One of my strongest memories of growing up is of listening to John Denver playing on the record player as I fell asleep at night. My dad was a huge JD fan. We listened to those songs all the time– in the car, in the family room, everywhere, round the clock, all year long — and to this day I know every single line of every single song by heart. But what I remember most was falling asleep to it. It was like a great thick fluffy down comforter surrounding me as I drifted off dreaming of the great big world. And one of my favorite John Denver songs, despite never having been to Colorado, was always, and still is, Colorado Rocky Mountain High.
I always wondered if Colorado was all that John Denver sang that it was. And this past weekend, I got to find out. And yes, it was.
We returned Monday night from a whirlwind, 5-day, completely awe-inspiring, life-affirming trip to Colorado for Maggie and Eric’s wedding. John Denver’s Colorado Rocky Mountain High was the literal and figurative soundtrack to our trip. I started playing it for the bambinos about 24 hours before we left. They hadn’t heard it before, but started hearing it over and over and over again blaring from my iPad through stereo speakers. Luckily, they liked it. By Day 2 of our time in Colorado, they knew the song by heart and were belting it out from the backseat of the rental car. The whole entire trip was a Colorado Rocky Mountain High for us. Them singing JD at the top of their lungs is the perfect symbolic memory of our experience.
Don’t get me wrong. There were lows. There always are. It is a choice to focus on the positive. A choice I choose.
“But the string’s already broken and he doesn’t really care. It keeps changing’ fast and it don’t last for long…”
The wedding was in Maggie’s parents’ hometown: Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Waldo Canyon Fire was blasting flames and smoke throughout canyons and ridges for the days leading up to the wedding. It was scary, overwhelming at times, and extremely troubling, to be visiting that place (and trying to celebrate a wedding) during the time of such a massive disaster. That can’t (and shouldn’t) be sugar coated. It was awful.
above: smoke in the mountains, along the side of the road as we drove into Colorado Springs from Denver on Thursday
above: fire and smoke coming over the ridge, view from our hotel room after the Rehearsal Dinner on Friday
“I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky…”
There is no way around something like that. When a major disaster is occurring in those precious days right before your wedding, you can’t go over it or under it either. It is just something you have to go through. I know about this firsthand since my own wedding took place just four days after September 11th. I know how it feels to be a bride in the midst of a terrible crisis. What we learned (again) from this Colorado trip was that the best that we can do is to go through these things together; to be the best we can be for the people who need us to be present; to not try to push it under or blow it over, but to really just be there, to go through it together.
above: early morning firefighter thanks, on a street corner as we drove by to Pike’s Peak on Friday morning
We learned so much from that experience.
There were other lows too. Not so profound, but lows nonetheless. Like the time difference. It is only a 2-hour-difference, so we hadn’t expected it to be a big deal, but it turned out to be a very big deal for our three kids. The bambinos (Owen and Meera, especially) didn’t adjust until our very last day (just in time to come home and face it in reverse on the other side… ugh). It wreaked havoc on our sleep schedules and we’re still not recovered from it. Our time in Colorado involved late nights (for wedding events), and very early mornings — with Owen and Meera up at 4am, raring to go. While the rest of us tried to sleep in the hotel room, those two tried to play quietly by the light from a crack in the bathroom door on a blanket on the floor.
But this low had a silver lining (at least for them). They won big with front-row seats for amazing sunrises from our hotel room window~~
And that’s where I’ll end with the lows. Because really, the Lows List is a very short one. Those two items — plus some fussing and whining from an over-tired 4-year-old, some hard-core sibling fighting, and some attitude from a certain set of 8-year-old twins — that’s all I’ve got. Because really– the rest?– it all gets put on a very long list of highs.
“But the Colorado Rocky Mountain high…”
Did I mention our hotel room window? The view. The view was a high in and of itself.
Oh my gosh it was beautiful there. We loved visiting it. This trip to Colorado will be long remembered in the folklore of our family. It was an amazing experience. A big huge Colorado Rocky Mountain high. A high that was such a high, in part, because of the lows that were folded into it. We found Colorado to be just as John Denver sings about, all beauty and brilliance and rugged and ragged wrapped up together. And that, in part, is what makes it so darn beautiful– the complexity and simplicity, the good and bad, the high and low, all at once.
