Lucky Rocco!

I betcha that Rocco is the only dog on the block with his very own custom-made Lego glasses.

Look! They fit Spencer, too.

Spencer Climbs Everest

Says Spencer from the summit, "It's not as cold as everyone said it would be."

NREL

There was a 5th grade field trip today to the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden. The girls are not fifth graders, so they didn't get to go on the tour, but they played with this solar-powered water fountain out front. If you block the solar power even just a tiny bit like Eva's doing, the fountain slows down, which makes for good entertainment.

Here are some fifth grade boys playing Master of the Universe by moving the sun around this little neighborhood. It's good to be king.

Broomfield Days

You may think I'm making this up, but I'm actually quite good at walking on stilts. I didn't know it until Saturday when I tried walking on stilts at Broomfield Days. I can go forward and backward and sideways, and I can even do a little cha cha cha. It's comforting to know I have some marketable skills in case I ever need to join the circus.

The petting zoo was a real hit, even though it smelled bad.

Yumeng liked the parade. Here she is in front of the Shriners. Why do Shriners like cars so much?

Rebecca and her friend Jolie had been planning on selling ice cream at Broomfield Days for months. They got permission to use Sister Olsen's lawn, which is a perfect location. How could they have known that it would be 58 degrees? It's been hot and sunny all summer, including the day right before their ice cream stand. And the day after their ice cream stand, Denver broke a heat record with a scorching 96 degrees. It's just not fair.

An American University

While we were in China, we loved our visit to a Chinese university, so we thought we'd give Yumeng a tour of an American University. Here's Rebecca in the library.

Yumeng in front of the concert hall.

This is one of our favorite spots at CU. We spotted a turtle in the pond.

We had never seen these stairs without some kind of blockade around them, so the kids just had to climb them. We also got to see the gameday preparations for Saturday's football game against Hawaii.

On the Town

Spencer and Yumeng made breakfast yesterday. They revolutionized pancakes by crushing up chocolate chip cookies and adding them to the batter. They also performed some vinegar/baking soda kitchen experiments and made scrambled eggs.

After lunch, we went downtown. Here's Spencer up in the Capitol dome with the city & county building behind him.

The girls played Heart & Soul on one of the decorated pianos scattered around 16th Street. We couldn't get Yumeng to play, even though I KNOW she can play beautifully.

Yumeng really wanted to try the Thai food at this stand, but the lady sold out of all her food right before Yumeng got to the front of the line. Darn! So we went to Broomfield's International Buffet for dinner, which was probably just as good. We ate waaayyy too much. Yes, Eva is eating marshmallows with chopsticks.

Yumeng Arrives!

Back in July, I met a lovely girl on the airplane from Beijing to Seattle. She spent the summer at Glacier National Park in Montana, but she came to visit us today before she heads back to school in China. Here are Ben, Spencer, and Yumeng making ice cream after dinner.

A Happy September 11th

Our stake has been helping with a service project to make sure that all the fire victims have clothes and dishes and food and blankets and everything else they need. This afternoon I helped sort donations as they came in. I couldn't believe how much stuff people donated! It just kept coming and coming. The Civil Air Patrol were in charge of the heavy lifting, and they brought boxes to our tables to sort. We sorted everything, threw away anything that was stained or damaged, and deposited the rest in appropriate boxes (such as MEDIUM BOYS' PJS). It was inspiring to see so many people donating their time and their resources to take care of strangers. Seeing all this generosity helped me to feel very secure. The USA is a place where people are very willing to take care of each other.

Boulder Fire

Last weekend, Boulder Canyon looked like this. Green and blue as far as you could see. Gorgeous.
This is what Boulder Canyon looks like today. So sad. About 10:30 in the morning yesterday we noticed a plume of smoke coming from Boulder. The smoke spread and spread all day long until it looked like a dark wall in the sky, and we watched the firefighting airplanes fly back and forth between the airport and the canyon. We're praying for the firefighters. A friend of ours is one of them.

Downtown

I made reservations for a tour of the Denver Mint back on July 6th, and we finally went on Friday. Last time I went to the Mint, it was about 1985, so I wasn't prepared for the new Modern Mint. After you remove all metals from your person, including watches, keys, bracelets, belts, and in some cases shoes (like in my case), they ask to see your camera. They make you remove the batteries from the camera and keep the batteries separated from your camera for the duration of the tour, which is why I only have the above photo to show you (even older than 1985). Then you walk through a metal detector and wait in a room that looks like a Star Wars corridor for your tour. Before the tour starts, the guards make jokes about hanging everybody upside down and shaking them before they leave to make sure tourists haven't stuffed their pockets with coins. As if you could actually be within twenty feet of any coins during the tour.

Back in '85, you actually got to see coins being made. It was cool--and loud--because those coins were getting stamped right there in front of you. I remember holding in my very own ten-year-old hands the scrap metal with holes in it after the coins had been punched. The Modern Mint only has big blue room-sized machines, and you can't see what's going on in them. Every now and then some pennies come out. There aren't even any people in there except for the guards and the tour guide. Sigh.

But it's still cool to hear the statistics. They produce 7,000 pennies per minute, 5 to 10 million pennies per day (I didn't check the math). And they supply coins to all banks west of the Mississippi (the Philadelphia Mint handles east of the Mississippi). From the 30's to the 60's, an armed guard sat in a special booth with a machine gun, which ensured that they never ever had a robbery. Today they have a mannequin in a police uniform sitting in the special booth with a sign next to him that says NOT A REAL FIREARM. Who needs a machine gun if you have a Star Wars corridor and a metal detector?

After the Mint tour (30 minutes long on the dot), we wandered over to Civic Center Park where Taste of Colorado was gearing up for Labor Day weekend. The Boy Scouts of America had a very large, professional, free event at Taste of Colorado. I think it was for the 100th anniversary of scouting. I talked to some of the workers, and they said Denver was the 42nd city they'd been to this year. As they travel around the country, they transport a museum, a ropes course, a photo setup (they'll make it look like you're on the cover of Boys' Life), and several other attractions. The kids loved that ropes course.