11/28/07 Denver Childrens Museum

After the airport drop off, Luc and I headed to the Denver Childrens Museum, 2 stories of fun, fun, fun.. they had a giant train room (we built and rebuilt), a wood working workshop where the kids could saw wood, drill, screw, wrench, and create all sorts of toys out of recycled materials, very fun. They had a wildlife area where the kids could dress up in animal costumes and play in an expanded nest, underground burrow, beaver stick house, and tree. We played on a real fire engine with dress up costumes, ladders, and a line to drive the truck, we painted and Luc told stories about his characters with such detail and passion, the whole room was listening to him (cause he was interesting not cause he was loud!).

Once we exhausted ourselves, we headed back up the mountain, stopping at the ups store to pick up all our ski equiptment we had shipped, hooray we are ready to tackle the mountain now.

11/25/07 Winter Park, Colorado

It took us 2.5 hours in the RV to reach Winter Park from Longmont, Steve made it in about 1.5 hours in the car, that is with very dry roads and no traffic. We headed straight for town to buy food and then to the mountain to get our ski passes, everything went off smoothly and we arrived at our condo around 4pm. A great fit, so convenient, we parked the RV right outside our door, we are in an end unit and the jacuzzi is a one minute walk. Of course the boys are excited to watch cartoons galore, I am excited to read, relax, ski a bit each day and mostly enjoy each other.

The next morning Luc, Reese and I headed out bright and early at 10:30am.. perfect. It was quite a challange getting them both dressed and ready, on the shuttle, on the bunny hill, Luc was less than enthusiastic and I was more than frustrated. We finally got on the chair lift and I skied with Luc between my legs, which gave him a feel for skiing without really teaching him how to do it. But I had to keep up with Reese too. Reese was doing very well, this is his 3rd year skiing, first year was Christmas in Steamboat, last year he and Steve went to Park City and now Winter Park. He took off and did several runs on his own and Luc and I gave each other dirty looks as i contemplated paying the $105 to put him in ski school for the day.

Day 2 was not much better, Luc and I were battling, and he did not want to be there, I felt like if he'd just pick it up, it would be fun, but not yet..

Reese and I got to take 3-4 runs alone in the afternoon, Luc went back to the condo with Daddy, that was very cool, Reese did his first blue run (green circle is easiest, then blue square, then black diamond), he did great, it was pretty icy, but he just snowploughed straight down the hill, we'll work on turns later. We were having a great time until I accidentially dropped his glove on the chair lift while trying to "help" him put it on, no recovery possible, but he made it 2 more runs and just pulled his hand inside his jacket, this kid is no wimp. It got cold and we headed in..

That night it snowed 5 inches, so pretty, every tree was dusted white. We had to get up at 6am and drive Steve and Reese to the Denver airport cause they were flying back to LA area for 7 days, Steve was working and doing a 3 day retreat and Reese was visiting family and friends. I was nervous about the snowy roads but no problems, the Passat has all weather tires and the ploughs did a great job clearing the roads.

11/22/07 Happy Thanksgiving!!

Relaxing morning, the usual, legos, building endless star wars ships and having imaginary battles where we die repeatedly and come back to life to battle again. Luc and I bought a few new lego sets and I actually helped him to assemble all of pieces, a diver, a shark, an underwater treasure, and a little guy in a submarine, I guided him through the directions and he put it all together, it took 2.5 hours, amazing.. it was awesome, i can follow directions and we had so much fun!

My girlfriend Martha cooked a beautiful dinner and we had about 13 folks to chow with, it was lovely, no family drama..
Of course the only problem was that I ate too much! We got to play out in the snow, Reese and Connor pulled our boogie boards out and tried to sled with them, very funny! Basically they got very dirty and had tons of fun.

We had 7 boys and no girls and a massive tackly football game in the basement, the kids were very into it and the adults got a little battered. We also broke out the hula hoops, you know traditional Thanksgiving stuff.