In addition to the above, I’ve tried to make a short list of the top three highs of our trip in the following posts:
Colorado Rocky Mountain High: Maggie & Eric’s Wedding
Colorado Rocky Mountain High: Pike’s Peak
Colorado Rocky Mountain High: The J-Ms Travel
Maggie & Eric’s wedding was long-anticipated by the J-Ms. This was a very special wedding for us (earlier posts re: Maggie & Eric here). It was also a first for me, as I (Heather), was their Officiant. As it turned out, I absolutely loved playing that role. I think it was my favorite role I’ve ever played in a wedding, and it definitely helped to make this one of my most favorite and most memorable weddings ever. Maggie & Eric had also asked Kyle, Owen, and Meera to be the Program-Hander-Outers at their wedding ceremony. The bambinos ended up loving that role too. Because of all these fun duties we had, we got to be involved in a lot of the weekend’s wedding events… which made the whole experience so much richer for us. We got to know many of Maggie & Eric’s family members and friends. We got to spend lots of time with the bride and groom. And we got to be a part of a very special weekend for two of our most very favorite people.
Photos below are of what was probably the highest high of the entire trip for me~~ After the wedding ceremony, we got in our rental car to head to the reception site. We were all high on life as we were driving from Colorado Springs to Manitou Springs. We had just been a part of a most fabulous wedding, and we were all super excited for the reception. Spontaneously the bambinos began singing at the top of their lungs a crazy-fun-loud-3-part-acapela-version of JD’s Colorado Rocky Mountain High. The drive was gorgeous (the mountains jutting up just ahead of us), were were all soooo happy, and that moment just felt like perfection for me.
“Its Colorado rocky mountain high…”
The reception was, for sure, the bambinos favorite part of the whole experience. They were in their element. To say the least (and as anyone at that wedding reception can surely attest: these three were LOVING it).
By 11:15pm (1:15am our time), Meera was about to crash hard, and we decided that for her sake we needed to duck out. We felt pretty proud that we had stayed until just about the very bitter end of that sweet, sweet night. When we finally fell into bed back at the hotel it was midnight (2:00am our time), which Kyle and Owen were very thrilled with because it set their new record for Latest Night Ever. It was so, so, so, so fun. Every bit of it.
A Note About the Boys’ Ties: K & O had wanted to wear matching ties to the wedding, in the color orange (their favorite), but Kyle wanted a traditional tie, and Owen wanted a bow-tie. After searching high and low I found Kyle’s necktie & Owen’s bow-tie on Etsy at the Little Gentleman’s Closet. I can highly recommend these beautiful ties for little boys, in a fabulous array of fabric designs, handmade by Michelle.
{for post 3 of 4 click here}
Oh my goodness gracious, this was one of the most spectacular things we’ve ever done. Maggie had told me in advance that going up the Pike’s Peak Cog Railway was a MUST-DO for our family while in Colorado Springs for the wedding. So I had booked it long in advance and we had 8am train reservations for Friday morning. It was an awesome experience from the minute we got on the train until the minute we got off it. The views were stunning in every direction and the 3+ hour roundtrip train ride went by unbelievably fast.. Despite the fact that our sweet Ky Ky suffered from a serious case of altitude sickness (poor baby! throwing up anywhere is no fun, but it is especially no fun at the summit of a 14,000 foot mountain while everyone else is oohing and aaahhhing over the views)… but even Kyle agreed that it was totally 100% worth it (he seriously did– it was that good!). Meera conked out on the ride down, but the rest of us were wide-eyed the entire time. We were so glad we got to do this! Talk about a Colorado Rocky Mountain High!
“He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below. He saw everything as far as you can see…”
{for post 4 of 4 click here}
There are all sorts of reasons why traveling with kids is not easy. But there is nothing we love to do more, as a family, together, than to travel. We feel so grateful to have the privilege to prioritize travel the way we do. We only see a tiny slice of this great big world. But the tiny slice we get to see is one we feel so thankful for.
We are raising three little Travel Lovers. They are into it. In a big way. One of the things I always think about during our travels together is the fact that so much of the fun of it for us isn’t even in the actual experiences, but in the entire experience itself. It isn’t just what we go there for, but it is the going there itself too. Part of our Colorado Rocky Mountain High was the adventure and bonding of simply going somewhere, and doing something, together.
