Sandy's Garden

Senior Portraits

2012-12-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

Finally got the senior portraits back.

Back home

2012-07-02T13:04:00.000-06:00

Since I use this as much for my own personal reasons as I do to share with anyone else, you will have to excuse the length of this post. However, I want to put this up front as it is an important thing our ward learned with this: Our church mobilizes very quickly to make sure their people are safe and to make sure they are taken care of. However, in a situation like this, it ONLY works if they have a phone number for you that is NOT a land line. With this in mind, I encourage all of you to go to LDS.org and register if you haven't already and make sure your cell phones are listed. You can filter it to only be seen by your bishopric if you don't want your cell phone widely distributed, but please make sure they can reach you in case of an emergency. Go now.

I am happy to report that we are back in our home as of Saturday (happy birthday Kurt). We are truly grateful for my parents who allowed us to to interrupt their quiet lives with our mess for the last 3 days and for Rachael who kindly agreed to take on a 10-year-old with far too much energy on top of her 5 kids while already on her own with John out of town. Thank you so much.

Other than the smell of smoke outside our house, soot that came in the window around our air conditioning unit, and 3 bushes that were waiting to be planted on my back deck that didn't withstand the heat and no water, our home is just as we left it. The neighborhood looks a bit different with the hill across from our church blackened and nothing but sticks on the ridge of the mountain. We also have National Guard standing blockade up the street to keep people out of the evacuated areas, which feels a bit like living in a war zone.

Our hearts go out to the 346 families who lost their homes and must now start over. We still had 66 families in our ward who were evacuated from their homes as of sacrament meeting this morning. Though some were allowed to return to their homes tonight, six of those families have no home to return to. We are happy to report that our home teacher's home shown in our last post is still standing and in fact undamaged. Brother and Sister Clifford, who Mom and Dad will know, had the fire destroy everything across the street, skip over their house and damage the one next to them, but leave theirs unscathed. In fact, we had a lot of near misses in our ward. It could have been so much worse for a lot of people. The fire also interestingly burned up to the elementary school, skipped over it (it takes up more than a city block between the school and the park it sits next to) and burned houses on the other side. We has originally heard that the school had burned down. This was actually the first thing that really hit home to me and made it feel real, that the school all my kids had attended wasn't there anymore. I'm so glad that, though smoke damaged, it is unharmed.

As we are still out of our church building, we had only an hour fast and testimony meeting, but it was one I won't soon forget. I do not think there was a dry eye in the building. Testimony was by invitation only and the first one was an inspiration. She talked about how they had lost everything important to them years ago upon first coming to Colorado Springs when the van they were driving was stolen and never recovered. This time, they had some time to gather things that were important, but she has things that she regrets losing. One of those was a collection of creches. However, her grandkids have already gifted her with the beginning of a new collection. Her grandson, while asking a blessing after they had been evacuated, asked that the fire fighters be safe and put the fire out and keep Grammy and Grampy's trampoline from getting burned. She said it was interesting to see what was important in their home through the eyes of a 5-year-old. Her faith and outlook were amazing.

The second woman lost her father Saturday, the same day the fire started. Her mother and father and her own family lived in the original evacuation zone. Hours after they lost her father, all of them were forced to evacuate. She said she is sure that he was watching over them as neither home was touched. Their home was in the cul-de-sac at the end of one of the worst hit streets. Despite the fact that most of the street is destroyed, their home stands untouched.

Something like this really makes you think about what is important to you. Though there were a few things I regretted not thinking to grab (my recipe book) or not being able to get to quickly enough (so many hand-made Christmas decorations in the attic), I realized that there was nothing in our house that I would be devastated to lose, except my photo albums and my hard drive (all the pictures that aren't in the photo albums). Most of it truly is just stuff. I will say that this has given me a real incentive to work on getting my pictures digitized and backed up remotely, so that will be my next big project.

Also, I am so proud of my kids after this. Through it all, they were calm, did everything that we asked of them, and made good choices in the things that they gathered to take with them. I loved looking through the things that Nate grabbed from his room that were important to him; his pillow with the tie-dyed pillow case that he made in school, the family pictures that he had on his wall, pictures that he had drawn himself, the book of signatures he had from his last day of school, a set of pens he had gotten for Christmas, clothes, his toothbrush, his iPod, his money, and, my personal favorite, the candy and gum he had in his room. This was with almost no help from us other than instructions to gather some clothes and anything that is really important to him. No attempt to grab toys or anything like that.

