Clumsiness must be running in our family currently because last night Kenzie got her first sprained ankle running away from her brother Jordan and tripping down our stairs....I should probably be careful since I have a tendency to sprain ankles.
Last weekend the boys (Jordan, Ben and Riley) and Brad went on an outdoor adventure. Brad took them floating down the Rio Grand river here in Colorado to scout out some good fishing areas. As they put in the river, a non-local volunteer EMT was there questioning Brad about whether or not he had ever been down this river before. Brad didn't think much about this and went on his way with the boys to scout the area. On their way down they saw a moose. We didn't know that there were moose here in Colorado. Moose are not something you really see a lot of. So they were all excited and Brad rowed them as close as they could get. According to Brad they were about ten feet away, when Jordan yelled out, "Hi Moose!" as loud as he could. Angrily the moose looked up. No one could figure out why the moose appeared to be so angry but Brad thought it would be a good idea to slowly row away. About this same time Brad noticed the two baby moose around the corner of the river which explained the look of, "get any closer and I will stomp you to death" that the mother moose gave my boys. They continued on their way going around any trouble spots that Brad thought might put them in a dangerous situation. Near the end, Brad saw two men standing above them on a cliff. They shouted down to him, "Are you okay?" Thinking this was just another dude asking him how he was doing, Brad answered back, "I'm fine. How are you?" Brad thought it was strange when the man didn't answer but put some sort of walkie/talkie radio up to his mouth. At takeout he found out that there was a search and rescue party out for him called in by the volunteer medic Brad had met at the put-in. The man had called the search and rescue party because he thought the section Brad had floated was unfloatable and thought it was crazy to see a Dad put in with his three sons.
That same weekend we had an unexpected visitor. This bear was in our yard.
Not just in our yard like Colorado Springs where we never were able to get close and where the bear only visited at night, but full on within 100 feet of me in our yard. He had stolen a bag of the dog food. Brad was going to have none of that and decided to get the dog food back. As he approached the bear with a shovel in hand the bear backed off and went up the hill. The next day she returned as did one other bear. I got a call at the office from Jordan saying, "Mom there are two bears in our yard." Needless to say the dog food is sealed up tight and our garbage gets taken to the neighborhood dumpster every night. We haven't seen them since...although I know they are out there and I don't like it. Here, you can't avoid bears. Last year Jordan ran into one in the center of town as he was walking from school to the office.
We've been out on our boat lately having lots of fun. Jordan has learned to slalom ski doing the deep water start (he beat me, I can only get up on two).
Ben has learned to get up on two:
And everyone is learning to knee board, even Jake.
So Brad can ski, which he does so beautifully (he doesn't like this picture he says he has bad form, but I say look at that water!)
I've had to learn to drive.