“Now his life is full of wonder…”
So, now we are home for awhile. And life resumes to our normalcy. Which is good too. But we have these trips in our memories and they live large in our family folklore and they sit in us and shape us and impact who we are in the world. This one was a really good one. We’re still feeling it. It feels wondrous.
* * *
Thank you to Maggie & Eric for inviting us to Colorado, to your wedding, and into your lives. We luv ya!
Thank you also to some of Maggie and Eric’s friends from whom I stole a few photos (from Facebook) for these Colorado posts!
Thank you to our dearly beloved John Denver — all quotes in these posts are song lyrics from his Colorado Rocky Mountain High.
Thank you readers for indulging in these long and involved trip posts that I write. They are mainly for our own sake, but thanks so much for reading along!
This year the bambinos seem to have a love-hate relationship with sparklers. 2 love. 1 hate. Nevertheless, we had a great day remembering that despite all of our many differences, and all the work that still needs to be done to make this world all that we wish it to be, we’re lucky to live in a country that has allowed us to be a family. A strong, proud, inter-racial, adoptive, 1st-generation-immigrant FAMILY. And tonight we celebrated our freedom with a First: we had ice cream — and nothing but ice cream — for dinner! (I should admit: we had a big lunch, and we’re in the midst of a heat wave!) Regardless, it was fun (and we learned that although Meera hates sparklers, she loves hot fudge sundaes!). Happy 4th y’all!
Today I had what has got to be one of the Top Twenty most hilarious/crazy-fun/interesting experiences of my 8 years of mothering. In my own mind, this experience is sort of the epitome of our life in Never-A-Dull-Moment-Land.
This afternoon my three bambinos and me went and got pedicures together at our local nail salon. In so many, many ways and on so many, many levels it was an off-the-charts experience.
The fact is that it all kind of happened unwittingly. We have a very special occasion coming up this weekend. I had planned to get a pedicure today in preparation for it. But our babysitter had to leave at 2pm, and the big deadline project that I had looming at work took much, much longer for me to complete than I had anticipated. So, I had to rush home straight from work with no time for my planned stop for a pedicure on the way. Out of desperation, and on a whim, upon arrival home, I said to the kids: “Jump in the car! We’re going to the nail salon! I’m getting a pedicure, and anyone else who wants one can get one!”
I knew Meera would jump at the opportunity, which she did. What I hadn’t expected was the Kyle and Owen jumped at the chance too. And so off we went. And amazingly, as walk-ins, the salon could accommodate all four of us at once.
So, there we were, me and my little crew, all lined up in the massaging-pedicure-chairs, getting pedicures together. We each had a different nail tech, and all four of them spoke Vietnamese together at a very rapid pace, clearly confused with our family make-up, and getting quite a kick out of us, but none of them spoke much English. Of course, us J-Ms speak fluent English, but no Vietnamese. So, there was this massive language barrier layered on top of an already quite unusual nail-salon-situation.
The boys went nutso, in love with the vibrating massage chairs and the remote controls that control them, and had about a million questions about every tool, salt scrub, creme, and oil that was used on their feet and legs (almost none of which could be answered because of the language barrier). Meera was in her element as the Little Diva, quiet as a clam, and enjoying every minute. And I was there, just sort of laughing at the whole entire thing every single step of the way.
It was a hoot.
I wish I could blog here and now about all the gory — and hilarious/crazy-fun/interesting — details. I mean, all wrapped up together here we’ve got race, class, gender, ‘family,’ culture, beauty, identity, socialization, ETC. But, alas, I have way too much to do to prepare for the very special occasion we have coming up this weekend to be sitting here blogging.
I hope that someday, when I’m old and gray and needing some memories to brighten my day, that this blog post will remind me of how much FUN I had when my kids were young, and how INTERESTING (i.e., never dull) our family life was.
Over and out y’all~~ I’ll catch you back here in a week of so!
I am a big believer in kids hanging out at home, without too much structure, with plenty of time to get bored (otherwise known as creative), and lots of sun and fresh air. … And while we definitely have some big things planned for the summer, I am always hopeful that there will be plenty of time in between for the bambinos to just chillax a bit and let summer soak deep into their souls.
