This year, we decided to do just as many camps as we’ve done in previous summers (the 2020 pandemic summer being an obvious exception), only now, we’ve decided NOT to do camps with each other. This has been amazing for each of us. We’ve had more opportunities to grow and explore what we’re capable of outside of the Pig Community. We’ve tried new things, honed existing skills, and stepped up when asked. It’s only mid-summer, but so far, so good.

Emmett did a 2 week Pinocchio camp at the DCPA, auditioning for and getting the part of Pinocchio. Not only was he fantastic, but it was so, so obvious how much he’d grown in his acting skills from the start of the camp to the end of the camp. His director even said so. And, best of all, he said that he didn’t have any anxiety when performing. Yay!

Tessa did a 2 week Avid Outdoor camp, jumping into the same outdoor activities she did at sleep away camp last year, just without the sleeping away. She said that she definitely prefers the water sports, SUPing being her favorite, but she must have also appreciated the land days because her group voted her Most Likely to be an Avid Counselor. Her counselor told Mom that this came down to Tessa not only having he confidence to do things without waiting to be asked, but also having the foresight to think through the processes while taking into account the personalities involved in each activity. Tessa also did a week-long rock climbing camp, where she had fun, but not as much fun as when she was out on the water.

Riley did a Zoo camp and 2 weeks of rock climbing. He loved learning about the zoo animals, and now that the zoo’s so familiar to him (this is his 4th or 5th summer at Zoo Camp), he spends his time searching out new information and hidden gems. Riley’s also greatly improved his climbing skills. He’s working on getting his time down on the speed climbing wall as well as the routes with overhangs. Each day, he has a new best time to report. Nicely done, Riley! He’s also proud of being a leader and a great help with the younger campers.

After 3 weeks of camps so far, Asher has also grown into his inherent fantastic-ness. He started with a local rec center camp, and unlike past camps where he didn’t always want to go back, this time he was excited to see his friends and play everyday. He never wanted to be picked up early, and the counselors reported his great attitude. In art camp, Asher got to work on a spray paint canvas. He was excited to explore this new medium and crafted a wonderful piece. But it was in Survival Skills camp where Asher really shined. He taught his co-campers everything he’d already learned about outdoor survival, even going so far as to bring one of his survival manuals to camp to share with friends. His counselors said that he stepped up helping others while advocating for himself, and that he was a real leader in his group. Yay!

But this summer hasn’t been 100% summer camps. We finally got new sod in the backyard and we are taking advantage of it every chance we get, with night games and Slip ‘n Sliding, our Fourth of July fireworks were epic, and we’ve loved spending time chilling in our comfy home.

After this week, we are taking a road trip to parts north to do some camping. Hopefully, we see some cool animals and interesting sights. We’re planning on stopping at Devil’s Tower, so maybe UFOs will be involved.

Stay tuned…

It’s officially Spring, and although winter was dry and not too cold, we’re still excited to see everything green up and start to grow. Summer’s still a bit off, but we’ve only got 2 more weeks before school is out and we’re released to the wilds of June, July, and August. To get ready for the summer, the entire family’s logged hours of time outside putting a raised garden into the side yard. We’ve got a list of all the plants planned to go in, but we were excited to see so many of the plants we planted last fall have come back! Our hops and our clematis are already weaving their way up the side of the house, and almost all of the perennials and grasses we planted around the house have thrown up green shoots. (The only ones that didn’t make it so far are ones that Iris pulled out of the ground.) Once we get the backyard sod installed, we’ll have thick, green sod to play on and generally enjoy for the summer. We can’t wait!

Here’s a bit of a roundup of what we’ve been up to these past few months.

Asher’s moved from basketball onto flag football, and though he enjoys it, there’s nothing he likes more than building Legos. He used some of his allowance to purchase military Legos, and now he’s constructing a Lego military base. He will sit at the Lego table or on the floor in the Lego room building for hours and hours. He’s creative and has fantastic spatial awareness, so his builds are fairly impressive for a small nugget.

He’s still swimming and is now officially a good swimmer. Yay, Asher! His skills have advanced to the point where Mom feels comfortable with him being in the pool without water wings, which means that we might even go to Water World this summer!

At the beginning of March, Emmett completed an epic 7 show run of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, performing as Poseidon. It was marred only by a 24-hour stomach bug. He performed Friday night, threw up immediately after he got home, missed his Saturday performance, but managed to pull off performing in the Sunday matinee. He was ashen faced and tired on Sunday, but he really wanted to finish off the show’s run, so he pushed through. Nice work, Emmett!

