Frozen Camp

Evie with a friend she made at camp.

Like probably every other girl between the ages of 3 and 12 (or older?!) Evie has been obsessed with the movie Frozen.  It has played in our house at least 20 times and we now all have the songs utterly memorized, in no small part because Patrick decided to buy the extended soundtrack album for the girls just before our 6 hour long car ride up to the Blue... Don't get me wrong, the music is pretty good, but dear god I am ready to let it go.  (haha)  Given Evie's fixation with the movie she was beyond excited for her first camp of the year, a two-week long theater camp where the focus was on taking the songs from Frozen and turning them into a new little play.  The big performance was on Friday, I am afraid I only had an iphone to capture the spectacular and it didn't turn out too well... but if you ever want a repeat performance just ask Genevieve... she will be more than happy to show you.

Shoes on Ice

 Like many new puppies (or not so new in this case) Sadie has a shoe chewing problem.  Her chewing is particularly problematic because she seems fixated on not just my shoes but my most favorite shoes.  There have been half a dozen tragedies to date.  My heartbreak over gnawed shoes must be leaving an impression on Isadora because she has now decided that she will store her shoes (and her clothes from the day) in the empty wine fridge we have in our kitchen.  When asked why she was doing this she simply informed us that it was to protect her shoes from Sadie... and that she liked them nice and cold.  Looks like it will be a few more years until we use that classy wine fridge for its original intent... nice to know though that it is getting some use!

First Day at IST

Well folks it is official... We now have both kids at the same school!  (kind of... Evie is at camps not at IST all summer)  Yet another one of those all important milestones you will never see in a book :)  Today Isadora started at IST... or as she calls it IST camp.  Her first drop off went really well.  She was a little scared to be there but said goodbye like a brave little (almost) 3 year old.  It is exciting to see her getting to be so big and to have her learning French like her big sister!

Working on the Blue

The week after school gets out is always a child-care no man's land.  There is no school and camps won't start until the first week of June.  This year we tried a grand experiment...  a week up on the Blue where we worked while the girls played (or were asleep) so that we didn't have to take vacation and the girls would get a whole week up in the woods.  I am happy to report that for me it worked incredibly well.  I got up at 5 am every morning and worked until 8 am when everyone got up and then again in the afternoon around nap time. I also took reading down to the river with me to catch up on while they played... heavenly.  I even had an emergency with a proposal that required me to work all day, fortunetly my folks were there in the morning and then Evie just hung out with me while I worked and Izzy took a miraculous 5 hour nap.  This aligning of the stars is noted here for the record, as I do not expect it to ever happen again, and I need for it to be in print so that it can be referred to on one of those days where the whole work/mom balance utterly collapses.

Patrick didn't fare quite so well, he had to make a colossal trek back to Tucson for a hearing, but we figured out how to have documents read to him so he could work on the drive at least.  Doing the drive back and forth in a 24 hour period was exhausting, but lucky for him is boss gave him a break and he took the rest of the week off :)

The girls spent most of their time down at the river.  We also paid a social call to neighbors who rent airstreams on their property.  It just so happened that said airstreams were filled with no less than 8 girls that week, so Evie had kids to play with both that night and on another night when they came by to visit with us. 

On Thursday I took the afternoon off and we hiked Escudilla and visited the rock at mile 6.8 where we were married almost exactly 12 years ago.  Patrick and Izzy decided to stand out on the meadow and call the elk.  I laughed at them thinking it was silly, until off in the distance a bunch if elk answered back.  It was incredible.  The only sad part of the trip was learning on the way home that our favorite hike on catwalks near Glenwood NM is closed (probably for good) because the catwalks were all destroyed in last fall's flood...  The week reminded me just how lucky we are to have a beautiful place for our kids (and us!) to go back to year after year.  I think we have found a new beginning of the summer tradition!