Birthday Party!!!

So Julie is a really good planner. She is easily the best vacation planner that I know of, and apparently she is also super duper good at planning a surprise birthday party for my 30th birthday! First of all, she planned a great trip to New York City (one of my favorite places on Earth) with our friends and family, but I had known that there was a trip of some sort for a few months (although the destination was a secret until this party).

What she didn't let me know about was a surprise birthday party at Bill and Debbie's house the weekend before we left. She had told me it was just a birthday dinner with my parents and her parents, and Jim and Amanda and the kids. Pretty standard birthday time. She even got Debbie involved when she asked me what I wanted for birthday dinner (stuffed peppers), they did real good at keeping it secret!

That morning she told me that she went to workout with her friends, but instead she went up to make this fantastic taxi cake! Apparently she also made another one the previous weekend that I also didn't know about. She is sneaky...



Sorry, got ahead of myself!! When I walked in, just my Mom and David and Bill and Debbie were at the door to say happy birthday to me, and then Reagan came running into the house too. As I was giving Reagan a hug hello, everyone stepped out of the kitchen and yelled "Surprise!", and boy was I surprised! It was beyond awesome having all of our friends there to celebrate with us.

So the theme of the party told me, finally, where she was taking me for birthday vacation. I had some suspicions about where we were going, but hadn't know for sure. But the taxi cake, the NY pizza, the hot dogs with sauerkraut, the I Heart NY cupcakes, and the Times Square Happy Birthday Banner, I knew we were going to the greatest city on Earth!!!

Dessert was equally as awesome as the dinner, we had the taxi cake, and some cheesecakes that Julie and I had got from Costco a while back. I'm now wondering if she planned on talking me into buying those cakes all those months ago, just for this...guess I'll never know.



I had trouble figuring out how to cut a cake shaped like a Taxi!



Unfortunately we didn't get a large group picture of everyone, but rest assured the house was full of people! These are the closest we got to group shots, first with the Raths, Hoff and myself.



Then all but 2 of the guys from "the group":


Thanks honey pie, you're the best!!!


Coming up, our trip to NYC!!!

The Ketchup

Well not really the ketchup, but the catch-up... sorry I am sleepy!

Well we didn't post a single thing in August and I can't imagine why not, we weren't even that busy! In the end of July, Mikey was in a wedding for our friends Brian and Kim. We spent a lovely weekend in Denver for wedding stuff and got to hang out with our friends too!

The happy couple, just married!!!


Mikey, Jim, Hoff and Jeff at the reception.

In August, not much was going on... we got to go see Josh Groban one night in Denver with Mikey's Mom and her friend Barb, and all the old people from around the state. He puts on a very excellent show! Unfortunately we didn't take many pictures of that, but just believe me, it was awesome.



The first annual Pro Cycling Challenge was held throughout Colorado in late August, and we were able to see two of the stages, one in Colorado Springs and the other in Denver. The Colorado Springs stage started in the Garden of the Gods and ended downtown. We met our friends Andy and Pam in the GOG and watched the Time Trial, which let us see each rider by himself.

The race was packed with big name riders, like the Tour De France winner Cadel Evans, and famous American riders like Levi Leipheimer, George Hincapie, Christian Van de Velde, Tejay Vangarderen, and Tommy Danielson... just to mention a few. It was pretty cool to see all those guys riding through our own town.

Tour de France winner Cadel Evans.


One of our favorite riders, Levi Leipheimer, former teammate of Lance Armstrong.

On Sunday the race ended in Denver, so we headed up there with some friends and saw them ride around the capital six times before the end of the race. It was impressive to see all those guys riding together and not crashing into each other at the speed they were going.

The riders running going through Denver.

That about sums up the only super cool things we have done recently... well until I tell you about Mikey's birthday trip to NYC!!!

It was my party!!!

Sorry it has been awhile... but I hope to start to catch back up... so here you go!

