Woodward @ Cooper

Through a new contact, Lil O and Cousin A spent the afternoon at Woodward at Cooper - an incredible indoor/outdoor training facility for skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, slopeside mountain biking, bmx-ing and digital media-ing (I like parallelism in my writing, hence the extra -ings).  Lil O has been skiing for six years.  Cousin A just started snowboarding this year.  Woodward, thankfully, welcomes all ability levels.  Yahoo!

There are so many pluses to spending the afternoon at Woodward at Cooper (or any of the Woodwards across the US), buying a season pass to their indoor "barn" or delighting in a week-long camp there.  I mean just look at the photos above and below.  These gals burned some serious calories, smiled endlessly, and the atmosphere & staff encouraged trying new things.  Trying new things in a safe and helpful environment?  I'm a supporter!

There are trampolines, foam pits and ramps everywhere as you can see in the photos.  The girls practiced flips, twists, and turns.  There is even two outside areas to practice moves (see upper left photo below).  The other outdoor space is full of snow.  Yep, you heard me.  Real. Snow. 

When you are on a bike, a skateboard, roller skis or a board, you can launch into these deep, wide foam pits.  Neither Lil O nor Cousin A had their ski/board boots with them, so they spent their time practicing moves that will help with balance, transitions and tricks when winter rolls around.

Watching them for the afternoon at Woodward at Cooper made me crave two things:  1) winter sports and 2) wishing we had a Woodward in Maryland - hint, hint.

Since I'm an educator, I had a kinda wonky, but uber-cool idea.  What if Woodward (they have four locations across the US - Colorado, Pennsylvania and two in California and their new location in Maryland, Ha!) had a Woodward School. Yep, a school where you learn reading, writing, math, social studies, and science through the Woodward way.

....which really means every kid will be happy, active, nurtured, and engaged.

A total score to me as a mom, educator and lover-of-cool-things.

I'm in.  Are you?

PS - Cousin A said the two highlights of her week in Colorado were bouldering on "real" rock and Woodward.  Yippee!

PSS - Please forgive the slightly blurry, iPhone photos above.  It is clear that Nikon or Canon needs to sponsor Upcycled Education next year.

PSSS - Big thank you to Wade, Krista, Pete, Chris and Coach Greg of Woodward for taking care of sweet Lil O and Cousin A.

What You May Not Know About Mr. UpCyclist

Mr. UpCyclist loading the mountain bikes for our adventure.

You probably already know Mr. UpCyclist is an avid cyclist (hence, the capital "C" in his blog name). What you may not know if you don't know Mr. U in person is he is one amazing man.  I mean, a-ma-zing.  I totally lucked out when he came into my life.  He is patient, intelligent, creative, sporty, and like me, he is an ambivert.

Mr. U is also one incredible dad - loving and available.  He is such a good mentor -  mentoring Lil O and Cousin A on our recent mountain bike expedition.

Mr. U has a heart of gold.  He is prepared for anything and everything.  Case in point:  Lil O was using a death-grip on her handlebars riding the downhills.  She had not one, but three blisters on her thumbs.  Crazy kid.  Mr. U had the first aid kit ready.

See the back pack he wears while riding?  It is filled with all sorts of goodies for everyone including Jedi.  By the way, you won't catch me wearing a backpack while mountain biking.  I'm lucky enough to transport myself much less all that extra weight. 

If you don't know Mr. UpCyclist in person, trust me, when I say he is one of the kindest souls in the world.  He is also is one rad cyclist.

Totally in love with him.

Jen

PS - All photos processed with the A Beautiful Mess App (featured on Tech Tuesday this week)!

PSS - Not to be obnoxious, but did you notice the team jerseys?  Aren't they fun?  We have the BEST sponsors.  Just sayin....

A Beautiful Mess App {for Tech Tuesday}

Don't you just love a good sense of humor?  This photo below makes me laugh.

