The Summer of Oma

Oma has been gone now for a few weeks.  We are making it, but are not better for it!  I almost turned around and left in the middle of an errand today as Owen screamed and cried in the store, almost broke a few things cause he couldn't keep his hands to himself, meanwhile I am trying to keep Ruby contained in the umbrella stroller...oh man.  This is going to get harder before it gets easier, eh?  At any rate, we are not only missing Oma's amazingly helpful hands, ability to see what needs to be done, and ability to entertain/distract Ruby and Owen when needed....we are mostly going to miss her unending love for us and these two.  She would really do anything for them and us.  It means so much it is impossible to put into words.  We had a great visit, some excellent adventures, and here are some pictures to help us remember the moments.

Oma likes to do all kinds of silly things with Ruby and Owen...like make "cherry earrings" when we find a "double"....

Read endless stories....seriously...SO many books read...

Create all kinds of fun things with play dough we made...

Dress up like a "baa" (sheep) in Owen's favorite blanket...

Wrap ourselves in the packing from the seemingly endless deliveries from Amazon.com...

and drive like manics in the grocery store.

We enjoyed some good fun at the local parks, of course...

Learning to ride our new bikes from Mindy and Bo.

Painting.  Ruby asks to "paint" every few days.  It is pretty cute.

We made it to Park City for the 4th of July pancake breakfast in the park and parade.  Totally fun. We'll do it again for sure.

Oma braved two weeks of swim lessons with Ruby, Owen, and I.  Another sacrifice.  I know she doesn't LOVE getting wet...especially first thing in the morning...but she did.  And, Ruby and Owen made some great gains as a result.  Ruby LOVES her goggles, wears em every time we swim now, and can swim under water for a few seconds all by herself.  Both Ruby and Owen jump off the edge of the pool with reckless abandon.  They are supposed to wait for a count to three...but it's more like one and half by the time they hit the water.  They remind me of the Kool-aid Man from those commercials I grew up watching.

This is just a random photo of Owen that I think is great.  I love it because if you are a DuRoss, you are familiar with the "Chip Look".  Most people tend to think Owen looks a lot like Chip.  I think he does too.  However, I definitely think, he does the "Audrey Look".  My family never coined this phrase, but I know of a good handful of pictures of myself making this exact hammy, eyes almost closed, squinty-smile face.  This is funny because Ruby perhaps looks more like me in general, but definitely does the "Chip Look".  A neat reversal the two of them coordinated.  I will have to catch her on camera doing this one of these days.

While Oma was here, "hang", or "swinging" as the kids say it, became all the rage.  This is where it started...hanging and swinging from their high chair... 

and then continued at the park.  They look like a coupla Olympians! I am sure they were feeling all the energy of the Olympics in the air these days.

One of Ruby and Owen's favorite things to do with Oma (other than read books...and this second place is distant to the books, trust me) is make bubbles.  We started with just the regular 50cent bottle and wand (the gateway bubble) and progressed to this- the bubble gun.  The thing made huge bubbles and plays music as it does so.  We have to hide it from Ru and OT to avoid constant begging to use it.  Of course, they know where we "hide" it so they point to the cabinet and say "bubbles" over and over.  I act like I don't know what they are saying.  Ha!

Just cute.

Totally adorable.  We were able to host quite a few dinners with friends and family while Oma was here.  It is a lot of work to prep, host while maintaining Ruby and Owen, and clean up all the food and toys.  Most of the time, just the thought of it all makes me want to throw in the towel.  But with help, it was doable.  This is Nola enjoying some corn on the cob at our house.  I just want to eat HER up! :)

Some final parting shots of our time together... Owen goofing around with Oma in the park.

One final one before heading to the airport...

And this is Owen plugging his ears while I blend his smoothie.  I imagine anyone trying to keep up with this blog might feel this way.  It got so long again!  There is just so much I want to hold onto, I can't seem to pare down very well.

"Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease."  ~Lisa Alther

Road Trip

I am about a month behind on this one, but I can't skip the photos and memories in addition to the climb that made this epic adventure what it was.  Let me start by saying that I do not plan on taking another road trip that involves more than one stop per week again...maybe until Ruby and Owen are 15 or something.  I don't love to spend long amounts of time in the car myself, let alone when I have to somehow maintain the happiness of two toddlers, deal with set up and take down, feeding them on the go.  Not to mention that at home we mostly hang out in toddler proofed places...our house, friend's houses who also have toddlers, toddler venues, etc.  We managed to only break a few things at Mindy's place in Steamboat....and I hope she finds everything I had to move to avoid getting broken.  Oh man, we are a handful in general these days!  But, all is well that ends well, eh?  So, here are the highlights.

We avoided too much awake kid time by leaving at 4:30am.  The kids actually stayed awake (but were quiet) for hours before finally passing out for nap one.

We have found that the trick to making road trips somewhat reasonable, is to stop and do things along the way.  As counter intuitive as this is to my amazing drives-the-whole-way-all-the-time-because-it-is-in-his-blood husband, he is totally on board since the addition of the little monkeys.  Thank goodness.  Here we found an awesome lake and beach to play at...almost to CB!  

This is the whole gang eating pizza's in CB after climbing Mount Owen and Ruby Peak.  Highly recommend The Stash- great mojitos and delicious za!

We introduced this concept that you smell flowers at the beginning of the spring, and still, Ruby can't pass a flower without giving it a sniff.  I don't even think most of the ones she smells, are odoriferous.  I think she is on a mission to find the sweetest smelling flower. 

We swam in at four different pools in five days.  It is the free time activity of choice for this clan.  

 Oh man- this was fun.  Mindy and Bo (they are so smart and thoughtful) decided to give Ruby and Owen their birthday gifts early this year to spread it out a bit.  It does get a little overwhelming for us at the end of December with their birthday being only two days before Christmas.  And, these were perfect summer gifts too!  

Bikes!! How perfect coming from their biking aunt and uncle.  I love how she hid them around the tree.  Nothin like a good hunt to amp up the anticipation.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!  They love them and ask to "ride" them daily.

 Swimming at the hot spring pools in Steamboat.  Kids loved it.  Owen wore goggles for the first time...and never again.  Shoot!  

Ruby loves her goggles....and her Aunt Mindy. :)

We went for a hike down to some falls.  This is the scary stuff that irresponsible sisters do when the trauma PA dad isn't around.  Just kidding- we were VERY careful.

Owen in his aunt's PBR ski hat.  We did not need to bring any toys.  Owen and Ruby found all kinds of things to play with at Mindy's including gear to dress up in, cleaning supplies, and her roommates little dog, Zipper, who I am pretty sure they wanted to take home with us.

Just a random cute one of Ru.

Our last night we went to this bar that had a jungle gym and toys outside for the kids in addition to a bounce house and live music to compliment the happy hour....hello!...brilliant!

The ladies.

The Kirbys'.  Fun to hang out in CO together...I mean, we hadn't seen them in 5 days or something.  I think we were all experiencing withdrawal. 

Who is this crazy guy anyway?  It was a total reunion this evening- friends from high school (Amato), Park City (Kirbys), and college (Meegan and Adam) joined us to eat, drink, play, and dance.  

Meegs. :)

Eddy St minus Amy.  What an incredible shot- never thought 15 years ago when I met these two that it would all be possible.

Ruby, Owen, and Julian getting to know each other.

There is a wave pool in Craig, ID on the way home from Steamboat.  It was a last minute discovery and decision to take a dip.

Which was perfect, cause then everyone slept well on the way home.  Ahhh...home. :)

Mount Owen and Ruby Peak

I didn't make those names up.  Here's the story...Ruby and Owen were actually named Brooklyn and Avery for most of my pregnancy.  At about 7 months, we decided to change our minds...to Ruby and Owen.  Chip quickly did a google search to make sure we weren't naming them after some exotic dancing pair or popular cartoon...and up came Mount Owen and Ruby Peak.  These two summits are right next to each other, separated by only a saddle.  They rest just a few minutes outside of Crested Butte, CO.  In the blog entry Chip was reading about them, he called them the "twin peaks".  Crazy, eh?  It was an obvious goal to summit these two peaks with the kids at some point.