For the next 3 days, our boys played and played.. mostly it was fantastic, except when Luc got left out, then it was loud!
We had battles, we built legos, we rock climbed, watched movies.. and just enjoyed each other. Nothing quite like friends that you met when your kids were 3 years old, now they are turning 8.. wow!!

11/21/07 it's snowing...

We woke up and everything was covered in snow, so pretty, at least 3 inches.. i love it. We relaxed and played in the morning and in the afternoon we went to Denver and visited the Denver Science Museum, huge, we barely covered 25% of it in our 2.5 hours there. Great gem & mineral exhibit, they created a whole cave to show the natural setting, big kids discovery center, learned all about tornados and what do when they hit (they have tornados here in Colorado, never learned about that in California). They had a giant space exhibit, got to play in a space pod, throw moon rocks and see a live "astronaut" living on Mars and talk with him. There was also a Wildlife Hall with tons of wild animals in natural habitat settings (like at the natural history museum), we had a blast seeing them.

Reese is reading (finally) and it is so fun to hear him read all the signs, it takes me by surprise sometimes, I can see how pleased he is to have access to this information on his own. We could have spent hours looking at the gems, Reese has so much fun reading the names of the stones and seeing which ones he has collected or seen before, they have an amazing collection.

That night we were invited to have dinner with Randy, Gail and Katie. Randy and I went to University of Santa Monica some 14 years ago, he is a very interesting guy who has spent the last 25 years teaching seminars on love and relationships. He has also worked at the corporate level training business leaders around the world. We've kept in touch somewhat and it was a real pleasure to see him and meet his wife and daughter. And it was also stressful to bring my boys into a very nice, fancy orderly home (with just one girl), does anyone relate, my guys want to wrestle, jump on the furniture, & be rowdy. They were very good sports about it all.

11/20/07 We're in Colorado!!

We left our friends house Sunday morning and were in Longmont, Co by Monday afternoon. We were very excited to see our good friends Martha, Ryan & Connor who we knew from the South Bay. Connor and Reese went to nursery school together when they were 3-5 yrs old, Martha moved to Colorado 3 years ago. We had a great time visiting, exploring Boulder, walking Pearl Street, & hanging at the Boulder Library ( a hub of activity when it is cold outside). It snowed on Tues night and we woke up to everything covered in white, so beautiful.

Steve was busy trying to assess what was going on with his knee, he saw an orthopedic surgeon who did an mri and told him cartilage was torn and he would need surgery that would mean no skiiing until mid jan and we were in a condo in Winter Park from nov 25-dec 30th - major bummer. He decided to see some alternative doctors/healers to look at options.

My kids are in heaven with the 50,000 legos and toys Ryan (10) and Connor (8) have at home, they also have a wii (video game player) and basically it was difficult to get them out of the house at all.

I was focusing on getting everything together for skiing, we did not have our ski stuff from California, and were trying to get it shipped (very expensive) and get what we needed besides. I bought skiies for the kids, found ski clothes for myself (consignment store) and we were pretty much ready to go.

11/16/07 Ten Sleep, Wyoming

A real treat, a girlfriend of mine who used to live in Hermosa Beach moved to Wyoming 4 years ago and we set off to visit her. We headed south 2 hours to Buffalo and then headed West over a mountain pass, through an amazing red rock canyon (some of the rock there was stated to be 3 billion years old), it was a bit scary, it was snowing, icy and windy as we crossed the pass and momma was nervous! But we made it, and landed in a tiny town (population 304) of Ten Sleep, a story in the town told of how the Indians named it cause it was 10 nights travel from their journey from one point to another.

12 miles South and we saw a sign for the Otter Creek Grazing Association. That is where Jessica and Beau live with 5 week old daughter Bree. Some 20 families own the grazing assoc which is about 80-90,000 acres and they send their cows and calves to graze for 6 months during the spring and summer. By late Nov, the cows have all been picked up and taken back to the owners ranches and fed hay (that they grew during the summer when the cows were gone) for the winter. The calves disappear in early November (they are sold) and I was told that the mother cows cry out their sorrows for days. 4 guys work the ranch and they move the cows all over the property during their stay there. They are some 40 miles to the nearest town, it was very cool to learn a bit about ranching life, they get up early, work till dark often 7 days a week. They were very happy folks who seemed to like their peaceful privacy just fine. We sure enjoyed loving on the baby and playing with the 4 dogs and one cat, what's better than babies and animals?