Last night was Meera’s end-of-year ballet show. The culmination of 9 months of Saturday morning ballet classes. It felt like a massively monumental day for our family– the end-marker proving that we had somehow managed to get through an entire school year of ballet classes for Meera. The 30-minute early Saturday morning drive each way to-and-from her class was KILLER, and the wrench the ballet classes often threw into our weekend planning was a royal pain in the rear, but we stuck it out, and we pulled through, making finishing the year of ballet a major achievement for us all. And after a whole year of Meera cheering on her brothers from the sidelines of their (many) sporting events, it was payback time (big time!)~~
I took the boys to get the roses. They came to understand this ritual in the only way they know how: with a sports analogy– “Giving flowers to a Ballerina is like giving trophies to a Sports Star” they told the guy behind the florist desk. “Yes, that’s right,” he said to them, “but girls like flowers anytime– especially roses– and the earlier you boys learn that, the better.” And so, Kyle and Owen had their first lesson in Flower Giving. But still, they were pretty unsure about the whole thing. They really thought Meera should be receiving a trophy, “or at least a medal” Kyle said, “or a ribbon or something,” Owen said. That was all until we arrived at the show venue. And there they saw that just about every single family had flowers for their girl. And then, they were very happy that they had those gorgeous big bunches of pink roses in their hands. {And the Most Important Rule of Life was re-affirmed once again: Mama knows best. đŸ˜‰ And of course I made sure I pointed that out to them a few times.}
I also had to point out to them — more than a few times — that yes, this whole Ballet Show thing is not really their style, and yes it is extremely long, and yes, it is hard to sit through, but YOUR SISTER HAS SPENT THE PAST YEAR SITTING THROUGH YOUR SPORTS SO YOU WILL DO THIS WITH A SMILE ON YOUR FACE AND YOU WILL DO IT WELL AND YOU WILL NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT IT FOR EVEN ONE SECOND. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Yes, it was payback time. Payback time in a big, big way. The show was a ballet rendition of The Little Engine that Could. It was 3 hours long. And Meera’s class appeared on the stage for 1 minute and 48 seconds of it (Braydon timed it). No joke.
But we did it. They did it. Those big brothers sat through the entire 3 hour thing, with only one 15-minute intermission. And they learned some important stuff along the way… like, classical ballets do not have words, and ballet productions are long, and people don’t clap along to the music, and they learned what it is like to sit on the sidelines — for real — finally. And they learned what it is to have a whole entire show/performance/audience/evening be all about someone else… someone else with entirely different interests than their own, and someone else who really needed to be in the spotlight for a moment doing her own thing. And our boys did a good job of it. And Meera was ridiculously cute for her 1 minute and 48 seconds on the stage. And when that show was over, we had one proud ballerina on our hands. (And two proud big brothers.)
(And two proud parents.)
It was a good, albeit long, night for the J-Ms.
And then we headed home, stopping on the way for ice cream (which, despite her love of, and appreciation for, the pink roses, is what Meera really wanted to do to celebrate)…
…and sitting right where she wanted (on Owen’s lap), eating ice cream (her favorite: vanilla with rainbow sprinkles), things resumed to normalcy and we found our balance again– with costumes off and classical ballet productions behind us we quickly got right back to the usual business of making messes, elbowing brothers in the gut, cracking dumb jokes, etc.
And then our ballerina promptly fell asleep in the car on the ride home, and didn’t wake up again until the next morning.
And upon waking up she found that her roses were all arranged in a big vase in the center of the kitchen table, and the big show was finally behind us, and life was chugging along on forward. It was good to wake up to.
If I had to venture a guess I’d bet that we won’t be sitting through any more ballet school shows in the future. What we learned this year was that while Meera liked ballet well enough, what Meera really loved (and what we all needed) was to have something — something real and legitimate and substantial and requiring us all to cooperate and coordinate — that was just for her. I don’t think ballet is our thing (or hers). But I can assure you, there will always be some thing that is Meera’s thing. I will make sure of it. And I’ll also be sure that we’ll all rally around our girl when it is her moment on the stage. What I hope Meera learned this year, more than anything about ballet, is that she’s got a very strong family behind her.
