September so far

Oy. Apparently I haven't posted anything at all this month. Sorry! Guess it's time for some catching up...

1. Adjusting. Some of September has been about adjusting back to being a household of three now that Asher and Micah are back at their respective colleges. That's meant things like less laundry and more food being available, lol.

Simultaneously, Asher and Micah have been adjusting to their new schedules. Asher's got 17 credits this semester and is taking on more responsibilities with the UNC PE club. They have some fundraisers in the works and Asher will be going to a big convention in Denver specifically for physical education people next month. He's also still very much enjoying the UNC Taekwondo club. They've added new members this year, doubling their numbers, and have some events coming up, too. He's also working this month on finalizing his full admission to the Professional Teacher Education Program at UNC, which involves a decent amount of paperwork and is a requirement in his journey to becoming a PE teacher. Also, Asher and his three new roommates seem to be getting along just fine, he continues to ride his OneWheel to get around campus, and he comes home on the weekends. (He's not doing Karate West demo team any more but volunteered, along with another former member, to lead a practice earlier this month to help the new members with their combat fighting choreography. They may do more of that.)

Micah's gotten himself two part time jobs (at the Boulder Escape Room on the weekends and on campus at the biotechnology building on weekday mornings), is taking 15 credits, and continues to help lead the CU Taekwondo club. Yup, he's busy. :) He'll finish his BA in May and is now looking at applying to graduate programs. He's been meeting with advisors and seeking input from those in the field. He's doing a great job of juggling everything and is thoroughly enjoying college life. He and his two roommates are doing well so far with home life--cooking for themselves, paying bills, tackling maintenance, and whatnot. He's going to concerts, shopping, climbing, and everything else. He seems pretty happy. :)

2. Chilling. Amid all of that, life for me has been fairly chill. Mostly, I've been helping to make sure everyone else is getting what they need...plenty of paperwork and errands and listening. 

This picture is of my fun little robot tea infuser. I feel like he exemplifies "chilling" pretty well, lol. (Nathan was gifted some delicious oolong loose leaf tea and I've taken it. Given the steeping instructions, I dug out my little robot and it works perfectly.) When he's not in the tea glass, I let him hang out in the little white dish...and I think it looks like he's chilling in a little tub.

3. Medical stuff. I mentioned before that Micah switched treatment plans for his arthritis. Some of what I've been doing has been getting that all sorted. The new plan involves deliveries in these "critical" boxes that require opening "immediately" and refrigerating. (That's why we're having them delivered here rather than to Micah in Boulder...since I can be home to receive them but Micah and his roommates aren't reliably home, given class and work schedules.)

So far the weekly self-injections have been working well, and Micah feels considerably better than he did at the end of the summer. Yay!!

Beyond that, Micah also had a laser eye surgery earlier this week to repair a hole in his left retina. Seems to have gone well, though I suppose we won't really know for sure until his follow up appointment in December? In any case, the procedure went smoothly and he's doing well. Plus, we got to spend some time with him while collecting him from Boulder the night before the procedure and then driving him back down in the afternoon after the surgery. (By the way, Micah was far and away the youngest person at the eye center, lol. I'd not really thought about it before but apparently it's mostly older people who need eye surgery?)

4. Boot camp in Old Town. Last week (Wednesday), one of the guys in boot camp was the speaker for a Ram Talk in Old Town. George is an elephant expert and professor at CSU and spoke about what we can learn from elephant language. It was honestly fascinating! Knowing that he'd be talking, the rest of us at boot camp (aside from the three who were out of town that week) all went to offer our support. (There was discussion about heckling, but we were good, lol.)

We all sat together and enjoyed the event! (George is the one standing with his picture on the screen behind him, lol.) If you're local, there are a number of additional Ram Talks scheduled and the event space is fabulous. I'd highly recommend attending, even though George won't be speaking again.

