We are armpit-deep in baseball here at the Vollmer house. Our boys joined the Academy Little League (ALL) baseball club here in the Springs, and we have been busy with the boys’ respective schedules.
Spring 2014 Baseball
Colorado Discoveries 31: Crested Butte Ski Resort
Our family took a Spring Break trip at the end of March to Crested Butte, Colorado. It’s home to Mt. Crested Butte Ski Resort, which is a family-friendly, classic ski resort, a far departure from the day-tripper-friendly ski mountains we’d been visiting this season. Enjoy the pictures I took with my brand new iPhone 5S’s kick-butt camera!
Trader Joe’s in Colorado!
This is the last of my February catch-up posts. Thanks for bearing with me. Last month three Trader Joe’s food stores opened in Colorado. Two are in Denver and one is in Boulder. They’re all about 1 – 1 1/2 hours from here, which is the closest we’ve lived to a TJs in a long … Read more
Alton Brown’s Edible Inevitable Tour
I’m almost embarrassed to talk about how I nearly missed this performance.
I’m a huge Alton Brown fan. Since his show Good Eats debuted in 1999, he has brought food science and geekery to the masses. Before the days of TiVo and DVRs, I’d make a point to watch the show weekly. Now that I can record the shows, I catch episodes whenever I can.
Colorado Springs Sledding Fun
I’m now officially catching up on some smaller posts I had planned to share…but then forgot.
Let’s start with some sledding the family did at the beginning of February. We went up the road to Cottonwood Creek Community Park, which has numerous gentle hills throughout.
We took our little sleds that we used at Estes Park back in November and enjoyed going up and down the hills.
Chugging Right Along: Baseball, Skiing, and Scouts
Yep, I’ve been scarce. I’ve been spending more time on my Facebook fan page than here, because I can pop up quick discussion items and engage with friends and fans that way.
That’s because baseball has started at the Vollmer house. And as the boys get older, their practice schedules become more intense. And as the practice becomes more intense, we are making more investments of time and protective equipment for them: new slider pants for Jacob, impact-resistant sports goggles for Timmy, a new catcher’s mitt for Timmy, a wheeled baseball bag for Jacob…
Colorado Springs School Choice Drama Part 2: Discovery Canyon Campus
As promised, here’s the rest of the story with our school choice. The boys had expressed interest in the STEM schools in our district. This would be the Discovery Canyon Campus, a K-12 school about 9 miles away. Not unreasonably far away, and there would be bus service (somewhat) available if the boys got into … Read more
5 Itty Bitty Housework Hacks to Save Time and Money
I don’t care for housework. I understand it’s a fact of life and I do get a feeling of accomplishment when everything is clean.
Thirty seconds later, the boys (and/or Howie) come home from the park and undo it all. Oh well, at least I tried, right?
Over the years of keeping my own home, I’ve come to rely on numerous “life hacks” that buy me a few minutes of time savings (and sanity) from housework.
Allow me to share with you some of the smaller, more subtle housework hacks that I have come to rely on. I’m sure these tips exist already, and many of you will say, “Well, DUH! Who doesn’t do that?”, but for me, I found some of them genius! And if you try some of the ones that seem new to you, you might ask yourself in a few weeks, “Why did I not do that all along?”
Colorado Discoveries 30: History Colorado Center
I’ve been remiss. 2 1/2 weeks since my last post. Things have been getting progressively busier in the Vollmer house as our boys have started their baseball practice with their new baseball program: Academy Little League.
The boys were out of school on Valentine’s Day, so we took the day and cashed in on part of the Christmas gift from my dear sister’s family: tickets to the History Colorado Center in downtown Denver. As I’ve written for the GeekMom blog, I love state history museums, and I’ve dragged our sons to the history museum for every state we’ve lived in since they were born.
Pinewood Derby 2014: The Electric Wedge and Howie Car
Last month the boys participated in their Cub Scout pack’s Pinewood Derby. I thought I had written about our sons’ Cub Scout Pinewood Derbies before, but I guess I hadn’t. This is Jacob’s 5th year competing, and Timmy’s 3rd. And our third Cub Scout pack experience with it.
Because this is a much smaller pack than we had in Florida, the entire event was completed in less than two hours. It was nice to see the boys pay attention to the entire event…unlike in Florida where the event was around 4 hours long.
I’m going to discuss the cars our sons chose to make, and then discuss the event itself. I guess I’ll be spilling some trade secrets and monetary investments we made in the boys’ cars, but I don’t think what we did was too unreasonable.