Anniversary

By the way...amid everything else that's going on, on Saturday Nathan and I celebrated the 28th anniversary of the day we met. Yup, we met on Pi Day (March 14) and are still pretty happy about it. :) Despite the grey, chilly weather, we enjoyed a nice, quiet dinner out. We went early to avoid crowds, took advantage of a Fort Collins' Great Plates special, and made our donation to the local food bank (which we're sure will need more help in the coming days). The necklace I wore shows the moon on the day we met. (Nathan gifted it to me a couple Thanksgivings ago.)  

And, in case you were wondering, this is what we looked like 28 years ago...

(This was taken less than a month after we met. We were younger than both Noah and Asher are now. Oy.)

Weekend review

Things that happened over the weekend...

1. Micah participated in his second climbing comp of the sport season. It was at Ascent (where he climbs multiple times a week). He climbed really well and is quite happy with his performance...and thoroughly enjoyed the time with his teammates.

I like how the bottom middle picture looks like he's scaling a mountain. ;)

2. While Micah was doing that, Asher had a practice SAT as part of his SAT prep class. He wasn't thrilled but did continue to improve on his score. (They graded them in class yesterday so he already has his results.)

3. On Sunday, Noah came home for a bit and we tried a new game, Codenames. It was fun! 

4. Also on Sunday, Nathan picked up this lovely bouquet for me...

Isn't it beautiful? :)

5. And on Sunday my grandma (who will be 99 this summer) was transferred from the hospital in the Tri-Cities to a rehab area in Prosser. Last week, she fell outside and broke her hip. Fortunately, she was actually wearing her Life Alert necklace for a change and the medics came and got her to the hospital. My mom got her transferred up to the Tri-Cities hospital for the hip replacement surgery, which went surprisingly well. And now she's recovering back in Prosser...though apparently she's being stubborn and not cooperating well. So, please keep her in your thoughts, as she's due to be there for at least a couple weeks. 

And that was our weekend. :) 

Over the weekend(ish)

Oops. Meant to post earlier this week. ;P Just some of what's going on around here...

1. Deanna and I enjoyed a much needed catching up lunch and then dropped off our ballots on Saturday. Hooray for voting! (and crazy that we each had three ballots to drop off, as we both have two boys voting now)

2. Nathan hung these wires for me in the hallway. We had one already with our pictures from our Europe trip (before that, we'd used it to hang boys' artwork) and decided to add a couple more for our east coast trip and our trip to Belize. Hoping to keep adding wires as we travel more! (Such a nice, easy and relatively inexpensive way to showcase pictures! Wires and clips are from IKEA...same as we used in each boy's bedroom. Photos are just 5x7 prints.)

3. Micah got new climbing shoes on Monday. His last pair made it about five months but has holes worn in the toes (from how often they get used, lol) so needed to be replaced. :) He stuck with the same brand but switched models and is happy.

4. Nathan and I participated in Fort Collins' Great Plates of Downtown program for the first time earlier this week for our regular date night. We tried a restaurant we hadn't been to before (The Regional) and had a truly fabulous meal! We're hoping to try another restaurant or two before this year's program is over.

Not much else to report here. A bit sad that I didn't get any leaping photos on leap day (here's 2008, 2012 and 2016) and still coming to terms with the fact that it's March already but otherwise good. :) 

Sport Season

On Saturday, Micah competed in the first local competition of the rock climbing sport season. 

(In the fall, they did bouldering. Now they're competing in sport season...which means ropes. For this local comp, participants were allowed to do either top rope or lead (though some were only available as lead). By the end of the season, for regionals, though, Micah's age group must climb lead I think.)

So, the first local comp was down in Boulder at a terrific facility. Nathan, Micah and I drove down and got settled...climbers warmed up and then met with the head judge for a quick word...

(About half of the competitors climbed in the morning wave. This was the afternoon wave.)

...and then they had three hours to climb. Twenty four routes were set up for climbers to attempt. Each was assigned a number/point value...harder routes had higher numbers. At the end of the set time, a climber's top three completed routes were added up to create his/her score. 

Micah only attempted one lead climb (top left photo), since he wasn't feeling confident with that quite yet (as he's only been lead climbing for a week, lol). Lines took awhile so there was a fair amount of down time, but Micah had a good time with his teammates (not too many since it's the first of the season and since all the girls ended up assigned to the morning wave) and did some decent climbing. He's glad to have the experience to build on going into the rest of the season and is looking forward to the local comp at his home gym in a couple weeks. For our part, Nathan and I just truly enjoy watching all the kids and are so impressed by the skills and tenacity. 

Still here...just behind on sharing...

Realizing that I'm a bit behind on just sharing what's been going on around here. Let's see...mostly, we've just been up to our normal stuff--

• school for boys,
• climbing and karate for Micah (the new ropes season started for climbing and his first local competition will be this weekend),
• parkour and karate for Asher,
• college for Noah,
• work for Nathan,
• starting some weight lifting/training at home for Micah and Nathan,
• boot camp and climbing (and shoveling ridiculous snow) for me, and
• date nights for Nathan and me.

Beyond all that, here are a few other highlights...

1. At the end of January, Nathan and I attended Fort Collins' State of the City program. Rather than going to the in-person presentation again (which had been our plan), we opted at the last minute to go to one of the official viewing parties...and thoroughly enjoyed our time at Prost Brewing...

(Yeah, I had fun playing with the photo...and we may need to pick up some Prost pint glasses (and little letter "b" stickers), lol.) As for the State of the City...so happy to live here. 

2. Also at the end of January, Asher and Micah performed with the Karate West demo team during one of the monthly promotions. Given the time of year (and how dark it was outside), they busted out the glo-chuks. 

(It's tough to get decent pictures but this one turned out pretty well.) The next day, the demo team also performed at the winter Black Belt promotion. (Karate West has Black Belt testing twice each year...more on that in a minute.)

3. We're officially a four ballot family. Whoa. We recently learned that since Asher will turn 18 before the November election, he's allowed to vote in the primary. He officially registered to vote, then, and voila...

Wow, right? 

4. As if Asher voting wasn't enough to remind us of the passage of time, we're fully busy with college visits. We visited the University of Wyoming last fall and hit the Discover CSU day earlier this week...

And Asher and I have four more campus visits scheduled for over spring break...looking forward to the road trip!

5. And yesterday Micah got the official invite to test for 2nd Degree Black Belt at Karate West! Like Asher did last year, Micah will prep and train starting probably next month and will then have progress checks in May and June and a full week of testing in July before the promotion at the end of July. Yay!