A Quiet Afternoon

I love Saturdays. Especially when they involve waking up to snow, hanging out with Ezra in the morning, spending the afternoon with Ahna (alone), good college football on TV (go Gators), and finally a fairly productive and relaxed evening. Basically what I am saying, is that I like 3-4 Saturdays per year….at least to the degree that I enjoyed yesterday. 

The morning hours were fairly self explanatory based on the previous paragraph….so skip to the afternoon. Mom, Dad, and Rena hung out with Ezra while Ahna and I enjoyed a wonderful lunch, chilling at the house, and some errands. I can’t say the next statement without the qualifier that we wouldn’t change anything for the world, but we really enjoy each other’s company…and miss the intentional time together. 

Shopping On Black Friday? Car Seats, Take 2

There we were: 7am, heading out the door to go shopping on Black Friday, stopping at Starbucks, wearing our North Face jacket, going to Babies-R-Us. Wow. What the heck happened to us? We had become representative of the people that we protested sometime in our previous lives. 

But there was an explanation for all of it. First of all, we have always tried to avoid the Black Friday consumption-based world – mostly as a protest of all of the things that we are told that we need. But perhaps there is some merit in it all: like sales on things that you actually need (car seats) in a tough economic time. Perhaps we can take advantage of the early store openings – especially since Ezra woke up at 5 on his own. The Starbucks? Well, simply Ahna’s favorite chai. The North Face? I dunno, I’ve had it for almost 10 years now. Babies-R-Us? I suppose that’s obvious. It’s interesting where life takes you….places that you could never have imagined years ago. 

ed note: so after I wrote the posting, I found this story which seems to trump any of the good that can come from the shopping events of today: a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death in Long Island attempting to hold back the crowds during the opening of the store. It makes me want to say lots of bad things about consumerism.

If there is one lesson that is continuously beaten into us it’s this: the growth curve is dramatic, and so is it’s influence on the pocketbook. Call it ignorance or nievety, but I had no idea that things would change this fast – not even his cloths…and while I got over the clothes by the end of his first month, the larger things are starting to rear their heads. 

Take the car seat situation. He has outgrown his infant carrier seat….due to height. There is still plenty of room to maneuver in the weight limitations, but he is too tall for the straps (they are curling over his shoulders). Turns out that the big secret in the car seat/stroller world is that the kids rarely ever make the weight limitations before they outgrow the height limitations (for the 50+ percentiles). Even as we researched the seats that we purchased today, there were some that were advertising weight limits that would put the average child at 10 years old….and well past the need for a combination seat. I suppose that it only reinforces the need to do a little reading of your own before hitting the stores. 

We enjoyed the relative emptiness of the store in the early morning hours, and the chance to look, feel, test, and ask lost of questions without the pressure of 15 other people waiting to do the same. We used the Baby Bargins book as our guide, and settled on a new convertible seat and a new stroller for Ezra. It’s sort of daunting to think of all of the changes that will happen with these new items (no more in and out with the infant seat, more trips to load the car, what happens when he is sleeping?, no more clipping the seat in the stroller, etc, etc, etc.). Who would have thought that it would be somewhat scary? 

The convertible seat that we ended up purchasing was the Even-Flo Triumph Advance. It’s gotten great crash ratings, good product design reviews, and generally fits within the budget. The bonus to us is that the weight limitations for rear and forward facing are more than comparable others, and since Ezra is in the 75th percentile, we think it will work nicely. We had to get one per car since both of us are primary care providers during the day, and we can’t switch cars (that whole manual transmission thing). 

Since we can’t take it out of the car and clip it into a stroller base, we got a stroller as well. We went back and forth on this one for a while, but purchased the Combi Cosmo stroller for it’s size, weight, and portability (it’s actually designed for air travel constrictions: slightly narrower base, compacts like an umbrella stroller, and it is designed to be compliant with overhead storage requirements). We figured that those were good reasons for travel, but also for taking it around generally: lighter, smaller, and portability can’t be all bad. 