I talked to my uncle a few days ago and he told me that my cousin, who lives off the Gulf of Mexico, goes through evacuations all the time for hurricanes, that it is old news to them. After going through it once, I can safely say that I have no intention of moving anywhere that this becomes a regular occurrence. No coastal areas or wooded lots for me.

At this time, we are at 55% containment on the fire and they are well on their way to having the rest of it lined, so the worst definitely appears to be over. Though we are still on pre-evacuation notice, we expect that will be lifted within the next couple of days. Thank you all for your concern and prayers over the last few days.

Some new pictures

2012-06-28T11:07:00.001-06:00

The smoke over the west side of town has been horrible since Tuesday. We dropped Nate off with Rachael on Wednesday and the smoke was even horrible clear out there, but it finally started to lift Wednesday afternoon and pictures have started to come out. We felt reasonably sure our home would be okay, but feel good to know that pictures of the area have reassured us that is the case.

These are some of the pictures that have struck me in the last day:

This is maybe half a mile to a mile north of us. The home in the lower right corner is our home teacher's house.

Panorama of the city the night it came down into our area:

This is what it looked like as we evacuated with the thick smoke:

As scary as these pictures look, the ones that are truly amazing came out as the smoked cleared:

The neighborhood straight west of us across Centennial the night of the fire as the fire started to come down the hill:

That same area now:

The fire came over the ridge driven by 65 mph winds. The fact that none of these homes burned is absolutely amazing to me and a real testimony to our firefighters. Officials are telling us almost nothing about what was actually lost, but we do know the Flying W Ranch was completely burned to the ground and there are probably at least 200-300 homes that were lost, but the fact that they were able to save so many is truly amazing. In the top picture, you can see our church steeple and then our neighborhood right behind it. You can see that there are scorched areas all the way to the street across from our church. As an aside, our church had to have the foundation fixed last month and every bit of vegetation that was around it was removed down to bare dirt.

We are hoping we may be able to go home by the weekend.

Evacuated

2012-06-27T10:30:00.000-06:00

So we have been watching the fire since it started. We have progressed over the last few days through a lot of stuff to watch:

Saturday:

Sunday:

Monday:

Tuesday:
By Tuesday, we were feeling pretty confident. The firemen had held the line on the south side of Garden of the Gods to keep it out of the residences there that have had fire licking at them since day one. They had also held it at I-24 and managed to keep it from going across. They evacuated all the homes west of us the first day and were letting them come back in for a short time Tuesday to check on their homes. They were supposed to be able to do that all day. At 11 o'clock, the wind came up and things started to change very rapidly. They told all those people to get out and they wouldn't be allowed up in their homes anymore. About noon, they issued pre-evacuation orders for all the homes north of the original group. I had been watching the smoke all day from the window. It was extremely thick over the house and we weren't able to have windows open or anything. About 3:30. it looked like this:

And then I left to go to an appointment at 4:30 and it looked like this:

I came around the corner of our street and saw this:

We started packing up not long after that and got the call to evacuate about 6 o'clock. It is kind of surreal to be packing your car and have the police come down the street with the bullhorns telling you to leave. The fire trucks were pulling in as we left. This has affected most of our ward and the pictures of the hill on fire were taken from our church parking lot.

Wednesday:
We are safe with my parents. The news this morning is that there are roughly 32,000 evacuees and the entire west side of the city has been evacuated all the way up to the Air Force Academy. The fire grew from roughly 5500 acres to 16,000 acres. The fire came into Queens Canyon north of Glen Eyrie and Garden of the Gods and has been running north of those areas, so that is good at least. We do not know how far down the hill the fire came toward us, but they did say that it did not jump Centennial, which is 2 blocks west of us. We also don't know when we might be allowed back in our home. All that can be seen of that side of the city is a huge cloud of smoke and the fire is still actively burning.

