October 2008

It has been a while since I wrote anything in the blog. I guess I have been pretty busy with work and everything else going on. Morhéa is getting bigger by the day. She is a little girl for sure. No longer our little baby! It is amazing to see her develop. Last night she was jumping on the bed singing as loud as she could. She was even free styling lyrics to songs. She was rhyming words and dancing like a superstar or the dreaded Hannah Montana. In fact most of the words she was using had to do with Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.

Morhéa started taking gymnastics again but this time we signed her up at a real gymnastics center. It is pretty cool there. They have everything a gymnast would want. They even have babysitting on Friday nights!

Halloween has been crazy and it hasn’t even come yet. I think Morhéa has been to about 4 or 5 parties or events for Halloween already. Kim is losing it because Morhéa’s Cinderella costume has to be hand washed and she seems to get very dirty at every event. She also likes to eat about half of her candy as she goes trick or treating. That results in a grumpy, hyper, tired child by the end of the day. It will all culminate with an evening of trick or treating with her two of her friends from school.

What else has happened over the past 2 months? Aunt Stephanie came out for a girls weekend in Vail. The girls had a wonderful time in the mountains and enjoyed the last days of summer. I think it was Octoberfest in Vail so there was lots to do. We also went to the circus again this year which was a big hit. Other then $15 lemonades and $12 snow cones it was a fairly cheap night out. Kimberley also ran the Denver Marathon a few weeks ago. She had great weather and did a great job.

Cousin Ellie moved out to Denver and happens to live and work around the corner. She took a job as the department head of Geology at Red Rocks Community College. It sounds like it has all of the challenges of being a teacher and then some. Lucky for her, her cousin works at the USGS and can give out tours.

I got the chance to drive to Madison, WI last week for work which also gave me the opportunity to meet baby Parker. It was a crazy 2.5 days. We started our drive from Denver at around 4:00PM on Wednesday night. Of course it started raining as soon as we left. Of coarse the rain turned to snow about 3 hours later. We had 40 mph winds with tons of snow. Lucky for is it only lasted about 2 hours and then turned back into rain. We must of hit some a plateau or something in Nebraska. We made it to Omaha that night. We got a room and a few hours of sleep before hitting the road again. We were headed to the University of Wisconsin to meet some colleagues of ours that were making a sample for us so that we can further our knowledge of the makeup of Titan (a moon of Saturn). John and I ended up giving a 2 hour presentation to faculty and students of UofW about spectroscopy and Titan. As soon as I was done I ran off to meet Jeff, Heather and Parker. We went out for Italian. Parker was an angel! It seems like so long ago that Morhéa was that small. After dinner we headed back to Jeff’s house and relaxed for the rest of the night. The next morning we left Madison and drove all the way back to Denver.

Halloween has come and gone since I started writing this and it was crazy. The girls had a blast and got tons of candy. It reminded me of when I was a kid and my grandmother’s house where we got bags full of candy. The next day was followed by gymnastics and then Morgan’s birthday party.

While we barely got out of the 50’s 2 weeks ago this past week we were in the 70’s all week. Today it got up into the high 70’s. We took the opportunity to go for a hike. It was a wonderful day. We are looking forward to the holidays. Grammy and Grandpa are coming out for Thanksgiving.

T

Welcome Parker Lande Hoefen

Welcome to the world Parker Lande Hoefen!! She is a very cute little girl. Parker was born Tuesday, August 19^th at 2:00PM. She weighed 5 lbs, 13 oz and is 17.5 inches long. Mom and Parker are now back at home and everything is going well. We are all very happy for them!!





On another note, Jeff finally gets to fulfill his life long dream of becoming a fireman. He graduates this Friday, the 22nd. You are never too old to fulfill you dreams. You have worked long and hard to get here and we are proud of you.

The Hoefen's

Fire hits too close to home!

