Adventures of Several Kinds

This is the craziest time of the school year for me. This last weekend I took 50 kids up to Estes Park for a leadership conference. It was intense. We dealt with heavy issues like bullying, racism, discrimination, sexism, etc. The list goes on. In light of the events that have happened during the school year, i.e. a beloved teacher's suicide, two bomb threats and so on, these topics stirred up a lot for many kids. The goal had been to get to where we can talk about helping others with these issues, but we got hung up on them ourselves. We got through it and are better for it on the other end. The kids were amazing! It is times like these that reaffirm my commitment to teaching, especially teaching high school students.

Even though I was feeling a bit sleep deprived from the Leadership retreat, our family went hiking and adventuring on Sunday. Castlewood Canyon is simply beautiful. We hiked around the cliffs where my husband and his friends do rock climbing. It was an opportunityy for me to face my fears and growl at them. Actually, I really just wanted to stop and wait, instead of climbing on. At one point I did most of my climbing barefoot because I did not trust my shoes. It was good to feel brave, once I was on flat ground again. We also hiked a trail that meandered along the river. Due to recent heavy storms it was raging. It took a long time to find a place calm enough to play in the water. Reisha, our pooch, thought it was a wonderful, doggy filled, petting filled way to spend her birthday.

Last week's race on Wednesday was a wild one. We had a record amount of rainfall on Tuesday (2" in one day, previous record had been 1.29") resulted in a lot of water in unusual places. The road race course had to be shortened due to a river that now coursed over the road, instead of below it. Ethan became mesmerized and lost his sense of place when crossing it. As a result, he hit another cyclist, knocking them both down. The other man fell on top of Ethan. They became a human dam and then scrambled to get Ethan's bike before it went into the actual stream. The man was gracious and wonderful about it. Ethan was mortified, apologetic and sopping wet. He still raced, and I am proud of him for that. Though, he is lucky he did not become hypothermic. Ellie blazed along and come in third. This time there was less than one minutes difference between the 2nd, 3rd and 4th places.