Author Archives: melissius

About melissius

A Canuck living in beautiful Colorado. Happily married (Geoff), mom to two handsome sons (Elijah & Miles). I am a follower of Jesus Christ. Life is great.

School Days Part Two

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Now that we are a month into the school year, I thought it was time to give you an update.

Elijah loves Kindergarten. He has had a few homework assignments, which he felt were not long enough. Slow down kid! You have years ahead to be saddled with too much homework. He’s made a few friends in his class, Bram & Cassie. I think last Friday was his best day ever, it was picture day, he got to buy popcorn and he was chosen to take home the class teddy bear, Bubba. In turn, we had to do something fun with Bubba and write about it in the Bubba book. We went to Color Me Mine and painted.


Miles, Bubba & Elijah

Miles has since changed his “school is a little bit dumb” attitude, and isn’t complaining anymore. He is thrilled when he gets chosen to be the line leader, and loves playground time. He will be working with the class speech therapist to correct his pronunciation, and I’m waiting to hear back from the school district about how we can make sure he’s seeing her more regularly. Right now, he only sees her twice a month.

With all the work & art they are bringing home I’m going to need another office box to store them in. I’m curious what other parents do with all the school work brought home. Do you save it? Do you scrapbook it? Let me know.

If It’s Not Scottish…

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We had such a wonderful time at the Robbie Burns Supper in January, we were keen on further embracing our Scottish roots and attending more Scottish events. After all, when Geoff & I were married, he wore a kilt. So he got decked out in his Armstrong tartan, I donned my Armstrong scarf and we drove up to Estes Park to check out the Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highland Festival.

There are many celtic festivals held over the summer, but we seemed to miss them. This one happen to fall on a free weekend for us, so we jumped at the chance to go. You can buy your tickets in advance, and if you do, you will save some money. We did not, but we only needed to pay for three tickets (plus parking).

It’s a pretty organized event, and has been going on for 30+ years. Aside from the clan tents, there are also scheduled events like jousting, caber tossing, dog agility. We saw none of those. What we did do was start at the Armstrong booth, have Elijah & Miles pick up passports, and let them run from booth to booth collecting stamps from the different clans. They thought this was awesome. We stopped extra long at Clan Cummins to see the Kellys, who represent their clan at all the festivals.


The passports & stamps

When we needed to dine, we visited the row of food stalls. The selections included fish & chips, haggis, bangers, deep fried Mars bar (which I wish I had tried) and meatballs on a stick. What I wanted was a hamburger, but those were nowhere to be found. I ended up picking a brisket sandwich that came with potato salad & beans. It was the shortest line, and it moved quickly.

There were a few tents that sold wares, and I resisted spending my dough there. At one tent though I discovered what tartan my family was permitted to wear. The Torrances (while I’m still unclear what clan/sept/family we belong to) wear the Edinburgh District tartan. So now I know that. 🙂

In the end we decided that the kids are still a little too young & wild to spend the day exploring a festival like this. And for the price we paid, it probably wasn’t worthwhile. We would have liked to see more, but it will have to wait for the future. We may have better luck at Tartan Day, which is celebrated in April, in Olde Town Arvada.

Now I just need to get my little Scots an Armstrong button, or a tam.

School Days

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We’ve entered into a new phase of parenthood, having two kids in school. Now it’s only a few days a week, a few hours a week, but it’s a start. The start, to more than a decade of schooling for them.

Miles has only been 2 days, and he has already declared that “school is a little bit stupid”. While we have had no breakdowns during the checking in and out of preschool, when he is away from there, he expresses his desire not to go back. I guess that means I need to have a conversation with his teacher.

Elijah started Kindergarten, and he seems to really like Mr. Candelarie. But his start to school hasn’t been uneventful, I got a call from the school nurse on his 3rd day of school. He’s fine, and it added a humorous anecdote to Mr. Candelarie’s memoirs (so he told me).

Meanwhile, I spent my free time on Monday going to the gym and taking my sweet time strolling down the aisles of Target in quiet. Reading as many labels as I wanted, not having to visit the toy section, and just moving along at a slow pace. It was lovely!

Where I Am

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I didn’t mean for 20 days to go by without blogging. I just haven’t been able to narrow down what I wanted to say.

In the time I’ve been MIA, we had a lovely drama-free trip to Canada. People who had never met Miles finally got to. This trip was too short, unless you count the long hours my loving husband drove there & back. I assure you, that portion of the trip was not too short. And Montana is beautiful!

Ask Elijah what was his favorite part about the trip to Alberta?

