Margot’s 5th Halloween on this planet began the night before with seats at the Buell Theater to watch a performance of Beauty and the Beast. She stayed up to midnight.
Her Aunt Ellie got her off to a good start Saturday with a boo bag.
Meanwhile, I counted out 1200 pieces of candy. The good weather suggested a big turnout.
My sister Kathy texted me a photo of her costume in Mississippi.
While her daughter Brook was clad in a similarly-themed black t-shirt. The midterms was on their minds. Are you scared yet?
The first little boo of the night arrived at my house at 4:15. Terror was off to an early start.
Margot wasn’t far behind, getting out before nightfall.
Chase’s home was one of her first stops.
If you have yet to figure out her costume, Margot was dressed as the corpse bride. Her choice.
Margot returned in the dark of the night to help her Coco hand out candy.
Our candy supply held out to about 7:30pm. We retired safely in the house, ate more of Coco’s chili, watched Hocus Pocus and were all in bed by 10pm.
I ran 70 miles last week, the first time in 9 years that I’ve run that far in a single week. Today’s 22 miler has me set to do it again this week. I’m closing out the year running strong.
I got in 3 good runs while down in Austin, twice around the lake and once on the greenbelt. It rained on me in the pic above. That warm, soft rain so typical of Texas in the winter.
The Austin Greenbelt was the perfect prep for Bandera. It’s essentially a trail along Barton Creek and there are good sections of cliffs with rocky footing like you see above.
Karen and I stayed at my favorite place in Austin, her cousin Liz’s Casa del Sol on S. 2nd and Oltorf. I can run through the Bouldin neighborhood and reach Lady Bird Lake in 1.2 miles. Here’s some of the yard art from Bouldin.
Margot Fay saw Santa everywhere she went in Austin. Like a toddler Ted Lasso, she believes.
Ellie wasn’t able to join us in Austin because of her new job as a data analyst at Dish. She won’t have PTO until March. Our darling friend Wendy invited Ellie over to spend Christmas with her and Chase.
Ellie Rose and Chase have been best friends since grade school.
These two have been besties even longer. They were the hosts with the most serving a couple dozen family members Christmas dinner. Karen’s father golfed nine holes the next day.
Most all of us are in this dinner photo. I’ll see Susan and Steve and Liam in a couple weeks in Bandera – they’re my crew. Promises were made at dinner for me to run the 2026 Austin Marathon with Chad and Laura. The other Laura.
Margo Fay again, at her grandparent’s mountain home. I’m off for a second week. My only plans are to run every day. Today included cold 25 mile-an-hour winds off the water at the Boulder Res. Just more good prep for Bandera where I’ll run 62 miles at 62 years of age. Happy New Years all y’all.
Ellie is now hotter by two degrees. That was stenciled on a candle her sissy gifted her at dinner after her first commencement celebrating her Masters in Data Science. Degree number one.
Ellie opened all her gifts. This blue box was from her Aunt Laura.
Ellie’s best gift was her 91 year old papa visiting from Austin. Her papa and grandma had to split the proverbial baby to also attend her cousin’s graduation at A&M in College Station. Her papa paid for most of her tuition as well – quite a gift.
Brit, Eric and Margot couldn’t make the ceremony but joined us for dinner. They made Friday’s commencement for Ellie’s B.S. in Quantitative BioSciences and Engineering – degree number two. 2°. Get it?
Of all the excitement, I got the impression Ellie was most happy for us to meet her boyfriend, Austin.
Much was made by the school president of the fact that this was the pandemic class and that many of the students didn’t have a normal high school graduation. Ellie is posing here with the Mines’ mascot, Blaster.
Two days after her final class, Ellie has yet to find a job. So Brittany extended an invite for her to babysit Margot next week. Great timing on the ask, I thought.
Karen and I are hoping to see a bit more of Ellie this summer, assuming she moves back home after her lease expires at the end of the month. With Ellie commencing on her career journey, Karen and I are adapting to having become empty-nesters.
After Covid and long Covid and an actual cold, I was able to breathe today on the East Boulder Trail. I would describe what that’s been like, but I don’t wish for you to live through my winter of discontent.
The deep breathing of a distance run filled my ears with a contented sound that filled my soul.
It helped to be surrounded by views of trees and lakes and the Indian Peaks.