When we headed back over the pass to make our way to Colorado, it was sunny but still lots of snow to enjoy, they boys wanted to get out and play, oh they are sure gonna get their chance soon.

11/14/07 Billings, Montana

We headed to Billings to avoid a big storm supposedly coming .. but in the end, it was sunny but we had banking issues, rv power issues that were causing our heater to go out (in the middle of the night and we wake up and it's 35 degrees), oil changes, etc.. so it was good that we were in a city. Billings is the biggest city in Montana and we found everything we needed.

We stocked up on movies (we tend to buy a bunch every few weeks), as much as i love the scenery while we are driving, the kids are not so interested, for more than a moment anyways. So they watch videos on the dvd player or draw or play legos while i drive. I hit a great AA meeting on tues night, 30 folks or so, lots of folks who've been around for awhile and when they say the Lord's Prayer at the end of the meeting every man in the room takes their hat off (15 or so hats). cute.

11/12/07 Yellowstone National Park

yes, we made it, by accident kind of... you know how that goes. my plan was to go to Chico Hot Springs, this upscale she she place with a very high end restaurant.. but.. when i was at Norris Hot Springs a guy mentioned 'boiling water' a natural hot springs just 35 miles south of Chico, so we had the whole day.. so figured we'll just drive to "boiling water" check it out and stop at Chico on the way back to Bozeman. We passed through Granger, very cute town and the next thing i know we are at the gate entering Yellowstone, it seems boiling water is 2.5 miles inside of Yellowstone, so we paid our $25 bucks, even though 90% of the park is actually closed and headed for the hot springs. Just a 5 minute walk and we arrived, boiling water is basically a river of boiling water coming together with a river of icy water and it is pretty amazing you can feel very hot and very cold water at the same time running along your body. As far as scenery, this place is tops, i looked for elk and bison and swam around the 50 foot area checking out the little cave of steam and moving from 110 degree to maybe 50 degree water. The walk back to the RV was cold.

After our soak, we drove on 2.5 miles to the visitors center and Mammoth Hot Springs, we walked around several of the springs and drove a 1 mile loop to view 5 or 6 different types of springs, none of which you can enter as they are too hot. There were amazing colors in the rock around the springs which is tiny organisms that live there, wild. Our plan was to drive west through Yellowstone and exit at the west entrance, but a storm coming made us concerned that the pass would be icy so we drove back to Bozeman and on East to Montana's biggest town of Billings (did i mention that Montana has less than 1 million people in the whole state, and Wyoming has less than 500,000 and i think LA has 14.5 million -yep that is definately part of the appeal).IMG_0515.jpg">

11/11/07 Museum of The Rockies, Bozeman MT

A bit of Rv drama.. sometimes she just doesn't want to get started in the morning, I relate... so she gave us a bit of trouble this morning.. and I learned something new, a way to not flood the engine and a way to resolve it if it does flood. These older models seem to have little idiosyncrasies and are a bit tempermental.. again I relate, so we learn how to work with it.. and we meet nice folks who offer to help when she has issues..

The boys didn't mind more time to play with the kids at the campground, more socialization!! Then off to the Museum of The Rockies... they had a hands on very cool bat exhibit (seems bats are a lot like bees in that they pollinate and are very important in sustaining and helping plants to grow and keep mosquito populations down), an Ansel Adams exhibit (so awesome.. it was fun seeing which places he photographed that we'd been to. We had actually been to most of them.. Yosemite, Glacier, Sequoia, Mohave).