“I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I know I can.”
― Little Engine That Could
I have a tendency of getting unusually close — like, very very close — with my kids’ teachers. They play such a huge role in the lives of my kids; they are monumental on the path of each chapter of the journey; and, being a teacher myself, I deeply understand that my kids’ teachers have a special relationship with, perspective on, and insight to, my children (a relationship, perspective, and insight, that I do not have). As a result, I tend to fully embrace Kyle, Owen, and Meera’s teachers and learn all that I can from them — I’ve done this from the very beginning, with daycare staff, babysitters, coaches, and care-givers of all types.
I became especially close — even close for me — with Meera’s first teacher. From the minute I met Miss Kristen, and saw her interact with my daughter, I was immediately enamored with her. She is a gifted pre-school teacher and she put me at ease leaving my 2 year old with her each day. Meera loved “school” (daycare) from the start, and I always knew that this was in large part due to Miss Kristen. And Miss Kristen helped me to see some of Meera’s strengths that I hadn’t known before– like Meera’s extraordinary ability to be friends with everyone, and her unbelievable obedience, her independence, and her great capacity for making people happy. Miss Kristen and Meera had a very sweet and special bond right from the start. It was incredible to see the two of them together. And I truly adored Miss Kristen.
After Meera “graduated” from Miss Kristen’s 2-year-old-room up to the 3-year-old-room at the daycare, we all made a commitment to trying to stay in touch. And, unlike the usual “commitments” of this sort, we actually really did. Kristen introduced us to her fiancé Stephen (who Meera has always called “Prince Stephen”), we got together a couple of times, and have had a special relationship ever since. Kristen is beautiful (inside and out), and Stephen is incredible in his own right. When I look at them, I see a mixture of visions– I see in Kristen a grown-up version of Meera (or at least a sort of version of the kind of person that I hope Meera will become), and I also see — in Kristen and Stephen’s relationship — some resemblance to Braydon and me ten years ago. It is special.
On Saturday Braydon and I got to go to Miss Kristen and Prince Stephen’s wedding. It was dripping with gorgeousness in every possible way. It was such a treat for us to witness. And thanks to Zahir, who babysat the bambinos for most of the day/night, Braydon and I got to live-it-up kid-free and truly enjoy every minute of the wedding day.
The next morning, I showed Meera the pictures we had taken on Braydon’s cell phone. It literally took Meera’s breath away to see Miss Kristen as Beautiful Bride. And she really was a breathtakingly beautiful bride! Congratulations Kristen and Stephen!
This week, our first official full week of summer, has been intense. Amongst other things, the big ticket items this week have been a week of Lehigh Basketball Camp (aka ‘Heaven on Earth’ for Kyle and Owen), and Year-End-Ballet-Show-Rehearsal-Week (aka ‘crrraaaazzzyyyyness’ for Meera). To pull this week off required a lot of prepping, coordinating, driving, and basic-hard-core-parental-commitment on the part of Braydon and me. Luckily, our babysitter from last summer, Ryan, was able to help us round out the edges around here, while we were in limbo waiting for our Summer 2012 Babysitter to begin this coming week (thank you Ryan!!!!). Anyhoo….. all is well that ends well: It is Friday night and Meera is currently with Braydon at her final dress rehearsal (the big show is Sunday), and the boys are at home with me. They are sitting on the couch, watching a movie, eating macaroni-and-cheese, and drinking milk. They are completely exhausted from one of their best weeks ever, and they are feeling pretty good about life right now– having had so much fun (non-stop basketball in the first mega-heatwave of the summer = absolute FUN for them), the icing on the cake was coming home from the award’s ceremony today with 5 awards between the two of them– Kyle got three, and Owen got two– just to put this in perspective, there are very few awards given out (it was kind of embarrassing how many the J-M boys racked up). As for Meera, well, she is sort of sick of watching her brothers play sports and win awards (it has been a long year of that for her, and she’s got a looooooong road ahead of her). So we focus as much as possible on her sheer delight in the simple pleasure of having something just for her, her getting to wear an amazing “Flower” costume, and anticipating her big 3 minutes on stage. There will be a big bouquet of roses at the end of it, presented to her by her big brothers, I can assure you of that.
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