I thought about my family chat with Ellie and some others that began last night and continued into the morning.
She’d just heard that Talabama criminalized in vitro fertilization. She was upset and in combat mode.
Combat-mode is what I call her when she chats like a sailor. I guess that makes it a euphemism.
I told her I didn’t like it and relentlessly tapped out words like eloquence until the fierce warrior yielded to her father and began to chat how he wanted to chat.
She made good points from there and last night’s epic IVF family chat bled into the morning.
More good points were made by others in the chat. Seems like there’s a whole lot of good reasons to support IVF and help Alabama find a new religion while we’re at it.
We’ve been returning to Austin for Christmas for the last 34 years. The only exception was in 1991 when Britty-Boo was born seven weeks early and had to spend Christmas in the hospital with all the other little preemies in their incubators. Now Brit has a baby of her own.
Ellie texted this photo of her painting to the family chat and said it was going to be a painting summer. None of us are quite sure what she meant by that and we haven’t heard from her since. But, knowing what kind of summer it will be helps me to plan.
It’ll be a runner’s summer for me. I ran 8 miles today on the East Boulder Trail under an infantry of cloudlets marching toward the Front Range. The trail looked muddier than it was. The bridge is back over Boulder Creek, for pedestrian traffic but not for horses. The cement is still curing. I recall the old bridge to have had wooden planks. This is like a sidewalk.
Of course, in Colorado, Mother’s Day weekend is also about planting flowers. Or in the case of what we did today, hang flower baskets. Summer is coming.
Ellie and I celebrated our joint birthdays this weekend because I’ll be in San Francisco the last week of April and Canada the first week of May, and she has finals approaching.
But of course, today wasn’t about us. Today was all Margot Fay.
Wearing her mother’s thirty year old dress and baby Doc Martens, Margot sprinted around the grass in search of eggs.
The sky looked like winter still but the weather was quite warm and the grass was starting to turn green – perfect for hiding eggs.
We walked home from the park for brunch.
Margot’s first discovery was her new Minnie chair.
And then she was off to play a song.
Margot never tires of climbing the stairs, although she can do it now walking on her two feet.
Life starts at sixty. Everyone knows that. Which is why I had heart surgery a week ago, quit my job, and plan to go trail running this week in the Collegiate Peaks. I’m focused on new beginnings.
My heart 2.0 has been operating fairly smoothly since the ablation. I track it throughout the day with the fourth frontier EKG chest strap that displays metrics to an app on my iPhone. I can track it for hours. It was recordings from this app that I was able to share with my primary care to begin diagnosing the problem. Cost about $500 but very cool tech. There’s an online dashboard for EKGs but below are before and after surgery EKG summaries from my app. Until today’s run, I’d yet to record A-Fib post surgery.
A-Fib 85% of the time on this run before ablation
A much nicer looking chart post surgery
After a week of taking it easy, I ran four miles today and recorded some A-fib for the first time – which is normal so it didn’t bother me. My pace was slower than normal though. Time to get back in shape. I’m registered for the Austin Marathon in February.
4 miler
Everything is of course new to Margot. This is her first halloween and we took her to Munson farms where we took Brit and Ellie for their first pumpkin patch experiences.
Munson Farms
Margot was hard to keep up with as she romped through the pumpkin patch
Karen finally caught up to her.
It was a bright, sunny October day.
Margot picked out a pumpkin her size and no doubt dreamt of witches and goblins last night.
With our birthdays two days apart, Ellie and I typically share our celebrations. Something kept getting in the way every weekend and our party was delayed by four weeks. This weekend was sketchy as well with eight inches of snow in the forecast, but it was just a cold rain and didn’t stick to the roads. So, Ellie got her electric guitar and I finally got my Doc Martins.
If Ellie turned twenty, that means I must now be sixty. And Brit would be thirty. With the obvious cognitive decline I must experiencing at this advanced age, I appreciate the easy math to recall my girls’ ages. I know what you’re thinking, with my girls being born a full ten years apart, but same wife. We’ll celebrate thirty-five years together this summer.
I could point out the adversities I’ve encountered over my sixty-year span, but they’re drowned in a sea of blessings and I can only think of how good my life has been. Good friends. A growing family. I’m ready for the next sixty.
