It's funny how time is changing for me, speeding up when I so want it to slow down so I can catch my breath. I remember years ago listening to those older than myself discuss how quickly time was moving for them and thinking how bizarre it would be to have a sense of things moving faster than they used to.
For better or worse, I too feel time speeding by these days. I know time hasn't actually sped up, but I still can't shake the feeling the year has just flown by.
I intended to write this entry a couple of months ago, but it seemed another busy Summer was contriving against me to prevent this from happening. Jerrod finished the fourth grade a few months ago and has now started his fifth and final year of elementary school.
The Summer was a blur of parties, friends, and fun, reading light-weight books pool-side, sipping cooling drinks to beat the heat on roof-top patios, weird rainstorms from a lingering spring, spontaneous plane rides for Jerrod and I, and before we knew what had happened it was over, time to start shopping for school and time to start thinking about the final four months of the year.
Jerrod finished up his fourth-grade year with good marks, another band concert, and an expressed desire to spend less time at Summer Camp and more time at home. =) An easy fix, that, and so we planned short camps instead and a round of tennis lessons.
Jerrod spent a week at the Denver Art Museum studying the method behind the creation of art, working on his own projects, touring parts of the museum, and enjoying lectures of featured DAM artists discussing their latest pieces on display in the museum.
Jerrod really enjoyed this camp, as he did his tennis lessons.
He became better friends with a neighboring classmate whom we didn't realize lives just two blocks from our loft, had several sleepovers, and in general enjoyed himself silly with long days spent gaming, reading, swimming, skating, and creating art.
The highlight of Jerrod's Summer was a spur-of-the-moment trip to Manhattan to spend a few days over a weekend with Nathan, who chose to stay in the city instead of return
home for the weekend as usual. Jerrod was thrilled and amazed at being whisked away quite suddenly, and it was his first visit to the East Coast and Manhattan itself.
He took tons of pictures (we're still working on getting those on his Flickr account, and I'll update when he has gotten them uploaded), saw the city his father and I have been talking a blue streak about for months now, and fell in love with it as we have. He's already talking about not being able to wait to go back, and Nathan and I are so pleased we were able to give him a very special memory of his first plane ride alone to a magical place filled with excitement, delicious food, and so unlike the familiarity of the city he has called home since birth.
I had my own impromptu trip to Manhattan in at the beginning of June, my second visit and falling over another long weekend when Nathan decided to treat me to several days and nights on the town instead of flying home to Denver. Every bit as thrilling as my last visit, we spent much time doing several of the things we didn't get to the year before and I also took scads of photos (
which you can check out here).
I enjoyed my first pizza experience in the Bronx at Zero Otto Nove and it was pure bliss! We
spent more time in Central Park, toured the Museum of Natural History, and I also got to see Nathan in action on the job when I wasn't enjoying some much-needed weekday down-time relaxing in our hotel. Every bit as stunning and thrilling as the last time, Manhattan is quickly becoming a favorite city of mine,
right up there with Paris and San Francisco.
Although Jerrod wasn't thrilled to return to school two weeks ago (Colorado schools start so early!!), the break in Summer routine was somewhat welcome and his year is off to a good start. Unexpectedly, I was able to sit as a member of a panel of interviewers to hire replacement teachers for Jerrod's school as a few positions opened up toward the end of last school year, including the two fifth-grade positions, and I feel extremely confident about the two dynamic instructors I and the panel selected to teach Jerrod in this important and pivotal year of his education. I have had much experience in interviewing and hiring people over the years professionally, but have never utilized this skill in this setting and choosing people who will hold so much influence in the development of our son and his classmates was exciting and humbling. Jerrod loves his new teachers and everyone is very excited about what this school year will bring.
