Seventeen

Micah turned 17 yesterday. Yup, my baby is seventeen. I'm having file storage issues at the moment so can't include more pictures...so please see last year's post for previous height comparison photos. Here are this year's...

Unlike in past years, everyone was wearing shoes of differing heights, so it's not totally accurate but you get the picture, lol. The boys are all roughly the same height (within an inch or less altogether)...Nathan remains the tallest...I remain the shortest. :) (That bottom left photo was me trying to stand on tip toe and Micah pushing me back down.)

And here are some birthday photos of the boy...

Clockwise from the top: Micah was a bit grumpier in the morning so I didn't get many shots...Micah when I said to take a picture...Micah picking berries off his cake...Micah enjoying steamed bao at Chopstickers, where he'd wanted to go for his birthday dinner.

And I got a picture of us with the boy...

So. Micah's definitely grown up more this past year...

1. School: Micah finished his junior year with a mix of in-person and online classes at CEC, Front Range and home. He took ACTs and SATs and started looking at colleges. He's looking forward to his senior year and more college visits.

2. Work: He's fairly industrious...has gotten himself a couple different jobs (solar sales & the UPS Store) and explored at least a couple different business opportunities/plans on his own. 

3. Health: Fortunately, he's had his juvenile idiopathic arthritis under control for the past year (with the exception of when he had to go off his medications each time he got Covid vaccines). Other than that and a very brief stint of mostly asymptomatic Covid at the start of 2022, he's been pretty darn healthy. (He also got his wisdom teeth out this summer without complication. Yay!)       

4. Extras: While Micah's continued with karate demo team throughout the year, he mostly concentrated on weightlifting...putting on even more muscle. He's also continued to climb on his own and finished his first Spartan Race.      

5. Other: Beyond all of that, he's volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, watched lots of anime and read lots of manga, done a road trip with Asher and friends, attended prom, and just generally had a good time.    

And now he's gearing up for his senior year. I'm sure it will be quite the ride. :) Happy birthday, my boy!

Thankful Thursday

Hi all! How is it almost the end of July already?! It's sneaky like that, lol. So. Things I'm thankful for this week...

1. Physical bookstores. On Monday, I found myself in 2nd & Charles. (For those who don't know, it's a fun store with new and used books and memorabilia.) I wandered around and went home happily with nine new-to-me books. Generally, I utilize my awesome library and have really been working on not buying books (and thereby limiting the amount of "stuff" I have). But. All of the books I bought Monday were either on clearance or discounted because they were used. (Most of them were only $1 each!!)

Anyhow, two of them I was actually specifically looking for (and was incredibly proud of myself for finding them in the less than organized "system" of 2nd & Charles). The rest found me. It was so much fun to just wander and let the books "speak" to me. I haven't been reading as much as usual this summer so hopefully this is the spark I need to get going again. :)

2. My gram. On Tuesday, my gram (my mom's mom) turned 101. Folks, I tell you, she's going to outlive us all. We didn't manage another big party like last year but I'm so thankful for her for bringing my mom into this world. I also have fond--eclectic--childhood memories of her...watching cartoons with the volume cranked up high, reading stacks of The Enquirer, teaching me to crochet, constantly taking in wild stray cats, loving her tiny black dog named Tiny, always having raspberry thumbprint oatmeal cookies, trying to get me to eat liver and onions with her, making her snapdragons "talk" to me, telling me stories from the Great Depression, and much more. If you stop and think about all that she's lived through, it's pretty amazing. Hoping she had a lovely birthday!

3. These ladies. Wednesday, I met up with five dear friends for drinks and dinner. We all met years ago when we were homeschooling our rag tag group of kiddos. None of us is still homeschooling (as of next month, officially) and it was fabulous to catch up...  

Unfortunately, I didn't remember to get a photo until Shawn had already left. :( But. Deanna had this picture that has Shawn, me, April and Deanna from Deanna's wedding reception earlier this month. We all did some catching up then, too. (April also homeschooled with us but hadn't been able to make it on Wednesday.) So pretend that the pictures are combined. :)

Thankful for these women and the fact that we remain friends even as our kids have grown up and gone their separate ways.