Waldo Canyon Fire

2012-06-24T14:24:00.000-06:00

So this is the view out of our front window today:

If you are familiar with Colorado Springs, this started in Waldo Canyon and is moving toward Queens Canyon (this canyon comes down into Garden of the Gods and Glen Eyrie), Highway 24, and Manitou. Manitou has been completely evacuated and the evacuation line on the west side of town ends at Centennial (2 block west of us). A large portion of our ward has been evacuated. The last number was 2800 homes evacuated. We don't think it is likely that it will jump Centennial and get to us, but it is something to watch. We are also at 100 degrees and on our way to possibly being the hottest day ever in Colorado Springs.

On a related note to my last post, Justin is spending the day with the Fire Explorers at the fire rehab center helping to prepare food and areas to rest for working firefighters.

Fire Academy

2012-06-23T14:09:00.000-06:00

Justin joined the local Fire Explorers program in January. In June, they had their week-long academy. The kids spend a week, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., doing classwork, hands on, and physical fitness. At the end of the week, they have practicals and then written exams. If they pass, then they can ride along with the fire department. The last day, they had a BBQ and a chance for the parents to come and see what they had been doing.

Catching Up

2012-06-12T10:06:00.000-06:00

So far behind.

N turned 10 in March.

He played his final orchestra concert in May. He has decided he wants to try band next year instead.

Raced in the pine wood derby, though didn't do so well this year. He also earned his Wolf and started Bears.

J started Fire Explorers in January. They work with the fire department and once they pass the summer academy can ride along with the local departments. He is really excited about this program. He also got accepted into a program with the local community college that will allow him to take his first semester of fire sciences courses during his senior year of high school. The picture below was in the paper after the St. Patrick's Day parade. Justin is the one in the dark blue shirt on the far left.

He also turned 17.

C finished up his first year of college and is working full time. He has also been mentoring his old robotics team, which made it to nationals again by taking 1st place in the Denver regional!! He is also starting up his own little business selling parts on eBay for his girlfriend's dad. He pretty much just wants exposure for his company (they sell electronics of some kind) and wants someone to run an eBay shop for him. All C has to do is set it up and run it. The company will drop ship the parts and C gets to keep any money he makes (they are giving him the parts for free to sell). No pictures of C because we don't ever see him.

Kurt is still busy with Search and Rescue. This is the picture the local newspaper took of them bringing down a kid who fell on the Manitou Incline a couple weeks ago. They pick up an awful lot of people who can't seem to figure out that you climb up the Incline, but you come down Barr Trail, not back down the Incline.

And if I can get out from in front of my computer, I've been working in the yard. Most of it just got planted, but my clematis and bleeding hearts came in with a vengeance this spring. And the roses aren't doing too bad either. Now if I can just get all the stuff that needs to be done now done before all this needs to be trimmed back.

Halloween

2011-11-04T11:39:00.005-06:00

We actually had all 3 kids dress up for Halloween. I don't think Chris has dressed up since he was in elementary school, but he had a party this year, so here he wearing Kurt original from way back in the 1990s (the mask and cape were bought, but everything else Kurt fixed up).

Next, we have Justin wearing a 2011 Kurt & Justin original. He and Justin spent all day working on this and got it done just before we left for Trunk or Treating at the church. They were going to make a ghost, too, but ran out of time.
And Nate wearing what could only be bought at a store.
Nate had a great time trunk or treating and then going out with the neighbor kids for Halloween. We let him carve his own pumpkin this year, too, and so he had a pretty good Halloween.

Why I can't have any pretty plants in my yard

2011-10-31T08:33:00.001-06:00

Here is our picture of our neighbors learning the hard way why you can't plant nice plants in your front yard.

Summer is almost over

2011-08-01T23:18:00.015-06:00

Here it is August 1st and the kids will be going back to school in just a couple short weeks. The summer has blazed by.

Nate has had a great time playing with his friends and digging the most elaborate trenches through the sand in our backyard. They then filled them with water and made a huge mess, but it was so cool, I didn't say anything.

