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!