Finishing up June

Just a random post here to finish up the month of June.  Why does June go so fast and January takes forever?  

John started a new computer program at work this month.  It's been rough but he's getting through it.  I think he is discovering that it really is tough to teach an old dog new tricks!  The girls surprised him the night before it went "live" with a new pair of socks.  They had written on them, "Our Dad is Epic" (Epic is the name of the new system).

Just a girl with two of her favorites - a book and kittens. 

I had coffee day at my house this month.  Coffee day turned into coming back that evening and having supper with our guys.  The rule was that you had to bring some food that you already had in your house.  It was a lovely evening.

This girl got her permit and she never passes up an opportunity to drive!  I have to say that she's doing a great job...although I still wish cars came with a brake on the passenger's side.

I love it that she's driving but still playing "Pretty, Pretty Princess"!

Father's Day and Sam's birthday both fell on the same day this year.  Neither one of my guys like that when it happens!  I tried really hard to make it special for both of them.  Sam's choice was roast beef and mashed potatoes for lunch.  Normally, I make the kids choose a restaurant to eat at for their birthday since it's kinda my special day too since I birthed them and all but I made an exception.

Katie made him a new friendship bracelet.

Holly left bright and early on June 22 for her next assignment.  She's working in Salt Lake City, Utah for the next three months.  It was so fun having her home for such a long time but she was ready to go.

Since Sam works out of town for most of the week, it's back to just the three amigos again. One night when mom didn't feel like cooking, we checked out the new Asian restaurant in town.  For my local readers, we gave it three thumb up! 

You really cannot beat the weather lately.

And just because.  They are growing so fast.

Girls Colorado Trip - Our last day and how the rest of the family survived without me

On our last day in Colorado, I convinced my sister to let us sleep in :).  We got all packed up and cleaned up the house.

Holly really wanted to go to Snooze - a restaurant that she discovered in Arizona.  They just serve breakfast and she saw there was one in Colorado Springs.  I had the OMG french toast.  Oh my goodness, it was so delicious.  It was like I was eating dessert for breakfast.  My sister had the audacity to tell me it was too sweet.  It is a good thing we don't have a Snooze around here.

Next up was Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge.  Wow, that is a mouthful.  It was a very interesting place.  The refuge is located on the grounds of the former Rocky Mountain Arsenal, I U.S. chemical weapons manufacturing center.  The site was built in 1942 right after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  They made mustard gas, napalm, chlorine gas and other nasty stuff I had never heard of.  It was also used briefly as a POW camp.  In the early 60's it was leased to private companies to manufacture pesticides.  In the 80's they spent A LOT of money to clean it all up and it became a protected park for wildlife such as bison, deer, prairie dogs, coyotes, ferrets, and a bunch of birds.  

We stopped by the visitor's center and then drove the 8-mile loop around the park while listening to a audio tour podcast.   I only took a picture of some bison, but we saw lot of deer and prairie dogs too.

Afterwards, we drove to the airport and hung out in the cell phone lot for a while.  It was amazing.  They had a food court and a gas station there, much cooler than just the port-a-potty I see in most lots.  We had some snacks there and then turned in the rental car.  We got to the airport in plenty of time, especially since we found out all of our flights were delayed due to storms that were apparently happening everywhere.  Holly and I landed in Seattle around 9:00 and were home about midnight.  Everyone was still up to welcome us home!

And just in case you're wondering how John, Sam and Katie did without me...

John took them to Costco.  This is never a good idea.  They convince him to buy all kinds of things that I say no to.  I see there is a bale of toilet paper there, I guess we did need that.  

Sam works out of town for most of the week but Katie and John ate really well.

Steak and eggs for breakfast.

Shrimp.

Waffles with "wimpy" bacon.

Steak.

Ribs.

And a family size all meat pizza....for the two of them.

Yea, I don't think they missed me much.

HUGE thank you to my sister for planning a great trip.  She researches everything and has it all planned out so nice yet she is still flexible enough to go with the flow.  Now she needs to get to work on our next trip.  We are thinking maybe mothers and sons...that should be interesting!

Girl's Colorado Trip - Day 5

When we chose Colorado Springs for our girl's trip, my sister asked for suggestions on things we wanted to do.  I'm not sure who exactly picked to climb the Manitou Incline, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  

The Manitou Incline was built in 1907 to support construction of a hydroelectric plant.  It then turned into a tourist attraction.  After lots of rockslides, the track was considered unsafe and shut down in 1990.  

At some point, they replaced the track with railroad tie steps and you can now climb it.  You need to have reservations to start but you can take as long as you want.  The record to climb the stairs is 17 minutes, the average time is 1 1/2 hours, it took us almost three hours! 

Here we are at the bottom wondering why we are doing this.  See the trail going up the mountain?

The incline gains 2,011 feet of elevation in just over 1 mile.  It has approximately (this varies as steps are replaced and repaired) 2,768 steps.  

Here we go!  Our strategy was slow and steady.