Tessa, Riley, and Emmett asked to start music lessons again. (Asher declined.) Riley on the guitar and Tessa and Emmett on the piano. (Emmett wants to learn to compose on the piano.) They’ve all received top marks from their teacher, and have progressed through a ton of material in a very short period of time.

They’ve all three also been coding in online classes. Tessa and Riley’s classes just ended, and Emmett’s has just begun. They’ve stuck to games they love, Minecraft and Roblox, but they are learning general coding skills that are applicable across many platforms.

Tessa is still arting, creating wall hangings, clay creations, and paintings in art class, in addition to undertaking her own art projects at home. Tessa’s creativity also runs to cooking, so we are never without baked goods in the house. Thanks, Tessa!

Riley has hit new milestones in archery with both his recurve and compound bows. He practices in our backyard range and has worked his way up to scoring in the top third of the class. Go, Riley! He has also just started taking Greek language classes. He loves all things ancient Greek, and he decided he’d like to learn the language as well. When we visit there next year, he’ll be able to translate for the entire family.

Finally, Emmett and Asher bought some Learning to Draw books and are working in their sketch pads to master cartoon figures and animals. Asher loves cute animals, and Emmett’s working on faces and hands. So great!

Everyone’s looking forward to taking a trip to Maine in a bit to visit our cousins Suzy, Gail, and Rose. We can’t wait to see their home, hang out with them, and tool around Maine. It’ll be a perfect start to the summer because when we get back, it’s week after week of summer camp. We decided not to enroll in any camps together, which makes our overall summer more full, but we’ll each strike out on our own, meeting new people and learning new skills outside of our tight knit crew.

We hope you’ve all enjoyed the start to this year and are smoothly moving into the spring!

Best,

The Pigs

Although the autumn was hot and dry, and although we’ve only had a handful of snowstorms since the start of the year, it’s still winter. The cold spell last week kept the temperatures below freezing for at least a week, something that doesn’t happen often in Colorado. Today, though, we’re back up to the 60s, and it’s supposed to hit 70 tomorrow. Nice weather, but we still need snow!

There’s been enough snow in the mountains that we’ve been skiing each week with Dad, and it’s been awesome. We’ve been heading up the big lift and skiing blues this season. Aside from some arguing in the car on the way up (we’re all too tired to do it on the way down), our skiing days have been pretty chill for everyone. Everyone but Emmett, that is, who’s been diligently rehearsing his part as Poseidon for the upcoming Percy Jackson musical performance. He’s also the understudy for Ares! He’s going to do amazing, we are certain of it! He has 7 (seven!) performances that start this Friday. We are so excited for him!

Asher’s been hitting the court this winter playing basketball. He’s still learning the rules, and he’s not certain he really likes to follow them all (a shocker, we know), but he’s doing a lot of running up and down the court. He got his team picture last week and his own trading cards. Fantastic.

He and Tessa just finished up a Dragon’s Eye art class, where they created a dragon’s eye out of clay and painted it. Tessa’s back at a new session of Art Club this evening, Riley’s still racking up his pins in Archery, Asher’s strokes are progressing in swimming, Emmett’s practicing acting and voice over techniques at DCPA classes, and both Tessa and Riley are coding. Add to that our regular school work and Denver Options days, and we’re really very busy.

We are heading out to Maine in May to see cousins Suzy, Gail, and Rose, and we can’t wait! We’ve got a house on the beach, where we all fully intend to relax in preparation for a busy summer camp season. But that is still 3 months away. For now, it’s still winter. They are predicting snow this upcoming weekend. Cross your fingers there is enough to sled on.

Take care,

The Larsons

2021 was quite a year.

On top of all the seasonal celebrations (birthdays, July 4th, Thanksgiving, winter holidays), we moved, we expanded our mental health practice, the big kids all did sleep away camp for the first time, Emmett performed at Disney World, all of the kids performed in Treasure Island, we went to Hawai’i, we adopted a new puppy (Iris), Riley made his annual trip to Children’s Hospital (Nerf gun dart in the eye), Emmett officially became a teenager and got his own phone. It was b-u-s-y. We never thought that we’d be the drama type (except for Emmett, of course, who is a natural born thespian), but we realized this year that whenever someone asks us “How are things?”, we have a lot to relate. It’s not just that we have a lot on our plate. There’s always something happening to us. Each time we think, “Yes, we’ve made it to some downtime,” boom! Crazy happens to us. It happens to us. This is, at least on this first day of 2022, something we’re going to unpack so as to better understand and be better situated in 2022. Nevertheless, we’ve made the most of 2021’s opportunities, crazy or no.