5. Conference in AZ. While I was doing that, Nathan was at a conference for work. It was pretty swanky...at the Four Seasons in Scottsdale. Nathan enjoyed the scenery...opted for the morning hike as his chosen conference activity...and even managed to get together with a friend and his family while he was there. 

6. Filipino Community Hall National Historic Site. Many decades ago (more than 70 years ago), my mom's dad (who immigrated to the US as a teen) was a leader in his local Filipino-American community in the Yakima Valley in Washington state. He helped found the Filipino Community Hall in Wapato, the first Filipino hall built in the west. This year, the hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places! They're having a big celebration next month and putting together a commemorative book. Given the family significance and the years of memories we have there, my mom wanted to put together a full page ad for the book. I helped with that while Nathan was out of town. Here's how it turned out:

(It's nothing particularly fancy...just featuring family. :) The hardest part was gathering all the photos, lol.)

7. New tree. And while Nathan was still in Arizona, I oversaw the planting of the new tree we purchased last month. You may remember that we planted a new tree a couple years ago (see the top middle photo below). We got a 5 gallon skyline honeylocust through a city program and planted it ourselves. It made it through the first winter but sadly perished last winter due to the extreme cold. 

So. This time we opted for a 20 gallon tree through the Fort Collins Nursery and had them plant it for us. It's an Espresso Kentucky Coffee tree, which is similar to the honeylocust but felt like it had a bit more character to us. Rob & Thomas did a great job of amending the soil and planting the tree and fertilizing and staking it. They also left me with clear instructions for its care and high hopes.

8. Raccoons. Last weekend, while Nathan, Noah, Asher and I were playing a board game in the kitchen, we were visited by FOUR raccoons. They were quite curious about us and can clearly tell that Nathan feeds the squirrels right there. On that particular day, the squirrels hadn't finished off the day's last pile of walnuts and the first raccoon got a nice little treat. (He didn't share with the others.) 

Don't worry. We didn't put out any additional walnuts. :)

9. Date lunch. And, yes, Nathan and I still go out for date lunch every other week or so. Yesterday, we enjoyed lunch and hard ciders at Locust in Old Town, walked over to The Exchange for ice cream, and then wandered across the street to the new Fort Collins mural.

So. I think that's most of what's been going on in September with us. Whew. It's strangely warm and summery here right now. It's a little confusing but okay with me. Also, I'm in the middle of reorganizing my office...which has been quite the project. (More on that later.) 

I'll do better about posting in October. :) Have a wonderful weekend!

First Day Pictures

Hooray! My beautiful younger sons both sent me first day of school pictures earlier today on their way to their first classes of the year. 

Here's Asher this morning:

Asher's starting his second year at UNC and will have one more after this. He's still pretty happy with his major (Sport & Exercise Science: Physical Education K-12 Teaching), is the treasurer for the UNC PE Club, and is looking forward to another year with the UNC Taekwondo Club. He's living in the same dorm but with three new roommates. 

And here's Micah around lunch time (his classes are all after noon):

Micah's starting his second year at CU Boulder. He's on track to finish his BA in Philosophy in May thanks to all of his college credits during high school. He's considering pursing his Masters after this, though, so it may not be his last year at CU. He's the vice-president of the CU Taekwondo Club, has already been out climbing with friends (and hopes to do more of that this year), and is enjoying living in his rental house with two taekwondo teammates. 

So far, accounts from both boys are good. They enjoyed their first classes and seem excited about the semester. Here's to a fantastic year!

Summer break is here

So, summer break officially started here last week. Last Tuesday, I moved Micah home from the dorms at CU. Despite his migraine issues (which thankfully appear to be done now that he's home), he finished the semester strong. He did not, though, do any packing before I showed up, lol...

Unlike with Asher, an evening check out time was not an option, so I was the only one available to go move Micah. (Asher resumed his YMCA after school job till the end of that school district's academic year so was also not available.) We got some lunch then started on the packing. Fortunately, Micah had a great number of varying bags to pack things into and the dorm had wheeled carts available that we could load up with stuff and push to the van. It took us just under three hours but we got everything packed up, loaded out and cleaned. Very thankful for those carts and for still having a mini-van (that currently only has one of the middle captain's chairs in it to create more cargo space in the main cabin). I don't think we could have fit everything otherwise, lol.  