4. Selling Daichi. Earlier today, after more than a month of having it listed, we sold Daichi...our 2006 Nissan Xterra that we acquired last summer. It turned out to need more work than we were willing to pay for, but we managed to sell it to a mechanic who seemed to know just what to do. Whew. Looking forward to having one less vehicle to insure, even if it means more coordination will be needed. (Fortunately, we rarely need all the vehicles at once anyhow.)

And that's my list for now. I'll probably have another couple posts before the month is over...

Catching up...

Okay. It's been a minute. :) Since last I posted, here's what's been going on here:

1. The Rio. Deanna and I love lunching at The Rio in Old Town. Last summer, they had a kitchen fire and had to close. They've finally been able to reopen and we were finally able to go enjoy their patio on July 9. It was lovely!

2. AC repair. The next day (Sunday), our AC died. Of course it did. It's been hot here pretty much all month and with boys bedrooms being west-facing and upstairs, our house gets unevenly too hot. So. We went ahead and paid the weekend rate but were able to get a repair guy out to replace the capacitor on the compressor that afternoon. Very thankful that he was available and that it was a relatively easy fix that didn't require replacing the whole system. 

3. Deanna's wedding. That week was spent getting little details in order, and then on Saturday, July 16, Deanna & Nic got married! Having had to postpone their original April date due to covid, it was much anticipated. I helped with coordinating and decorating and am just so happy for them both. The weather thankfully cooperated beautifully (overcast...cooler than the 90s and 100s before and after it...scattered showers to keep things fresh before some evening sun). 

The ceremony and celebration was at Primrose Studio, which is a gem of a venue! (Seriously awesome. If you need a venue and have questions, I'm happy to talk with you.) The gathering there was smaller due to the occupancy limit, and it was beautiful. Here's Deanna and me along the path to the lake that her dad walked her down for the ceremony: 

Following that, there was a reception at Deanna & Nic's with cake and drinks...more laid back and more people. All the family and friends pitched in wonderfully so that everything ran smoothly at both places. iPhone photography is fabulous and means there are plenty of pictures. And I miraculously managed to not get any mosquito bites during the reception!

4. Thor. The next day, all five of us went to enjoy the morning showing of Thor: Love & Thunder. It was hilarious! We grabbed some lunch after that and enjoyed a quiet day at home together. Yay!

5. Asher's not broken. Backing up for a minute, the Friday before Deanna's wedding, during demo team practice, Asher injured his right heel. He was doing front flips and landed hard (twice). (He'd maybe gotten used to the springy floor at Mountain Kids where he teaches ninja classes...and Karate West has concrete floors with just one layer of mats over that.) Anyhow, in true Asher style, he still went and performed with the demo team the next day at the black belt promotion (at the same time as Deanna's wedding). And he went to work Monday and Tuesday. During all of that, though, he wasn't putting any weight on his right heel. Which makes things difficult given the givens.

So, on Wednesday, with him still not putting any weight on it, I took him to get x-ray'd to rule out a hairline fracture or anything. Urgent Care helped us with that (hooray for Urgent Care...Asher's been there a number of times, lol) and confirmed that nothing is broken. Whew. 

(Apparently it's just a deep bone bruise and is finally starting to feel better. I think just knowing for sure that it's not broken--so using it isn't risking making things worse--helps.)

6. Philippe's. That brings us to Thursday's date lunch...when Nathan and I remembered we have a giftcard to Philippe's and enjoyed a yummy lunch there. :) Happy sigh.

7. Fancy Bits. And then last night we were invited to a backyard band performance featuring Fancy Bits. A number of fellow boot campers were there, and it was lovely to see them in person and visit. Kicking myself for not taking a picture but many thanks to Susie for inviting us all!

And that's some of what's been going on here. Hope your July is similarly going well!