If anyone has any idea on what is next on the replacement schedule, please let us know. It seems like we should have been able to anticipate this change sooner, but we didn’t…the learning curve for us appears slower than Ezra’s growth curve. Hmm, perhaps we should start saving for his first car. Oh boy.

The Meal That Is Always Too Much (But Leftovers Rule!)

Ezra’s first Thanksgiving also marked the first Thanksgiving since Ahna and I have known each other that we didn’t travel somewhere to see family…instead we were able to drive down to my folk’s house and enjoy a wonderful afternoon there (remember the trip to Florida in October? That was our visit with family instead of over this weekend). We both commented on the ride home about how strange it was to be driving back to our house, and not staying somewhere else. Of course we absolutely love seeing family, but it sure was nice to arrive back to our own beds and not have to deal with the airport.

That ‘mish-mosh’ of a crowd consisted of family from Israel (Rena), family from Colorado (Mom, Dad, Joel, Jenn +1, and two of Jenn’s family, Cyrilla, Tanner), and family from California (John, Miriam). A total of 13 people for dinner, including 2 vegans, one vegetarian, and plenty of carnivores. Ahna and I made vegan versions of Shepard’s Pie and a Sweet Potato Casserole – both of witch turned out very tasty, if I do say so myself. The food was delicious: the turkey was perfect, the stuffing/dressing was great, and the corn pudding was worth thirds….but perhaps my favorite was the cream of asparagus soup….mmmmm. We served food that had recipes from Kansas, Florida, Virginia, Israel, and the Internet; and tried a new beer called He-Brew (really tasty and some of the best label reading out there)..truly a international flare to the table. 

After the main course, we all walked over to the Nathan’s house (the next-door neighbors) and joined their crowd of 13 for desert. Cyrilla had made some awesome pies, and in combination with the cookies and ice cream, it made for more great food that our stomachs had to find room for. By the time that we were done with desert, Ezra was getting tired (as were we as the digestion started, and the football was boring) so we headed home. 

It was a really fun day for us: we got to spend the morning together and the evening with family and friends, and all of it without the worry of work or travel. The only bummer was that I didn’t take a single picture with our camera (!), but there were several other photographers walking around. Whenever I get those e-mailed, I will make sure to post them.

Things To Be Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Ahna and I enjoyed a nice day together yesterday doing some errands, but most importantly: hanging out without the oppressive ‘work’ looming overhead. 

We are heading down to my folks’ house this afternoon for a meal with a mish-mosh of people, and have been assigned volunteered to cook a couple of vegan dishes for the vegetarians/vegans in the crowd (there will be at least 4, I think). We looked up some recipes yesterday morning and settled on a Shepard’s Pie and a sweet potato casserole (from Kathy in FL) before heading out to the grocery stores. We immediately aimed for the natural foods store since we were looking for some vegan ingredients, and ended up stopping at Sunflower Farmers Market, Whole Foods, and King Soopers before we had everything. 

This morning comes the assembly and cooking process (otherwise known as ‘following the recipe’) and we will be faced with the same confliction that nearly every one of you get to deal with: how to cook more than one thing in the oven when you only have one oven. We’ll let you know how it turned out. 

Hopefully everyone will stop and think about what they are thankful for….our list is ever growing, but this year starts and stops with family and friends (oh yea, and for having jobs that will probably sustain themselves through tough economic times. And one more thing: a country that finally woke up and realized that we needed a big change.) As our immediate family has changed and grown, our extended family and friends have helped, loved, cared, supported, and encouraged in ways that we never thought possible. So: Thank You.

Movie Review: War, Inc.

This movie had all the makings of something really worthwhile: John Cusak as a for-hire hitman in a dark comedy (Gross Pointe Blank), political satire, and a tie to current events. But there was a cold reality to the movie: it stunk. I watched 30 minutes of it and turned it off. Don’t bother. The end. 

Chilly….Or Is It: Chili?

As you guessed it, there has been lots going on for the last couple of days. 

