Telluride Vacation: fun with ducks

Telluride is a very family-friendly town. One great section of the town (that I had never noticed before this trip) was the playground/park area on the far east side of Telluride. This is a very large park with baseball fields, a skateboard area, a playground built especially for 1-1/2-year-olds, and a children's fishing pond. The pond is stocked with fish and only children (12 and under) are allowed to fish from it. As an added bonus, about two dozen ducks live on the pond and are very willing to investigate any visitor in the hopes of getting free food.



While we were playing at the playground one morning, a family with a young son walked up to the pond, and the ducks descended on this family from all over the pond! Soon there were ducks everywhere, waddling around, quacking, begging for food, and even fighting over the choicest handouts. The family came very well prepared with some stale bread, and the ducks were eager to relieve them of it. Adelaida was interested in this, so left the playground to watch the boy feed the ducks.

Adelaida was predictably cautious at first, content to watch the ducks waddling around her without actually touching them. But the ducks were not so content to just watch her! They knew that she was a human child, and human children mean food for these essentially domesticated ducks -- about half of the ducks left the family with the boy to try their luck with Adelaida.

Fortunately (for the ducks, at least), the family offered to let Adelaida give the ducks some of their stale bread. She took one piece of bread, examined it, and carefully put it in her mouth. Of course I explained to her that this particular bread was for the ducks and encouraged her to remove the bread from her mouth. She just got the bread out of her mouth before several ducks darted at her hand, eager to take the bread she wasn't going to eat. The ducks were so fast that I was startled by them (and was nipped myself when a duck removed the second piece of bread from my hand). Even as she was being attacked by hungry ducks, Adelaida just stood there, occasionally pointing at the ducks and saying "duck." She was completely unfazed by them!

Telluride Vacation: a long race

Several months ago, a neighbor and friend of ours told Dale about an annual race in Colorado called the Imogene Pass Run. It is a 17.1 mile point-to-point mountain race in the San Juan mountains of Colorado, run from Ouray (7810 ft) to Telluride (8750 ft) over the 12,114-ft Imogene Pass. This is a serious race, over a seriously tall pass! Here is a profile of the run -- note how steep it is from Lower Camp Bird up to the Imogene Pass.



Dale heard about this race, decided he wanted to do it, and immediately thought of Michael as a possible accomplice.

Dale's enthusiasm for the race was infectious, Michael thought it would be a lot of fun, so we began planning a vacation to Telluride with Michael and Sami!

Dale and Michael started training for the race -- Michael with the benefit of age and Dale with the benefit of elevation -- and the boys started running longer and longer runs as they worked up to a 17-mile trail run. All was going well until mid-August, when Dale sprained a ligament in his knee that ended his hopes of winning -- or even finishing -- the Imogene Pass Run. (Dale's knee was pretty badly injured. It swelled up immediately and is still swollen today, and he couldn't straighten or bend it for about a month.)



Dale wasn't able to run the race, but Michael decided to go ahead with it. We rented a house in Telluride, which was swarming with people of all ages planning to run the race. Michael left the house at 5:30 the morning of the race, rode two hours to the start line (on the other side of a mountain range), and started the race at 7:30, headed toward a finish line 17.1 miles away.

The rest of our household slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, and then ambled over to the finish line -- about three blocks away from our house.

Sami had the great fortune to be at the finish line when the overall race winner, John Tribbia, crossed the finish line, 2 hours 19 minutes after starting! That an average speed of 7.4 miles per hour, at high elevation on a very steep trail. We were all quite impressed with John.

Also impressive was Michael's finish. He jogged up to the finish line with a smile on his face, looking great!


He saw us and gave us the thumbs-up sign, then came over to chat for a few minutes before crossing the actual finish line.


Michael crossed the finish line 4 hours, 52 minutes, and 10 seconds after starting the race, a fantastic time for a flat-lander ;)


Doesn't Michael look great after a 17-mile trail run!


Sami and Adelaida were Michael's biggest fans at the finish line.


We were all very proud of Michael for running this race. Dale was disappointed he wasn't able to run it, but has already started training for next year's Imogene Pass Run!

Eating her fruits and veggies

Adelaida had a playdate a few weeks ago at a friend's house. They had a wonderful backyard, complete with water play pools, a little-kid playset, a big-kid playset, and a garden. Adelaida enjoyed the little-kid playset, completely ignored the big-kid playset, and loved the pools as long as the water spray wasn't aimed at her head, but her real favorite was their garden! They had fresh tomatoes, peaches, and apples, all of which we sampled just moments after picking. Delicious!

Here are some pictures of Adelaida eating her peach. I didn't get any pictures of her eating the tomatoes, but you can see tomato seeds on her bathing suit in some of the pictures. Tomatoes are one of Adelaida's favorite foods -- we had to tell her that the tomatoes were all gone to get her to try the peach.







