FEBRUARY!?? What the...

I missed January!?

I guess I didn't miss it entirely, it just swept me along and I forgot about blogs and stuff.

January had two pretty cool happenings: Pam, Roxana and Rosie Sorooshian came to visit us, and Marty turned 17 on Saturday, the 14th. Unfortunately, the Sorooshians had to start driving home that morning. Fortunately, last year Marty's friends kind of botched his birthday. So this year they had a surprise 16th birthday party for him the night before he turned 17, cake and all. Pam's kids got to help keep the secret and go to that one.

We did some good touristy stuff. We took the tram to the crest of the mountain and ate. The girls got to play in what little snow there was (some crunchy piles and little bits). Bummer they came all the way out here in January and were two miles above sealevel, and still no snow.



We bopped around Old Town some, and Marty's pick to do for sure while they were here was Explora. It was nearly empty when we were there, Wednesday afternoon. It was nice.

Friday we went to Santa Fe where a couple of unplanned things happened. We went to St. John's College, in which Roxana had expressed an interest, and it so happened that in walking around we discovered there was activity in the administration offices, and when I asked the administrative person whether there was more literature I could take away (hoping to make a pile of stuff for Roxana to take home), she fetched an admissions counselor. Not bad! Not planned, but kinda nice.

Then at the plaza, the girls posed for "Rent photos" and the it's-not-really-a-busstop spot with St Francis Cathedral in the background. Luckily, Holly had just bought candy cigarettes at Señor Murphy's, so they had props too.

That visit gave me a huge thrill. I've stayed at the Sorooshians' house a dozen times, I think, over the years. My whole family has been there twice, and none of them had gotten to visit us. Maybe if Roxana goes to St. John's they'll have more opportunities to visit here.

A less profound thing we did was to visit Marty and Kirby at their respective places of employment, and to go into Active Imagination where Kirby spent his formative gaming-shop years. Now Kirby works at Dion's (a local pizza chain) and Marty at Raley's (a courtesy clerk, formerly known as "sack boy"). So Pam can picture them at work when I tell stories in unschooling discussions. That's cool. I got to visit Roya's (her oldest's) place of work when she was working at a ceramics supply company, years back, and have been with Pam to pick up and deliver kids from college classes.

Marty's birthday was nice. Seventeen. I can hardly conceive of that huge number in terms of Marty.

So this post thusfar has said nothing about February. That's okay. Much will happen in February. Maybe I'll even write about it!