And what of Forrest, my regular readers might be asking? The year brought some big changes our way, and one of the most significant occurred in February of this year when Forrest let us know he was wanting to move in with his Mother, Tara, whom you might recall was in a very serious automobile accident last Spring. Out of the specialist clinic and on her own, Tara now faces the huge challenge of being significantly physically and unfortunately mentally handicapped and requiring daily living assistance, and Forrest felt strongly about wanting to help support her and be close to her. After some discussion, Nathan and I agreed Forrest, who turned fourteen this year, was at the right place to start making these kinds of decisions for himself and so we gave Forrest our blessing and helped him move in with Tara. He has started his final year of Junior High at a good school in the area they now live, and we are kept up to date with regular telephone calls, visits, and news from Tara about how things are going for him. I will write more about Forrest as I have more to report.
Nathan has successfully closed two large-scale projects in New York and New Jersey, and has begun work on an expansion project in New York as well as the preliminary work for a project in Chicago. Busy as ever, he is enjoying his work and trying mightily to balance it with cooking, fun, and family (like everyone else). =)
Nathan started a food blog as an outlet for his culinary passion chronicling and sharing budget-friendly recipes and cooking techniques, and you can see
the delicious Tomato Pie I tweeted about a few days ago there.
You can also find him tweeting about cost-effective and delicious cookery on Twitter under the monniker
BudgetCooking. =)
The coming weeks will see us traveling to the East Coast yet again!! I'm telling you, it's like Disneyland for grown-ups and if you haven't been you should seriously consider making the trip out that way! As Nathan has gotten to know my family better over the last couple of years, he has developed quite a friendship with my Mother and Stepfather in particular who share our passion for fine foods and delicious wines. Nathan decided a few months ago he wanted to treat them to a proper tour of the upper East Coast. Planning for the trip has consumed the last several months, and Nathan and my Mother have narrowed down the huge list of amazing culinary experiences to a bit above fifty and no I'm not kidding. =) We'll start the trip in Manhattan, and then continue on to Boston, Cape Cod, Salem, and parts of Maine. We leave in just three weeks, and none of us can hardly stand the anticipation! Jerrod will not be accompanying us this time, and will be firmly ensconced at school and staying at the home of my dear friend and chohort SK, whose son is a close friend and classmate of Jerrod's.
And now, it is time to take the wrappings off a long-pending announcement I have been hinting to a few about making over the last few months. No, we're not moving to Manhattan (I WISH!). =) But we are moving. This will be our last year in Denver, Colorado and next June after Jerrod has finished with school we are planning to relocate to Northern California. It has long been a goal Nathan and I have had to return (a returning for me, anyway) to California as I very much miss being close to my family, most of whom still live there, and Nathan has always wanted to live in California. We decided this year the time had finally come for this change to take place. One of the benefits of Nathan's current job as Project Manager for ShotSpotter, Inc. is he can work from anywhere in the world, and so all we will have to worry about is relocating our household. As Jerrod is finishing his last year at the elementary school he has been a student at since the second grade this year, we didn't want to deny him that experience and a last year of time with the wonderful friends he has made (they're all in the same class again this year), and the transitionary Summer next year as he prepares to start Junior High will be the perfect time to make this monumental and exciting change for our family.
It is also, sadly, an opportune time to move closer to my family as we discovered this year
my Stepmother has been diagnosed with cancer. She is battling valiantly and managing very well, amazingly, and it will be good for us to be near by to help support her and my Father through this challenging and frustrating time. We are all of course very excited about this significant change for our family - Jerrod, who will continue to live with us, is in particular quite pleased at the prospect of living somewhere entirely new. We are also more than a bit saddened at moving away from all that we love about Denver - the wonderful friends we have made, the amazing restaurants and culture of this vibrant city I have grown quite fond of during my time here, the snow ... but the move will be a very good thing for us, and I can't wait to be closer to the ocean again as I miss it desperately.
I will report further details as we navigate this transition, and I'm certain it will be requiring larger and more significant amounts of time, planning, and attention, as next Summer draws closer.
The alarms have gone off here (I woke far earlier than usual and decided to work on this entry instead of lie in bed thinking about it), and it is time for me to start another busy week-day. I hope all of you have enjoyed your own busy Summers and hope you will drop me a line about the interesting and exciting places this year has taken you!
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