Summer at Home 2024

We had plenty of fun at home this summer besides our summer vacations. In these pictures the kids are jumping on the trampoline at sunset, Allison made a food chain of dinosaurs, and we enjoyed the sunny and stormy weather. 

The first week of June Allison did a 1/2 day camp through the gifted program at her school. She went to a space museum, dinosaur museum, Dion's pizza, Wishing Star Farm, and Skyzone Trampoline park. While she was at the farm, I took Tyler and Nolan to the Denver Children's Museum.

Climbing and bubbles were their favorite activities. Nolan had a phone and took several photos of the two of them at the top of the climbing zone.

We bought a new bench swing for outside, but we had some difficulty keeping it from getting knocked over in our Colorado wind. Eventually Oscar put it on chains and now we have no problem. 

Here's Allison playing with Nibbler. He's a happy kitty when we're home, but he gets pretty lonely when we go on vacation now that he's the only cat. I'd get more cats, but he's very dominant, and I worry he'd start marking his territory.  

Here are some of Tyler's projects. I love how much effort he put into drawing each dynamic symbol. I told him he could just write normal letters, but he made it fancy.

Kiddie and Kitty cuteness! Sometimes the kids are super sweet and play with each other nicely. I try to document it with pictures.

We figured out how to connect our sprinkler to the trampoline so it can be fun and refreshing when it's super hot out.

This year I did the Vocal Arts Festival again down at Colorado College. On one of my walks I saw a black squirrel up close. the kids cleaned their rooms since mom was coming in to see the show. I picked her up from the airport and brought her back in time to see the Falcon Freedom Days fireworks. We watched from my friend Cailin's house. They get a great view from their deck, and we didn't have to deal with the traffic of everyone turning left out of the high school parking lot.

For the first program I reprised my role as Adalgisa, but this time with a wonderful tenor as Pollione. We performed the scene right before the scene I was in last year. I have video of the whole concert, but I need to trim my scenes from it before I update this post. 

I also reprised my role of Dorabella, this time in the scene following the Act I finale we put on last year. Hannah returned to reprise her role of Fiordiligi too. 

Caitlin and her two oldest kids came too. Allison had to go take a break when it wasn't my scene. Apparently her pants were bothering her.  

Oscar got some nice pictures of his run at Homestead Park, and we bought a new air circulating vent that cools our room down nicely (without it, it never gets below a low sweltering).

I didn't have much going during the second concert since both my big scenes were in the 1st concert. I was only assigned a short offstage singing trio in Manon and a member of the quartet in "La Rondine." It was the final scene of the evening, which wasn't blocked and we could use our music. Since I wasn't busy, I prepared the role of 2nd spirit in a matter of hours to help out when Clarice came down with Covid. They were just starting blocking, and I knew it'd be difficult if they didn't at least have a body to work with. Fortunately she felt better within a couple days and was able to perform the role, but she asked if we could take video of the first blocking rehearsal so she could learn it on her own. 

Oscar made red, white, and blue pancakes for the 4th of July. VAF was only two weeks this year, so I still had rehearsal, but they let us have the evening off to celebrate. Oscar took Tyler to get some pops and sparklers, and we went over to our neighbors' annual Independence Day party. They use their garage for the party, so we let them park their cars in our driveway.

They always put on a great show with lots of fireworks. We contributed some sparklers. 

The kids got free popsicles, and when it was dark there were fireworks coming from all around the neighborhood.

Since I wasn't on stage until the very end of the 2nd VAF concert, I took photos of the other scenes during the dress rehearsal. We had The Fantastiks, Maria Stuarda, L'Amico Fritz, and Beatrice and Benedict. I've actually sung "The Cherry Duet" from L'Amico Fritz with a tenor in Washington 11 years ago. It was fun to hear it again. 

I was attached to seeing how "The Magic Flute" scene would turn out since I'd prepared for it and had seen where they all were at the start of blocking rehearsals on Monday. I was so happy to see how well it turned out. The costumes were gorgeous, the blocking was well done, especially between Papageno and Papagena, and the performers were wonderful. As fun as it is to play a role, I'm glad Clarice was able to come back. I wouldn't want to take a role away from someone who'd spent months working on it, and her voice matched the other spirits better than mine did. The little videos we made were good enough for me. 

I took mom to Perkins restaurant and America the Beautiful Park before bringing her to the show. I knew she would love it even if I was barely involved in it. I had Oscar come to the dress rehearsal and opted out of the kids coming since I was on stage for so little of it. They would have been bored, but as expected, mom loved it, and she made some new friends. 

Oscar and the kids had a good night making bread sticks and dessert cinnasticks while we were gone.

For mom's final day with us I took her and the kids to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings.

They liked climbing around this small family dwelling. I even went up the ladder into it.

We also explored the museum and the teepee, and mom bought us souvenir shirts before we left. Now I want to go to Mesa Verde National Park to see more cliff dwellings!

We also went to the Manitou Springs arcade. Allison won the racing game on her first attempt! I feel like there should be a bigger prize than 40 tickets considering all 12 seats were full and everyone was paying $0.75 to play. The 40 ticket prizes were things you could easily find at the Dollar Store. I told the kids they play for fun, not for prizes. Prizes are just bonuses. 

Tyler was excited to find the large version of the key chain arcade game auntie Malia had given him years ago.

The next day I took mom to airport, saw some hot air balloons on the drive, and took the kids to the Children's museum in Denver. Nibbler was also cute.

Later that week Tyler reassembled Dangler's house, we got a hammock for under the pergola, and a 13 lined ground squirrel got caught in Oscar's window. He couldn't get out on his own, so Oscar he made a ramp for it to climb out. We had no idea such an animal even existed!

And to finish off our summer at home we did sparklers in the back yard before going on our two week Midwest road trip.