How? you ask. Since we’ve not posted since June, that is, indeed, a reasonable question. In fact, we only posted 3 times in 2021. Three times! (We were in the midst of so, so much happening that we didn’t even have time to update Pig Party Nation regarding the Pig Party.) We apologize. We have been remiss.

Are we over scheduled? Perhaps. Are we just not scheduling the right things to promote peace and quiet? Maybe. Did we experience a lot of transition in 2021? Definitely. Did we push ourselves to conquer fears in 2021? Without a doubt. This last piece is the proof that we’ve not wasted our experiences.

Let us illuminate.

Exhibit A

Emmett did cosplay camp, creating a male Elsa-look for his final project. At first, he was upset that his materials and his ability to mold the materials he had weren’t enough. After a bit, Emmett came to a realization that he might not always be able to embody his finished product-whether it be literal or figurative-the way that he wants. He sees things very clearly in his mind, Emmett’s imagination is prodigious, and getting from point A to point B isn’t always feasible. Mom, however, spoke to him about a lesson there: Learn to enjoy the ride, she said, and have compassion for yourself while both recognizing and pushing your limits. It isn’t an easy lesson, and many adult struggle with it, but Emmett has firmly planted himself in the performing arts, and if he is to remain there in health and happiness, it is an important lesson to learn now. Emmett applied the lesson while tackling head on performance anxiety at Disney World. He was so joyful in the moment while performing, in fact, that he had tears of joy streaming down his face. When asked about it, he said that he was just so happy to be performing at Disney World that he couldn’t help but cry. His Beauty and the Beast performance in December benefited from finding joy in the moment, and his academic work has benefited from him being compassionate with himself. Well done, Emmett.

Exhibit B

Riley pivoted from rock climbing to archery classes in 2021 (though now he wants to start rock climbing again, go figure). This past fall, in an archery camp, Riley received great attention from the coach for his skill. Although Riley’s had a recurve bow for a while, he just recently started taking regular lessons. So, when he was told by his coach that he was a natural and that the coach would like Riley to join his JOAD team, Riley was understandably proud of himself. Riley mulled over the offer. As the week in camp wore on, however, Riley decided that although he likes archery, and although he enjoys demonstrating his abilities to the acclaim of others, he chose not to continue working with that coach after the camp came to a close. Why? At first, Mom thought that it was because the coach made Riley work hard. Riley doesn’t love doing sprints and pushups as much as he loves hitting targets. Mom looked and all of the other area JOAD teams were full. She continued to circle back around to Riley, asking him if he wanted to work with this one coach. But again and again, he said that he didn’t want to. Finally, he clarified that the coach “had a vibe” that made Riley feel uncomfortable. Riley went on to say that the coach didn’t step in when some of the campers weren’t so kind to each other or when they made fun of another camper that wasn’t such a great shot. Riley didn’t want to work with a coach that let his students think that bullying behavior was acceptable as long as they were winning. Instead of joining a JOAD team, Dad put up a target in the yard where Riley can shoot more regularly and on his own terms. Good job, Riley.

Exhibit C

Tessa loves to create art, but in 2021 she also discovered that she loves to have time to herself to art in whatever capacity she chooses. She was presented with multiple art camps this past year–week long art summer camps, sewing camps, theatrical art classes–but she said no to all of them except for one weekly, multi media art class. Instead, she’s been spending a lot of time in her room or in our new art room just creating. She made holiday decorations for the house, including intricate snowflakes and a paper string of lights; she and dad created a cocooned victim for our Halloween spider web lighting; and she made individual, personalized holiday presents and birthday presents for everyone in the house. She’s realized that her love of art doesn’t extend to doing just anything, and she’s decided that joining a camp or class means less time for her to choose her own projects. She’s chosen to take just one class to get the instruction she wants and to see what she can do with the knowledge she already possesses. That’s some great self awareness and self confidence. Create away, Tessa.