Well, it is 7:15 pm and our house is pretty smoky but I just returned from viewing the fire on Green Mountain and I think we should be okay. Unfortunately, the smoke is still bad and we are just downwind of the active fire. They have evacuated homes about 2 blocks west of us. That is the perimeter. It is farther away then that though so we are safe. Pretty scary for a little while though! This seemed like deja vu having done this already in Southern California. This was a little too close to home. The winds were really bad earlier and I was watching the fire tear across the grass fields of Green Mountain. I hope the winds die down and then they might be able to get it under control. The picture above shows the aftermath of the fire. You can see how close we are. If that field, in the middle of the picture, had caught on fire that would have lead straight to our house! Flames were reported to be 20-30 feet at times.

It is now 9:00PM and it looks like the fire is contained. That just shows you how dry we are in Colorado this year. I think they said on the news we are 7 or 8 inches below our annual rainfall averages between January and July.

For those of us in the heath related field, I have included a picture of the smoke blowing out over the city.

Todd

Evergreen, upstate NY for the 4th of July

It has been well over a month since my last update!! I probably can’t even remember all of the things we have done. Let’s see ………. Our good friends Brian, Theresa, Ella and Sylvia moved up to Evergreen. They have a beautiful house up there with trees and all. They aren’t around the corner anymore but they are close enough to hang out with. We made a little day trip up there in late June and had a picnic on Evergreen Lake. The girls had a blast playing in the park and my buddy Brian brought his canoe so we could do some fishing. After setting up base camp Brian and I tried to bring Ella and Morhéa for a little canoe trip around the lake but Morhéa was a little scared.

Side story – Growing up in upstate NY one of my best friends, Karl, and I would go fishing every day of our summer vacations. I would ride my bike down to his house and we would fish the same stretch of a creek that ran between his and mine every day for the entire summer. We fished it so much that we would know where the fish were before they knew we were even there. We would net for minnows and spend our days looking under rocks for crayfish and then sell them for 5 cents a piece to the local bait shop. I can’t even remember when that started but we had to be around 8 or 10. Karl’s dad was also a VERY good fisherman and hunter who taught us the tricks of the trade. He had all of these really cool canoes. He had aluminum ones, plastic ones and even one he built by hand. We were never allowed to use the hand made one because we would surely sink it. When we turned 16 (and got our drivers licenses) he and I pooled our money and bought our very own canoe. Being young and athletic we opted for durability over a streamline canoe. We got a Coleman canoe. There was no stopping us after that!! We took that thing everywhere. Karl built a rack for his car and truck and we traveled near and far with that thing. Since it was durable we would take it white water canoeing. Every year we would get a warm spring day that would melt all of the winter snow we used to get back home. The temperatures might have been in the 60’s but the water would be in the high 30’s or 40’s and the creeks were several feet high. That was when we excelled!! Nothing could stop us. We would drop in with Karl in the back and me in the front. We would hit rapids, waterfalls and ice but it would never fail that we would have just made it through a fast rapid and as we rounded a bend at top speed that a tree branch that used to be 3 feet over our heads would now be just clearing the canoe. I could always bail back into the canoe but we always seemed to end up with Karl taking one in the chest and both of us ending up in the water and into the 30 something degree water!! We would both swim to shore and get out cold as a salmon in Alaska. We would stay there long enough to look at each other, then the canoe (which was both sinking and floating away) and then have to dive back into the water and save our canoe!! It was worth it though. We brought our canoe everywhere. We brought it to our creek, Oak Orchard, the Britt’s camp (near Redfield, NY and if you know where that is I am impressed), Black Lake, Canadice Lake, Hemlock Lake and many others. We did this crazy backpacking trip in the Five Pond Wilderness Area (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ponds_Wilderness_Area) in the Adirondack Mountains. We would paddle upstream for a day or 2 then hide our canoes and backpack into the hills for 3 or 4 days to these lakes in the middle of nowhere and then back out. Other times we would bring no food or money to the camp and try and live off the land survivor style for a week. We would catch pan fish to start and then fillet them and tie the remains to some fishing line and throw that into a stream while we went out for the day doing things. If we didn’t catch or kill some kind of food during the day our backup plan would always be that our string of dead fish would usually attract lots of crayfish. If we were careful we could slowly pull in our line and have 50+ crayfish. Then we would have a crayfish boil. We didn’t know the sucking the meat out of the tail trick though and would usually use toothpicks and thus it would take us 3 hours plus to eat that many but it was worth it. When we went to college we stored the canoe in my parent’s barn. When I moved to Colorado my parents brought me out the canoe. It still resides under my deck but I haven’t busted it out in over 12 years!!!

