Colorado Adventure Lover

Finally!

2009-07-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

When we got back into the States, I had a message from the pharmacy recruiter at City Market (Kroger Co.). We've been talking off and on since March, and there haven't been any openings yet. Finally, they have a full time position in Breckenridge for me. So I gave Walgreens my two week notice and will start on July 13th. I am so excited to have a change like this. Walgreens has been yanking my chain for far too long now, and it feels good to be out. I get a $2 raise, a bonus, and most importantly the schedule I want. How could you refuse an offer like that?? Plus, I get to move up to Avon with Bruce sooner:) Oh yeah, my schedule will be Friday thru Monday, just like Bruce's, so we will have 3 days off every week together!

Mexico

2009-07-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

After moving the contents of our house into storage, we took a much needed vacation to Mexico. Bruce's whole family went, so we got a chance to catch up and spend some time with them. I was loving the sun. CO has been unseasonably rainy this summer. Bruce and I certainly tried our best to get our money's worth out of the all-inclusive alcohol. The food was pretty good too. We did a day of snorkeling and touring some Mayan ruins. Other than that, we just relaxed at the beach and pool. Will put some pictures on if Bruce ever gets our internet up and running. I am using my friend Sam's computer from time to time while I am staying here.

Bad Daughter

2009-05-31T18:14:00.000-07:00

I feel terrible. Mom called last night and said she heard I sold my house. I forgot to call her and tell her!! This facebook and blog stuff makes you forget that not everyone is online!! And I should know better, since I just got on facebook and don't keep up my blog very well. Oh well, she said she heard from one of the other kids. Bruce is going to take the computer up to the apartment with him this week, so now that I'm finally online, I'm going to end up completely offline for awhile. When we close on the house, I'll be moving in with some friends of ours here in CO Springs. I'll be there until Walgreens opens. The new timeline is mid-August, for whatever that's worth.

My Favorite Things

2009-05-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Skiing and Beer. What else do you need? I can't believe we haven't figured that out until now!! We went to a kegger at A-Basin this weekend. It was a really good time, even though I really didn't ski that much. Between trying to teach someone to ski and drinking enough beer, I didn't get many runs in. We did meet some people from OH, which was kinda crazy. They were from Lima, and know all about Putnam Co. We brought along the polish golf and polish horseshoes games that the guys made for us when they were out here. Everyone was really interested in the golf game. Someone had a chair on two skis and people were sitting on it and going down the hill. It is actually pretty hard to steer and not tip over. After the party we also hung out at the Goat in Keystone and stayed in a hotel there, since no one was driving anywhere that night!!

Update

2009-05-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

I'm sure everyone has been on pins and needles about the sale of our home. Right... So we did get an offer, which was 10,000 below our asking, we countered to a more reasonable arrangement, and the buyer accepted. So we are now under contract!! I don't want to get too excited because there is so much that can go wrong. Still, we are little closer to the ultimate goal. We are not sure what that is anymore, but it does involve moving to the mountains somewhere. I'll keep you posted though.. Hopefully this all makes sense, I am on beer ????

What a Weekend...

2009-05-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

This weekend, which of course, is the middle of my work week, pretty much sucked. Customers were so grumpy and impatient, I guess because it was crappy outside. We had someone in lane 2 of our driveway just blaring her horn so she could be helped, when the tech was helping someone in the other lane. When the manager tried helping her, she just yelled at her. That's a good indication of how most of the weekend went. Today, I found out that one of my techs broke her arm, so we are going to be completely short-handed for awhile. And oh yeah, some old dude ran his SUV right into the front door of the store this afternoon. He said his foot slipped off the brake! Here's hoping tomorrow gets over with quickly.

Optimistic...

2009-04-30T22:01:00.001-07:00

We actually have 2 people interested in the house right now. One is coming for a second look Friday and the other said he'd give us an answer by Monday. I hate to get too excited, but this is the first good news we've had in awhile. Unfortunately, there is more bad news on the Walgreens front. My store is not slated to open now until July 9th. This is getting ridiculous!!!

Caught Up?!

2009-04-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

Hopefully that counts as being caught up. I'll try to get on here more often now. I do have a showing on the house tomorrow, so I better get things sparkling. Bruce has to work an extra shift tomorrow, so I am not going up there until tomorrow afternoon. We will go skiing Wednesday at the Basin after looking at a house in Eagle Vail that we probably can't afford.