About a month ago I turned 29, I still can't believe I am almost 30! It seems a bit scary, but I am sure I will be able to handle it somehow. I had a fantastic weekend with friends and Mikey!

It started out with a fun evening at the Golden Bee at the Broadmoor. It is a piano bar that only seats about 60 people. The piano player kept telling us how much he enjoyed our group's screaming, I mean singing abilities, we were his number one table! Also while we were enjoying ourselves, all the waitresses, the hostess and the piano player threw bumble bee stickers at us. I even got a birthday one that is a bumble bee and a cake! It was a very fun night! This is the piano player and probably what we looked like!

Then on Saturday, Mikey and I made our way up to Denver for a night away from home! We wandered around 16th Street Mall for a little while and then headed out to dinner at Cuba Cuba! It was Cuban food, did you already guess that? Well, I miss Cuban food living in Colorado so I have been looking for Cuban restaurants around town and I finally found one that people rave about. We got there and had to wait for a table, but it didn't take too long and it gave us a chance to get some mojitios and some plantain chips and dip! Very delicious. Then for dinner we ordered the vaca frita, and it was even more delicious! I like Cuban food if you couldn't tell. Then for dessert we ordered a quatro leches chocolate cake. I am not the biggest fan of soggy cakes or breads, but it was pretty good and anything with frosting on top is usually edible! It is in these cute little houses.

Then we headed back to our hotel and crashed in the lovely air conditioning. The next morning after breakfast we got ourselves ready for the How to Succeed at Business Without Really Trying play. It was to our surprise once we got there that it was put on by the disabled actors. All the actors had some sort of medical condition, I am not even kidding, they listed all of them in the program. It was a little distracting at first to have wheelchairs zooming around, but after the first ten minutes we got used to it and we were very pleased with the show they put on. It was an interesting twist we didn't expect, but they did a fine job.

Could you tell we forgot our camera??

Then once we got home we weren't super hungry so we thought going and getting some chocolate fondue would be a great way to finish my birthday weekend! We called Jim and Amanda and they met us at the Mona Lisa in Manitou Springs. They have a wine cellar/basement that you can go to and just get some wine and some chocolate fondue. We got a bottle of red and two types of chocolate. They let us sign the bottle of wine and leave it for the future visitors, so you go you can look for it amongst the bottles on the shelves. Anyways, the fondue was wonderful and it was great to have a fun little double date with Jim and Amanda.

Next up on the blog is probably another weekend in Denver which includes Brian and Kim's wedding, and we actually took a few pictures of that!

Wheeler Geologic Area

Julie and I decided that if we didn't plan weekends to go camping, the Summer would pass us by without getting into the Mountains much. It just so happened that the 4th of July weekend looked to be a great weekend for us to get away. It also means that it was a great weekend for everyone else in the state to go camping, so we had to pick a place that was remote enough to have some tranquility but still reachable for us.

Wheeler Geologic Area fit this bill nicely. The area itself is the result of millions of years of erosion on volcanic dust and ash from the San Juan volcanoes. To get to the area there are two options, to take a 4x4 road for 14 miles, but the descriptions of the road made it seem that it was above my level. The other option is to backpack 7 miles in to the campground they have set up there. This is the option we took, here is the picture at the trail head of our trail.



We arrived the Friday before the 4th of July, since Julie and I both took the day off, and Bill had the day off too. We got to the trail head right at lunch time, and started off in the heat and the dust. The trail was well marked, but hilly. The first two miles were downhill to a neat stream crossing. Unfortunately we had to hike up the other side of the canyon and up to the high rolling plains. We took a few breaks whenever we could find a tree for shade. After about 5 or 6 miles we made it to the road again, and hiked on it for around a mile or so, and made it to the campground. We set up camp, ate dinner, watched the sunset and went to sleep, ready for the next day.