But I digress ……… I am thrilled that Brian asked me to go canoeing and I even dusted off my spinner reel as I hear there are muskie in Lake Evergreen.

Someone got the brilliant idea to stock a trout lake with a predator fish like a muskie!! Anyway, after pushing off the beach and a couple of wobbles I soon settled into my usual front seat of the canoe. I grabbed my fishing pole and off we went. We spent the next 45 minutes touring around the lake and even though I didn’t catch squat, I had the best time I have had on a lake in 12 years. Just like the good old days!!! Thanks Brian (and Karl)!!! When we got back the girls were ready for some food so we had a barbecue and played until the sun went down.

Then we were off to Rochester and Syracuse for the 4^th of July. A much needed break from the daily grind. As usual it was a non-stop party. We arrived in Rochester on the 3^rd of July and just missing my cousin Paul’s wedding. It was okay though because he hosts our annual 4^th of July Hoefen family reunion. All of the staples were there. We had white hot dogs, Kit’s meat hot sauce, Dan’s wilted cabbage salad, Dad’s German potato salad and everything else we have had as long as I can remember. Morhéa is old enough to go off and play with her cousins and she also enjoyed the fireworks on the beach with Grammy.

The next day we had a baby shower for Heather!! My brother Jeff and Heather are having a baby!! I think the Hoefen family met for 3 days in a row on that stretch. We had a great party for them at Dad’s house. The Hoefen’s, The Hagenbach’s and even the Parker side of the family were all there. It was nice to be home. Seeing my grandmothers sister, Aunt Millie, was especially nice!

After a quick 2 days we headed to Syracuse to see the Buytaert’s. Aunt Steph, Papy and Meme were all present. I missed the 1^st night as I got a hall pass to hang out with my brother. The next day we went to the Syracuse Zoo which has become a staple in our visit. It is a nice zoo and Morhéa was impressed with the elephants there.

The next day was one of the days I don’t miss back east. HOT and HUMID!! I think that there might not have been any wind as well. To make things better for me we decided to go to nearby Green Lake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Lake_%28New_York%29) . It is really a green lake! For anyone interested Green Lake is a meromictic lake known for its euxinic conditions at the bottom of the lake. That along with its biochemistry make it green. Just read the link and you might understand. I went there once when I was young and again as a geology major at Binghamton University. We baked there for a few hours and everyone had a great time. As you all saw in my last blog Morhéa is a fish and loves the water. She played in the lake the entire time. I think we grilled something every night and as things cooled off we ate outside. André has his grilling techniques down pretty darn good!

The next day was hot and humid again but at least this time we had some wind. In the morning Kim, Morhéa and I decided to go to a local park we play at every year. Morhéa decided to try out the monkey bars and much to our amazement went across them like she had been doing it for 3 years. Later that afternoon we decided to go down to Cazenovia Lake. We played in the water there and visited the small town there where we went for ice cream.

Then we headed back to Rochester for the final 2 days to see Dad and Carolyn again. The farm was very nice. I think the two highlights of Morhéa’s time at the farm were the daily tractor rides and the giant tree swing grandpa put up in a tree in the back yard.

Dad planted winter wheat behind the house for the first time. Growing up we had alfalfa, corn, oats and soy beans but no wheat. My Dad mentioned how nice it was to see it grow, how golden it was and how fluid it flowed with the wind. After that I took a few moments to take it all in and he was right. It was straight out of a movie. You can never capture it in a picture as well. Anyway, Grandpa told Morhéa that wheat was used to make bread so every day she would go out back and pick some wheat, eat it and tell us she was eating bread. Very cute.