Exhibit D

Asher came a bit late to swimming. He was in weekly classes before COVID, but those were the before-times. During COVID, his swim school closed, along with the rec centers, and he took a long hiatus from the pool. When we moved to our new house, Mom got Asher signed up at the old swim school where the big kids learned their strokes. Asher, however, wasn’t as interested in being in the pool as the big kids were when they were his age. He was, in fact, afraid of the deep end. This went on for a while. The first week, he refused to go into the deep end. He told Mom that he was afraid he’d drown. Mom explained that his was a private lesson, that his teacher had no other kids to keep an eye on beside Asher, and that she was there too. The second week, Asher skipped class because our smallest kitty had gone missing, and we were canvassing the neighborhood. (See? So much happening. Thank goodness Itty-Bitty came back that second night.) The third week, Asher and Mom talked about a plan of action for him to succeed. He asked for Emmett and Tessa to come to his swim lesson with him, for them to sit on the other side of the viewing window, and for Mom to sit on the bench poolside. Done, mom said. Asher was still afraid, but with everyone there, he knew there wasn’t a chance he’d drown if he got into trouble in the deep end. So, instead of refusing, he swam his laps. And he did it again the week after. By the third lesson, he was good to go into the deep end without Mom poolside and without his siblings keeping a close watch on him. He said he was no longer afraid to go into deeper water, and he learned that leaning into the people that love him most will often help get him through something difficult. We will always be here for you, Asher.

On top of these examples, all of us have decided that we would rather no longer have big birthday parties. (By Mom’s count, our family alone has had more than 40 kid birthday parties, so we aren’t lacking in that capacity.) But we’ve decided that we would rather not have a ton of friends over to run around the house screaming for 3 hours. We decided that we would rather have meaningful experiences that we get to craft: Going to the mountains with the family, inviting a friend and her family to the movies, having a few friends come for a sleepover. Although, overall, we’ve not spent a ton of time with a ton of kids, it seems that we’ve come to recognize that being with people just to be with people isn’t very satisfying, especially in large numbers. What’s better is to spend quality time with a few close friends.

So, while we made good use of the the experiences we had in 2021, we are asking the Universe to make 2022 a bit more tame. As in, not so much chaos. We, for our part, are doing our best to make choices that support that. We are already keen not to overschedule summer 2022, we’ve planned our year’s travels and are intent to make the trips a mix of both adventure and relaxation, and we’re planning to enjoy more down time in our new home. There have already been pajama and reading days and pajama and Lego building days, all of which we’ve enjoyed. After doing so much, and moving so many times, being able to rest, relax, and rejuvenate has been wonderful. We’d like to order more of that, please.

Here’s to you 2022! We choose balance for the new year.

Pigs Out

It’s official! After wandering for more time than we thought possible, we’ve moved in to our forever home. For those of you keeping score at home, this was our 6th move in 7 years. But now that we’re here, and now that it’s done, it seems worth the wait. Everyone has their own bedroom, there are lots and lots of windows, and we’ve got a huge yard. This turned out to be especially important, as we just adopted a puppy! (Yay!) Her name is Iris, she’s a 3 month old Newfoundland mix, and she is a snuggler. (Double yay!) The kitties are getting used to her, and she’s getting used to the house and her new family. She especially loves running like a crazy lady around the 2 acre backyard. (Yes, we did say 2 acres.) It’s great! There’s still much to be done to the house both inside and out, but we’ve got time. It’s ours!

We got here just in time for a summer packed with fantasticness. Asher already had a week of art camp where he built a portable castle filled with characters and weapons. He created a backstory for each character as well as an enemy for the castle inhabitants to fight. So creative! Emmett also just finished a camp. He was gone at a 2 week long outdoor adventure sleepaway camp during the move, and he came back to a new house and a new puppy. He hiked, biked, canoed, kayaked, rock climbed, did archery, and generally had an amazing time. (Riley and Tessa go to the same camp at the end of July.) Up next is Ninja Warrior Camp for Tessa and Riley and Cosplay camp for Emmett; Asher is set to do an outdoor Survival Skills camp and a sewing camp; and everyone will go to Zoo camp. Throw in swim lessons for Asher, rock climbing club for Riley, and violin lessons for Emmett, and we are pretty booked.

But wait, there’s more…

We are going to Maui in August! We did our Scuba classroom and pool lessons last month, and now we need to do our Open Water Dive portion of the certification. This will be our first big vacation in years. Years! We can’t wait. We are staying right on the beach, and we are scheduled to kayak and snorkel with sea turtles (in addition to Scuba-ing). Plus, we’ll have plenty of time for just hanging out in the warm Hawaii sun. Ah, just thinking about it feels good. Imagine what it’ll be like to actually be there.

Lots and lots has been happening. We’ll keep you posted as more things come up. Asher is turning 8 (eight!), we start at a new school the week after we come back from Hawaii, Mom and Dad are opening up two new practice locations for the business. So, lots of stuff is coming up. But now that we have a home base that won’t change for the foreseeable future, maybe we can do all of our stuff with a little more ease.