“the day I got to eat 2 donuts!” (a visit to Tim Horton’s with Gramma)

I promise to get back to blogging again soon. Once school gets going and I get two hours of freedom from Wingus & Dingus.

Expectations

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It was brought to my attention on the weekend, that I may have unrealistic expectations about our trip to Canada. Silly me, I thought it would be a trip without guilt. But Geoff assured me, having been away for 5 years, that it’s likely to come up.

Really? I hoped that the fact that I came would placate these people.

So now I’m stressed. And that’s stupid. What good does it serve me to be stressed about people being pissed at me? I can’t change how people will feel.

In any case, I’m pushing that aside and looking forward to seeing my family. If they wanna pay for me to travel there more frequently, maybe we can start a fund.

I just really wanted my grandparents to meet Miles. And I want to visit my dad’s grave. Though the thought of it makes me want to cry.

This may be an emotional trip.

All Aboard!

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Genevieve & D.C. of Choo Choo Soul

Elitch Gardens offers some great entertainment with their Summer Concert Series, there is something for everybody. Acts like Third Eye Blind, Emily Osment and preschooler favorite Choo Choo Soul. My boys were thrilled at the idea of going to see Choo Choo Soul, and I didn’t even tell them about the ride attractions!

We took the light rail to Elitch Gardens, since it has its own stop. We’ve never been to EG, but we’ve passed it many times taking the light rail downtown. The kids’ eyes were like saucers when they saw this park. The first ride we had to do was the ferris wheel. It gave great views of the park, and downtown Denver. We then headed over to Startoon Studios, where the lines were considerably less, and the rides were sized perfectly for the 5 & 3 yr old. Elijah loved the Cactus Coaster, he was the first one to give the ride operator the thumbs up to go another round. He ended up going around 4 times, the smile was so huge on his face.

Miles said his favorite was the Matinee Marina, a boat with a bell that went around in a circle.

When we finished all the rides there, we made our way to Elitch Arena to see the show. The arena offers plenty of seats and plenty of dancing room for the kiddos. Choo Choo Soul provided much more energy than the show on Playhouse Disney, it’s clear these guys enjoy what they do. The catchy music, D.C.’s rad dancing moves along with interacting with the audience made the show a lot of fun. Parents and kids of all ages were enjoying themselves. Following the show there was the opportunity to meet and greet Genevieve & D.C. Sadly we couldn’t stay for this, much to Elijah’s dismay. He really wanted to talk to D.C., but Miles was falling asleep- too much excitement for him.


D.C. dancing with the kids at the show

The show was a success. Heck, even Geoff got into it. There need to be more role models like Genevieve & D.C., teaching kids about eating vegetables, and dressing appropriately. Glad to hear Disney has ordered more episodes of Choo Choo Soul. And they may even allow you to submit videos of your kids dancing to be on the show. How cool is that?


*Thanks to Elitch Gardens for giving us free admittance to the park to enjoy the concert. My kids can’t wait to go back!*

Better Photographer

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I’d love to be a better photographer, so for fun, I’m entering a picture on a fellow MHM (Mile High Mamas) website, Greeblemonkey. One of my favorites from our hike around Lily Lake.

Wildflowers, Lily Lake, RMNP

I don’t even care if I win, I’d just like to be a finalist. To know that other shutterbugs think I have a good eye.

When Armstrongs Camp

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Normally I’d be moaning to you about how it rained the whole time, and we had a rough time camping.

Not so this time!

Nana & Grampy joined us for a wonderful 3 days camp in Rocky Mountain National Park. I was nervous we’d have a hard time getting a site in Longs Peak Campground, since it only has 26 tent sites. But arriving on a Monday, we nearly had our pick of the sites. We settled in the inner sites, sites 15 and 16 (but for fantastic views try to secure sites 1-4). The weather couldn’t have been better, and the food and company were great.

The highlight for me was the lovely hike around Lily Lake.


Lily Lake, with Longs Peak in the background
The views from up high and me figuring out macro photos for wildflowers make me eager to go back. The highlight for the boys was having Nana & Grampy to play with as well as daily conversations with Mr. Bill. He was the camp host, and with him set up across the road from us, the boys could say hello to him several times a day.

The future plan is for us to all tackle Longs Peak, one of the famous 14ers in Colorado. For now, we just enjoyed it from afar.

A trip in Estes Park provided me with an awesome souvenir, trail tags. You can obtain them from Brownfield’s Trading Post (on Elkhorn Ave), and the different colored border signify the length of hike you completed. This will be something I hope the boys enjoy earning. I got them the trail tag for the hike we did at Sprague Lake earlier this year.

With so much more of the National Park to explore, I hope get back real soon.