Skiing Friends

2009-04-27T20:59:00.000-07:00

We met up with some friends that we made in Chile this winter to ski. Jim and Margory live in Asen, so we called them up when we made plans to be there for 4 days. We met Jim, his son James, and 2 of his buddies at Aspen Highlands on what turned out to be a truly epic powder day. It had snowed a foot overnight (when we went to bed at 2, there was not a trace of snow on the ground in town), and continued to dump at least another foot throughout the morning. We did some runs on Temarity, which is some of the steepest inbounds skiing in CO, then hiked the bowl. Boy, am I out of shape. That run from the top of the bowl, though, was the best run I had all season, so it was worth it:)
We also skied with another guy we met in Chile, Will, who lives in Denver. He came up on an obscene powder day that actually stranded me because the roads were so bad. I got an extra ski day in Vail!! (First time ever I haven't made it back home to go to work in 5 years of commuting to the mnts to ski-so I deserved that one). That day, he led us all around some out-of-bounds terrain to get some air off cliffs and rocks. I actually landed one really good!! A week or two later, he and a friend took Bruce and I up on Vail pass for some snowmobile accessed skiing. One person drives the snowmobile while the other is dragged behind on skis up the mountain so they can ski down and meet the snowmobilers at the bottom. This is also very tiring and makes me realize how out of shape I am this winter. It was a very amazing experience, though. We even cooked bratwurst out in the bush. Hopefully we'll get the chance to do that again sometime.

Mud Season

2009-04-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

We are now in what is known as Mud Season in the mountains. Most ski areas are closed (A-Basin and Loveland on the continental divide will remain open thru May or so). The snow is melting, nothing is really blooming yet, you can't go hiking up very high, or Jeep Trailing, so there isn't a whole lot to do up there. I've decided it's Bruce's turn to do some driving, so he came home last week instead of me driving there. It was so nice to have a week off from driving. And we had some serious shopping to do. There are so many great sales right now, so we went a little crazy. But I needed stuff for Mexico, and Bruce and I both needed some work clothes. I'm not looking forward to those credit card bills. We also got some yard work done, and Bruce changed the oil and rotated my tires on my Subi. Can you believe, I've put almost 10,000 miles on my car since October??

Enduro

2009-04-27T20:38:00.001-07:00

On April 15th, Bruce and I competed in the 20th Annual Enduro at Arapahoe Basin. We've been talking about doing this for a few years now, but it never worked out until this season. It's a race to see how many runs teams of 2 can complete off the Pali lift (all black and double black runs) in 10 hours (7am to 5pm). We were unsure of the details when we signed up, but there are 20 runs and you have to do them in order, starting at whichever one they draw for you. Also, the race starts with a shot gun start, everyone runs 30 yards to their skis, clicks in, and skates/ muscles their way to the lift. These people that do this competition every year are HARD CORE. Keep in mind, it takes 7 minutes to ride the lift up. The record is 71 runs, the winner this year got 69 runs, and Bruce and I got 55 runs. It's actually not that bad for the first time. Now that we know more, I think we can do a lot better next time. Being a girl, of course, does pose a problem when it's time to pee. There are no bathrooms on that section of the ski resort, and you would lose so much time going to the other area. I had to go in the trees... keep in mind, we are on a very steep mountain, so that was interesting. I'm not sure, short of wearing depends, what else I can do to save time... Oh well, I have a year to figure that one out:) We had a bast, even though I was sore for days afterwards.

2009-04-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

These are probably out of order, but I wanted to put in a blog about Christine and Paul's visit to CO. They got a deal at Copper Mountain, so Bruce and I met them just for one day of skiing. We probably should have known this would happen, but we ended up crashing in their condo that night. After a day on the slopes, we all hung out in the AMAZING hot tub and pool that they had just outside their condo. I don't remember for sure (hmmm...) but I think we were in there for a good 5 hours or so. Talk about a prune!!! Hey, we were just trying to finish off all the beer before heading out to the bar for more expensive beer. Anyway, it did get a little crazy, but it was nice to catch up with Christine and get to know Paul some more. He really is a fun guy to hang out with. So it was kinda late by the time we decided to find some food. Luckily, there was still one place open. To get there, we decided to walk across this pond that I assume is a skating rink when not covered in snow, and Paul did not realize what it was. He slipped and fell right on his head. He had a bump for awhile but is ok. So we get there and the menu was a bunch of greasy bar food and we ordered one of everything just about. Hmmm.. I wonder why Bruce got up in the middle of the night to puke...?