Chris started out the summer looking for a much needed job to help pay for college this fall. He was looking at going to Atmel to work with his dad, but I have to admit I was worried about the night shifts with Chris and how he would adapt. However, in the process of calling one of the brothers in our ward who he did some work for over the Christmas break, he was offered a job working in his shop (he owns a plastic injection molding shop). He learned today that he would be able to keep it into the school year. What a blessing this was for him. He will start college in a few weeks and has been really excited since attending freshman orientation at the beginning of the summer.

Justin has had a great time doing nothing. He has put in a few applications around town, but work for a 16-year-old is hard to come by right now. He will end the summer with a spelunking trip with the young men this week.

Kurt played softball with some guys from work and talked John into joining them.

The family ended the summer with a trip to Bozeman for Kurt's family reunion.

We spent a day in Yellowstone.

The owner of the property we stayed on had horses and let all the kids ride.

We spent an afternoon at the Museum of the Rockies, which is attached to the paleontology department of MSU. We saw lots of dinosaur bones and lots of frogs.

After the museum, we played in the Hyalite Reservoir and a few of us went hiking.

The last day there, we took the kids down to the creek and played in the water

and then the kids threw flour bombs at the big guys.

And finally we drove home. And now I need another week to recuperate from vacation.

May Catch-Up - Graduations & Birthdays

2011-06-02T10:42:00.004-06:00

May was insanely busy, so I'm just now getting all caught up.

First off, we had Justin's 16th birthday. Kurt was really sick, so we took a cake to Chipotle and had dinner with John and Rachael and their kids. Because planning things with my family is really hard, he got to celebrate again 2 weeks later when we rolled his birthday, my mom's birthday, and Chris's graduation all into one celebration. He was ordained as a priest last weekend.

Lots of big events in May for Chris. We started out with his very last band concert. We have been attending these for 7 years and I have to say it was sad to go to his last one. He has been lucky to play with some really awesome, award-winning groups and it has been a lot of fun to listen to them.

Then we had the senior awards ceremony, where he was recognized for his National Merit Letter of Commendation.

Then, we had seminary graduation on the 22nd marking the end of 4 years of really early mornings and lots of good learning.

Then, on May 25, he graduated from high school. For those of you who haven't heard, he is going to be staying in town and attending the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs next year, where he is right now planning on double majoring in computer programming and electrical engineering. His goal, though, is to go into medical robotics/prosthetics. He is also planning on helping to mentor the high school robotics team next year, so he isn't escaping completely.

One more performance.

Almost there.

All Done!!

How to have a great weekend on 4 hours of sleep

2011-05-10T08:20:00.007-06:00

So, once again proving that he is the only one with a life in our household, Chris had quite the weekend.

He started out Friday night with prom. His date's name is Kylie and they have been dating for a couple months now. They went to a friend's house for a dinner of fondue with several other couples. They then went to prom followed by after-prom at Art Sports, which is basically a huge room of trampolines. He made it home about 3 in the morning and went to bed for about 4 hours.

At 8, he was up and on his way to the last robotics event of the season. They received a grant from the Air Force Academy to put together an underwater robotics program that can be taught to middle school kids. They worked with a couple other local teams to assemble and test out the robots in the school swimming pool. That ended about 5:30. It also earned him this picture in the newspaper the next day.

At 6:30, we attended his band banquet, where he received an outstanding band student award.

Not a bad weekend for him, though he came home and slept for about 15 hours straight.

Track and Field Day

2011-05-08T15:52:00.002-06:00

You know the school year is winding down when track and field rolls around. I had to work most of the day, but managed to go out and watch a few of the events.

As you can see, he was running hard.

Final Robotics Competition - Nationals in St. Louis

2011-05-03T11:49:00.009-06:00

Chris's final robotics competition has come and gone. The kids competed at the national competition in St. Louis this past weekend and had a great time. They hoped to be competitive, but were expecting to finish somewhere in the middle of the pack. Instead, after 10 qualifying matches, they found themselves ranked 7th out of 88 teams in their division, having a record of 8-2. The top 8 teams are guaranteed a spot in the finals. After picking the 2 teams they wanted on their alliance, they went on to elimination matches, where unfortunately they quickly lost their first 2 matches to the 2nd place seed. However, this was their highest finish ever and they did it at the national competition. It was a real achievement for a 3rd-year team. They were right in there with teams who have been doing this for a lot longer.

