In an effort to "get out" and start seeing things now that the kids are a little older, we packed up the two door jalopy and headed up to Grand Lake for the holiday weekend. I had never been up to this part of Colorado before, and since Grand Lake is the largest natural body of water in Colorado, the three hour drive from home seemed worth it.
The original plan was to drive up on the fourth of July and see fireworks. Earlier in the day we found out that the show didn't even start until 10 p.m., way past all of our bedtime. The explosions echoing off of the mountainsides woke us up anyway.
There isn't a lot to do here other than be on the water, hike, and relax during the summer. In the winter the area is a hotbed for Nordic skiing and snowmobiling...both things I think the kids would eventually enjoy. Instead of researching online, talking to locals, or using a guidebook, I let the geocaches guide our exploration of the area. After a 9 year hiatus, I've picked it up again thanks to our time in Spokane with the Wisers. I'll make a separate post later, but it's always been a great way to find places and views you otherwise wouldn't find.
It's rained here every day - you can tell it's a much wetter part of the state. Instead of a boat, we're considering kayaks and a popup camper next year. We will see. It would be possible to carry all of us and all of those toys at the same time...and an easy and relatively inexpensive way to get out on the water.
I took this video in my truck last weekend. Jonathan was dancing to the music, but then got embarrassed when I flipped the camera around so he could see himself on video. Turn the volume up - we captured one of Jonathan's characteristic snorts on video. The kids have probably watched this 50 times now, laughing hysterically each time.
The last few days Julia has given me quite a send off to work.
As usual, after breakfast she and Buddy have waved goodbye from the sliding glass door on the side of the house. But instead of coming to the front window as I pulled into the street, she has been opening the front door and coming outside. Then she's been running up the sidewalk as I drive slowly away, waving the entire time.
Today she ran up most of the street until I blew her a kiss goodbye. It was really cute to see her run back to the house in her socks, pajamas, and bed head in the rear view mirror. Her little legs can move pretty fast.
I thought about this a few times at work today. It made my morning.
Jonathan had his 3 year checkup with the pediatrician this week. Things went really well. He's actually made a lot of progress and is now officially on the growth chart for both height and weight! He's on the 1% curve, but at least he's on a curve. Up to this point he hasn't even been on the curve for weight.
The doctor said things are going great and to keep on doing what we're doing. As far as he's concerned, Jonathan is a completely healthy kid, but with a button. Someone's got to be on the 1% curve, and it looks like it's going to be him.
We've also made great progress on his feedings this week. We're switching his pump feedings to bolus feedings with a syringe. We can feed him this way in about two minutes. It's also a lot more like eating where you fill your stomach all at once with food. Not only does this free us up from feeding him, it will also stretch his stomach and prepare him for eating real food.
He's still doing OK eating on his own. However, in addition to the feeding clinic suggesting he go to bolus feedings, they also informed us that Denver now has a two week intensive feeding clinic. The goal of the intensive clinic is to break the routine and get the child into the habit of eating without assistance from the tube. We've talked about traveling to the east coast to do this, but now that it's in Denver we're definitely going to attend. The schedule won't be open until late fall, but it's better then nothing.
As I've told a few of you already, I really think we're at the tail end of this thing with Jonathan. I still maintain that come the end of the year we'll be very close, if not done, with this almost three year long process.
After brunch with Aaron and Brenda and family, we headed over to Templins, an area on the Spokane river where John had his boat docked. The area is just west of Lake Coeur D'Alene on the Spokane River. The Spokane River flows out of the lake, so if you head up the river it eventually opens up to the massive Lake Coeur D'Alene.
Brooke, an employee and new best friend of Julia's, surprised the kids and came along for the ride. Julia pretty much sat on her lap the entire afternoon. The kids had never been on a boat nor open water like this before. I had only been on the lake once before eleven or twelve years ago to try my hand at water skiing. Needless to say, we all loved it.
We spent a couple of hours on the water. Jonathan pretty much sat in the same spot, hands on the side of the boat, looking at the water and scenery going by most of that time. He never stopped smiling. He would sometimes want to touch the water, but most of the time he just sat there taking it all in. The more bumpy, the better. Each time we went over someone's wake the kids would laugh.
Stacey and I both loved it too. The area is absolutely gorgeous...which is why you see multimillion dollar homes along the way. Many famous people vacation around Coeur D'Alene for this very reason. It got us thinking that we should do this more often - either come up here and do more boating and the like each summer or see what we can work out around Colorado. It was definitely the highlight of our trip.
