Saturday, June 28, 2008

Cloud Day...

Several days ago Will and I just happened to look out the window one evening and saw the clouds coming over the trees like this...we just thought it looked really neat.




Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Saturday, June 21, 2008

More Camping 101...

So Will didn't post all our fun pictures from the weekend...so here are some more from our very fun camping trip!!





I thought Will looked funny with his black socks and grey bathing suit...



Will and Nick bought knives along with our new tent and air mattress...so they thought they should whittle us sticks for roasting marshmallows...



Setting up our new tent...



Will used his boy scout skills to keep the fire going all night long...







Sunday morning we woke up refreshed from our lovely night on an air mattres...haha..and drove back to Boulder through Rocky Mountain National Park and over the Continental Divide.

We saw two moose...they didn't have really big horns like we were expecting since they were both girls apparently...





Some pictures from our beautiful views we saw along the drive...













After driving over the Continental Divide we decided to check out a possible future campsite in Rocky Mtn Nat'l Forest (we saw lots of signs for bear warnings which made me nervous!) and then we were driving through the campsite and I thought I spotted some elk. They were sitting under some trees right by a camper, so at first I thought they might have been statues...but no, they were real! Two huge elk were sitting beside a family's campsite and apparently had been all morning. We got out and took pictures...it was crazy! They were just napping and even started moving their heads and posing while we took pictures...we were probably 10 feet from them...so unreal!

This is what I saw from the road...







Anyway, it was pretty neat. We really did enjoy camping, and are hoping to go back next weekend to the same place but with kayaks!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Camping 101

Well, as some of you may have guessed, we stayed here in Colorado. Last Wednesday, it snowed in Summit County Colorado, was 100 degrees in south eastern Colorado, and there was a tornado in eastern Colorado. Wild west indeed...

So, like the geniuses we are, we headed up to the mountains Friday evening to go camping. you may ask - but why would we go there?? It snowed there only a few days beforehand? We knew this and still went, but not directly where it snowed. Instead of Summit County, we headed to Granby Lake Colorado, very near to the Hot Springs and also where the beginning of the Colorado River is.

We found a campsite when we arrived (which was around 11:00 PM), pitched out tents, and crashed. And then the fun started...

Here is a pitcure of our tent from the morning after...





Now, if you cannot tell, this tent is shaped like a kite. For me, this seems to be the worst design possible. Especially at 3 AM when nature calls. I had some issues getting out of this thing when the timing was totally wrong for that type of miscue. Luckily, everything was fine, but it was the longest 10 minutes of the night for sure. Combine this with a hobbit sized sleeping pad...



...the night didn't go as planned. Between my early morning adventure, 35 degree 'heat' for the night, and the sleeping bag that would be too small for a 12 year old cub scout, we needed some changes.

The previous night's adventures prompted a purchase of new equipment - so a new tent equipped with a Queen sized air mattress appeared about 3 hours after we woke up Saturday morning.



Our tent was not as big as our friend Nick and Beebe's tent, but it works for us.





We spent the day looking at the little towns in the area. We came back to have a few beers on the beach behind our site. We sat beside a guy fishing, who let us reel a couple fish in. This one was the trophy...



We started a fire in the pit around 5:30 or so and prepared dinner soon after. Bacon Buffalo Burgers are the new hit thing. We cooked fried eggs over the fire as well - which Allison has decided are the best thing ever when you put it on your Bacon Buffalo Burger.



We had a great sunset over the water...





...and had a raging fire for the rest of the night!



This was great to have - did I mention it was 40 degrees for most of the night...

More pics to come later in the week!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Rockies vs. Giants

The weekend of Will continued onto Tuesday night when we went to the baseball game: Rockies vs. Giants.





The above picture was right before Todd Helton hit a home run!

So this ended the weekend of Will. And so begins the weekend of Allison.

We have planned a trip to the state where not only did a tornado hit, but an area experienced 100 degree heat, and oh yeah, it also snowed.

We are becoming one with nature this weekend. Please pray that we don't try to kill each other...

Can anyone guess where we are going and what we are doing?!?!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Broncos Fan Fare...

We started the 'Weekend of Will' off right on Saturday morning by sleeping in. I had originally hoped to get to Denver around noon, but we got there around 1 PM or so...This is how Allison felt about getting their late...



Which I totally understood because I felt the same way.

So we get to fan fare at Invesco Field at Mile High Denver to find thousands of people waiting in line for autographs.



The first line we get in we were told was for Champ Bailey, one of the best players for the Broncos. After 2 hours standing in line, we found that Champ had been gone for an hour, but another big name receiver had taken his place: Brandon Marshall.



What we didn't initially realize was that the entire team was there sporatically throughout the weekend. Now, when I say the entire team, I mean the entire 98 person starting roster, of which 45 players will be cut before the beginning of the season.

So along with this star player, Brandon Marshall, we got these no name players that I had never heard of. We did run into Keary Colbert, previously of the Carolina Panthers



and also Lamont Reid, of the NC State Wolfpack.



The rest of the weekend went on, standing in line constantly for roughly 5 hours per day. Sunday, we got there on time but we still had the huge lines for autographs.

At the end of the day on Sunday, we got the biggest autograph of the weekend. We stumbled upon one of the last lines of the day, and Head Coach Mike Shanahan happened to be there. He was set to leave at 5 PM, and fortunetely we got to him around 4:55, just before he left.



It capped a great weekend but we were tired by the end of it. Here is how Allison felt about the whole thing:

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Space Needle & Mt Rainier

Continuing our trip to Seattle, we went to dinner at the Space Needle, which was really neat. We had a great meal and some really wonderful views from the top! Unfortunately our pictures didn't turn out that well...





We actually saw two couples get engaged while we were eating dinner just tables away from us! It was really neat!



By the way, Seattle is a beautiful town, but extremely hard to drive around! We got lost several times on the way to dinner...

The next day we drove down to Mount Rainier, which was really pretty but it was cloudy and overcast so we couldn't see the top of the mountain. We also were planning to go hiking, but didn't realize there was still alot of snow on the ground and we didn't have our snow boots, so we weren't able to go!











Overall we had a wonderful trip up to the Pacific Northwest...such a beautiful place to visit! I can't wait to go back and visit the Oregon coast!

We aren't traveling far this weekend...just down to Denver for the Broncos football team fanfare weekend! YEA! I'm super pumped...although Will isn't as excited as I am to go get football players autographs...just kidding!

Monday, June 2, 2008

Seattle...

After our lovely day in Oregon we drove up to...



We drove up to Seattle on a very rainy and overcast day, and stopped at Snoqualmie Falls, which is right outside of Seattle. It's a falls that is taller than Niagra Falls, but not as wide. We saw it from the top and then hiked down to the bottom...here are some pictures...















After seeing the falls we headed into Seattle for Pike Market. We drove over the famous floating bridge over Mercer Island...which was nothing exciting...haha..but Pike Market was fun. We got to see the famous fish market and the original Starbucks! We also go to have lunch on one of the piers by the water!





I had to buy a drink from hte original Starbucks...





Walking around Pike Market I lost Will at one point and guess where I found him...this is really true...he was hanging out here...



Here is a view of the bay...



That night we went to dinner at the Space Needle...which was a really pretty view at night...we didn't get a good picture from the top but got a picture of the needle...

Something isn't working right with our blog...so more pictures to come later of the Space Needle and Mt Rainier...have a great day!!