PREFACE



Sander's job change meant he went from working an easy, breezy 34 hours a week to over 50 hours per week. {When I think about that, it's like realizing he works two extra days a week.} Combine that fact with the fact that he is gone before we wake up in the morning and thus passes out from exhaustion on the couch in the evenings, and you get a nice picture of how things have been, well, an adjustment for us.

Yesterday evening he asked if we wanted to come along with him today to Fort Collins while he did a bit of troubleshooting and put out some fires. He's been doing lots of that lately, putting out fires.

The truth is that a couple weeks ago he mentioned going up to Loveland in the afternoon {he's been rushing up to Loveland like crazy lately} and I asked if the kids and I could tag along--drop him off at the site, go to a park, maybe hit up that antique mall in Longmont, pick him back up and grab dinner together--but he said no, it wouldn't work. I won't lie, I was disappointed. Feels like we never see him these days...but super proud of how hard he works too.

So yesterday he invites us up to Ft. Collins and at first I was all like, "Oh, no, we'll be in the way..." {even though it totally sounded better than waking up by myself at 7 a.m. to three energetic children, staying home with chores, schoolwork, and discipline all day, and hoping he made it home and wouldn't be sent to any of the four corners of Colorado to clean up a mess someone else made, waiting for him to come home for dinner, putting the kids to bed together, and finally watching him pass out on the couch, and wow this was a long interjection here...} ...where was I? Oh yeah, so then he was like, "No, really. I want you to come, it will be fun."

So after stopping by the office, he stopped by home with a cure for my morning zombie mom syndrome Starbucks drink and we were on our way to Ft. Collins.

The first stop was at a place called Timnath {which I'm told is said TIM-nuth and not tim-NAAAATH} whereupon I saw lots of fields and farmland. This is the place he talks about having to go to all the time. The middle of nowhere, except a handful of builders decided it would be a great place to build a chunk of suburbs. Nice, tidy little neo-eclectic homes lined up like "little boxes, on the hillside" and I'm pretty sure they're made of, you betcha, ticky tacky. And they all look just the same. {♫There's a green greenish-beige one and pink pinkish-beige one and a blue bluish-beige one and a yellow yellowish-beige one...♫}


Though I will admit, new homes are nice and clean feeling. They don't have lead paint and asbestos, so they win there. And new homes have nice amenities like a pool house community center with multiple water slides, and that was exactly where I dropped off my husband. The community center's Control4 system needed fixing. My husband's company has only ONE Control4 expert, and it's him. {And that needs to change, but that's another blog post that no one will want to read.} I drove around the neighborhood admiring how Timnath has designed their neo-eclectic peppered neighborhood with larger sidewalks like they did back in the good old days, then I finally found the playground my husband had directed me toward {it was behind the pool, gotcha}.

He could hardly contain his excitement.

"Just take his pants off," said the grandma at the park when I fretted about Pax getting wet

"Water features"

Pool/community center

This time the destination was a gas station. Yes, a gas station. And it came to pass that Justin was able to fix the security cameras that the gas station owner couldn't connect to from his cozy neo-eclectic home in California.

His tasks for the day were complete {we thought} and so I drove us to Downtown Fort Collins and parked and texted my sister, "Where shall we eat?" and she doth did reply, "Coopersmiths. Or go to Little Bird for coffee and such and you're the best sister ever." {Bea, I know if you're reading this you know I'm taking liberties with my writing and as an author, you get that. Like how you write about me only thinking mom was trying to push me off that cliff that one time when I was 8, but we both know she really meant to.}

Fish 'n' chips

So it came to pass that we had lunch at Coopersmith's. Justin and I split/shared a bourbon burger and their fish and chips {BEST. FISH.N.CHIPS. IN. THE.GALAXY UNIVERSE.} and the kids were lame and wanted things like CORN DOGS off the kids menus, even though--you know--when in Rome, but get this: they had rootbeermilk. Read that right? Yes, root-beer-MILK. Justin and I took 10% tax of their drinks and decided rootbeermilk is awesome and delicious and might just be the answer to how when I order a root beer float I only drink the creamy root beer and leave the ice cream left over. Basically, someone took that concept and turned it into ROOTBEERMILK and it's, frankly, 50 Shades of Delicious. An' I'ma havta find mysef a way to mayk dat at home, yo. #word

Also, their Octoberfest beer is stunning, in spite of the fact that they don't spell it 'Oktoberfest', NEIN! We split that too. Good gracious. What we've lacked lately in minutes spent together, we made up in calories today. #ihavealifethatsgood

Little Bird

So it came to pass that we were on our way back to the car and Sander detoured me toward Little Bird coffee shop--albeit our tummies full of crispy fish, bourbon beef, and rootbeermilk, and just typing this makes me wonder where I stored the Pepto Bismol--and ordered himself a couple cookies and myself a coffee. #tums

I texted my sister, "Thanks for the suggestions! We ate at both. It's your fault my diet is ruined." Or something like that.

That was our day, I'm only leaving out the 50,001 phone calls my husband takes during the day to direct his team and connect with the boss. He is a busy man. In fact, he's been losing weight lately, I've noticed. Wasting away because he's working long hours and doesn't eat lunch or breakfast most days. Well, darngabbit, he ate well today!

"I should take a page from your book." I said.
"Overworking and not eating? I don't think so, honey."

Touche.

On our way back home, Sander decided to detour into Brighton to fix a model home that was on the list for tomorrow. I didn't mind, we decided there was plenty of time. I had never been to Brighton before, actually, and realized it's not a suburb at all. It's like it's own little old town. Mind blown. Again. We waited in the parking lot--even though I sort of did want to see inside these adorable model homes which were Stapleton cute {and had the mini-yards to match} even if they were made out of beige ticky-tacky--because going into pristine model homes with three tired and messy little ones would be stupid.

Little boxes...

We can't always tag along with Daddy, but for today we got to spend some much needed time together. I don't think we've had this sort of mellow day in months.

Find model homes, look for flags

Window shopping Ft. Collins

Selfies in Downtown Ft. Collins

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a husband to transport from couch to bed. Even though he had plans to watch a movie with me this evening. Zzzzz.....

Post edit: he just downed a Red Bull to try and keep his promise of watching a movie with me. This is like, one of the sweetest things he's ever done...drank a Red Bull just to spend time with me. (͡๏̯͡๏)

END PREFACE

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