Me in the middle of the the stream crossing:


Taking a break in one of the neat flat areas:


Action shot:


At the camp, we tried out all kinds of new gadgets, I used the new JetBoil stove and Bill tried his new tent and his new water filter. Fortunately all of these devices worked as expected, *phew*



After a nice rest we woke up in the cold, had some breakfast and set off for the area. Less than a mile in, we came to a trail junction and shortly after had our first great views of the area. Towering spires of carved sandstone, with lovely views of canyons and mountains behind. We did the 2.5 mile hike which included overlooks and a few trips into the canyons carved out over the years.

A neat tree with red pine cones along the trail:


Our first full view of the area:


Bill checking out the sights:


Julie posing in front:


Bill in one of the grooves in the rock:


We got back to camp, and realized that there wasn't much left to do there, so we took a nap, and headed back to the car after lunch time. We hit a terrible rain/sleet/graupel/snow/hail storm that we hiked through, oh, and it was up hill at the time:


The first five miles of the hike were much better the second time around (except for the flash rain storm), but those two downhill miles at the beginning were now uphill to get back to the car, and we were tired, it seemed to take longer than we expected. We eventually made it back to the car and began our nighttime drive home.

Finally, our group picture at the trail head:


We had a great trip, and are hoping we get to go backpacking again this summer!

Lathrop State Park

For Father's Day we invited both my parents and Julie's parents to go camping with us. Unfortunately we decided a bit late, so just about every camping spot in the state was already booked. But Julie found the last two spots in a place called Lathrop State Park, and we took them.

The park is about an hour and half south of us, by the town of Walsenburg, which isn't known for it's scenic beauty or, really, anything. We were skeptical of the park, but were looking forward to spending the weekend with the families.

We arrived first, and got our tent set up, we unfortunately forgot the pump to our air mattress, which made the whole trip a little bit harder! In all seriousness, it was quite pretty down there (except for the huge snake we saw slithering across the road), and the views of the Spanish Peaks were nice too.

Bill got off work earlier than expected, so they made it down next, and we were excited to sit in the air conditioning!



My parents got there closer to dinner time, and we grilled up quite a feast with chicken, peppers, tortillas and corn. It was excellent. We tried to see the Ranger talk that night, but only caught a bit of it. The entertainment was a local country singer who sang tunes local to the area, but dinner was waiting, so we missed most of it.

The next day we got up and explored the closer of the two lakes in the park, and got a great day of fishing in. Unfortunately we left the camera in the car during the 8 hours of fishing, so there are no pictures! David caught some fish, Bill caught some fish, the people sitting next to us caught a lot of fish, and I just lost one off my line before it got to shore. Overall a successful day. That night we had turkey burgers and chips and sat in the A/C some more, it was lovely.

The Ranger talk that night was a local historian who talked about the mining history of Walsenburg and the surrounding areas. Apparently the town was founded around the Walsen mine which was a large coal mine around the turn of the century. Poor mining conditions and low wages lead to some of the first unionization in the country, and unfortunately to some armed conflicts, like the Ludlow Massacre. It was fascinating to hear the history, especially since the Ranger who gave the talk worked in one of the mines as a kid!

Our last day there we did the 2.5 mile hike which gave some great views of the lakes and the park. It went up to the ridge in between the park and Walsenburg, and we could see a good ways both north and south. We had a great time camping with the family, and we're looking forward to a summer filled of good times!

Sweat Your Thorns Off 5k

So when some guy on the internets says "Hey, you should run a 5K on June 25th, then tell me how fast you went, oh, and it should be hot", I'm totally in! Even better, there could be prizes. Even better, I'm back in marathon training so Hoff and I decided to run 10 miles. And once again, even better, we ended up running around 12 miles. Oh, and it was hot too.

It was hot today, did I mention that today? It was close to 80 when we finished our run! But back to the start. The initial plan when we talked last night was that we would take a car downtown, then come back home and run to my car. After thinking of how much driving that would be, we decided to instead run around the Garden of the Gods and up Mesa, and decide where to go later. So that's what we did.