Incidentally, Micah had a lot of stuff. Whoa. I really didn't think it would be so much. We moved him down there with just one mini-van load and he hadn't had a car all year to bring more back with him. Except that he did, lol. It seems that on infusion weekends he took back a bag here and a bag there. He ended up with a lot of bags...of sparring gear, climbing gear, extra gear, etc. But. We got it all in the van. Whew, all good. :) 

And, when we got home, Nathan and Noah were ready and waiting to help unload everything...yay! The front room got full again...

The first picture is after Asher's unload and the second one is after Micah's. Yup, very thankful that our front room is usually mostly empty so that there's room to pile stuff temporarily.

After unloading Micah and once Asher got home from work, we had dinner and then enjoyed some family game time. We had a great time with some CodeNames and then Noah found an online game of connecting two actors through their movies and other actors. Noah, Micah and I had a lot of fun with that one. :)

Since then, we've had conversations about summer expectations...Micah's been down to Children's (that'll be for another post)...Asher and Noah have been working...friends have been hung out with...Micah's managed to put away and/or store everything so that the front room is empty again...and plenty of other tasks and paperwork and such have been tackled. And now we're settling into our summer and adjusting to how to live altogether again. Whew.

Thankful Thursday

Happy start of May! Today's list, working backward in time a bit...I'm thankful for...

1. Finishing up at UNC for the academic year. So, tomorrow is technically the end of the spring semester for UNC, but Asher's last final exam was on Tuesday. Given that students were required to move out of the dorms within 24 hours of their last final and given that I wanted Nathan and Noah to be available to help, we moved Asher home Tuesday night. Wow, he had a lot of stuff, lol.

The top right photo is a look at the last two loads staged in the common area just outside of Asher's dorm room. The bottom right photo is our front room yesterday...keeping in mind that Asher had already taken a few things up to his bedroom, the mini fridge isn't in this photo, and the large standing desk was still in the back of the car at this point. (For what it's worth, Asher brought home a load of things the weekend before and then we had both our minivan and the SUV Asher drives to bring back everything Tuesday night.)

So, yes, very thankful that we had extra people to pack Asher out (particularly given that Asher's still recovering from his sprained ankle and since his room is on the third floor and a decent walk from the elevators).

I'm happy to report that the mini fridge is the only thing still left in the front room today! (Had to clear the room before we move Micah home next week, lol.) Asher and I spent yesterday clearing stuff out of his bedroom and sorting things before finding a place for everything (in his room, back in his car, in the guest room, etc). Yay!  

Thankful, then, for a successful move home...that Asher finished out the semester strong and is still very happy with UNC...and, oh!, for the incredibly fun shopping spree the four of us had using up most of the remaining money on Asher's dining plan at the convenience store in the student union building after we'd loaded everything up on Tuesday. :)

2. Micah's eye health. Last week, Micah started having issues with migraines. He's never had them before. On Friday, he finally went to Urgent Care to see if they could help. He was thoroughly unimpressed by their "help" (to be fair, they're maybe inundated with college students right now...still, they didn't really do much other than to tell him what he already knew and had been doing). But. In preparing to go to Urgent Care, Micah had been looking up whether his arthritis meds would prevent him from taking migraine meds. This prompted some back and forth communication with his rheumatologist's office and concern over his eye health, as apparently sometimes his arthritis can lead to eye inflammation that would present as persistent headache and could be rather bad news (leading to things like vision loss).

There was enough concern and potential downside that Nathan and I ended up driving the hour down to Boulder on Saturday, picking Micah up, driving back up here to have him seen at our optometrists' office (very thankful that one of them was able/willing to come in for an emergency visit on a Saturday!!) who have been monitoring for that since his arthritis diagnosis already, and then taking him back to Boulder. (Thankful, too, that our sons ended up close to home, as it's made dealing with health issues considerably easier than if they were out of state for college.)