Wednesday began with my Aunt arriving into town fro Israel, and Ezra and i going up to the airport to pick her up. She ended up catching a flight that put her here 5 hours before she was scheduled, which wasn’t that big of a deal…but it was a contributing factor to Ezra not eating his mid-morning snack for the second consecutive day. The weird thing is that he wasn’t hungry (or at least acting that way) on either occasion. Don’t know if this is a new trend, or we were just too busy…so stay tuned.

Wednesday night brought our return to family dinner for the first time in a couple of weeks. We had suspended our attendance in an effort to establish a bedtime routine for Ezra, but Wednesday of this week was our turn to host and cook. It was great to see everyone again, and we were thrilled that Mary was back and everyone could be together for the first time in seemingly 50 years. 

My tour started back at work on Friday, along with class and studying. Saturday however, brought the annual Chili Supper and Starlighting Event to Castle Rock. For those that don’t know, accompanying the Starlighting, the fire department (and now the union) has hosted a chili supper for something like 68 years. For the past couple of years, I have been part of the cooking crew….we start at 730 in the morning, and finish the cooking around lunchtime….and the clean up around 6pm. 

For the past two years we have made 105 gallons of chili. If it sounds like a lot, it is….it’s almost three bathtubs completely full to the top of chili. We end up serving around 3000 people (in the last picture, you can see the line for chili stretching outside of the station) over the course of a couple of hours. Since I cooked, I was able to enjoy the evening with Ahna, Ezra, Mom, Dad, and Rena. We hung out for the Starlighting and the fireworks that followed, then proceeded to head home through lots of traffic. There have been estimates of 6-10,000 people downtown. 

To wrap up the weekend: the Broncos stink. 

Off The Deep End

It was hot on Tuesday….like record heat. Remember that it snowed last week? Yea, it was 77 degrees yesterday, setting an all-time record. Oh by the way, it is supposed to snow on Thursday again. 

Ezra and I celebrated the warm weather by hitting the pool. I know that it’s indoors and the weather has absolutely zero effect on the pool, but it was the only transition that I could think of. Anyhow, we went to the play area at the rec center and spent nearly 30 minutes playing in the ‘deep’ end of the wading pool – it’s 5 feet deep. He swam (and kicked) all around the pool, ‘jumped’ in from the pool edge, and spent some time under the water (totaling about 3 seconds over 3 difference missions under). He almost never gave up the smile as he made lots of friends with other kids. 

Here is a picture from this afternoon, just because it seems to have been a while since he was featured…

A-Basin and Me

A few weeks ago, after looking at the schedule for days that Ezra would be in daycare this month (and realizing that it would only be one or two) we decided to include another day in the schedule to allow for him to become more familiar with Peggy and gang. 

Of course, the little man with skis sitting on my shoulder had absolutely no objection to this course of action and we made arrangements. The day was yesterday, and while Ezra spent the day with Peggy, I spent the day with Arapahoe Basin. 

A good friend and his new wife happened to be in town as they drove across the country to their new home, and they came along. They got married in a foreign country Alabama, and are on their way to San Diego where JJ will be stationed – he is a helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps. It was a lot of fun to spend some time with them, as well as to enjoy a beautiful day skiing and drinking beer in the mountains. 

Quick funny story: we arrived into Idaho Springs on the way up to A-Basin to get fuel (for the car and for us), at which point I realized that I didn’t have my wallet. See, earlier in the morning, I overslept my alarm by 45 minutes at work and was scrambling to get out of there to make the meet time. I thought that I had miraculously pulled it off, until we got to the gas station when I came to the conclusion that I left my wallet at work. We got the gas taken care of, I worked a free beer at the bar through the mug club, and scrounged enough change for a soda and fries for lunch. Argh. Wallets and I haven’t gotten along recently….and it’s been mostly a one-way street sort of relationship. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that on Sunday Tori, Mary, and Alex came down and spent some time with Ahna and Ezra. Mary has been back east since the end of the summer, so it had been a while since she had seen the little boy. Everyone had fun, but there are no pictures to prove that it even happened….so I am going on Ahna’s word. 