Adelaida is generally very good at eating and trying new foods. She definitely has favorite foods, though. She LOVES yogurt (it is the only food she tells us she wants by name, "yoyuu"), as well as tomatoes, pita with hummus, just about any kind of meat, strawberries, pasta, blueberries, scrambled eggs, and avocado. If she had to choose ten foods to eat forever, I'm pretty sure those would be on her list! (Her least favorite foods right now are milk and zucchini. She does eat zucchini sometimes, but consistently shuns milk.)

Hats

Our daughter has a fascination with hats. She likes to wear them. She likes to put them on other people. She likes to point at them and say "hat." She likes to put them on her head. And recently, she has discovered that the presence of one hat on her head does not preclude the addition of another!

One hat:


Wearing one hat and putting a second on:


Is there a baby under those three hats?


There's the baby!


Adelaida also likes to put hats on other people. I walked into the room a few days ago and saw this. Lucky I had a camera!

Chillin' with her shades on

Last week, the chemistry department held its annual potluck picnic. This is a family affair, and ordinarily I wouldn't have been able to take Adelaida, but my parents were visiting with us last week, so my mom and Adelaida met me at the picnic. The picnic started at 12:00, which is when Adelaida's nap generally starts (she eats lunch at 11:00 and naps from 12:00 to 2:00 at school), but she was a trooper and stayed awake (and happy) for the entire picnic!

I, of course, did not take a camera, but I'm fortunate to have some great friends with cameras, and they took some pictures for me. Thanks Rick and Diane!

Here are some pictures of Adelaida from the picnic:

Adelaida with her Momma:


Chillin' with her sunglasses on (I think she looks like a little movie star in this picture!):


These pictures really made me reminisce, back to last February (Adelaida was only two months old!) when we first put sunglasses on Adelaida. We intended to have her wear sunglasses from a very young age so that she would be used to them and not try to take them off. I was pretty good about having her wear them last summer, then stopped over the winter. When I tried to introduce them again in the spring, Adelaida was old enough to take them off and didn't like having the glasses on her head. So, she rarely wears them and I'm not very good about putting them on her anymore. But, that will change! I'm going to put the sunglasses in the car and put them on her whenever we are out.


This also made me think back to last August, at last year's department picnic. I took Adelaida and gave her a cherry, thinking she'd play with it. She did, but managed to eat it in the process! (The entire cherry took about 30 minutes for her to eat!) She ended up with cherry all over her face, hands, dress, legs, shoes, blanket, and momma :)


Adelaida's lunch for this year's picnic was primarily (90% or more) pulled pork. She loved it, and only ate the pasta salad until she discovered the pork! She is definitely a carnivore.

Singing her ABBs

I've realized in the past few weeks that Adelaida is quickly growing from a baby into a little girl. I am amazed every day at how many things she can do by herself and how quickly she learns new things! One of her most fun new skills is singing the alphabet song -- or at least part of it. I first heard her sing it last week, completely out of the blue, and since them she has been singing it pretty frequently. She has at least two toys (and probably many more) that sing the alphabet song, so she hears it when she is playing in the kitchen and when she is playing with her house in the living room, and also at school (her teacher, Mrs. Diana, sings the alphabet song to the kids after they finish eating lunch every day). The fact that she heard it and started singing it herself is one more reminder that kids are sponges and soak up everything they hear!

Adelaida's version of the alphabet song is unmistakably the alphabet song, with the appropriate rhythm and notes, but is not quite the traditional alphabet: she sings "A B B D E E E E E"!

Adelaida hasn't quite figure out how to pronounce "s" sounds at the beginning of a word ("socks" sounds like "docks", although she pronounces the "s" sound at the end of "eyes" and "noise"), so the C sounds like a second B. And, she seems to like E so much that once she gets to E she becomes a broken record and repeats it several times rather than continuing to F!

Now that I've heard her start singing the alphabet song so many times, I've started singing it to her more so that she can add the rest of the letters. She gets so excited to hear me sing it to her, and it is so much fun for me to help her learn such an exciting new skill!

Drummond Island: Family Fun

We did more in Drummond Island than just sit by the water and relax -- every hour of every day was filled with fun and enjoyment, even if we were just sitting on the front porch or cooking dinner together. Here are several more pictures from our trip:

BJ and Rachel -- what an adorable couple!

At one point I looked out at our beach and saw Adelaida sitting all by herself in front of the firepit.

She was very happily playing in the sand, oblivious of the fact that everyone had left her (or maybe she just didn't care that they had all left!)

Uncle BJ and Auntie Rachel Murphy brought sand toys, including a rake, a shovel, a watering can, a wheelbarrow, and other accessories -- Adelaida loved them!