Wishing all of you out there in Pig Country a great summer.

Be well,

The Pigs

It’s spring in Colorado, and that means–snow. Lots and lots of snow. Take one historically large snowstorm, add a handful of other medium spring snowstorms, and you reach the end of April in Colorado with snow on the ground. Things are greening up, broken tree branches are on the ground, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it snowed again next week. Although the warmth is intermittent, however, we are happy to see buds on the trees and bulbs poking up out of the ground. We are looking forward to a lot of upcoming events. But first, a quick recap of what we’ve been doing.

Emmett and Riley are deep into coding classes; Emmett has been coding in Roblox and Riley has been coding in Minecraft. While they both enjoy coding, they are ready to take a break from that screen time (gasp!) when these coding class sessions end. Emmett has also been dipping back into musical theater after a bit of a break from it, doing private singing and acting lessons with an instructor he really likes. Meanwhile, Riley is back at the guitar, working hard on Imagine Dragons and Oingo Boingo songs alike.

Tessa has been arting. She completed a Street Artists class and is now creating baking miniatures (think ceramic donuts and ice cream sundaes). She has also been working on the theme from Harry Potter in her piano lessons, and it sounds great. Sometime this summer, she will host a belated birthday sleepover with friends, as she opted not to have a party for her big day this past January due to COVID.

Asher has spent the majority of every hour of every day building Legos. It’s not hard to locate Asher in the house, as he leaves a trail of Legos in his wake. His builds, however, are impressive beyond his years. This is both his saving grace and the mantra we repeat, trying not to swear, after stepping on one of his stray Legos on the floor. (This happens more than it should.) When he is not building Legos, Asher is also arting. He created a paper mache dragonfly, a sleeping fox kit multi-media canvas, and a paper mache Mount Olympus. (Yay, Asher!) Also, Asher is “horning” (Trademark, Asherverse). This, for the uninitiated, refers to trumpet lessons. He loves playing the trumpet and we are glad. Everyone, however, is going to take a short hiatus from music lessons starting at the beginning of May, which isn’t a bad thing since it looks like we’ll need some time to finally move into our forever house. We are in the midst of closing on the house now, and you never know until contracts are signed, so we don’t want to speak too soon, but the entire crew is super stoked for this move.

The new house has two acres, which means gardens and chickens and new puppies (RIP Isaac). Also, the new house has enough bedrooms for everyone to have their own. This translates to built in detente, something needed on a daily basis. It also will have a library, a room we’ve dearly missed since moving out of our Pinewood house, and lots of large windows, also something we’ve missed from our Pinewood house. We have big plans for this new place, so think good thoughts all you kind souls out there in the Pigverse.

In addition to a new house, the big Pigs will be going away to sleep away camp this summer, and they are both excited and scared, though not in equal measures. They’ve never been to sleep away camp before (thus the fear), but this is Avid camp, their favorite outdoor day-camp, so they have an idea of what to expect. The promotional materials for the overnight edition of Avid camp reads like a brochure for Camp Half Blood, minus the weaponry, full camp war games, and lava on the climbing wall (Google it, those of you not familiar with the Rick Riordan oeuvre). Asher will wait until next summer for sleep away camp and is, instead, going to do an Avid Survival Skills day-camp.

Other day camps featured during the summer of 2021: Zoo camp, art camp, cosplay camp, and sewing camp. As Erik and the Big Pigs are currently completing their SCUBA certifications (Mom is already certified), we are also planning a trip to Grand Cayman for the open water dive portion of our certifications. (Provided international travel opens back up.) Add to this family camping trips, and the summer is shaping up to be a good one. Needless to say, good times will be had by all.

Best,

The Pigs

When Pig Number One, Mr. Tookie McTooklton (Emmett’s spy name, for all of you out there that are not in the know), started blogging more than 12 years ago, he titled one of his first posts, “In Which Hope Comes to Town.” This post detailed Emmett’s aspirations of freedom. Freedom to be who he chooses to be. Freedom to define himself however he wants. The coincidence that our nation inaugurated its first Black president barely a month and a half after Emmett’s birth made him feel like everything was possible.

Fast forward through twelve years on the national and international stage, years that alternated between face splitting grins and sucker punches to the gut, and, well, we’ve come full circle. Despite the past 4 years, we choose to look ahead with hope. We choose to see that we are inaugurating our country’s first woman Vice President (woo-hoo!), a woman of color. We choose to focus on the positivity Biden and Harris bring to issues of race and gender equality, climate change, COVID, and social justice, to name a few. Like 12 years ago, we see January 20th, 2021 as the day in which hope comes to town.