The event was held in the Edward Jones dome, where the St. Louis Rams play, and the event center next door. There were a total of 352 teams competing.

Their robot helped place a lot of tubes in this match

for a great score.

Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas became involved with FIRST this year and, Friday night, treated the kids to a free Black Eyed Peas concert. Since Chris's team was a Chairman's award winner, they had seats on the floor right in front of the stage. Chris is just sorry he didn't get to see Morgan Freeman, who was also wandering around the event.

What a great way to end 3 years of a lot of hard work. This has absolutely been the most impressive program I have ever seen in a school. There are LEGO robotics teams in a lot of middle schools now, as well as FTC (smaller robots) and the FRC (big robots) teams. If your kids are science minded at all and have a chance to join one of these teams, they won't regret it. It is a great opportunity to get some hands-on experience in not only building and designing a robot, but also in running an organization. They do a lot of work with business professionals from the community, both as mentors and going out to present their team to potential sponsors. It also really encourages the kids to get involved with their communities any way they can, be it helping new teams or doing charity work. It really is a great program.

Pinewood Derby

2011-04-13T21:21:00.005-06:00

After a 5-year hiatus from pinewood derby for us, it was time to build a car for Nate. John came over with his boys last week and they cut and sanded and weighted the cars. We had our derby tonight and Nate took third! Not a bad first showing for him.

First place got a baseball trophy, 2nd got a basketball trophy, and Nate got a bowling trophy
.

But we fixed it for him when we got home.

More Robotics - Denver Regional

2011-04-09T21:10:00.010-06:00

This weekend was the Denver Regional for Chris's robotics team. Qualifying matches ran all day Friday and Saturday morning. They did really well, finishing with a record of 8 wins and 2 losses, earning 10th place out of 45 teams, their highest finish in the 3 years they have been competing. The top 8 teams pick 2 teams to compete with in elimination matches. The other Colorado Springs team placed 2nd and made Chris's team their first pick. Unfortunately, they lost their first round in the elimination matches. As in Kansas City, it came down to the minibot. In KC, their pole was turned off due to a penalty, so the minibot didn't count. In Denver, the bot deployed, but something went wrong and it didn't climb the pole. It would have been worth 10 points and they lost the match by 4 points. The kids were really disappointed as they had really high expectations after the Kansas regional.

Some bright spots, though. Their team took home all 3 of the top awards given.

Woodie Flowers award: This is the top award for team mentors. Each team is allowed to nominate one of their mentors. Friday night, Mr. McLean, who is their engineering teacher and head mentor, won that award.

The FIRST Dean's List: Each team is allowed to nominate 2 outstanding students for this award. It is for a student who is highly involved not only in his team, but is also active with bringing science and engineering ideas out into the community. One of their members won this award Saturday night.

The Chairman’s Award: This is the most prestigious award they can win. The award honors the team that best represents a model for other FRC teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST. Teams that win this are involved in helping other teams and involved in the community. Chris's team has really been out this last year, helping start up and mentor LEGO robotics leagues in the junior highs, working with Care and Share, running summer camps for robotics for kids, etc. You can see the video they submitted for this award here.

The Chairman's award is the last award given after everything else is done. Though they had earned the 2 big personal awards at the end of Saturday night, the team itself had earned no awards. That, along with an early elimination in the finals, had the kids a bit down. However, the last award of the night went to them. As it happens, teams that win the Chairman's award are also invited to compete at nationals, so

THEY'RE GOING TO ST. LOUIS!!

(Go 2 over from the left on the bottom and straight up and you'll find Chris in the very back)

Well, at least we hope so. There is still the not so minor point of scraping together enough money to go in the next 2 weeks, but it is fantastic to make it.

Chris is finishing out his senior year well with this team. The team started his sophomore year and in the last 3 years, adding in the 1st place finish in Denver their rookie year and the Rookie All Star award they also took that year (top award for a rookie team), they have won every one of the major awards plus a few of the minor ones and made nationals twice. That is a huge accomplishment for such a new team.

Way to go guys!

Happy Birthday Nate

2011-04-09T21:05:00.003-06:00

Nate turned 9 on March 30.