The family that hikes together, in my experience, brunches together. Which is what we did today. It’s never occurred to me to hike Red Rocks before, the trails aren’t exposed at night when I’ve gone there for concerts. But Red Rocks has an extensive, family-friendly trail system.
Ellie’s sorority house is only a ten minute drive away, so we picked her up and met Brit and Eric at the Trading Post trailhead. The Trading Post trail is a 1.5 mile loop around spectacular red rock formations. Very little shade so consider wearing a hat.
The winter just got a little colder with my mother’s passing early Thursday morning, after battling COPD and cancer for ten years. Surrounded by her children, she went peacefully, willing to join God and the loved ones who preceded her.
She was fortunate to meet her new grandson-in-law, Eric, before he and Brittany were married in 2019. And she lived long enough for four great grandchildren to be born in 2019 and 2020.
When you have seven children, you’re going to have a few great grandchildren. She had seven, with more on the way.
She married on September 21st, five days after her 18th birthday, because her German Protestant mother wouldn’t approve of her underage marriage to an Irish Catholic. Demonstrating a strong work ethic, Johnny eventually won his mother-in-law over. He died young in 1967, leaving mom to raise us on her own.
A friend said to me that our parents are our one constant and true love. My body once lived inside her body. Without a father since I was five, she was everything to me. She’ll live on through me, but my world is colder without her.
It feels to me as though everyone I’m close to, who passed in the last few decades, did so in the winter. I can see how it might be poetic, to follow nature’s seasons. Without winter, there’d be no spring. There are yet more grandchildren to marry and more great grandchildren to be born.
My mom loved her church, Round Rock Presbyterian Church. She formed their Women’s Guild and for anyone whom wants to give in her memory, she wishes for donations to go to the RRPC Women’s Guild. Below is a joke mom shared with her grandchildren, that she heard at church.
We never truly know our parents, just the stories. I thought of those stories a lot over the past year. Some stories where she’s the hero. Others where she’s not. Stories, where a single working mother, in the sixties and seventies, raised seven kids. Until the equal credit opportunity act was signed in 1974, it must have been hard for a woman to obtain a credit card. But we were never homeless, never hungry. We lived well. I was always happy.
There’s a story in my family, about my mom selling one of her children’s musical instruments. And something about how she went about it, some of my sisters were upset. Those memories make me feel shameful at how selfish I was. A single working mother with seven children and I can’t think of one thing I ever did to help her.
I should have been giving her all my discarded toys and used clothes or whatever. I should have contributed to the hot meals and the roof over my head provided by a mother who had to sell one of her seven kid’s musical instruments. But I was just a kid.
She loved her grandchildren. Below is Brook.
And this is her with my girls, Brit and Ellie Rose. We love you mom and grandma.
I remember when I discovered Ellie Rose was smarter than me.She was in middle school.She’s been reading adult-level books since grade school.
She had her pick of colleges and chose the one known to be the hardest scholastically, the Colorado School of Mines.She’s interested in epigenetics.
She’s a girl of many talents.At NHS, she formed clubs and participated in sports and the student council.She earned money at various jobs.She wrote songs on the piano and guitar.She traveled to Austria and back on her own.
Ellie Rose is ready for the next step in her life.She graduated yesterday to cap off a challenging time.We’re excited for her because we know she will become a woman who will move the world forward.
Karen and Ellie let me out at mom’s house Saturday morning.They delayed their departure for better weather.Those girls aren’t trying to beat the Post Office.Ellie got us from Austin to Round Rock via MoPac.Karen took the wheel heading out of town.
When I drive, I tend to steer well east of Lubbock.It’s too early for dinner and too late for lunch, and too tempting to stop early for dinner, making the next day a longer drive.
Coincidentally, when Karen drove it today, her map app took her through the middle of her college stompin’ grounds.Go Tech.
Karen called me after reaching Amarillo to say they had a nice ride.Ellie drove for ninety minutes.They were planning dinner.
Fräulein Ellierose navigated Fankfurt on her return flight, but not without texting her review. That she referenced the Munich airport over Frankfurt was just enough to make me get up and check the flight status. She arrived to Graz via Munich but departed via Frankfurt. Our weary little tourist clearly prefers Munich over Frankurt. Simple typo from a worldly traveler.
