015 and it’s making him happy and keeping him busy! He goes to the office about once a week and traveling more (none of us loves this, but it’s good for him and his career).

Work has been going great for me as well. I work long hours sometimes, but usually it’s very manageable. We’ve picked up a ton of work this year and really gotten our “hit rates” up – that’s marketing speak for how often we win work. Some of it is the improving economy, I’m sure, but I fancy that some of it has to do with some cool new things we’ve been doing. Cheeeeeers!

Travel

It was a fun travel year. The coolest trip we took, was probably the surprise trip we took in May! It deserves its own post (which it never got), but I won (!!) a trip to San Francisco to go to MakerFaire! So Matt and I took off while my dad watched the kids and we flew to CA and did it up right! It was a blast!

We also had a few ski trips throughout the winter and filled up the summer with camping trips and our first ever family backpacking trip.

Our longest trip was from Denver to Nashville, with some stops along the way. We pulled the pop-up to Missouri and dropped it off at my mom’s cousin’s house. Then we went onto Nashville, spent a few days there, including a great trip to Mammoth Cave in KY, and then picked it up, took it to family reunion and came home. Exhausting, but wonderful!

We finished off the year with an amazing trip to Big Sky, Montana over Christmas to ski!

Home Improvement

We did lots of little projects around the house throughout the year. We organized our laundry room and some kitchen drawers. We did a bunch of yard work. We planted a garden.

But probably the biggest project of the year finished up right before Christmas when Matt installed our new barn door!!! He and a family friend worked for HOURS on it and it turned out so amazing. And trust me, it’s even better in person.

There are probably another load of things I could and maybe should talk about, but those are some of the highlights. It was a good year.