As usual we made our way to Brown’s Berry Patch (http://www.brownsberrypatch.com/). It is a “pick your own” farm that has all kinds of wonderful fruit and things for kids to do. Dad and I picked blueberries and cherries while the girls fed the goats, jumped on the Barnyard Jump (a giant jumping balloon buried in the ground) and played in the kids area.

After a wonderful trip I think we arrived home to one of the last 80 degree days Colorado has seen. Today we broke a record for most consecutive 90 degree days at 19 (a record held since 1901). Our forecast for the next 5 days is 102, 100, 98, 94 and 91 degrees!!!!!! I don’t think we have gotten any significant rain here in 2 months. It is one of the driest years I can remember. Usually we get monsoon rains from the south but this year we have had a high pressure system hanging out just to the east preventing moisture from coming our way. Great for vacation but bad for the yard.

Kim did another triathlon in boulder a week or so ago. It was an Olympic distance triathlon (1.5km swim, 40km bike and 10km run). Her next one is going to be a Half Ironman (1.9km swim, 90km bike and 21.09 km run). Absolutely nuts I say but we sure are proud of her and she does love them. It had to be near 100 degrees by the time she finished the Boulder one. Another climate that Todd doesn’t do well in. I don’t care if it is 100 degrees and no humidity. It is still HOT!!!

Happy Reading!!

T

Father's Day, Dance Recital and Swimming!

Like I said before - Happy Father’s Day!! We had a great weekend out here in Colorado. I just got back from a week of field work In Libby, MT. Being away from the family for a week seems to get harder and harder. Rhéa got a little sadder as the week moved along without me. I was supposed to pick her up from school on Friday but we got stuck in Spokane, WA for an extra 3.5 hours as our flight crew got a little extra rest. That got me into Denver at 5:30PM instead of 2:15 PM. When I did get home Morhéa was very glad to see me.

On Saturday she had dance practice and then we went to a block party in Highlands. It was fun but pretty darn hot and little wind.

Sunday was our big day. Not only was it Father’s Day but it was also the day of Morhéa’s big dance recital. She has been really excited to perform and Kim and I were equally excited to watch. We had a great time! Morhéa is really catching on. You can see in the videos how into it she was getting. On top of the “normal” tap dance moves you can see that she has her own little groove going on as well! It was awesome!! Check out the videos and you will see!

Todd

Buytaert visit/soccer/Mother's Day

Another couple weeks have past and we have been very busy. Like I said before we are in our transition into hot summers. I think it snowed last week a little and then today it was around 80 degrees and it is supposed to get into the 90’s this week. Spring is strange in the Rockies. We bounce up and down in temp for a month and then one day we just stay in the 80’s and 90’s. There isn’t much middle ground.
After my last post Papy and Meme came out for a visit for Morhéa’s 3rd birthday. It was great to see them again. We did all kinds of fun things. One of the more interesting things we did was take a ride on the Pike’s Peak Cog Railway. I guess it is the worlds highest cog train. It takes you from the base of the mountains up to the 14,110 foot summit of Pike’s Peak. The train ride took a while and for the first time since Hawaii I really felt the altitude at the summit. We got off the train and not really thinking about it I threw Morhéa on my shoulders and carried her off the train and walked up and into the gift shop. By the time I got there I felt a little funny (dizzy and a little messed up in general). So I put her down and decide I should sit for a minute and drink a little water and take a few deep breaths. I think everyone else was in the bathroom or something. I now felt like my feet are in concrete and didn’t feel like I have the energy to get up. Meanwhile, Morhéa wasn’t phased by the altitude one bit. She was running around the gift shop grabbing this and that and I could only watch and come up with a few words like “Get back

here!” and “Put that down!” as she ran by me. I think all of the adults were feeling the altitude a little so we sat down for a minute. Then we all felt good enough to get up and go walk around. While I felt better I still can tell I am at 14,110 feet above sea level. We get our photo op and again I could only watch as Rhéa was running past me left and right. To be 3 again!! I couldn’t get on the train fast enough. I got a little grumpy after that but felt much better once we got down to around 11,000 feet. In the end I am glad we did it but in the time it took to do the round trip I could have flow from Denver to NYC. A long and memorable day for sure.