Thankful Thursday

It's Thursday! Just a quick and simple list today of things that make me happy. :)

So, after celebrating Asher's birthday last week, Asher, Nathan and I drove on Saturday to Omaha to collect the rest of Asher's things from his apartment there. It was just a quick out and back (home on Sunday night)...so a lot of driving but an easy check out. 

1. Along the drive, we stopped in Sidney, NE at the world headquarters of Cabela. I've driven past it numerous times but hadn't stopped. I was thankful that Nathan wanted to on Saturday...both because they had public restrooms, lol, and because we found cinnamon licorice which was yum. 

2. Later, we saw fireflies! Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen fireflies so we were pretty excited. Asher and I watched them dance at one of our stops and then despaired when they hit the windshield (and continued to glow for a bit) as we continued our drive. 

3. Sunday we got Asher's remaining stuff packed up, cleaned out his room and got him officially checked out. Then we enjoyed some local eats before getting back on the road. Our last stop before driving was Coneflower ice cream. I had a delicious golden milk vegan ice cream and realized that I'm really thankful that more places are offering vegan ice creams these days. I love ice cream. I'm also lactose intolerant. Generally, it doesn't stop me from enjoying ice cream anyhow...but I have to limit myself to fairly small portions or choose the sorbets instead. Since vegan ice creams don't have dairy, it's freakin' awesome to be able to enjoy more...and more flavors. :)

4. Obviously we made it home safely and all is well. I must say that our time in Omaha only reinforced my appreciation for Fort Collins road maintenance. From my time in the City Works program and from various field trips when the boys were homeschooling, I know that Fort Collins is very intentional in staying on top of road maintenance...I'm so thankful. Seriously, our roads are lovely.

5. And now we've been back to normal life around here...and sorting through the piles of things we brought back from Omaha, lol. Today, Nathan and I enjoyed our regular date lunch. We went to The Fox & The Crow...

We've loved The Fox & The Crow for quite awhile now. The meat and cheese tray above had already been partially attacked before I remembered to take a picture and was only part of our lunch. (We also shared a sandwich and a dessert.) A bit ago, it was announced that the owners were going to close to spend more time with family. It was very sad news (well, happy for the owners but sad for us). But! It was recently shared that they found a new owner who's going to take over without making any changes. Woohoo!

And that's my list for today. Just things I'm thankful for that make me happy. :)

Twenty!

My Asher turned 20 today! Fortunately, he doesn't work on Fridays and Nathan had the day off for the long weekend. So. We had a quiet morning then I tried to take some pictures...

(he used to be more cooperative, lol)...and I got one with all three brothers...

...and then we went to brunch at The Original Pancake House since Asher's favorite foods tends to be breakfast foods. It was yummy and, while we were there, one of Asher's teachers from high school came over to our table. She'd seen Asher and had to come say hi because (as she said, herself) he was one of her favorite students. (Entertainingly, she also had Micah in her classes and did acknowledge that she liked him, too, lol.)

Then we headed home and I remembered to get a picture with the birthday boy...

He opened his gifts (the bigger items from brothers and us were flight simulator related...software and the hardware to accompany it), and we had some downtime getting individual things done before coming back together to watch the last two episodes of Stranger Things. We're doing dinner momentarily and then will finish this season of Stranger Things. 

Before I get called away for that...here's my Asher over the last 20 years (pictures are from each year on or around his birthday)...

As I've mentioned already, he's going to take a year off from UNO and stay here and pursue his private pilot license and get a little more life under his belt as he contemplates the future. He's learning all sorts of things about kids in his summer job teaching ninja classes and summer camp. (At the moment, 5-8 year olds are not his favorite age group, lol.) He's happy to be back at Karate West's demo team now that he's in town again. He lets me hug him still, is fairly musical (Noah got him a strange Legends of Zelda instrument for his birthday and he's already learning songs on it), and still has a sweet tooth (Micah got him some Swedish Fish, which was a hit). That's my Asher. 

And now back to our plan for the day...not overly exciting but happily together. :)