Quandary and Breckenridge

In July one of Matt's co workers mentioned that he was getting a group together to climb Quandary for MS.  We didn't have anything planned that weekend, and even though we've already hiked Quandary, we decided to partake.  Also we were able to take advantage of some friends of ours renting a condo in Breckenridge at the time.  We got to Breck in time for dinner on Friday, and our friend Jen and her daughter Katie decided they wanted to hike with us.  Plus they were bringing their golden doodle Sophie.  It was Jen's first 14er and Katie's.  And btw Katie is 9 years old.  Karla and I pegged odds of her to summit at 50%.

We got started pretty early on saturday.  Karla, Jen and Katie started before Matt, since he was waiting for his co-workers.  20 minutes or so later Matt got on the trail.  He caught up about 30 minutes later.  We all finally made it to the top, Karla going a bit slower with Katie to make sure she made it to the top.  She was tired but did make it.  On the way down we actually were slower than when we came up, mostly due to Katie's tired legs.  Fortunately for us, it gave us the chance to see some mountain goats along the trail.  It was really cool, plus one of the goats looked at Sophie and wasn't sure if she was a goat or not.  The goat came up pretty close, due to curiosity.  As soon as it realized Sophie was indeed a dog, it bolted back down the mountain.

7+hours after starting we made it down to the cars.  Karla and Matt had a quick bite to eat with his co-workers then headed back to Denver.  Dinner with Naomi & Ryan,a sit in the hot tub upstairs,  and a very relaxing sunday.

Campfires, 14er and golf

This weekend Karla and I decided to climb Mt. Sherman with our volleyball friend Leah.  Mt. Sherman is out by Fairplay, CO, and we knew there was camping out by the trailhead.  Fortunately for us Leah was able to leave work early on friday and get out there to reserve a campsite for us.  Karla and I left after work and got out there around 7:15 or so.  The campsite was nice and the best part:  we were able to have a campfire!  Karla was in her happy place with toasting marshmallows and making Smores.  We got to bed early since it was going to be an early morning.

We met some of Leah's friends at the trailhead and started off around 6:45.  We knew this was one of the shorter and easier 14ers, so we weren't too worried about getting back before storms, etc.  In fact, Matt and Leah were bold enough to bring a beer to the top and toast the summit!

It was a nice hike up, passing old mines and having great views throughout, since it was a nice clear morning.
We made it back to Denver at a normal time, and decided to go out for sushi at Blue, a place downtown.  As soon as we sat down a nice thunderstorm came in and stuck around throughout

dinner.  Food was good, but we decided to go home and crash, mostly because on our way out to camping on friday we got a bug to go golfing, so we got a 7:20am tee time for Sunday morning.  What were we thinking!?  actually it was really nice, since we played 9 holes at Willis Case golf course.  Matt shot a 43, which for 9 holes was pretty good!  It was around 9am when we finished so we had the whole day ahead of us for errands and stuff.  We napped instead.  It was a good weekend!

Week Apart

I made my annual trip to Iowa this past week/weekend. It was a week spent going to swimming lessons, hanging at the pool, watching Despicable Me 2, boating and tubing in Lake View, visiting family, celebrating Kristin's birthday by watching Pitch Perfect, and hanging out on a pontoon for an afternoon. The highlight was being in a rock band with Henry and Liv and performing Baa Baa Black Sheep for Kathy.  :) When we were at the farm, we drove around Kristin's 3020. I couldn't reach the pedals, so Dad tried to adjust the seat and we ended up having to do some minor maintenance on the seat to get it back to normal. Oops! Once it was fixed, my sisters and I took it on a 2 mile drive. It was really fun!
       

While I was playing around in Iowa, Matt lived the bachelor life in Denver. He played softball and volleyball, drank some beer, had dinner with Naomi and Ryan, played Dance Revolution over at Brandon and Ashley's, hiked a bit, and found a soccer bar to watch the USMNT win the Gold Cup!

Frontier Days Rodeo in Cheyenne

One of the things Ken has always wanted to do was go to the rodeo at Frontier Days up in Cheyenne - the "Grandaddy of 'Em All". Since we live so close, Karla and I were game. Mom and Dad drove up on Thursday in time for dinner.

On Friday, while we worked, Mom and Dad went golfing. In the evening, we all went to the Cubs vs Rockies game...and were lucky enough to see a Cubs win! It was the only game of the series the Cubs won so we picked the right game to go to.

We headed up to Cheyenne on Saturday morning and got to Frontier Days in time to walk around a bit. After grabbing lunch and a huge bag of kettle corn, we got in our seats for the rodeo. There were all kinds of events - bull riding, bareback bronco riding, saddle bronco riding, calf roping, calf wrestling, team calf roping, barrel racing, etc. It was really fun! We saw over 20 cowboys ride bulls and only 1 made it 8 seconds (Karla was excited the 1 that made it was from Iowa). We just grilled out on Saturday night - a low key dinner after a busy day.