I tried not to look down but every once in a while, you just had to check out your progress.  There are metal placards every 100 steps letting you know how far you were and probably 3 or 4 places to get off the steps to hike back down.

This is about 3/4 of the way up.  

Sometimes it got really steep and between my fear of heights and my lightheadedness from the elevation, I felt better doing the bear crawl.  My daughter so graciously captured this moment for me.

Almost there!

My last couple steps. 

We made it!

And here comes Amy!

So proud of her!  I have to admit, I got a little emotional.  She has really taken charge of her health in the last couple of year and had trained hard for this.  She is a amazing.

Going down the stairs is highly discouraged.  There were a few people doing it.  You couldn't have paid me enough to do it!  There is a 4 mile hiking trail back down.  There were beautiful views but unfortunately for us, it started raining about 3/4 of the way down and we got soaked.

The plan was to reward ourselves with ice cream back in town but we were cold and wet so we headed back to the house to change and pick up Grandma.  After a soak in the hot tub (that felt super good) we went out for a late lunch/early supper.  

Our friends the Beltmans got me hooked on brussel sprouts (but only with a lot of extra stuff on them) so this was my appetizer.   I convinced my sister to climb over 2,000 steps but not to eat a brussel sprout.

Over our lunch/supper, we discovered my mom had never watched "Miracle" so, being filled with patriotic pride after our Olympic experiences, we headed back to the house to watch it.  

Then back to Manitou to get "I survived the Manitou Incline" t-shirts.

And our totally-deserved ice cream!

Girl's Colorado Trip - Day 4

We tried to start out the day at Mother Muffs, a restaurant in downtown Old Colorado City that had five different bacon choices but found out it didn't open until 10:00!  What the hay?!  I settled for an orange cinnamon cappuccino at a cute coffee shop because this gal needs a little caffeine in the morning.

When we were at the Olympic Museum, we found out for a little extra moolah you could get a guided tour at the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in town.  I am so glad we did this!!  I think I liked it almost better than the museum.  The tour was only an hour and a half but we had the best guide and it was SO interesting.  HIGHLY recommend if in the area.

Here's me just sitting in a bobsled waiting for our tour to start.

While there are lots of training sites around the country, there are only two training centers in the U.S.  This one in Colorado Springs and one in Lake Placid, New York.  They primarily train for inside sports here.  Some athletes live on campus for months or years, some live in the city and just come here to train (a young girl selling tickets was training for the triathlon in Paris next year), and some travel here periodically individually or with their teams.  Foreign athletes can also apply to come and train here.

The center used to be an air force base and was chosen for its high elevation and mild weather.

The cauldron on top of this building stays lit whenever the Olympics are going on.

This is the strength and conditioning center.

The sports medicine room was pretty impressive.  We were allowed to take pictures since there were no athletes using it at the time.

This was the fanciest treadmill I had ever seen.  It's used for athletes with an injury to still get a cardio workout.  They are belted into it and then it basically inflates around them to take about 80 percent of their body weight off their legs.

This is a kitchen where the athletes are taught how to cook for themselves for their particular sports. There is a cafeteria on campus but they are still required to take cooking classes.  Also in this building was counseling services (also required of all athletes) and a workout room that was climate controlled (they could set the temp between below zero to over 100 degrees), humidity controlled, altitude controlled, they could even make it snow in there!

This is one of the gymnasiums.  They were setting up for men's gymnastics.

The shooting center.  Our guide told us that although it doesn't look like there's a lot of physical activity going on from the outside, the shooters have to have incredible body control since the most natural aspect of the human body is movement.  They need to have muscle endurance and be able to hold their body steady for long periods of time.  Did you know that a good shooter learns to fire their gun in between heartbeats?  

The building with a lot of glass is the cafeteria and social center and to the right and left of that are the dorms (one for men and one for women).  The cafeteria has trained chefs (our guide said it he was invited to eat there and it was the best brisket he's ever had) and the athletes can eat as much as they want however, they get a receipt at the end that lists all their caloric intake which they need to turn into their trainers.  When you live on campus, you get a roommate that is not in your sport.  There is no alcohol, or the opposite sex (besides family) allowed in your room.  Room and board is all free for athletes.  

After our tour, we drove back to Mother Muffs for our bacon.  I chose brown sugar baked.  

Next up was the Manitou Cliff Dwellings.  This is a Puebloan reconstructed site that was originally located in Mesa Verde.  The cliff dwellings were relocated here in the early 1900's.  

I am standing in a doorway to a house.  It is built up so animals couldn't get inside, and small children couldn't get out.  It was built in a "T" to accommodate for baskets or cradleboards.  

We headed back downtown for some shopping and eating.  The beignets at this shop were super good!

We got special collapsible cups to try out all the mineral water springs in town.  There are eight fountains.  We tried out six of them and they were all horrible.  Think flat, warm carbonated water.

Afterwards it was back to the house for pizza, hot tubbing and mental preparation for our big climb!