So This Class I’ve Mentioned…

Class. Well, I can’t actually remember if I have mentioned this or not in a previous post, but I am in the process at the department to become and Acting Lieutenant. It’s a position that replaces the assigned Lieutenants when they are not at work, but will also allow me to trade with other LT’s on other shifts for days off. More to the point, it is the applicant pool for any future promotional opportunities to LT (ie: you have to be an Acting LT before you can promote to LT), but don’t worry, I don’t think that I am interested in a promotion for a few more years. 

Some might remember that I was an Acting LT in a past life with the department, and at the time I dropped the position due to mixed emotions on how the department was treating the people willing to serve in that spot (still, there is no acting pay…which is just one of the issues). But over the course of the last several years, I have decided that this is something that I am interested in pursuing again. Unfortunately, the department decided that it had been long enough since I last was an actor, so I get to go through the process (which didn’t exists before) with the other guys that are also stepping up. 

The process has been long – including a very comprehensive exam, a psych test, and an interview with the Chief. Upon successful completion of all of that, we were admitted to the course, which is essentially a college course on Fire Officer 1 (and we will get credit at the college if we desire). The course runs for almost two months on shift, with each class lasting from 9 in the morning until approximately 4 in the afternoon. Each day we cover two chapters, thus we have two quizzes every day and 2 tests every day where we have to maintain an average of 80% to stay in the class. Needless to say, it’s stressful and tiring, and it is taking a lot of time reading and studying. 

Once the class is done, we will get assigned a mentor LT, and have to complete a task book that takes roughly 3-4 months to finish….we have to do all sorts of stuff on the fireground and administratively and document all of it. The end of the process should be sometime during the first quarter of next year, but the end game is an opportunity to learn the position while not yet being promoted…..therefore becoming more prepared for when we are able to test and promote. 

For now, the result here is a little more space between posts…but they are fun for me to write, so I promise to try to get them up more frequently that this past week has been.

The End Of The Week, And Some Snow

So week one is completed. Ahna did an amazing job adjusting back to school and the new schedule, and Ezra did equally as well being passed around between several different people. 

I have been in class at work (more on that later), so life has been very busy. The daycare that we chose to use doesn’t offer Friday availability….which we knew would be a problem, but we have some ideas on how to handle. Yesterday was the first Friday that we have run into where both Ahna and I were supposed to work; compound that with the fact that I have class pretty much every shift day from 9-4, and it makes for finding other solutions than just me taking the time off. The answer this Friday? My Dad got to watch him….along with a little help from me during lunchtime. 

Dad (Saba to Ezra) came over at 730 in the morning to get the repot on how things should go for the day, and to ease into it all before my class at 9. I actually called out sick for the day-side, but the hours that I was in class didn’t count towards those sick hours. It snowed all morning long, with about 3-4 inches accumulating on everything….since it was effectively the first snow of the season (we did get a dusting once or twice), the drivers on the roads acted has if they had never seen it before….actually, I take away the qualifier “since it was the first snow” because the drivers always act as though they have never seen it before. For example, it took Ahna nearly an hour to get to school on a commute that normally takes around 20-25 minutes. 

I came home for lunch, well really to take Ezra up to nurse with Ahna (the snow had mostly melted already)…it was nice that my lunch break lasted long enough to accomplish that, but that took the entire break. I literally got back to the classroom with two minutes to spare. On the way back from lunch, Ezra fell asleep in the car and since he didn’t nap well in the morning, I had an idea….I called Dad and asked if he would be willing to meet me in his car and we could transfer Ezra straight into his car for more driving – Ezra surely would have woken up if he was taken inside. Dad agreed, and they ended up driving all over Castle Rock for the next 2 hours. Clearly Ezra napped well in the car. 

We took Dad out to dinner to thank him for watching Ezra (no, that isn’t going to happen every time, so anyone that wants to hang out with Ezra for the day…don’t get any ideas), it’s just that we needed some food as well.

Overall, the week went great. There were some hiccups here and there, but nothing that looks like it will be difficult to overcome. Here’s to another week like this one….