While we waited (and wait) for hope to enter the building, we’ve been busy.

We celebrated Indigenous People’s day with food from our favorite vegan restaurant, City O City (did we mention the entire family committed to a plant-based diet just before the holiday?) and a family movie night. We celebrated Emmett’s birthday with more City O City, an amazing Golden Year Cake (Emmett turned twelve on 12/12; we Pigs refer to this as the Golden Year), and ice skating at an outdoor rink (twice!). We spent December going to Blossoms of Light at the Botanic Gardens, Zoo Lights at the Zoo, Member’s Only day at the new Space Odyssey at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the Mexican Modernism exhibit featuring Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the Art Museum.

We celebrated Solstice with stargazing and setting family intentions for the upcoming year. We celebrated Mom’s birthday with a family movie (Hidden Figures) and more great food (only the bestest ramen ever). We got bikes, a sewing machine, Legos, a scooter, night vision goggles, game night games, socks, and nonprofit donations in our names for Giftavus Maximus (what we’ve renamed Christmas). We made our own candles and kombucha; we arted and danced and sang; we said goodbye to 2020 (RIP Isaac, we will never forget you) and we welcomed 2021 with a silly string war and holiday poppers.

And now, we look forward with hope to what comes next. Back to school, seeing old and new friends. New classes. A new home (with a new puppy(ies?) and new chicks). A new clinic location. The ability to take a deep breath and relax. To rest. To enjoy.

Here’s to January 20th, 2021; the day in which hope returns.

Pigs Out.

Everything is weird. Up and down and up and down. Stuff is closed and then opened and now closed again. School was remote, then in person, now it’s a hybrid–in person every-other-week, one-day-a-week. So much chaos. And although we’ve done our best to keep on keeping on, we are now collectively exhaling a long held breath. We learned about how we got here and made decisions on where we wanted to go. We made signs and we marched. We fundraised. And CO turned out. But today we finally found out that the nation turned out too. We are, to say the least, relieved. We are not alone.

This morning, when we picked a cake out at our favorite bakery, we asked to have Biden Wins! written on it. A few minutes later, the woman who carried it back out with the words stenciled in blue was crying. This was how she learned that Biden won. Our cake. She was not upset, she was relieved. And she was crying. We drove our cake home, honking in solidarity with people waiving flags on street corners and smiling with renewed optimism about what we are moving toward.

Riley turned eleven and the family celebrated, but he didn’t have a party. Due to restrictions on group events (which our family already exceeds), Riley has had individual play date parties complete with bagels and cupcakes. Even with this though, some people are declining to join, citing pre-exisiting conditions or another need to self isolate. These are also our friends who are not coming back to school at all this year. Friends that we probably won’t see for quite a long time in person.

We trick-or-treated, but not with friends this year. Emmett was a hybrid Sultan/Medusa; Asher was a Star Wars clone captain; Tessa was the headless horseman; and Riley was a soul reaper. We carved pumpkins and decorated our house, but we didn’t get to go to a Halloween party. Still, the candy haul was ginormous. We had to wait four days to sort and organize after the candy had been quarantined, but it was worth it. Between the four of us, we should have enough candy for the next 3-4 years.

We’ve been rock climbing, creating at our makerspace, taking drawing lessons, and spending time at the museum. Tessa’s been working hard at her Harry Potter art classes and Riley’s excelling at archery classes; Emmett performed as the Sultan in a musical Aladdin and as Doug in Descendants, and he’s taking classes to perform in the Music Man in the spring; and Asher’s been working hard at piano and playing a ton with his friend, Jack, next door. We’ve worked to retain normalcy in our routines. Still, we miss school (yes, we miss school), we miss or normal camps and lessons, and we miss not always being around each other. (We REALLY miss not always being around each other.)

Now, however, we are more optimistic about what’s coming up. We will eat our cake today and cheer. But we know that there is still work to do, and we choose to show up to do the work because this is our world. And the world is what you make it.

Hi All!

Summer has flown by! It’s been a bit s-l-o-w and lacking in camp fun, but we’ve made new friends, returned to frequenting our favorite local haunts, and celebrated a birthday, so we’re all good! Let’s recap:

The Denver Botanic Gardens: This was the first place to open back up during COVID, and we were there within 72-hours of that occurring. You’ve probably seen the pics posted of us running around a very lush garden, with koi and fantastic sculptures? That’s it. We love to go there and pretend that we are in the movie Jumanji. Sometimes, we just pretend that Mom and Dad are nefarious ne’er do wells and we have to escape and spy on them. Either way, we’re outside, so we’re good.

