First day of school! August 24, 2015

I did do the obligatory facebook photo yesterday... but here is the whole deal.

Here we go!

We were very lucky to have a special visitor to help us walk to school: Grandma Margie!

Ruby had her first day of school at the elementary school she's been walking to for 2 years. Yep, big girl is in Kindergarten--and her teacher is the same teacher that Scout had. Kinda fun! Sad for us, though, the teacher will go on maternity leave in late December (of course, fun for her family!).

Ruby didn't really need too much hand-holding, in fact, she didn't even need a kiss! Once she found her spot in the line, she just waved and waved and didn't seem too concerned at all.

Scout had her first day of 2nd grade, and the fun part is her teacher recently switched to 2nd grade after previously being a kindergarten teacher. Back when Scout was in kindergarten, we were really lucky to spend some time in Mrs. Hawkes class for literacy and other projects, since the kindergarten classrooms work so collaboratively.

She would have preferred to go to school when she was all dressed and ready... at 7:45 (only putting us there an hour early)

Hold it just a little lower, Rubes

"Mom! The sun is in my eyes!"

Walking with Grandma

On the walk to school

There's Ruby, cool as a cucumber, back against the bricks

The first day seemed to go well. I walked back and forth to school 3 times--once to drop both off, once to pick Ruby up and then again to pick up Scout. That's about 6000 steps on the pedometer... 

Quick trip: Breckenridge & Sunday drive (8/22-23)

We took a trip to Breckenridge right before school starts (8/24).

Cory got a wild idea last weekend, and I called up to Grand Timber Lodge on Monday. Why, yes, they did have an opening for a studio, at the low low cost of $92. Why not?

I think it was a bit busy to try to orchestrate this, but as I write this on Sunday night, before the girls go off to school tomorrow, I am a big fan. I told Cory that we should always do something fun the weekend before school starts. We both agreed that if we'd just stayed home, the girls probably would have watched a ton of tv (they still did watch movies... in the car!), and they would have been amped up for school rather than been able to relax. So, it was WORTH the stressful chaos, I think.

We left the house around 1:30 pm on Saturday afternoon and filled up the tank and sat in traffic until we go onto I-70. I fell asleep, so I cannot attest to this entirely, but I think that's the way it went. We checked in a little after 4 pm, and then headed to the pool. Fatty's is a restaurant in town, and we've liked their food a lot in the past, so we gave it another go.

At Fatty's

On Sunday morning, I got to take an awesome walk early in the morning all by myself. Heavenly. Blissful. YAY.

I even walked the Primrose Path

When you walked around, there were signs everywhere saying, "Why are the trees blue?" and I was like, "What trees? What are they talking about?" I had walked right by entire stands of aspens painted blue. Evidently it's to promote an art event in town and also get people talking about conservation.

The trees are blue! It's True! 

More blue trees

When I returned to the room, we did some more swimming and then concocted a wholly crazy plan.
Rather than take I-70 back, we'd go back a "scenic" way over Trail Ridge Road.
It was going to be 5 hours of driving.
No big deal, I said.
Let's do it, Cory said.
Note: We did not solicit opinions from other family members.

Along the way, we had lunch in Grand Lake. Here's Ruby on a REALLY big Adirondack chair there.

After Scout ate something, she was also amenable to snapshots on the big chair.

In the car, on Trail Ridge.

The driver

At a look out

Many people commented on Ruby's hiking attire

Hiking up to a sweet look out

Cory hiked even higher on top of some rocks... those little blobs are Scout, Ruby & me

Back in the car, the weary traveller

And after that, it was all downhill, all the way back to Fort Collins. We stopped for a water bottle fill up and by the time we got home it was almost 6 pm. Big day!