I would have gone straight to bed after reaching home. Ellierose went to a little home coming party at Wendy’s house. Her friends were there, making it somewhat of a surprise party. She returned home around midnight, with some leftover party-goers, making it a sleepover. I’m not going to bother doing the math with Austria being eight hours ahead, but that had to be a 24 hour day minimum.
I’m grateful to Tina and Wolfgang for hosting her. They took her to Salzburg and Vienna. They even took her to Venice. And Tina packed Ellierose two sandwiches for the flight. Quite the host mother.
I was concerned Ellierose would return with some ink or piercings. But as Brit suggested, she returned instead with lots of new clothes. Oh, and she changed her name. Something girls do at about her age. She insists we all include her middle name now, so it’s Ellierose until we’re told otherwise. After traveling to Europe for a month on her own, she can choose her own name.
Ellie has been texting back photos from her first week in Austria. They prompt me to recall Audrey Hepburn in the 1954 movie, Sabrina. I won’t be surprised if she returns with short hair. Or maybe the modern-day equivalent, a tattoo or piercing. Brittany tells me it’s more likely that Ellie will simply return with new clothes.
More likely, Ellie will return with expectations of drinking wine at dinner. She’s yet to obtain her driving license, but that’s not a requirement in Austria for imbibing adult beverages. Three more weeks of Ellie exploring Europe. Life won’t be the same when she returns.
A big trip for me when I was 16 was driving three hours across Texas to the beach. Ellie wanted to leave the country. I know, we all do. We dropped off Ellie at DIA yesterday to fly Lufthansa to Austria – on her own. Just watching her navigate the security line by herself was hard for Karen and me. Letting go, one vacation at a time.
We embarrassed her with our photo-taking, tracking her progress through security like parents sending their 5 year old off to their first day in kindergarten. Ellie navigated switching flights in Munich – Europe’s 7th busiest airport. She arrived in Graz around 2pm CET and called us to let us know she was safe – 6am MDT. She’ll be visiting her childhood friend Izzy for the next four weeks. Karen and I will be adapting to life as empty-nesters.
See the blood over my right breast in this photo? A little chafing in the 2012 Boulder Marathon. These things have a way of catching up with you. I learned this past week I have gynecomastia in my right breast. That’s essentially breast tissue growth. It’s been sore for a couple of months. At first I assumed it to be chaffing from long runs. I get that occasionally. Then I realized it wasn’t chaffed. And then I freaked out a little bit because I felt a noticeable lump. I probably over-reacted but having had cancer, it’s not an experience I care to rinse and repeat.
I had it checked out. Blood tests and imaging, including a mammogram. I’m fine. I don’t really know the cause other than apparently my hormones, while they are all within their respective ranges, have likely changed their ratios. My right nipple is about twice the size of my left. Just another reason to keep my shirt on.
I’ve been running strides with Ellie the last couple of days. She’s prepping for track to start in a week so we are learning form. We run two miles and then run eight strides in the grass in our racing flats. Yes, I have racing flats. Ellie wears her spikes. The point is not so much a physical workout as to teach Ellie what it’s like to run fast. Speed might be natural talent but your legs still have to learn this.
We run about 200 meters, progressively working ourselves into a sprint. We jog the first quarter, then double our pace for the next quarter, then stride near sprint pace and finish with an all-out sprint. The distance for the sprint is a bit shorter than for the stride, which is shorter than the two previous legs, so they are not evenly spread legs. Neither one of us is in shape to run big sprints, so that part is very short.
It’s all about form and muscle memory. This training isn’t ideal for me, considering I’m training for a marathon, but it won’t hurt me to run less distance for a week. I didn’t expect myself to be able to keep up with Ellie but I can. I think the two mile warm up helps. My upper thighs and glutes are sore though. Maybe this week of running with Ellie will help my speed. 2016 was a slow year for me. Muscles have memory and mine remember running fast. Ellie might just help me qualify for Boston in my marathon this May.
Instagram is Ellie’s social network of choice, as I believe it is for many 14 year olds. And a picture says 1000 words. Ellie sent me these pics from her final days in Austin, saying 1000 words, and then some.
She knows how to capture the best of Austin, and the fun she is having wth her cousins.
I remember the first time I climbed the million steps up Mt. Bonnell, and saw this same view, in the late ’70s. Ellie’s photos are making me truly nostalgic. I have so many good memories of this hill, and Barton Springs below.
