Budding author, public speaker

 Last night, the Bug had her first public speaking engagement.  As did a bunch of her little kindergarten buddies.  And I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that they totally rocked it.

The event was the Mountain Area Young Writers Conference, which brings children from the entire Evergreen community together to hear a real author speak, and then to break into small groups and each read aloud a book that s/he has written.  The Bug told me that all of the kids in her group - around eight kids ranging from kindergarten through 4th grade - wrote stories about friendship.  Cool.

The Bug's book is the story of a young seahorse who helps a little lost seahorse find her home.  The Bug wrote, illustrated and dedicated it (to her whole family, the little sweetie), and her bio page states, among other things, that she wants to be a vet when she grows up.

The conference itself is great.  Eric Ode read from his book of cowboy poems, then sang some of his pirate poems.  The group leaders were friendly and made the kids feel comfortable.  Which is a trick - I know plenty of adults who'd never read their own writing aloud!  The kids each got a very official-looking sticker (think Caldecott medal) to put on their books, and a book fair raised money for the organizers.  I am looking forward to more of the Bug's original works, and to the Young Writers conferences yet to come.

Cozumel, this time from Aunt Jessie

Since Cozumel is clearly the Mexico destination from Colorado, the girls got this postcard from Aunt Jessie.  What an incredible place with incredible sea life.  And this time, the Mexican postal service managed to deliver in just about a month!

Preschool art show

On Thursday, I got to have lunch with the Bunny at her school, and they had just set up their art show with each classroom displaying some of their latest triumphs.  The Bunny's class channeled their inner Van Gogh with a fantastic multi-media sunflower display.  They also used eyedroppers to paint butterflies, several of which Bunny specifically noted were for the Bug.  None, however, were dedicated to Mommy.

Memorial Parks, DC

Mima and Boppie's more recent postcard got to us in a much more timely fashion - they were in Maryland to visit Uncle Shane, Aunt Ali and the baby cousins, and popped into both DC and Baltimore.  The babies are, well, little boys now.  And they're awesome.   

Spring break in Steamboat

Last week (plus the previous Friday, but who's counting?) was our spring break.  We used the opportunity to get the kids back up to Steamboat for a few days, but this time they skied with us! With great success, might I add.

After a couple of hours playing in the powder with a good friend, we met up with the dads and the kids.  The Bunny was pretty wiped - we timed it precisely for nap time - so Joker took her back to the condo to rest.  The Bug and her buddy went up the gondola with us.  Even though she has skied blues before - and even though she's got great skills - we did learn an important lesson: Don't push too hard on the first run.  We took the kids down a blue, and it was steeper than the Bug's comfort zone.  After some tears and cajoling, we caught up with the green run and made it to the bottom.

After that, she did a zillion runs down her fave green over the next 24 hours.  She did great.

The following morning I spent on the bunny hill with the Bunny, and at Steamboat that means she was riding the chair lift.  Which she absolutely loved.  She did great - finally made turns in both directions.  We had a "snack" of pizza, mac and cheese and a hot chocolate at 10:45.  We made more runs on the bunny slope, then hit a nice long green with the rest of our crew.  Success.

In addition to the ski fun, we had the pleasure of some great meals and fun with friends from CO and visitors from NY.  Despite the total lack of photo evidence, it was a great spring break.

Greetings from Cozumel

As testament to the efficiencies of the Mexican postal service, Mima and Boppie's late-January postcard did eventually reach us.  The girls were thrilled to hear of the flamingos and parrots, and these handsome parrot fishes made Joker and me long to be back on a reef!