It's Robotics Time Again

2011-03-13T08:40:00.005-06:00

Chris's team getting ready to score a tube

Yes, it is once again robotics season and Chris's team is off to a great start. They got their game way back in January. This year it was to build a robot that could pick up inner tubes of different colors and shapes and hang them on a wall. They would get 3 points for the top level, 2 for the middle, and 1 for the bottom. If they could program the robot to hang a tube by itself during the first 30 seconds of the game, they would get 6 points and their points on that level would double. If they could put the inner tubes in a certain order on the wall, that was also worth points. In the last 10 seconds, they could release a mini robot to climb a pole. First one to the top gets 30 points, second 20, etc.

The kids worked until the last week of February, when the robot had to be sealed up, and then hauled it to Kansas City this weekend to compete in the Kansas City Regional. They got off to a pretty good start. They had a couple problems, but were always one of the teams consistently scoring. Despite having problems with their minibot falling off the robot the first couple games, they had it running up the pole by the last match.

The way the competitions work is that they play 9 qualifying matches randomly sorted into alliances of 3 teams. At the end of those matches, the top 8 teams pick 2 teams that they want to compete with in the quarterfinals. Chris's team didn't finish high enough to be one of the top 8 teams, but they were picked by the 2nd seeded team. Their alliance dominated their quarterfinal matches, winning 2 games to 0. They then made a real fight of it in the semifinals winning 1 match and losing 2 other real close ones. In fact, they were leading in the last match by over 40 points, but one of their teams sent their minibot up the pole too early and it didn't count. If it had, they would have made the finals. Very exciting!

They also brought home 2 awards, the entrepreneurship award for how they run their team and a runner-up award for safety.

They will now come back home with everything they learned in KC and get ready for the Denver regional on April 8.

Deploying the minibot

Old man's still got it

2010-12-16T09:14:00.008-07:00

We went out to watch Kurt play hockey Saturday night. I haven't actually been to one of his games in quite a while, but he still moves around pretty well out there.

Senior Portraits

2010-12-07T22:22:00.008-07:00

Chris is a senior this year, so of course that means senior portraits. We spent an afternoon out shooting with Johnny Wilson, the same guy that did the reunion pictures 2 reunions ago. We have around 200 pictures to sort through and then send back to him for editing, but here are some of my favorites.

Catching Up On October

2010-12-04T19:50:00.008-07:00

Well, I'm only a little over a month behind, but here was our October:

We started out with the Coronado High School homecoming parade. Chris has marched in this every year and then, the last 2, they have run the robot for it as well. This year, Justin hopped a ride on the sophomore float and, since Nate goes to one of the schools that feeds into Coronado, he got to ride a float as well.

Next, a big milestone; Chris turned 18, is now officially an adult. We had both sides of the family over for pizza and cake.

And finally, what would October be without Halloween. We let Nate carve his own pumpkin this year. Unfortunately, that ended with a nose that was so huge the whole face collapsed before I got a picture of it. He dressed up for school and then we always invite my brother's family to Trunk or Treating. Nate is the skeleton.

What's the point of having a blog if you can't brag about your kids?

2010-10-12T10:14:00.001-06:00

Chris is in his senior year, so lots of AP tests and college entrance exams this year. He took the ACT and PSAT at the end of his junior year. Kurt and I have been telling him that he has to beat our scores on the ACT if he wants bragging rights. The only person I know who beat my score in high school was Art, and I think Kurt and I had the same score. We're thinking we each scored 32.

Well, Chris gained bragging rights with a near perfect score of 35 on the ACT test with a 36 being the highest you can receive. He also received a letter from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation that runs the PSAT and SAT tests congratulating Chris on scoring in the top 50,000 students out of some 1.5 million who take the PSAT test, so the top 3.5%. In September, approximately 30,000 if those 50,000 high scorers receive Letters of Commendation, which he has now received as well.

Way to go Chris! You earned your bragging rights.

Catching up on June

2010-07-20T15:05:00.025-06:00

I knew when I started this that I would have a terrible time keeping up with it, so here is June in a nutshell.

June boiled down to pretty much one week, June 19-26, which is when Kurt and I went out of town, Nate went to cub scout camp, and Chris and Justin went to Zion's camp.