Fortunately, after all that, Micah's eye health is excellent. Whew. Great and appreciated news, but we still haven't figured out what's causing the migraines. Since Micah has finals and final papers this week and next and since he's already tried Urgent Care and has ruled out possible eye health issues, the current plan is for Micah to just power through until he's done with the semester and then talk more with his rheumatologist at a previously scheduled routine appointment at the end of next week. Ugh. As of last night, though, Micah says he's starting to feel a bit better.

3. Not having a commute. With all of the driving lately back and forth to both UNC and CU, Nathan and I are thankful to not have commutes. Truly.

4. A good rain. Last Friday and Saturday brought a good spring rain. While I dislike the grey of it, I'll be thankful for the precipitation and how it's helped in turning things from brown to green around here.

5. Not having seasonal allergies. With everything turning green, I'm very thankful that I don't suffer from seasonal allergies. Nathan and Micah aren't as fond of everything turning green and have been battling allergies the last month or so. For Nathan, at least his allergies here haven't been as bad as when we lived in Eugene or in Durham. (It was pretty horrible for him from April to July...he was wearing masks when outdoors.) This year has been worse than others, though...enough to get Nathan to try other allergy meds. Thank goodness for Allegra, as it seems to be doing a better job than the Claritin he'd taken before. 

Okay, that's a good list for now. So much to be thankful for!

NCTA Nationals

So, last weekend was NCTA (National Collegiate Taekwondo Association) Nationals at UC Berkeley. Both Micah and Asher's college taekwondo clubs sent teams. Nathan and I flew out and cheered them on. :) 

The tournament, itself, ran Friday thru Sunday, but Asher and Micah only competed on Saturday so we only attended on Saturday. The day started with the demo team competition. CU Boulder went first...

Yes, more than once, they throw Micah in the air so he can break boards. The team did a great job and ended up placing fourth.

Next up was board breaking competition. Competitors had three minutes to break up to 8 boards and were scored based on technical difficulty and presentation. All four members of UNC's team competed in their respective divisions (based on belt and gender) and did a fabulous job. Here's Asher...

He took home the silver!

And then both Micah and Asher competed in sparring. For various reasons (having to do with official/school recognition or something), neither competed as a black belt. Micah (in red in the top two pictures) won his first match but lost his second...

...and Asher (in the blue in the bottom two pictures) didn't make it past his first match. Both boys lost to the person who ultimately won their bracket. It's not the style of sparring either of them grew up with (scoring is different) and we were so proud of their efforts. (Also, quick shoutout to the CU Boulder team for helping out the UNC team! UNC doesn't practice this sparring style nearly as often and didn't have everything they needed. CU helped them borrow enough gear and provided a coach for each of their matches while at the tournament.)

So, that was Saturday. Perhaps more importantly, though, both teams had a great experience together! UNC's team made the 20 hour road trip from Greeley to San Francisco (the three pictures on the left)...brought home three medals in board breaking (each of the four competed in both board breaking and sparring)...and had a blast hanging out in San Francisco--practicing on the beach, riding the cable cars, visiting Chinatown, etc. 

(The rest of the pictures in this post were taken from the clubs' Instagram accounts.)

CU's team flew about 50 team members to San Francisco and then spent pretty much all of their time shuttling between their hotel in Oakland and UC Berkeley...cheering on each other and all the other Colorado teams all three days of the tournament...

I'm unclear on the reasoning but apparently the tournament awarded fourth place finishers (in events other than sparring??) bronze medals alongside the third place finishers...hence the bottom left photo. And that last photo is part of a video highlighting how so many of the CU members lost their voices from all of their yelling at the tournament, lol. 

Many thanks to all who helped either or both of our boys get to Nationals! So thankful they were able to have this experience!

I'll be back later with the rest of our trip...