Fire & Ice...

After going to church and brunch this morning (yes...we are old and married) we headed up the mountain to do some snowshoeing! Leaving our house we noticed a lot of smoke coming from the mountains behind our house where we go hiking (about 4 blocks up). We weren't sure at first, but thought it might be a forest fire.
When the weather gets warm, it was in the upper 70s today, Boulder is usually under a fire watch; well today we definitely were under a warning! Here are some photos that we took from the car...it's hard to see the flames, but we definitely saw some!





You can kind of see the flames in this one...



Thankfully the roads around the mountains were blocked off and the fire was contained. By the time we got back down the mountain the fire was out...just a lot of smoke still lingering even into the night.

After taking pictures we headed up to Nederland and found a place to go snowshoeing! We headed up this dirt road for about 2-3 miles climbing up to a high eleveation, we think over 9,000 feet to this park called Caribu. It was a beautiful place but very deserted.

We had a wonderful day for snowshoeing; lots of sunshine and decently warm weather in the 40s. We went on a trail for about 2 hours. Here are some pictures...









This is for dad...we found lots of Aspen trees on our little adventure!







We were surrounded by endless snow and trees on our trails; it was so amazing! We didn't see any wildlife, which was probably a good thing, but there were signs warning us that moose live in the area.

Here is a mountain in the distance...we don't know which one it was but it was so beautiful! The sky was just so clear today...





I climbed a little further up to the top of a big hill to get some better pictures of the area...







I loved snowshoeing, and I think we're going to go again somewhere different this coming weekend! Will enjoyed it as well, but is looking forward to playing golf next weekend and actually pretending its spring time! Will is very much over the cold weather...but expects snow everyday now.

We had a wonderful weekend and hope everyone else did as well!!

ELK!!

We have had such a wonderful relaxing weekend in Boulder with gorgeous weather! Friday night we went to dinner with friends, and then Saturday we went to the farmers market out here (couldn't find any fresh fruit or veggies!), and then drove up to Lyons and Estes Park.
We walked around Lyons and Estes Park, shopping and eating yummy chocolate. And visiting all the wonderful Christmas shops in Estes!
As we drove into town we saw a bunch of elk in the lake there...





After a little bit the baby elk started running around, chasing each other...it was really cute...



After shopping around Estes we decided to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park. We had a really nice drive through the park, and of course saw tons of elk! No other animal, but lots of elk. Very beautiful views...





We ended up driving for over an hour in the park and rode up to a place called Bear Lake. It was really beautiful, but completely frozen over!

I'm standing beside the lake because the sign said thin ice, even though Will wanted me to walk out there!







Such a beautiful area!!!



So as we were driving out of the park we saw a ton of elk on the side of the road...there are just so many in that area!!!





We drove back through the town on our way back to Boulder and saw more elk just standing around in a parking lot in town! And then we saw them hanging out in the nearby park...



We had a wonderful Saturday with great weather!

Spring Snows...

So once again it's mid-April and still snowing! This past week we had a couple of days where the weatherman was calling for up to 5 inches of snow! Here are just a few pictures...





Cold front moving in this week! :)

Back to the coast...

This past weekend we were fortunate enough to fly back to Wilmington and attend our friends, Dorothy and Jason's wedding! We got up at 4:45am Friday morning to head out to NC, and after a very stressful plane ride, we finally made it to the Wilmington airport!
Our weekend trip was extremely short with lots to do, but we got to visit with family and Miss Gracie, and got to have some warm, humid weather in the 70s! So wonderful!
We also got to catch up with some friends at the beautiful wedding!!!

Wilmington friends....Mitwol, Mem, Marge, me and Kathryn



Mitwol and me...



Will, me and Rob...



The Andrews family...



More wonderful friends to visit with!!!!



Rob Bob & Al Pal...



We had such a wonderful trip home, and certainly enjoyed the warm weather...in fact today it snowed 1-3 inches out here! And great news...it's supposed to snow again on Wednesday! Yea!

Sway...

So here is the celebrity that came to visit us last weekend...



My friend from Peace College, Cathryn Caldwell, aka THE NUT, came out to Boulder to visit us. She is known as the celebrity around our Peace College girlfriends!

We went to Denver Friday afternoon to do a little shopping, and visited an old-fashioned candy shop my mom found.





Then we walked around downtown Denver looking like tourists with poor Will trailing behind us...not feeling so great...



After playing tourist all day, we went out to a fun dinner in Boulder...poor Will didn't feel well again, so left after dinner...

Will before he felt sick...



So after dinner Cathryn and I hung out for a little bit, and Cathryn really likes to take pictures...we basically had a photo shoot at the bar...



She likes to pose kind of strange...



She also made me take solo pictures of her at the bar..haha...



Then someone in the bar walked over and asked if we'd like them to take a picture of us...



We hope you enjoyed our photo shoot out in Boulder :) We loved having Cath come visit, and we took her up to Eldora the next day to see some snow!!

Sedona

The last leg of our Arizona adventure took us to Sedona, AZ. It was really hot there but very neat. We did some shopping and then went for a short hike up to Cathedral Rock. Allison was so pumped at first and I was not, but that soon changed once we got up there. Take a look...







I started to really get into it and Allison started to get nervous about falling off the mountain. So we headed down the mountain off the red rocks and headed back to Phoenix to catch our flight that night. Here are some more pics of the rest of our hike.







Our friend Cathryn was here this past weekend. More pics to come!