Monday, August 22, 2011

RMNP - Bloopers

Here are some of the not-so-picturesque, amusing and silly pictures from the RMNP trip.
The big kids.....and Miss Mouse snuck in.

A lady elk holding up traffic in the park. Get out of the road, lady!

Ice cream maker!!

Sitting in the grass, checking out rocks and relaxing in Russell, KS. (Can you spot the person with just one leg?)

Emily with all the kiddos and the Jayhawk in KS. (M was NOT ready for her close up)

My hiking buddies and me showing off our muscles at Nymph Lake.

S'MORES!!!

Yep..my boyfriend's a tree-hugger.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

RMNP

Two weeks ago I was camping under the stars in Rocky Mountain National Park...

Our campsite (Yes, that's Long's Peak in the distance)

Boyfriend, his family and I took 1.5 days to caravan to Colorado and because we took our time, it was nice to not be rushed and just enjoy the journey. We arrived in the park late Sunday afternoon, set up camp, ate some grub and passed out. Monday we took our time getting up, eating breakfast and just adjusting to the mountains and outdoors. Later, a small group of us hiked up to Bear Lake and Nymph Lake, and I went on my own to Alberta Falls. B-e-a-utiful! These hikes seemed pretty easy and gave me the confidence to try a harder and higher elevation hike the next day...
Nymph Lake - my favorite!

So the boyfriend and I took to Trail Ridge Road, went all around the sharp turns which made my stomach flip, and eventually made it to Milner's Pass along the Continental Divide. At about 11,000 feet elevation, I began to wish that I had trained, even just a little before the trip for hiking. I sucked down water from my camel pack and prayed I didn't pass out along the trail. After telling myself many times "We're almost at the tree line" and many mosquito bites later, we reached the top of the tree line. Wheeeew! It was cold up there and we continued to get bit by mosquitoes (which we later learned is a hot topic among the locals), but getting to the top of the tree line was worth it. Reaching the summit was not really a goal of mine, or boyfriend's, especially after the hike to that point being rougher than anticipated, so we found some rocks, had some lunch with a spectacular view, and headed down the mountain.

Which way should I go?

Our stop at the top of the tree line on Milner's Pass

After the hike, we headed to Estes Park for dinner and walked around to some of the shops. Then went back to camp and had fresh made ice cream! Freshly made ice cream during camping, you ask? OH yes. Emily and family brought their ice cream making ball from REI and so perplexed by the idea, we decided to test it out. So you put in sugar, vanilla and cream into a cylinder in the middle of the ball and in the surrounding parts of the ball you ice and rock salt to cool and freeze the contents. Then you close it all up and vigorously shake the ball - it took us about 30-ish minutes for the concoction to turn into real ice cream! It was awesome!! What a great end to a camping trip.

Last night in the park; just beautiful.

Sadly, the next day boyfriend and I had to fly home because we only have so much vacation time at our jobs (btw, this was my first paid vacation!! wooo hooo!!), but the rest of his family stayed for a few more days. We headed out of RMNP and met up with some friends for lunch and dinner and then flew home.

Now I'm already trying to figure out when I can go back and I'm trying real hard to keep my rambling feet still. Hopefully there will be more mountains in my future.

Monday, July 25, 2011

This weekend FLEW by! Helped a friend move to a new place, visited the Stokes and helped bury a drain pipe, and saw Captain America (good action flick, but I was disappointed with the ending)! Despite all the activities, I'm looking forward to vacation!!
In two weeks, I'll be here:

Hello Mother Nature! I'm on my way!!

Monday, July 18, 2011

A Less Than Ordinary Day

Today started off like any other day.

Work up, got ready for work, got in the car...and then I smelt something ghastly. Like trash, so I cleaned out the old potato chip bags and all the half filled cups of sports drinks and water and hurrily got them out of the car and headed to work. I thought the problem was solved.

WRONG.

When I got back in my car for my lunch break, the smell was 10 times more horrendous than this morning. I gagged. Finally, I shuffled around somethings in the back seat and lo and behold! The culprit:

3 pounds of (previously frozen) meat that had thawed and bled into the carpet of my car. Apparently boyfriend and I forgot about it on the backseat floor on Saturday with the busy-ness and excitement of our musical this weekend. But after 2 days of rotting in the heat, I am sad to say I'm not excited about cleaning this sucker up. I think I'm going to have to look into getting a smaller vehicle so I can't forget things in my car (this has been happening all too much lately, just not with food).

On top of the stinky car, I happened to forget that the board of directors were going to be in the office this week starting today. And I'm not a shabby dresser, but I'm definitely not a fashionista when it comes to work clothing, but I decided to be a little extra casual for a Monday and rock the flip flops (clean, sparkly flip flops, not the Kinos), only to remember upon my arrival that I should have tried to dress a little bit nicer. Eeek.

And one final note, when I walked in the door at home before getting ready to clean out my stanky car, I noticed that one of the 4 animals living in the house had left a present on the mat in the kitchen. Blah.

Had these things happened on a day when I was not in such high spirits or was busy busy busy and stressed, this would have been disastrous. Some how, I've managed to just keep moving along, and though it was a day that was much less than ordinary, it was not a bad day.

Happy Monday everyone!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Pool Time!

So we got a pool. Saturday it was awfully hot and boyfriend I finally had enough, so we went to Walmart and got ourselves a pool. We filled the pool, started grilling, set a sprinkler and relaxed (until the mosquitoes came out and practically ate me alive...)


The boys enjoying the Cookout/swimming pool/beer/sprinkle combo

Elphie was not excited about the pool


We also got Elphie to join in on the pool fun, sans the doggie life vest. She was not a fan of swimming with the life vest in the river, nor was she a fan of our awesome pool. But as you can clearly see in the below video, she's fantastic at the doggie paddle in AND out of water, so I don't know why she doesn't like swimming.



For 20 bucks, we've gotten everything we've expected out of the pool. Life is good my friends.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Sweet Summertime

Yes, it's been a while...but I've been enjoying my summer!

Flying kites...


...Swimming...

...Camping...


...Slip N Sliding...


...enjoying our new pool (pictures to come later!)...

Generally, the summer has been busy and fun! I spent last weekend in Nashville, tech week for the musical starts tomorrow, and 40-hour work weeks really eat up my time! But once the show is over I'll have more time to enjoy the pool, I'll be getting a much overdue hair cut, and will be going on vacation (AND GETTING PAID FOR IT!! yaaay!).

Happy summer everyone :)