Ben and Brian Visit

2009-04-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

When Ben and Brian came out to CO, we did our best to wear them out every day. They came to C Springs for a couple days, then the three of us drove up to Bruce's apt. in Avon. The first day, they rented crappy skis and were just getting their feet under them at Beaver Creek. The second day, we had 5 inches of powder in Vail, so we figured we could take them down some harder runs. They seemed to really like it, even though there was a lot of falling down. That night, they were worn out. Bruce and I ski hard every day and party just as hard at night. It was interesting to see Ben especially not be able to hang at the bar:) We ended up skiing a third day, and by then the two of them were LOVING the powder snow. That morning, Vail reported another 5 inches, and we had another good day on the mountain. There was only one scary moment when Brian almost landed on top of Ben on a woopdeedoo and knocked the wind out of himself. Anyone else want Bruce and I to guide them around a ski mountain?? (more pics of their trip here on Snapfish family page)

Catching Up

2009-04-27T20:05:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I am officialy the worst blogger out there. The ski season came and went and I didn't post anything. That should be an indicator of how hectic it was. I'm assuming no one wants to here any more complaining about Walgreens, etc. They keep telling me different dates on when my store will open in Dillon, so I've interviewed with City Market (Kroger Co.). Now it's just a matter of will they have an opening first, or will Walgreens open first. Anyway, at least we had a successful ski season. It was wonderful living at the base of Beaver Creek and being 5 minutes from Vail. I will do a post for Ben and Brian's visit and a few other significant events over the winter.

Update on the Move

2008-11-23T16:00:00.000-08:00

Our house has not sold yet. In fact, only 4 people have even looked. I found out last week that the Walgreens in Dillon will not open now until March. Unfortunately, Bruce had to accept the job at City Market in Avon and he has to start Dec. 8th. The good thing is, they have an apartment above the store that he can rent for $700 per month, which is a sweet deal for that area. (ie at the base of Beaver Creek). So we are glad we bought the epic pass this year, which gives us unlimited skiing at all Vail resorts with no blackout dates!! While Bruce is up there living the carefree bachelor life, I'll be taking care of everything here. Yay.... I'll be driving up as soon as I get off work Mon. and coming back home either Wed. night or Thurs. morning. We will only be keeping the house on the market until 12-15, and if it hasn't sold, we'll put it back on sometime in Jan. At least I'll have a place to live if it works out that way.

Belated Halloween

2008-11-23T15:53:00.000-08:00

Since Thanksgiving is less than a week away, I ought to put up some Halloween pics:) We went out downtown for Halloween with some friends, Jesse and Janelle. First, though, we helped with a haunted house that Jesse's mom, Sam put on at the apt. she manages. The turnout was really good, so they kept us busy for a couple hours. Then we made our way downtown to party!!! It was fun, but Bruce had to work at 7am, so he was tired. At least I didn't have to be to work until 3 on Sat.

Moving towards the Mountains

2008-10-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I am just checking in with everyone. I did accept the job as Pharmacy Manager at the Walgreens in Dillon, CO. It should open in early January, so I still have a little time. Bruce went for a job interview today, and they offered him a job at City Market. He has two weeks to give an answer, so he'll probably wait just to be sure there aren't any other jobs available in the next few weeks. Our house has been on the market now for 2 weeks, and today we had our first showing. The realtor said it could be that people are waiting until after the elections to make any big decisions, so hopefully things will pick up. If the house sells, we do have some options in Dillon for single family homes. It will be significantly more expensive and a lot less house, but we knew that going into this whole adventure!! Being so close to our favorite ski resorts will be well worth the downsizing, and really, we don't need this much house for the two of us. We are going to have to buy a snowblower though:)

Scary

2008-10-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

So today, the house is officially going on the market. We are going to put it up for 2 months, with pretty aggresive pricing. If nothing happens by middle of Dec., we'll take it off and start again in middle of Jan. Our last house sold so fast, we never really had to do much. This time, though, we are rearranging and repainting. Bruce is busy touching up the baseboards, and I have to paint my scrapbook room :( Our realtor said to leave the wall with the sponge paint and just paint the other 3 walls white. So it shouln't be too bad, although I'm not sure how many coats it will take. One good thing, he also said Bruce would need to "tone it down a bit" in the basement. So I gladly took down at least half his Michigan crap!!! One other important piece of info... ski season officially started today at A-Basin. We were going to go, but it is just one run and we have a lot to do around here.