At some point this winter, as the kids got heavier and the hikes got harder, even with them in these awesomely ergonomic  backpacks, we realized that this summer might be our only chance to summit Mount Owen and Ruby Peak until they can hike them on their own...which could be 10 years!  So, despite the trip to Crested Butte being a lot of driving and out of the way for our already planned road trip to Colorado, we decided to suck it up and go for it.  Thank goodness Aunt Mindy and Uncle Bo were able to make the trip down from Steamboat to help us out.  Ruby or Owen plus a little water and food equals a pack that weighs probably around 35 pounds so the extra help carrying enough water and food as well as taking over the kid duty was essential to our success.

And well, I guess I gave away the surprise ending- we made it!...to the top of both and down again all healthy, happy, and grateful for the bottles awaiting us in the cooler (beers for adults and milk for the kids). After 8 miles and 3,000 vertical feet....we felt pretty grateful and accomplished! The weather could not have cooperated more perfectly- warm...maybe a little hot at times, but not scorching and overcast in the afternoon, but no afternoon storm.  The kids took a few naps, enjoyed a lot of trail snacks despite mom forgetting the majority of their lunch in the fridge in the hotel, and thoroughly enjoyed celebrating atop their peaks.  Owen said, "mine, mine!"  on top of Mount Owen.  We tried to explain that the mountain just shared a name with him, but I don't think he grasped that concept.  :)  We all enjoyed the INCREDIBLE 360 degrees of views all day long.  This was one of the most stunning hikes I have done.  And, Crested Butte is about as authentic a mountain town as they come.  We decided that we probably wouldn't wait 10 years to come do this again.  Maybe next time we will only hike part way up and play on Ruby Peak and Mount Owen until we are all ready and willing to make it to the tops again. 

Thanks again to Mindy, Bo, and Oma (who didn't hike, but was an integral part of the support team in getting us out the door on time and cleaned up when we got home) for helping make this adventure possible.  I really don't think we could have pulled it off without all of you.  It was a really special day to say the least.  Here are a ton of pictures to check out.  I just couldn't narrow it very well.  The paparazzis get way too many good pictures.

Amazing coffee and a breakfast of champions got us started.

Our adorable partners in crime for this adventure.

Mount Owen on the right (first stop) and Ruby Peak on the right.

Making our way up

Sister power!

Owen gets a ride from Aunt Mindy while sipping on his water.  Must be nice!

The wildflowers were AWESOME and so was that emerald lake we hiked past and had a view of most of the day.

Heading up to Mount Owen.  If you want to see any of these larger, just click on the photo and I believe it will bring them all up.  This one is one of my favorites, hence I make the suggestion here. 

A little scrambly at times, but only had to use both hands and feet at the same time occasionally.

These two were complete hams at the top of both peaks.  They really got into the celebrating...as if they had hiked themselves.  We enjoyed and appreciated their enthusiasm for sure.  Made the effort seem even more worth it.

Owen and Ruby on top of Mount Owen.

Looked so fun we decided to join them.  

We love you!

Love this one.  And, The clouds in these next handful of pictures are just incredible.  They were almost as picturesque as the surrounding mountains in my opinion.

We made it back down to the saddle for lunch...or more snacks anyway.  Ruby and Owen picked flowers and delivered them to everyone in the group.  I know, we probably left a bigger impact here than we would have without kids...but a little pruning can't hurt too much, right?

Oh yeah, and a diaper change with a view.  Walking around without your pants on is pretty cool just at home, so to do it in the middle of a hike was extra spectacular.

I brought these hiking poles to use myself, only to quickly find out that I really brought them along for Owen to hold and play with all day.

That's right, that's my peak behind us there.  Been there, done that.

Alright gang, let's pack up and head up Ruby's peak.

Ruby Peak is awesome too!!  Wohoo!

 You may or may not see one of these pictures again come this winter. ;)

Making our way back down to the saddle.

Ruby and Owen napping on Mindy and Bo's backs.  It was nice to have a break from that pack!

And, a few parting shots-

The WHOLE gang. :)

Dad and Ruby taking in the views.

Good job everyone!  Lookin forward to becoming good friends with this area over the years.  We had a great first romp.  Until next time!

“If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, “the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings.”
-David Sobel, Beyond Ecophobia