They also had a planetarium and we saw a great overview of the history of man's beliefs about the stars and space.. how ideas are evolving always.. just like in life.. just when we think we know something.. oops.. gotta let that one go too.. it is just easier i've found to know ... that you don't know, can't know, what's happening, what's gonna happen, what you are, what anything is..
yup, that covers it! Get used to not knowing.. and when you are supposed to know.. you will.. until then... ignorance is bliss they say..

I love going to museums and taking the boys, but i must admit it is stressful, they are loud and rowdy and not always in museum mode. I think i had a bit of a headache afterwards.. but damn it we had some culture.. ok crossed that off the list.

11/10/07 Socialization... Yup!!

They boys have been playing all morning with some boys at the campground. I got an email from a friend asking about
socialization?? haha absolutely.. as a matter of fact.. right now!!

At the homeschool conference we attended in Sacramento Reese got to do this live action role play game where they
made weapons out of duct tape and they made these little beanbags called spells and they are a character like elf or
goblin and they have this Lord of the Rings type of battle and throw these little spells at each other and on and on..
so Reese made a ton of these spells, we cut up old tee shirts and used rice and rubber bands and he has been looking
to play the game for the last 2 months.. well today he did. They only had 4 kids, but that was enough, they played on a
mini golf course for hours, a game completely fabricated moment by monent, altered by each kid as the game went on.. so cool..

Yesterday Reese and Luc started a game of D & D, a little kids version that doesn't require books or dice, all you
need is paper and pencil, you pick a character, choose powers and the battle begins... It is so funny to listen to Luc
tell about what his character can do and how his powers can morph.. he has no guidelines or boundries, he is a
total free agent, no ideas about what you can and can not do, Reese looks at me, exasperated (he can't do that), i love it.. anything is possible.

This is what i think is so exciting about unschooling and also not putting your kids in places or situations where they
are heavily conditioned, altered, conformed by pressure, or the like. It is a daily discovery to see who they are? what
are they all about? what can come out of them when allowed? See how they interact and perceive the world?
To discover and not dictate, to allow and celebrate and enjoy this is the daily assignment. It is always surprising and
never dull for sure, being with my boys is the most interesting and fascinating journey to date. I love talking with them,
listening to them, watching them play and interact with others, what a ride!

We were supposed to be going to the childrens museum this morning, but it's 4pm and the boys are still playing and I don't
have the heart to interrupt, it has been awhile since they had the whole day to play with friends.

11/09/07 Bozeman, Montana

We found a $1 store in Bozeman, we love those.. we bought art stuff.. paper, pens, lots of stuff to make Christmas
gifts, and then Luc and I headed back out to Norris Hot springs.. it was family night, tons of kids, i met several
homeschool kids, I can usually spot them, they are the talkative social ones.. haha

It is interesting, this 10 year old boy Tommy told me his mom does not let him play on the computer at all, no video
games, no TV, so he sneaks he says, at his friends house or the library. Another kid i met recently told me his parents
won't let him have any Pokemon cards cause they think they are bad. I love the diversity, everyone is doing what they
are doing, that is really the beauty of homeschooling, every family sharing their own values as they see fit. And the kids
hang out, learn about each other, play, it's all good. I love it. One of the best things about traveling is seeing how people
live in different parts of the country, Reese and I have been talking a lot about hunting and how everyone does it here. It
is a real art to discuss and not sway, explore different views, see how the kids feel and allow for whatever comes.
Sometimes I have a feelings that comes out and often i don't, I can really just see whatever is, take it all in, smile,
not have a preference or thought or judgement about it, not think anything should be other than how it is.. nice..
not in resistance to anything or anyone. sweet.

11/08/07 Norris Hot Springs rocks!!

Hands down, I found the best hot spring place so far.. Norris Hot Springs in Norris Montana, just 30 miles SouthEast
of Bozeman, Water of the Gods they call it, they have a 30X40 pool they call the Holy Bucket. The scenery is gorgeous
Montana mountains, I showed up at sunset and got to watch the whole sky (big sky) turn pink. The clouds here are a
full time art show, it is really spectacular! At 7pm, the live music starts, they serve drinks and food (folks eat and drink
right in the pool) and the music was great! Bluegrass baby.. 102 degree water, 40 degree air outside to chill you off,
music to fill your heart up and cool clean air to breathe in deeply.. I'm coming back..