Papy and Meme also got to see Morhéa’s 1^st soccer practice. She is part of the Purple Dinosaurs 3-4 year old team. They play 5x5 with no goalie. It is pretty cool. Coach Jeff is awesome and is really good with the kids.

Morhéa played hooky from school and played with her grandparents all day on one of there days here. They went to the Botanical Gardens and had lunch and even a nap. They also babysat one night while Kim and I went out to dinner for the 1^st time in a while. We ate at the Samba Room in Denver which was fun. Of coarse they were in Denver for her actual birthday day. We had even more presents and another cake. Rhéa was in heaven! They also visited the art museum and survived that. It is always tricky bringing a 3 year old to the art museum.

For Mother’s Day we also went to the Botanical Gardens. It is pretty cool there. They had bands playing all day and a lot of flowers were in bloom. We spent the morning and afternoon there and then we came home. Morhéa and Mom gardened while I made dinner. It was a fun day.

Like I said before, soccer started this month. We had our 1^st game last week. It was a little rough but all of the parents told us that was normal and there wasn’t a kid out there that hadn’t had a hard time the 1^st game. She was doing great in the beginning. She was warming up (she wouldn’t put on her uniform) and kicking and running. As the game was about to start the ref called them into the middle for kickoff and then yelled “ARE YOU GUYS READY” and blew his whistle real loud. That scared Morhéa so bad she came running off the field in tears. I got her to go back out for a minute but that was about it. On top of that it was a cold and rainy day here which wasn’t helping us. This week she was great! It was warm and sunny and a morning game. She also had team pictures this week. After a little effort we got her into her uniform and she did great for the photo. Then they had their game and she did great. She didn’t actually kick the ball that much but at least she got out there without holding my hand and played by herself. Her coach even let her kickoff once. We are very proud of her.

Today Kim and Morhéa ran the Flight for Life 10k in south Denver. It might be one of the last Team Hoefen races (Kim pushes Morhéa in her jogger stroller). Morhéa is getting too tall for the jogger. They had fun! After the race Rhéa went on the bouncy slide and ate 2 or 3 snow cones. They had 2 helicopters there and a ton of ambulances as well as some fire trucks. After a short nap Morhéa and her friend went to the gym outdoor pool which opened up this weekend. Morhéa is a VERY good swimmer. She can swim to the bottom and now can swim across the pool with no floatation devices.

Morhéa turns 3 years old!

Here she is!!



WE HAVE A 3 YEAR OLD!! That is right!! Morhéa Sophie Hoefen turned 3 years old today. What a week of parties it was! Colorado is getting warm and beautiful once again. While we had a pretty mild winter this year I am ready for summer!

April signifies the end of ski season in Colorado. Morhéa and Mom had a great time in the mountains this year. I am not much of a skier anymore but boy was I impressed at those videos I showed last time. She is scary good. Just looking back at our pics I see that Rhéa is in a summer dress before and after her skiing pictures which means we were in the 70’s here and snow in the mountains.

Morhéa also finished up Little Kickers Soccer Class a few weeks ago. Now we start Little Kickers Soccer for real. We have our first parent meeting this weekend. We will see how that goes! In Morhéa’s last soccer class we got to play parents vs. kids. That was a lot of fun. Morhéa scored the first goal of the game. We have video!

There are some classic pictures we have of Morhéa and her friend Brooke at the zoo which I will share.

Grandpa and Grammy arrived on the 16th. In true fashion we were getting a snow storm while NY was in the 70’s. It was okay though. The next day was cool but sunny and the next two days were warm in the mid-70’s. Our first order of business was Rhéa’s trike-a-thon. It was cool for the race but we were ready to go. The goal was to ride you tricycle around the playground coarse as many times as you could in 20 minutes. For having just learned to ride her bike I think she did great! She raised around $60. The money will go toward children’s cancer research. She did a great job and we are proud of her.