It’s so nice to see Lake Travis completely refilled from the rains.
Ellie is totally up on politics and has her own views. This is from South Congress.
Ellie is in the midst of her cousins for nine days. She is pictured here with her older cousin Rachel, visiting Austin from Eugene, playing Top Golf. Ellie says she sucks at golf. I told her that’s how you know you are golfing.
Liam is the baby of all the cousins, so he gets special treatment. He doesn’t appear to like Ellie picking him up much.
I’m told they made their escape with 10 minutes to spare. Ellie said they work well together as a problem solving team. Team work. Let’s check back in with them after a few more days.
Karen and I were empty nesters for a week. We know now how it feels. What to expect. Now that Ellie is back, I know what to expect on our joint training plan too. Three miles was too much for the first day. Ellie was able to run two miles, running the first mile non-stop. This will be a game of inches.
Ellie’s camp counselor Emily, pinged photos to me every day that she was away at Coeur d’Alene. That’s where this pic above comes from. This pic below is what Ellie posted to her Instagram. It says everything to me on what she found beautiful in the forests of Idaho.
Unfortunately I have to travel on the 4th and 5th for work, so we won’t run again until Wednesday. Ellie has dance practice though during that time so she’ll get in a bit of a workout. Summer training has officially started.
Ellie’s spring break was a big week of snowboarding. She starts the week out in Winter Park with Chase and Wendy. She finishes the week in Vail with her sister. The first day is a whiteout snowfall. Ellie said the powder was so deep, it didn’t hurt to fall.
Chase skis but Ellie is able to keep up with him on her board. Ellie took off day two to recover her legs and do some shopping. The three of them watch movies every night and eat huge breakfasts that Wendy cooks each morning. Ellie’s favorite is Custard French Toast with Pecan Crust.
I wonder if Wendy cooks like this when it’s just Chase at home? I’m considering buying a 2016-2017 season ski pass to Winter Park for Ellie, just so she can have a hot breakfast.
Thursday is full sunshine. I drive up to join them, my skin smothered in zinc, but get sunburned anyway. This is my first time to snowboard in Winter Park. Gorgeous mountain. Maybe age has diminished my sense of balance, but the lifts at Winter Park eject me like catapults. I fall getting off over half the time.
I’m serious about Winter Park ski passes. Boarding with Wendy and Chase was a blast and it’s a great mountain. Coming back for sure.
Ellie and I hook up later with Karen and Brit in Vail. Turns out, this is Brit’s first time snowboarding in four years. She’s still faster than me.
I show off my toe side here. And I master hopping off the lifts – not pictured.
Brittany boards with some style. Brit got me to try snowboarding about 10 years ago. I finally bought a $40 board off Craigslist last year to hit the slopes with Ellie. Glad I did.
Is Brit sticking her tongue out at me? Millennials! She’s riding Ellie’s board here and struggles a bit because she doesn’t like the parallel position of the bindings. She falls getting off the lifts more than I did at Winter Park.
The difference between boarding with Ellie and Brit is that Brit drinks beer with me in between runs. I believe we both improved our form after each can of liquid courage.
Snowboarding with Brit on Friday, after a four or five year gap, brought back great memories. So good to know we can still shred the slopes. I expect many more years of this.
Brit and Ellie gear up Saturday morning to snowboard before the forecast rain begins. Another day too warm to snow. They get in some runs though. Brit feels better on her own board with the bindings turned out.
Hail begins to fall on the mountain shortly after noon so the girls quit early to do some shopping. Ellie finds a new, black GLCR 686 ski jacket, an early birthday present to herself. Brit assumes this means she inherits Ellie’s green GLCR 686 jacket. That’s how sisters think.
They catch the bus home just as it begins to rain. Vacation is winding down as Ellie entertains us with her ukulele. Another good spring break.
“Keep your back straight!” Ellie coached me today on how to snowboard. That’s fair, I taught her how to ride a bike. I thought I knew how to snowboard but six years have somehow passed by since I last went. Could have something to do with breaking my ribs on that last outing in Idaho. Falling on a snowboard comes fast and hard. Ellie knows, check out that photo of her below.
What really helped me today was renting some snowboard boots. I started out in my snow boots, trying to save some money. That was a mistake. I felt totally uncoordinated on my first couple of runs. It only took a few minutes to rent some boots and I improved dramatically. My two key lessons for today were proper boots and keeping my back straight.