Arrow and OMG added with A Beautiful Mess App

From last week's Tech Tuesday featuring Skitch to this week's Tech Tuesday, the A Beautiful Mess App (ABM), you can tell I'm on a photo frenzy.  In fact, when I'm not bloggin', you can see most of my summer visually here on Instagram.

And by the way, those slurpees below were well earned after a mountain bike ride.  I used the ABM app to add the text, circle doodles and brighten the colors.  Not that red dye #5 needs much brightening.  Ugh.

Like Skitch, A Beautiful Mess helps make your photos more fun.  They have many pre-made doodles, borders and effects.  You can add text to any photo with their assortment of cute fonts.  Unlike just about every Tech Tuesday I feature, this one is not free.  Yep, you heard me.  My favorite price went bye-bye.  But, for $.99 cents I can be a sport.

In the photo below, I used the ABM app to change the photo to black and white and add the circle-dot frame.  Don't Lil O and Cousin A look so patient waiting for the chairlift to open again for winter skiing?

Mr. UpCyclist and I finally had a date night. Woot!  I used the ABM app to add the cursive border and make the colors a bit less poppy.  I so love that guy as you know.

The ABM app comes pre-packaged with some sayings like amazing, OMG, adventure, and ooh, la, la!  With a pose like Lil O's, Ooh, la, la seemed appropriate, no?

The girls spent an afternoon at Woodward at Cooper.  Have you ever attended a Woodward camp or dropped-into their locations?  Wow!  I will blog about Woodward soon.  Woodward deserves it own post.  Magic fits that place to a tee.  Which brings me to the photo below.....

I processed the photo below using the ABM app by adding the bottom border, text and brightening the color a touch.

In closing - doesn't that sound like a college paper? - for $.99 cents, I think the ABM app is well worth the expense.  If you take photos like I do and just want to add some funness (new word) to them, then I highly recommend the A Beautiful Mess App.  Right now, it is available for Apple products, but an Android version is due out soon.  Plus, ABM is one of my favorite blogs to read daily.  Check 'em out.

Enjoy!

You Really Should - Annoys Me

Sometimes that little voice in my head says, you really should.....empty the dishwasher, clean the house, take Jedi on a walk, go for hike, on and on.

I just told that voice, you really should shut up.

Ha!  Take that voice.  I'm doing what I want to do.   Not what I should.

PS - Life coach, Sue, would be proud of me right now.  

PSS - Do you have that voice, too?

Our Fourth of July

How was your fourth of July?  That is if you live in the US and celebrate it.

Ours?  Pretty sweet.  It started with the town parade.  Mr. UpCyclist and about 700 other mountain bikers started the parade.  He and another Upcycled Education team rider raced the Firecracker 50 Mountain Bike Race here in Colorado.

Lil O and her cutie-pie Denver cousins did some pretty serious cheering and candy gathering.  Do all parades throw candy now and days?

I had fun cheering, too.  That's me in red....cheering away (Lil O and Cousin M are with me, too).  Go, bikers!

Jedi was hysterical.  He must have been a rescue dog in another life.  He can match the howl of any and all sirens (in this case, the parade had its fair share of fire trucks and sirens).  I can't get enough of that dog.

Fresh Soap Company, one of our amazing cycling team sponsors, had a float in the parade.  That's Kim, the owner, in the pink apron.  How funny is Fresh Soap's float?  A faux bath!  Ha!

The Firecracker 50 is a 50-mile mountain bike race.  Mr. UpCyclist completed the first 25-mile lap.  That's him at the finish line.  Yay, Mr. U!

Team Rider SS rode the second 25-mile lap.  Sadly, he crashed (boo!) and badly hurt his hand.  He wasn't able to finish the second lap, but SS is such a trooper, he rode down one-handed.  Which is tricky on single-track trails on a mountain bike.

Thankfully, the day - in spite of SS's crash - was a good one.  Lots of outside time, cheering, biking, family time and time to appreciate all the freedoms of living in the US.

How was your fourth?

xoxo,

Jen