The Denver Zoo: This was the second place to open back up, and when we got into a virtual line to purchase tickets, we were only number 55,000 in line. Yes, the zoo is that popular. Anyway, we ended up getting tickets and were back within their first week reopened. It was great to see all of our favorite animals, but since we were there in the afternoon, we didn’t get to see the newborn cubs, the baby rhino, or the new stingray petting area. Two more times, we tried to get tickets earlier in the day so we could see these animal attractions, and twice all of the time slots were gone. It wasn’t until two weeks ago that we FINALLY got to the zoo before noon and we saw everything we wanted to see! Yay! We tried not to let the fact that it was a bajillion degrees outside get us down, but it was a close call. Two hours outside and we were exhausted and turning on each other…

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science: This just opened back up kind of recently. We’ve been twice times so far, though. First, we went to see the new exhibit Art of the Brick, which was a bunch of huge Lego sculptures. It was super cool. Asher especially loved the life sized T-Rex and the equally huge swimmer. There was a ginormous pencil there too that everyone found to be pretty amazing. When we went back, we saw an IMAX about mimics in the Amazon and a Victorian explorer whose work helped Darwin prove his theory of Evolution. Mom was a bit surprised to see us on the edge of our seats for the entire IMAX. We loved it!

Wicked Camp: Emmett was the Wizard in his Wicked theater camp! He was super upset that he wasn’t Elphaba, but he’s still pretty new to musical theater. His teacher says that he has an amazing voice, but it still needs training. Nevertheless, he’s on his way! We loved watching the filmed performance! (Due to COVID, there are no live performances, and all of the performers socially distance during the performance.) We got popcorn and put it on the big screen TV in the basement. We cheered when it was Emmett’s turn to sing. Yay, Emmett!

History Colorado Camp: This was our first full week camp that we all did together, and it was amazing. We’d never done camps at History Colorado before, but we loved their virtual field trips this past spring. Our theme was Colorado Archaeology, and we excavated, explored, and learned. We built a hide stretcher, rebuilt pots from discovered shards, and strung beads. We made new friends that we enjoyed hanging out with, and had a wonderful week.

Asher’s 7th Birthday Party: It was 20 kids outside for a Mandalorian Themed Party. We had a Mandalorian themed nature scavenger hunt, pin Baby Yoda on the Mandalorian, light saber fights, and Baby Yoda cupcakes. It was hot, with a small amount of shade on our front porch, but it was great! Asher got a new bike for his birthday, and asked his friends to donate to rhinos.org in lieu of gifts. He was so proud of himself when rhinos.org emailed him and told him how special he was to request that his friends help support the rhinos. Asher-Dasher is so fantastic.

Camping: We paddle boarded on a lake, saw a petrified forest and the Royal Gorge, and had an entire mountain valley to ourselves for two days of hiking and adventuring. Look at the pics. Each time, it was so, so good to unplug and spend time outside of the city. We are looking forward to doing it again.

Etc: Add to all of the above rock climbing at Uber Grippen, lots of playdates with friends, and exploring the neighborhood with new friends, and our summer–while not a normal Pig Summer–has still be full of excitement and exploration.

We aren’t sure what this fall will bring, but as there’s always something happening here, it’s sure to be interesting…

With love,

The Pigs

Life in the time of COVID19 has been, well, not drastically different for us pigs. Our school went on spring break and never returned. Our one-day-a-week, in-person school, we should clarify. But our school-at-home didn’t miss a beat. We’ve moved onto a less structured school day, as we’ve all summer long to get through this academic year (spoiler alert: almost all of our summer camps have been cancelled), but we keep on keeping on. How, you ask? Let us expand…

Our school workbooks aside (we still have to complete those), we have chosen a project for the summer: A Timeline. We started it in the basement at our new place (Did we mention we moved? More on that in a bit…), and we began with time periods we were interested in. Asher chose the Mesozoic Era, Emmett chose the Space Age, Riley chose Westward Expansion (he’s angling to get into the facts surrounding the Donner Party), and Tessa chose the Renaissance. We put those time periods on the time line, complete with labels and string, and now we are doing a deep dive into those periods, researching, learning more, and then adding more details to the timeline. Once we feel we’ve enough information about a particular time period, we move on. The coolest part is we built our own time machine out of cardboard boxes and blankets, and every time we do our research, we hop in the time machine first. So much spacetime to discover!