June 19 was just crazy with me working, trying to get the all the camping stuff together for Zion's camp, and trying to get Nate packed to stay with my parents and have the things he needed for day camp. We finally dropped the dogs off with my parents about 9:00 and then took Nate to stay with John and Rachael for the night since my parents had just gotten back in from Arizona the day before and were still trying to get caught up from their trip. Kurt and I finally left for Crested Butte around 11:00 that night.

Twenty years and counting:
Kurt and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on June 22. Kurt arranged for us to go away for a few days in Crested Butte. I think this is the first time we have spent any real time away from our kids ever, so it was kind of nice, especially with Kurt working 6 days a week with his training schedule and running bike tours on the side.

I have to say that it didn't start out well as we got into Crested Butte at about 3 in the morning and found we couldn't get into our condo because we didn't have the code for the lock box the key was in. Kurt had set up the condo through a guy John knows at ReMax, so many thanks to John for getting up at 3 in the morning and helping us figure out how to get in.

We didn't get a whole lot of rest as we spent most of our time hiking the area. I probably got more exercise in those 3 days than I normally get in a month. The first day, we hiked around Crested Butte and saw some scenery.

The next day, we were up early to drive to the Maroon Bells, where we hiked around and saw more scenery.

Kind of all looks the same, huh?

Crested Butte is known for their wildflowers and we saw a bunch, but mostly lots and lots and lots of these yellow ones that seemed awfully familiar:

Though, okay, we did see a few of these as well:

Saw some critters, too:

But mostly we just got to spend some time together.

Zion's Camp:
Chris and Justin left Monday morning for a week at Zion's camp. This is basically a missionary prep course up in the Colorado mountains. They camp out all week, along with scripture study and a lot of outdoor activities, like high ropes courses, rappelling, and canoeing. We went up Friday night for parents' night and were met by all the boys singing (Justin is in the middle behind the kid in the camo coat).

The boys then served their parents dinner. I had to have pictures because you know this is the only place it will ever happen :) (and, no, that isn't Chris's tie - he had to borrow one because he forgot his).

All the boys then put on an after dinner show where they went through some of the things they did over the week. Chris's group sang and Justin's group sang and signed (they do a lot of singing at Zion's camp).

We then came home and the boys stayed until Saturday and came home very, very dirty, cleaned up, and went to bed.

Cub Scout Camp
Nate spent 3 days at cub scout camp. I am a bad mom and don't have any pictures, but he had a great time.

And that was all the exciting stuff for June.

Kurt's new job

2010-07-05T21:42:00.004-06:00

Everything always happens at once, so when I have something to put here, there is a whole lot of stuff and no time to do it, so it will all just have to wait, but this one is quick, so I'll go ahead and put it up for everyone who hasn't heard.

Over a year ago, he interviewed for a tech position and was told he got the job. However, Atmel then went into a hiring freeze and they couldn't actually hire him for it. Then, a few months after that, they laid everyone off. So now, a year later and after being re-hired, he got the position. He has been training for the last month and will probably stay on the day shift for a while, but then will have to move back to nights, so nights=bad, but extra money because he is working nights=good. Hopefully, he will eventually be able to move back to days, though, or everyone will get laid off again and we'll start over.

So, yay, more money and a job he likes a lot more.

Sometimes exciting things happen at work

2010-06-11T23:58:00.010-06:00

I'm jealous. I get these guys:

Eating my bushes and upsetting the dogs.

However, the area where Kurt works gets a lot of wildlife. They have seen deer, bears, wolves, etc., in the area.

Kurt called yesterday to tell me that they had all just watched a doe give birth to two fawns. She picked the courtyard that is surrounded on 3 sides by windows, so everyone has been spending a lot of time watching her and her babies. She looks like she has something pretty wrong with her leg--broken or dislocated, so we hope she makes it.

So anyway, I get stupid deer destroying my landscaping and barking dogs and he gets to watch fawns learn to walk.

He is going to make it up to us by taking us to see them on Saturday, though.

These are all taken through a window, so aren't the best.

She looks like she is a good mommy.

The best one for last. Isn't he absolutely adorable?