On Sunday we all headed out to Mt. Falcon park to do a little bit of hiking. On the way back, we stopped at Colorado Cider Company so Mom could pick up some cider to bring back to Texas. We also stopped at Prost on the way home to do some beer tasting. The evening was just hanging out and doing laundry since Karla was leaving for Iowa the next day.

We really liked Frontier Days and might have to make it a yearly event!

First 14er of the season

Ken has been talking about doing a 14er since we moved to Colorado, so when he found out we were doing one the weekend of the 13th, he found a plane ticket and flew up to join us on our Bierstadt hike!

We headed up to Guanella Pass after work on Friday to camp. We were hoping to get into the campground so we could have a campfire (there was a fire ban on open fires, but you could have on if you were in the campground). Unfortunately, they were all taken, so we ended up at our favorite pull-over-to-the-side of the road spot instead. We had our grill so we were still able to grill dinner, but it was an early night since there wasn't a campfire to sit by.



We got up around 5:15am on Saturday and were up at the trailhead around 6am. Slow and steady was the name of the game. We got to the summit in just under 3 hours, with a few stops along the way to rest, get some water, and chat with other hikers. Unlike the first time we were at the summit of Bierstadt (in a cloud), the view from the top was amazing. we made sure to get a picture of Dad at the summit of his first 14er. On our trip down, the fields of wildflowers were blooming and we got some great pics of the flowers and the trailhead.




After breaking camp, we had lunch at Idaho Springs and decided to to some tasting on the way home with stops at Colorado Cider Company, Wits End brewery, and Great Divide brewery. Saturday night was dinner at Jonesy's and an early bedtime since we were up so early.

Karla had to work on Sunday, so Dad and Matt went to Golden to do some hiking, checked out Wild Bill's grave at Lookout Mountain, and then did some drinking at the Coors Brewery. We took advantage of the express pass to the tasting room Karla and I discovered the previous weekend! Dad flew out last Sunday night so the rest of the day was just hanging out and a quick dinner over and Naomi and Ryan's.

Karla and I were happy to hear that Dad enjoyed the 14er and his first one won't be he last one!

Josh Groban & RMNP

Lowell and Judy were in town the weekend after the 4th of July. On Friday night, we all went to Marczyk's for wine tasting and got some good meat to grill. They were adventurous enough to try grilled scallops - Dad wasn't a huge fan, but Mom liked them!

On Saturday, we took the Coors Brewery tour. Matt and I discovered that there's an express pass where you can go straight to the tasting room without having to stand in line to go on the tour. Unfortunately, we discovered this as we were leaving, but would take advantage of it in the future. After lunch, we hit up a deli in Golden to soak up all the beer. For dinner, we went out to Parker to have homemade pizzas with Jamie and Doug...and to tell old RAGRBRAI stories.
Sunday morning was a drive out to Rocky Mountain National Park, which included a walk around Sprague Lake. On the way back from RMNP, we stopped at a diner in Lyons. The diner was quite a find - good food and great homemade ice cream. Dad had a banana shake and Matt had a Dr. Pepper float. We'll definitely hit that up again!

Sunday night was the big event - Josh Groban and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at Red Rocks. We tailgated beforehand and someone took a picture of us tailgating (apparently they'd never seen it before). The concert was excellent. The orchestra warmed up the crowd with some movie theme songs. Then Josh Groban took the stage and entertained us for two hours. He was actually quite funny - although I'm not sure Mom and Dad's generation got all of the jokes. :) The concert was a great ending to a fun weekend!

Volleyball Tournament

Last weekend was our mid season volleyball tournament.  While we have about 13 on our roster, we only had 7 that were able to make it.  Plus Matt's shoulder was still injured, so he played the whole day right handed.  We got to Washington park around 7:30 and we started pool play around 9.  Our first game we got smoked, and I'm pretty sure the other team had Karch Kiraly on their team.  I had a feeling that team would be playing in the final.

Our next games we came together and won the rest of the pool games to make the playoffs.  Some were close, others we were the better team by far.  One the playoffs started we played some better teams, but we outplayed them to reach the finals...against the team that smoked us the first game.  I think there were 2 differences in this game.  1) we were playing much better as a team, but we had to play the final with 4 players, since a few had to leave or were hurt.  2) they were drunk, we were not.  Those factors contributed to us beating them in 2 games out of 3 to win the championship!  Yay 'Set it and forget it'!

Karla and I had intended to go camping that night, but since we didn't even leave the park till after 5pm we went over to Naomi and Ryan's house.  We grilled out, made smores over a fire in their chimea and drank the beer we were taking camping.  Needless to say we crashed in one of their extra beds...so it was sort of like camping, right??

Sunday was a much needed day of relaxation, with a dinner trip to Parker to see the Eglseders and the twins.

Now we think teams should be afraid of us!!