Ok, so, hmm, let's see, where were we? Ellen's 9 months now, just under 17 pounds, rolling around but not yet crawling. For point of comparison Brendan was 21 pounds at 5 months and walking at 10 months, but clearly she is not on Brendan's trajectory. She looked to be about 34/35 weeks when she was born, and if that is true she's about 7.5 months, so she's right on course. Even for 9 months she's doing just fine. Very easygoing, sweet, cute as a button. Terrible sleeper. But of course. It's Spring Break now for the big boys, and this year we trekked out to Boulder. This may or may not come as a surprise to you, but Iowa and Nebraska have lots and lots and lots and lots of farms. (And eastern Colorado too, though they are more ranches I guess?) It's beautiful even though it's just the early planting season and everything is brown and yellow, but I found myself hoping they weren't all Monsanto factory farms. Also it got a touch boring, but then I'd remind myself this is some of the most fertile farmland in the world so I tried to appreciate it and help the kids appreciate it to. Mixed results. Books on tape are the roadtrippers friend. We did see some cows grazing in meadows and the occasional horses. Lincoln, Nebraska is where we stopped the first night, and it was fine, no trees, unremarkable. The next night we got to Boulder. This is my kind of town. The airbnb we're staying at is great. (We did a homeaway in Saugatuck over the summer, an A frame that turned out to be sort of in the middle of nowhere with water that smelled like rusty nickles, so much so that I bought bottled water even to wash our hands and we drove back home one night to shower. The house was nice but that water thing, well I just couldn't get beyond it. Also it wasn't as close to the beach as you'd be led to believe, and the beds were awful. And everything smelled faintly of the rusty nickles because that's what everything was washed in. ew.) This place, by contrast, is in walking distance to everything. I was vaguely suspicious of how good it seemed to be, and I can't believe how accurately it was described. And the crunchy reputation of Boulder is totally true! The ketchup on tables at restaurants and even in our fridge is all organic. Whole Foods is just one of many natural and organic grocers. I haven't even seen a conventional chain. We're about to go to the NOAA and I think we're going to see elk on the way. We're in a duplex and the people who own it have a 6 year old and 4 year old who invited our boys to come play with them. They're all out in the yard now. I really love it here. I never thought I'd care about mountains but they really are beautiful. I sort of wanted to love Palo Alto and that area of California, but I didn't. This, in contrast, is awesome. Ok, off to explore. I probably shouldn't have drunk (drank?) that whole cappuccino before nursing Ellen. whoops!
And seriously...who will move out here with me?