11/08/07 Cruising through Montana

After leaving Dupuyer, we drove through Great Falls, Helena and Butte Montana.. yeah we hit hot springs all along the
way. Luc is an expert swimmer now, the 2 olympic size pools at Fairmont Hot Springs and 350 foot water slide kept the
boys very entertained. Luc went on the slide at least 10 times and he had to climb 5 flights of stairs to get to the top,
he slept very well that night. Seeing his face as he came out of the slide was awesome! My baby.. is going down a
350 foot slide. wow.. he is almost 4 1/2.

We also stopped at Broadwater Athletic Club in Helena, we swam and Reese and daddy worked out in the gym and
them played racquetball, another sport Reese is awesome at.

We found a great park in Helena, memorial park i think it was. The park looks like a castle, all made of wood, a
whole city to climb on and run through. The community pulled together and built the park in 5 days, everyone
donated labor and materials and put their name on what they built. I was remembering Valley Park in Hermosa Beach,
when they redid the park, it took 2 years and they spent millions, I actually liked this park better, more to do.. I like the
community involvement too.

Butte did not have a coffee shop for Steve to work at, but it did have a great used book store where i found lots of
kids books and 8 or so how to draw books for Reese. I tried getting him painting, but he loves drawing with his
markers, so draw I say. He is so delighted that he can follow the steps and actually draw all the characters in Sponge
Bob, mom I can do it! I love watching him learn, teach himself, enjoy it so, spend hours and hours, give drawings away
whenever he meets kids or adults that he likes in the towns we visit. What a cool thing to have something beautiful you
can create and give away as gifts, folks are blown away as his art book that we've put together, he loves to show it to
everyone.

Good news our heater is working great, we've been warm and toasty this last week, (it quit working the first 2 nights we
used it and we woke up and it was 40 degrees in the rv). I am amazed at how i sleep 9 hours at night and lie in bed
till 9am many mornings, then we cuddle and play tickle games and hide and seek (in the covers) for another hour or so.
It can be 10am before we get out of bed! Such a relaxed pace, play all day, see some sights, draw, read, play games
(Reese and I had a Pentago marathon the other day, he is so good at that game). Our other favorite game to play is
Munchkin Bites!, it is so funny, and Reese is so creative, he understands the strategy much more than I do. we got it
at www.sjgames.com , there are many versions and we plan to get another to mix with ours for Christmas. Oh and of
course Legos, we spent $100 in Kalispell and got 3 more Lego sets, now we are building loads of space ships and
Batman vehicles. Both of the boys spend hours playing Legos everyday and the imagination in the play is mind
boggling. We also have Knex and Kapla blocks with us for diversion. What a life.. our friend Bob in Dupuyer asked if
we could adopt him. sure we said!

11/5/07 The Ranch

The morning we arrived at Bob & Ali's ranch, Bob was out ... hunting.. he came home with a coyote he shot.
They bought this (little tiny) 100 acre ranch 6 years ago and it sits right next door to Ali's parents 3000 acres ranch
(where she grew up) they currently are raising sheep, apparently they lost about 100 sheep to the coyotes this
year (their entire profit), hence the dead coyote. We visited for awhile, got the tour of the beautiful house that the
completely rebuilt their first year here (while the lived in the basement of her parents house), and met the goats
and chickens. Ali cooked us green day old eggs (but not ham) and we watched the 100 or so birds in their front
yard. My favorite was a magpie it was black and white and 3x as big as the little chickadees, beautiful!