What's Up

2008-10-09T22:54:00.000-07:00

Since there is no snow yet, I don't have a whole lot of fun stuff to talk about. I can say that we are actively preparing our house to put it up for sale. We will meet with the realtor next week to see what our odds look like. The job in Dillon won't start for me until beginning of January, and Bruce is looking now to find a pharmacist position. He has applied at the Vail hospital, and will keep an eye out for any other possibilities. I have been offered the position of pharmacy manager at the Walgreens, and I have until 11-1 to give a definite answer. As long as Bruce can find something, even if it's not pharmacy, I will take it. Hopefully, we will be able to sell this house and at least make a little $ off of it. Bruce says I have to paint the scrapbook room. What do you think?-(See photo). Otherwise, we've been cleaning carpets, doing fall yard work, and thinking of all the little things that need fixed or straightened up. If we sell, we'll start looking to buy in the mountains. Otherwise, we'll have to rent something up there temporarily. I can't believe it's actually becoming a reality!! We have talked about moving to the mountains for so long and nothing ever came of it. So hopefully, things will work themselves out:)

Portillo, Chile 9-6-08 thru 9-14-08

2008-09-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, this may have been the best week of my life!!! I commented on this to Bruce and then hastened to say, "Well, maybe the Honeymoon..." Haha. We love the beach, but I think skiing has overtaken our lives. In a good way, but seriously, on our last trip we took to the Carribean, it rained a lot. It was January and we are always hoping for precipitation in the form of snow of course, so we wished we were in Vail instead of St Lucia. So we learned our lesson with that and saved up vacation time/$ for the trip of a lifetime to Portillo, Chile. We had gone to a ski camp in Aspen, where John Clendenin, two-time World Freestyle Champion, and his team of talented coaches, taught us a method for all-mountain skiing. Bruce has skied since age 7, and I had only been skiing for 2 years, but was really adamant that I keep up with him. This method was difficult for Bruce, he kept fighting it and going back to the old way. I, however, had no formal instruction, just "ok, you're ready for a black now" from Bruce after only 3 days skiing in CO. So I stand at the top of the Rose Bowl at Beaver Creek and say "I will try to fall only 10 times". It is a fairly steep and long run, and needless to say I was way over 10 falls. We kept skiing every week and I got better, loving the bumps/off piste more than groomed runs. Our first camp with John in Jan. '07 was great, and we worked on the technique the rest of the season. We decided to start the 07-08 season with another one of his camps in Dec. After this, we had a great season, lots of snow, and hopefully lots of improvement! So then we had a great summer, and FINALLY, it came time for Chile. It was another Clendenin method camp, and there were 24 people in our group, including the 4 coaches: John, Chino, Lisa, and Steve. Each of these coaches have really made a huge impact on both of us and our skiing. The other campers were wonderful people, and we made so many contacts there of people we'd love to ski with again!! We even met other Americans not in our group that we HAVE to ski with again-they were awesome!! So we fly into Santiago, meet the group, and take a bus up to the resort (2½ hours away). On the way, we stop for Empenadas cooked in a mud oven, we stop for beer-of course, and also for some pictures of 22,834 ft. Aconcagua. It is the highest mountain in the Americas, and Chile and Argentina fight about whose country it is in. (Officially it's in Argentina). As we get near the resort, we start some wild switchbacking. Then all of a sudden you see ski tracks and a tunnel that take skiers right over the road!! We have arrived, and boy are we excited. After check-in and lunch, we get to spend a few hours on skis. It feels so good after not skiing since May!! We get a feel for the mountain, which doesn't look that big, but it is hard to tell, because there are no trees and no sense of depth perception. There is a lake, and the mountains look like they just dive straight down into it!! And later we found that they do: On the Lake Run, when you look down, you see a lot of avalanche debris that came down earlier in the season. The Andes are fairly new mountains, and they are not very stable. You always have to be aware, that rocks, or worse, avalanches could come tumbling down, especially when it is warm. September is spring in South America, so we had lots of sun and corn snow. We really only saw avalanches on the last day of skiing. We were about to get on the Cara Cara poma lift and they stopped it. Chino looked up and saw an avalanche coming down and had us get out of there fast!!! Despite these dangers, the skiing it AMAZING there. It is steep, and we had people that knew where the good snow would be, so we always had awesome conditions. We decided to go heli-skiing one day, and that was definitely the highlight of the trip. The ride itself was worth the $$, but the skiing was EPIC!! We took 2 runs, and they were each at least 5,000 vertical feet. The top started out with 6-8 inches of powder, and changed as the elevation got lower. Near the bottom, we got some GREAT corn snow-kinda melty, but firm underneath, so you could FLY down it. And FLY I did!!! (All I can say is, hey, I'm far from trying not to fall more than 10 times, and it feels great!). Chino took a video of our group that went heli-skiing, and I am pretty sure I kicked everyone's butt!! Anyway, besides the skiing, we had fun hanging in the hot tub/pool, the bar-of course, and the diso baby!! I even beat Bruce at a game of one-on-one b-ball. Every night we would be out till 2 or 3 am, and still get up to ski in the am. I did mention when we talked about goals at the beginning of the camp that I hoped to drink beer all night and still ski great the next day... We both managed to do this, though I'm not sure how. I guess when you're in Portillo.... Anyways, sorry this rambles on.. we just had the best time, whatever it was we were doing down there. We have set a precedent for future vacations that will be hard to match. Now, if only the snow would start falling here in CO.... I skied on Oct. 11 last year, so it is getting closer every day. We are going to go see the fall colors, if there are any left, in the mountains tomorrow. Will post some pics if anything turns out good. Also, I have some news on moving to the mountains soon that I will discuss when I know more.

