rocky mountain national park

Joel and I met Amelia and boyfriend in Rocky Mountain National Park a few weeks ago. We spent three days camping and hiking there. This picture was the first lake we ran into on our first hike. This trail was extremely busy, but the further you hiked the less people you encountered. Upon reaching the end of the trail, about 600 feet up, there was a nice sized lake, Emerald Lake, with a great waterfall running into it. We had lunch there and listened to the annoying brown jays which were harassing people for food. This was a great introductory hike, about two miles to Emerald Lake.

The next day the four of us went on a longer hike, about five miles to the destination lake, which was above the treeline. The last leg of this hike was intense, it went straight up for about half a mile. This is were we ran into the yellow bellied marmots sunbathing on the rocks, cute. Then there was some technical climbing, which was really fun and perfect for a non-climber like me. We ate lunch and rested at this last lake, as soon as we got there the sky started to turn grey. We hurried to get our stuff together and get below the treeline before it started pouring. As we started decending it started to hail tiny little bits and then sprinkled for about half an hour. We booked it down the next five miles and returned to camp for an awesome steak dinner. Good times at 10,000 feet!

Learning to Shred

Erin, Joel, Joel and I met my brother and company in Colorado last weekend, we went snowboarding for two days, it was my first time. I did make it down the mountain, twice actually. At one point after falling hard, i was fairly sure I'd need a helicopter out of there, or snowmobile ride to the hospital. Fortunately, Joel, or my brother, Mike, or someone in our entourage, was always close by during these gnarly spills and I recovered quickly.


Thankfully, I haven't experienced a lot of pain in my life and I've now concluded that snowboarding was the most painful thing I've ever experienced. That said, it was really awesome and I can't wait to do it next year! Thanks to all that held my hand for my first time snowboarding and to the guy who yelled out "you'll get it!" as he flew past me, it made my heart warm.

Prius

It snowed so much in Omaha last night and this morning that my work and the University was canceled today! I love snow days. Joel and I have a long standing tradition on snow days that involves hot buttered rum and movies. We are taking it easy this year though; we're both feeling a bit under the weather and he has a big test tomorrow. We made it to the grocery store to get apple cider and we have a little rum at the house, if need be. We also made it to Blockbuster before they closed, we rented The Departed. The girl at Blockbuster said they were waiting for the okay to close the store from the corporate office supervisor, in Oklahoma, pobrecita.

I'm guessing we got around twelve inches, and the wind is blowing the snow so much, that at times, you can barely see the car 30 yards infont of you. The drifts are so intense on my side of the driveway, my Saturn has morphed into a Prius.

Bird seed makes life more interesting

Institutional Blue

Like any new homeowner, I thought some paint would be a good way to make the place mine and some do some cheap redecorating. I thought I'd offset the camel/khaki with some blue, ("river rock" actually) in the adjacent room. After starring at the paint swatch for two days, I began to see a different color of blue...institutional blue. I thought I'd better do a test plot. Turns out I have two gallons of a color I think would be better suited with flourescent lighting, orange jumpsuits and steel doors. I think the blue actually looks worse in person, it is really more grey than it appears in these pictures. Joel says it's not that bad, although I heard him mumble something about an easter egg. I think Amami is okay with it, though I've seen her happier.

Yay, I remembered my blogger password

Dear readers,

It's been 3 months since my last post. If you're reading this, that means you periodically check my blog and I appreciate that. This summer has been a busy time in my life; marriage, buying a house and moving to new city have swallowed all of my free time. All of the free time I would have spent watching crappy television, surfing the internet, or otherwise farking around. I would recommend any or all of the above life changes over Rock Star Supernova and American Idol. Ha ha.

We honeymooned in Belize. I highly recommend Belize for anyone looking to relax and "go slow," that was their motto.

And so we did.

american gothic

photo by eH