One morning, I saw two pileated woodpeckers! They were gigantic and looked just like Woody Woodpecker.

In the absence of other obstacle courses, Adelaida can entertain herself by crawling all over her daddy!

We had beautiful sunsets, every night.

Adelaida enjoyed sitting on the front porch steps with Nonna and Poppa. Seriously, this was entertainment for her for at least a half-hour! She thought it was so much fun! (I suspect Nonna and Poppa kind of enjoyed it too!)

Uncle BJ and Auntie Rachel Murphy really saved the trip by bringing an Adelaida-sized chair with them to Drummond Island. I suspect they imagined that Adelaida would sit in her little chair on the beach, but we immediately conscripted the little orange chair and a bench that we found in the front hall and turned them into a dining table and chair for Adelaida. She had her very own chair to sit in and could eat by herself -- which is exactly what she wants! I don't know what we would have done without the little orange chair. Thanks BJ and Rachel!

Perhaps the most memorable event of the trip involved BJ, a golf ball, and a certain dining room window ... I can just hear BJ saying "I'm going to take a few steps back for this one!"

Drummond Island: Fun in the Water!

One of the highlights of our vacation to Drummond Island this summer was the water. Our house sat right on Lake Huron (or more precisely, on Scammon Cove, which opens into Lake Huron).


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We took great advantage of our time on the water!

Bill brought fishing poles and we all had fun catching fish (and trying to catch them) off the pier.


There was a large rock out in the middle of Scammon Cove (way, way out there) and Dale decided one day to walk to it. He really could walk -- the cove was shallow enough all the way to the rock. I lost sight of him for a few minutes but only panicked a little!


Dale approaches The Rock:


Dale waving to me from the top of The Rock!


Dale took Adelaida out to play in the water ...


... but she really enjoyed the sand more!


We didn't get any picture of this, but BJ and Rachel M brought their canoe. We only took it out once (Michael and Dale were rowing; Adelaida and I were sitting on a cooler in the middle of the canoe), but had a great time. Adelaida enjoyed it so much she fell asleep about ten minutes into the canoe ride!

More fun in the water, with a plastic boat that washed onto our rocks. Some days it just didn't seem worth it to put Adelaida's bathing suit on -- and she was wearing a dress, so she could easily wade out into the water and keep her clothes dry ...


... and then the inevitable happened: she sat down! Well, it didn't hurt anything to let Adelaida play in the water in her clothes, and she had lots of fun playing in the water with the boat.


One disadvantage of this house built in the 19th century was that it didn't have bathtubs. Three bathrooms, three showers, no bathtubs. This wasn't really a problem for those of us over age two, but Adelaida wasn't very fond of the shower. We tried taking her in the shower with us one evening, then realized we had one of the world's largest bathtubs out our back door. After that, she bathed in the lake, with mixed success (she loved being in the water, but still didn't like the getting-clean part). Bath-time has always been Daddy-time at our house, so Dale held her up in the lake, poured water over her, and cleaned her while I took photographs!

Drummond Island: A Family Vacation

Since my siblings and I have all moved away from home, we don't get to spend time together very often. So, my parents and siblings all decided to get together for a week-long vacation this summer -- a real vacation, where we go somewhere and no one has to worry about working or cleaning the house or any other commitments that come with staying at your own home. Somehow (and truly I am not sure how this happened), we rented a house on the southeast corner of Drummond Island, Michigan:

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For those not familiar with Drummond Island, it is the easternmost part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, approximately two miles from Cockburn Island, Canada. And it is VERY sparsely populated.

We stayed in a lovely house, a 100-plus-year-old-house called The Stone House (and everyone on the island knew of The Stone House). The eight-bedroom Stone House sits on 45 wooded acres, with the house right on Scammon Cove (Lake Huron), and with its own private beach. It was a wonderful location to spend a week with the family!

The house was just perfect for our vacation. We had privacy (we never saw any neighbors, and only saw other people when we ventured out into town), enough bedrooms for everyone, our own private beach, a firepit for evenings, and lots of space to play in the yard.

With us on the vacation were:

Mikel ("Poppa"), sitting on the steps with Adelaida.

My Mom ("Nonna"), sitting inside with Adelaida.

Bill, wading out into the lake.

Rachel R, with her dad on a beautiful day.

Michael, helping Adelaida ride Henry.

Sami, relaxing on the beach with Henry.

BJ ("crazy uncle BJ") playing "voice modulation" with Adelaida.

Rachel M, sitting on the porch with Adelaida on a chilly morning.

Henry, Michael and Sami's dog, who has grown from a 6-lb ball of fur at Christmas to an 80-lb ball of energy!

Duffy, BJ and Rachel M's dog, who tried so hard to keep up with Henry!

I'll post more about our various adventures on the island later -- we certainly had a lot of fun!