To go out with Ellie, I first had to acquire a snowboard. I bought a ten year old K2 off Craigslist on Monday for $30. The guy wanted $40 but then we both noticed a screw missing from the bindings. For my speed, the one screw isn’t critical. I might buy some newer bindings though off Craigslist this week. I don’t need new gear at my novice level of experience. I just need to keep up with Ellie. We started out on the magic carpet and worked our way onto the lift after a few initial runs.
Today’s weather was unbelievably warm and sunny. Neither of us wore gloves. We’re going to try to get up another weekend or two before spring break to work on our skills. Then, we plan to join the Sebesta’s at the start of spring break at the Stockert’s cabin in Breck. And we plan on boarding another couple of days at the end of break in Keystone. I’m confident Ellie and I will be real snowboarders by the end of the season. We lunched at the end of today at the Black Forest in Nederland. Awesome day!
Today marks our sixth consecutive drive up to Eldora Mountain Resort for Ellie’s snow board lessons in the Eldora Kid’s Trek Program. Certainly not our final drive up but Ellie’s last lesson for this course. She has a coupon for a discounted private lesson that I intend to schedule after my return from Austin in March. And the first full week of April is spring break. I told her I would snow board with her then. It’s been six years for me. Last time snow boarding, I broke my ribs. Maybe I need lessons.
I snowshoed with Marilee. We hiked the Lonestar Loop counterclockwise, until we lost the trail. We wound up returning on the Rising Sun Nordic Ski Trail. Fortunately we weren’t seen by any Nordic skiers. Despite the snow this past week, we trekked across a couple of bare spots. But then, it’s also been 70° the last few days. Mixed blessings.
Marilee and I lunched with her friend Nancy at the Sundance Cafe. Great menu with awesome views, located about a mile outside of Nederland toward Black Hawk. I ate a bison burger with Brie and jalapenos. They have a lodge too. This photo captures Emma leading Ellie down the hill.
I dropped the distance of my Saturday run down to ten miles. Saw Amy riding her bike on the LoBo Trail. I probably won’t exceed six miles on any single run this week. I’m in super taper mode. My focus is now on nutrition and not hurting myself before next Sunday’s Austin Marathon. I think my pace will be posted to Facebook at key intervals. Hoping to have a good run. Seven more days.
The parking lot at Eldora Mountain Resort was packed early today. No football on TV. And an acceptable wind. Karen and Marilee joined me this morning to snowshoe. We started counter-clockwise on the Lonestar Loop, like I have on previous outings, but turned onto the Twisted Snowshoe Trail for the shorter inside loop. The Snowshoe Hare Trail is the middle loop and Lonestar is the longest, outside loop.
Marilee took to snowshoeing like a pro. The snow isn’t difficult on these trails, no super deep powder. But the slope is fairly steep, much more so than any of the trails Karen and I did last year. We did well though despite the hills with a 1.5 mph pace for 1.5 miles – which made a one hour hike.
The girls enjoyed less wind for their snow boarding lessons. Shortly after lunch though, Ellie went down hard on her left shoulder. We collected her in the medical tent after the staff had recorded every ache Ellie experienced over the last several weeks. They likely learned from this to ask my daughter less open-ended questions. Who knew such extensive healthcare comes with the price of a lift ticket? Ellie is still a bit sore but nothing serious.
Saturday’s twenty mile run didn’t go as well as last weekend. I was hoping to show improvement, that would help my confidence going into the Austin Marathon. Doesn’t matter, the important thing was I was able to complete the distance. Speed isn’t critical. I figure my legs were heavy from my workout the day before.
There’s still a bit of ice on the LoBo Trail south of Hwy 52. There was enough clean dirt to safely navigate around the ice. In my seventh mile, just before the ice patches, I saw Jen running back toward Longmont. We gave each other a low five because we’re cool runners. On my return, I began to run over the ice simply to make the trail less pedestrian.
My pace was slower than last weekend during the first half but I really slowed down at 17 miles. Kind of like how a bad marathon goes. Actually, I slowed down considerably at 17 miles last week too. But everything was under a 9 minute pace then. I ran a half minute per mile slower this Saturday. Still, running the distance is all I need to feel prepared for Austin. Three more weeks, I’ll be ready.