After a while, Bob took off to pick up a local boy who was gonna set some beaver traps for them. There is a religious
community nearby, the Heuterites, they are about 125 folks (in this group) who live in a big apartment style building,
they are farmers, have a baptist style religion, are not permitted to leave the community (although some do and they
can come back later if they decide to). They keep to themselves, don't socialize outside the community, although
many of the young boys do work PT for the local farmers. Unlike the Amish, the Heuterites are all about efficiency
and mass production, very nice folks but the women and the animals are not regarded very highly. They get an 8th
grade education and no more and are paid a very minimal wage as food and housing is provided, socialism in Montana.
Emil showed up with his thigh high boots, 17 yrs old, very nice and we got to ask him all sorts of questions about
the community he lives in. He will probably leave one day, as his 2 older brothers have (one has returned though)
as he wants to go to school and is interested in the medical field.

So off we went to trap beavers.. apparently the beavers are very destructive, they take down a ton of trees,
divert the creek, and flood the basement, an inconvenience, hence the traps. It seems that the farmers and the
animals have different agendas about exactly what should be. Emil not only traps the beavers but he skins and
stretches the pelts too. A friend of Bob's showed up later with 8 beavers that he trapped that were destroying a
tons of trees on his property, it seems that whatever was supposed to be controlling the beaver population wasn't.

I just finished reading Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, one of the characters in the book was a wildlife
biologist who studied coyotes and said that they don't feed primarily on calves or sheep, they may take one or tow
but mostly they eat smaller animals, but that was not the case on this sheep farm, interesting..

Wherever you go in Montana, men are talking about hunting, everywhere. Usually there is snow here now, I think
it's delayed for us, gratefully, and the lack of snow is not good for elk hunting, the elk don't run without the snow. The
weather is warm, high 50's in the day, maybe even 60, down to 30's at night mostly. But no rain and no snow, yet.

11/5/07 It's snowing in Dupuyer, Montana

11/4/07 Meadow Lake Golf Resort

It was a nice break, we spent our 7 days at the condo, swimming, jacuzzing, ping pong, exercise
room, game room, very nice place.. the kids watched a lot of TV, I cooked and took baths and chased them
around the condo playing hide and seek, we swam in the pool everyday, Luc is such a good swimmer now!
We rented movies, slept in late, and several days we did not even leave the property, it was so cozy and the
views from the room were great meditation material.. We trick or treated in Whitefish, very cool downtown area,
went to a great halloween party at a christian school in Kalispell, games galore, we roller-skated 3 times
where Reese won the limbo contest every-time, and then...then we packed up this morning and
headed out... destination.... Glacier National Park. We stopped at Hungry Horse Dam, very big dam,
and took Hwy 2, Marias Pass and spent the afternoon cruising Glacier from the Eastern entrance,
we were completely alone in the park .. and it started snowing.. beautiful! Reese jumped out with a bowl
and a list of snow experiments in mind. He then wanted snow rolls (snow rolled in seaweed) for dinner.
Glacier suddenly became even more spectacular the mountains and trees dusted in snow I tried to focus on
the scenery and not the potentially icy roads.

So after talking with a few folks, i made an exciting discovery, we do indeed have propane heat in the Rv, just
had to turn the thermostat on, quite wonderful as it was about 27 degrees today, and for the past month we have
been using a portable heater which plugs in and we can only use when we are plugged in.. so funny. So now
we can camp anywhere, we don't need to be plugged in, and we have heat where ever we go which is nice
cause so many Rv parks are closed in the winter.

I am so happy to be back in the RV, i just love it. I love everything about it, it's warm now, I love the views,
seeing new sites everyday, No TV, that is very nice, the kids can watch dvd's but it is not as
compelling as TV, we play games more, they play outside more, the condo was nice, but we spent a lot of time indoors
and i want to be outside, communing with Mother Nature, it inspires me, i breathe better. We are gonna visit some
friends tomorrow who have a ranch SouthEast of Glacier. I spent the evening tonight reviewing my maps,
scoping out hot springs (we have 4-5 on our route through Montana) to visit in the next week, and reading about
the towns we'll visit. My new flannel sheets are feeling very cozy..