We’ve been on a bunch of virtual field trips through History Colorado (the Colorado History Museum, for those of you not in-the-know) and we’ve added those to the timeline too. The Chicano Movement (Emmett added his poster detailing who he chooses to be and what he chooses to stand for), Women’s Rights (we added a label showing that women in CO got the vote a full 27 years before the US ratified the 19th Amendment), Colorado geography (Tessa added the CO map she made)–so far, we’ve loved our Zoom field trips around the state to study our local history. We’ve also discovered some new hiking and camping ideas by participating. Perfect!

Our new house really lends itself to stay-at-home and social distancing. We moved because we decided that the house we were in wasn’t going to work for us long term. We needed a home set up for 6 people, with more separate indoor spaces (our old house had one huge room on the first floor and no basement), and a younger neighborhood population (there were no kids our age in the old neighborhood). We are happy to report we are enjoying our new basement a TON! Riley and Asher have their room downstairs and they love being separated a bit from Tessa and Emmett, who are on the second floor with Mom and Dad. Our basement also has our TV and the Lego table. Now, we get to have family movie night in the basement, like it’s a movie theater, and Lego building doesn’t end up with Lego’s taking over the entire first floor. This space also allows for everyone to play without so many fights for space. There’s a loft upstairs too, but we don’t use that too much. It’s there, though, should we choose to hang out there!

Also, there are a ton of parks and kids (so, so many kids) that even though we can’t get any closer than 6 feet, there’s still a lot of fun to be had biking, trading Pokeman cards, running through the sprinklers, playing Nerf guns, and playing dinosaur in these new outdoor spaces. It’s been a welcome change (which is good because at first we weren’t certain we’d made the right decision in moving out of our old home).

Riley dislocated his shoulder the weekend after we moved into the new house. (Of course you did, Riley.) But he was kind enough to reduce the dislocation all by himself while Mom and the ER doctor were discussing the xrays and how to go about getting the shoulder back into place. Thanks, Riley! He’s also now sporting a pair of orthotics for his flat, flat feet. The podiatrist took xrays (because Riley always needs more xrays) and said that when Riley’s feet were casted as a baby, it made him lose his arches. By wearing orthotics, he’s now attempting to rediscover those arches. The doctor is optimistic it will work. Stay tuned…

Emmett got an 80’s style Boom Box (with Bluetooth and CD capabilities), and he’s now spending a lot more time in his room listening to music and exploring Mom and Dad’s CD libraries. It’s perfect because he can listen to music without the screen of an iPod. He’s doing great with his weekly Zoom theater practice too. His Aladdin performance has been pushed back to the fall, but his singing voice is developing amazingly and we all know it’s going to be fantastic.

Asher is still a building machine. He’s so creative, building Lego Mandalorian and Clone Wars spaceships and speeders. He likes building kits, but he’s just as happy coming up with his own masterpieces. He’s also made a good friend next door, Jack. Asher and Jack are two peas in a pod. They both love dinosaurs, imaginative play, bubbles, and trucks. They have the same bike helmets, the same poster up in their rooms, and the same taste in games. Yay, Asher!

Tessa has been busy lately reading, reading, and more reading. It’s a good thing that our Tooth Fairy brings books and that everyone has been losing a ton of teeth lately, because our libraries are closed because of the pandemic. Without our thoughtful tooth fairy, Tessa would be doomed to reread for the fifth and sixth time all the books in our family library…

Going forward, we’ve still got some regular summer activities planned: Camping, hiking (We’ve already done a ton, check out the pictures!), and at least one summer camp called Ancestral Skills. We’ll weave our spacetime research and time traveling into that, add in biking to the neighborhood pizza place (for take out) and ice cream shop (for eating under a shady tree), and mix in a dash of whatever comes up–and we think that this summer is going to be a good one!

Check back soon,

The Pigs

OVERHEARD

“Uh, because I’m smart.

–Riley, answering Tessa’s question, “How do you know that you won’t confuse the two sticks once you put them into your pocket?”

“But you said I had freedom. You said I had free will. You tricked me!”

–Asher, upset that he had to stop building Legos to go and get his pajamas on.

“Yeah! I’ve got a good singing voice now…”

–Emmett, responding to Mom’s remark that she overheard E’s theater teacher telling him via Zoom that he’s going to steal the show with his amazing voice.