And then she turned 14

Vallecito Lake, June 23-24.

Some of my favourite childhood memories involve camping, so it was way fun to celebrate Cayenne's birthday on a lake, around a campfire, and in a tent.

Ahhh....

Good night 13 year old...

Good morning 14 year old!

Presents! Woot!

And a silly string fight...

... shaving cream fight...

... and a little mermaid time, because we all want to be mermaids, right?!

That evening we went to Ilona and Michel's place for our traditional birthday dinner

where Cayenne got mousse au chocolate for dessert. 

Yum.

And then in true Colorado style, a sudden crazy storm came through, so we had a contest to see who could get the best lightening photo. I took this one but Acacia says hers was better, but I can't find it anymore, so I think we'll just have to say I won.

It's good to be 14.

I love you, beautiful girl.

xoxoxo

   

All 55 in her first 13

It's 11pm and I'm making crepes with the leftover batter for tomorrow's breakfast. That pretty much sums up my summer so far - busy! 

But we're having loads of fun as well...

starting with Cayenne's final Colorado 14er on June 20th. That's 55 mountains higher than 14,000ft, before she turned 14.

You go, girl!

Shane and his son Keegan joined us for the big day.

That's Nicolas on the middle hump, and if you look reeeeally closely, you'll see Cayenne & Acacia climbing up the final push. They're about halfway up the part you can see.

Cayenne opened her first bottle of champagne on top of Handies Pk (14,058ft/4285m)...

... or actually it opened itself. As soon as the metal was off, poof! (see the cork?)

Whoopsy.

Yay Cay!

And thank you Nicolas for being her guide, supporter, encourager and companion. 

♥

Bikes & Snow & Fun & Friends

For the fourth year in a row, I was given an Iron Horse Bicycle Classic bib number right before the race. (Bike race from Durango to Silverton.) One of these years I'm going to have to plan or train or something, whether I've registered or not. That said, I think even if I had trained I wouldn't have been able to keep up with the unicycle I saw ahead of me at one point and never passed.

That was Memorial Day weekend (May 23rd), the proverbial kick-off to summer, but somehow it was more a welcoming back of winter. This is what it looked like going over Molas pass:

Look who was there to watch us head back to Durango:

The next day Nicolas, Cayenne, Acacia and I drove from Durango to Silverton (the more normal way to do it) to meet Shane and his kids Keegan and Anikah at our friends Mike and Kim's hundred year old house they let us borrow. The plan was to climb Handies, Cayenne's last 14er, but the crazy storms dumped loads of snow on the mountains, so instead we just hung out in this wonderful mining town and threw snow balls at each other.

 The kids thought this was a way better use of time.

Can you see Acacia?

Let's see... climb a mountain in the snow, or buy matching hot pink sweatshirts...?

His small school break over, this was Nick's last day in Durango before heading back to Phoenix. He was sad to leave, but excited to start his third year because now he gets to work on patients. 

Look out, Arizona!

Letter from the Editor

When Cayenne was done her internship, the Herald's senior editor wrote her a letter:

Hi Cayenne,

Thank you for joining us in the Herald newsroom this week. I am sorry I missed saying goodbye to you this afternoon. I wished that I had been able to sit with you more to make sure you were getting what you wanted out of your internship. The challenging part about being the top editor is that I have to attend a lot of meetings, which mostly happened to be during your hours here. But please know that you are welcome to follow up with any questions you have or if you want to visit us again. I’d be happy to tell you about how much journalism has changed over the 27 years I have been a journalist. It’s a lot!

I cannot express how impressive your writing is for your age. If you pursue a career as a writer, whether it’s in journalism or some other medium, you have a very bright future ahead of you. I have no doubt you will excel wherever you land.

Good luck with your school presentation about your internship. I hope your classmates find it to be interesting and that they learn a lot about the Herald.

Good luck with your future!

Amy

Amy Maestas

Senior editor

Now that's a class act.

The Village of Langtang is gone

Cayenne's first story was published today, in the same paper as the news of her elementary school sweetheart's suicide.

Heartbreakingly, her article was about something equally as tragic as a very bright, capable, kind, gentle, popular 13 year old who couldn't see tomorrow through what he was dealing with today. And who had easy access to a loaded gun.

Soul-numbing horror.

All of it.

Well done, Cayenne. May your life's ups far outweigh the downs you'll write about, read about, and experience.


 
 

Tears

I want so much to write about Nepal, but all I can do is cry.

Message from the universe

So I'm working at the desk in our office at home. It's the middle of the day, the girls are at school, the house is silent except for my typing.

And then the printer wakes up and startles me because I didn't ask it to print anything.

Well that's weird.

And then a message from the universe prints itself:

Kind of cool (that Nick can print on our home computer from Phoenix).

Kind of freaky.

And a whole lot of wonderful.