Grandpa and Grammy got to take Morhéa to Built-a-Bear. She had a blast. She danced, rubbed the bears heart all over to make her smart, rubbed the heart on her eyes so she could see and all of that. Then they put the heart back into the bear and sewed her up. She named her Annie. Annie has a ballet dress and gear as well as a casual outfit which she likes to wear to the park. A great present for sure. Morhéa brings her to the park everyday.

So many gifts came in during the week we just let her open them as they came. Jeff and Heather gave Morhéa a Princess nightgown which she loves as usual. Disney is a marketing monster!! Her cousins brought over a ton of present and then they were off so Janya could run the Boston Marathon. She ran a great time and we are all proud of her.

Grandpa and Grammy had a great visit. They stayed from Wednesday thru Sunday. We had great fun. Their first day here I took them up to Red Rocks State Park for lunch. They have really good food in the new upper section and it is cool to see the history section there. If you look closely you can see Oakhurst as one of the gigs played at Red Rocks. How cool is that!!! We started out the next day with the Trike-a-thon (as stated before) and then moved on to Morrison, Colorado. We ate awesome burgers and The Blue Cow in Morrison and then went for a nice walk along the river. We ended the afternoon with some relaxing ice cream eaten along the river. We tried to finish off the day by trying to fly a kite in the park with no wind and two engineers trying to figure out the mechanics of a kite. It was pretty sad. I am going to blame it on the lack of wind and stick with that.

The next day was Morhéa’s BIG party day. She started it off with a trip to Lollilocks for a haircut. That went okay. She was a little shy. Since her hair is still shorter on the top and in the front we decided to go with the bob again. She does look very nice in it thought. We will get long hair eventually.




That was followed by an hour on the swings at the park. Then we moved on to ballet and tap dance. I never thought I would say this but my daughter really loves ballet and tap dance. She loves the teachers and is a great listener. I am always impressed. After Dad, Carolyn and I went to collect birthday cakes while Rhéa took a nap. After that the PARTY!

Morhéa’s birthday party was last Saturday, April 19th. It was held at Pump It Up. One of the many jumpy castle places. They did a good job though. We didn’t have to do much except pay for it. They did most everything else. We had between 25-30 kids plus adults. And for that many I think it went really well. We had a lot of support. The kids jumped around in the jumpy houses for 1.25 hours. Then into another room for pizza and drinks. Then the birthday cake!! Getting cake to 25 kids was a little tough but we managed. We left with several large bags of presents to open. They were all a hit. Morhéa got to hang out late with her grandparents and then they were off the next morning. Another successful visit!! We are looking forward to getting back to my home for the 4th of July!!!

Tyler had a birthday in all of this as well. We had a great time at his party on Sunday.

Jump forward to today and it is Morhéa’s real birthday (4/24/05). It was also take your kid to work day. Morhéa spent the morning learning about blood at Kim’s work. Strange as it sounds it was much more entertaining then my work. I will have to work on that. At Kim’s work the all got a centrifuge tube with two liquids in them like blood. They spun them around and they separated and then they shook them back up to combine the blood. Lots of cool events like that. Much cooler then my work. We spent most of the time at my work talking about Morhéa’s “blood” she was wearing around her neck with my co-workers. Other then that Morhéa got a Hershey Kiss, 3 balloons, some chez-its and 2 rocks from me. Not as cool as spinning blood but she did love the chez-its!! I will work on it next year. Maybe I will launch a spaceship to the Kuiper Belt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt) or something? That should get some attention among the 3-4 year olds. I need a couple of billion $$$’s if anyone wants to help out? For now Pyrite and Hematite will have to do!!!


Rhéa actually goes back to school for a nap!! She wakes up in time for a school party. There are vanilla and chocolate cup cakes with lots of frosting. We sing her happy birthday again and her and her friends enjoy their cupcakes. She is wearing a crown her classmates have made for her. She is very proud. As soon as we wrap up there we head home for 5 minutes and then it is off to pick up Buytaert’s. We get them and open a lot of presents and then get some pizza before settling in for the night. Aunt Stephanie called to wish Morhéa a happy birthday and they had a good conversation. Then we finished it all of with ice cream and cake. She also got a VERY nice Cinderella dress!!!




What a birthday week!!!