Summer 2008

2008-09-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

So this summer, we really tried to get out there and DO things. We got some Jeep trails in, along with a few camping trips and lots of hiking/photography. We even climbed 4 14ers. Since we are attempting to move into the mountains next year, we tried to wrap things up here around Colorado Springs. Of note, the Emerald Valley is AMAZING!! We spent 2 nights camping and hiking this beautiful valley just a few miles away from the city. The timing was right for some beautiful wildflowers. We saw two very rare ones: the Lady Slipper Orchid, and the Wood Lilly. Early in the summer, we spent a few days over at the Sand Dunes National Park. We drove over Medano Pass, a jeep trail, on the way there. There were a few water crossings that kind of freaked us out a little, but the good ole' FJ charged right on through! The Sand Dunes were beautiful and we had a great campsite, but the wind was crazy!! Another jeep trail we took, Hayden Pass, was still blocked by snow, so we had to turn around. We had some visitors after that, Ben and Sarah (brother and future sister-in-law) and they had fun experimenting on the jeep trails with our FJ. We also spent some time in Cripple Creek and in Denver for a Rockies game and Bar-hopping. From what I remember, it was a great time:) In July, Bruce and I headed to Crested Butte, the CO capital of wildflowers. They had gotten so much snow last winter that the flowers were a little late, and the jeep trails were still drifted over. We still managed to get our fill of it anyways, and some beautiful pictures. Now we just need to go back in the winter for the epic skiing they have there! The 14,000 foot mountains we climbed this summer were Quandary Peak, Gray's and Torrey's (combo), and Princeton. We actually camped near Mt. Princeton and had a wonderful time. They have a hot springs nearby that is pretty nice, and we found more than enough jeep trails to keep us busy when not hiking. Other things we did this summer: Deb and Keenan's (friends) wedding, softball on thursdays (Bruce) and drinking beer, grew a vegetable garden, tried to make time for scrapbooking, Waterworld with Jesse and Janelle (friends), keg party at our house-Beer Pong tournament!- and tried to get in shape for our ski trip in beginning of Sept. to Chile. See next Post for Portillo, Chile details!!