We got started, and headed up Flying W, down Flying W, then passed the Garden of the Gods and ran up Mesa. It turns out, after 5 miles in the heat, my math skills drop down a little bit. We decided to take a new route back home, and adding up the mileage from where we were back up, sounded like we would end up right around 10 miles. Whoops, off a little bit.

In short, we ran back in the heat (did I mention it was hot?), got back home, drank a lot of water, and took a nap! It was great!! I forgot to bring the camera, or you'd see some cool shots of the the GOG and bunnies and such. Oh well. Here is a nice picture of my elevation profile:



So anyway, back to what I mentioned earlier, about the random race some guy was talking about. The Boring Runner, who is normally called Adam, held a "virtual" 5K race today. Essentially he asked people to run 3.1 miles from where ever they happened to be, email him the time and he'd collect them all and do neat things with them after that. I picked my three fasted consecutive miles (plus one tenth), which weren't all that fast because of the hills and such, and sent them in.

Unfortunately I forgot to print out the "race bib" to wear for the run. Oh, and I forgot the camera as well. Hosed. Anyway, here is the bib:



On the bright side, my knee felt great with no pain and although tired, I felt like I ran the right distance today.

Thanks for reading, and expect more updates in the next few days, as I am out of school for a few weeks! Woo-hoo!!!

Teva Mountain Games in Vail

We went to Vail for the Teva Mountain Games, which is a festival-type thing which celebrates mountain sports, music and art and such. Last year we went up there and I did the half-marathon with a friend and Julie did the Mud Run. The Mud Run was a 5k-ish run which has a mud pit that they make you crawl through. The half marathon was really hard last year (it runs up Vail Pass to the top), and Julie and Kim didn't want to get as dirty as they did last year, so we all decided to do the Spring Runoff 10K. Of course, it was a very hard run, and it got us all very dirty. More on that later.

To start of the weekend, we got up to Vail early in the day to check into our hotel and check out the day's events. We started off with the dog jumping competitions, which involved a dog jumping off a long platform into a long pool, with the object to either jump the furthest or the highest to grab a target. The long jumps went to around 20 feet or so, but the action was truly in the high jumping.

Midair jump:



This dog, named Yeager, tied a world record by jumping 8 feet!!!!


We decided to wander around the town a bit and see some other events and all the vendors who were giving away stuff. That turned out to be exhausting, so we went back to the hotel to clean up a bit, and headed out to a fancy pants Italian dinner. We left the restaurant after a bottle of wine, some desserts, and no pictures of our food. So we strolled back to the hotel to sleep well for our big race in the morning.

Our bib numbers are all in a row, how cute:


The run was supposed to have some uphills, then some downhills, and then be done. This year, however, there is still quite a bit of snow and mud around, and they decided to make us run through every bit of it that was left on Vail Mountain. We ran uphill through a large mud pit, then through some snow, downhill on an oddly dry road, then up again through snow and mud, then downhill on a large snow field, followed by running through the streams caused by the melting snow. When we were down, there was mud up and down our legs, my socks were soaking wet, and all of our shoes were a uniform brown color! It was great!!

Here's a great shot of the Gore range behind Julie.


I wasn't kidding about the snow fields:


So, as you can tell, Julie's plan to stay dry and clean this year didn't quite work out. But after cleaning our shoes in the river (while still on our feet, of course) and a shower we were back down in town and looking for more swag! There was more dog jumping, which included the furriest dog I have ever seen in the water. He took forever to swim out!





They also held an event which involved three rafts at a time coming down Gore Creek in the middle of Vail, and each of them having to negotiate an obstacle course to hit targets. It was chaos, it resulted in a lot of pushing and shoving, and lots of people out of their rafts!



This guy jumped into the river from the bridge (you can see part of the bridge on the right) in an attempt to retrieve his raft. He eventually fell off the raft, but got a nice round of applause for his efforts.



4 rafts stuck there, crazy!!!



Thanks for reading! We had a great time, and can't wait to do it again next year!