home again

well, we’re home. we survived. we had fun! the pictures up on the main page now are a little deceptive. yes, we were in the denver area for almost a week, and yes, we did make it to flagstaff outside of boulder, but the amount of climbing we got in was about five minutes each. our trip did not in the least center around climbing this time. most of our time in denver was spent with my sister and her family at their home in broomfield. in fact, the two most beautiful days of the week, tuesday and wednesday, we spent just hanging around the house, alternatively walking with the kids to different neighborhood parks, and especially, not being in the car. seb spent his every waking moment with evan (10), matthew (8), and sophie (6), riding bikes or playing in the basement or being chased in circles through the house. he has never been so perfectly occupied in all his short life. we are definitely missing it this week.

thursday was our excursion into estes park and rocky mtn national park, and while it was a successful romp (once again, see my sister’s blog for more pictures) and a grand time “hiking” on several short trails, we had to deal with rain in the midst of it all.

friday and saturday we had planned to climb with a friend who now lives in boulder–it was going to be a wonderful trip out to shelf road near canon city, coloradao for two days–but we didn’t have the heart to get back in the car to travel a couple hours to do it, and locally we were rained out. we tend to bring the northeast weather along with us, and it camped over us for the end of our trip. friday, saturday and sunday we saw nothing of the mountains. very sad.

there isn’t much to say about the time spent in the car. we did what we could to survive, and sometimes that included driving very fast. in some parts of iowa, i was wishing that the speed limit was above the posted 75 mph. that just wasn’t fast enough! life here in pittsburgh seems to be moving in slow motion now. the return “home” for me has triggered feelings of wanderlust. i guess they’ll fade away eventually though. they always do. and here in cloudy pittsburgh our little family will stay.