A Mountain Wedding

Jason and I spent last weekend in Breckenridge celebrating Jared and Sara's wedding! They picked a beautiful weekend to get married in the mountains. The Aspen trees are at their peak and the weather was perfect! We got to spend time with friends who were in town from Omaha driving and hiking around. And had a fun time celebrating with Jared and Sara!

Mr. & Mrs. Jared and Sara Holmes

Jason, Jared and Jon

Wag-a-ner's Weekend of Fun

My brother, nieces and mom came to visit this weekend. My brother spent a couple days running across Colorado in the Colorado relay while my mom, the girls and I had girl time shopping, getting our hair cut, swimming and watching Hannah Montana in concert and Disney's Enchanted... multiple times!

We spent Sunday at Heritage Square which is a mini-amusement park and alpine slide here in Golden. Jason and I are a little shocked that we've never been there before because it was a lot of fun! We might make the alpine slides a permanent stopping place for anyone who visits!

However, the one who had the most fun this weekend is Wagner or as Maddie likes to say "Wag-a-ner". We were a little uncertain how the weekend was going to go considering the first two hours of being at our house, Maddie and Jaeli spent hiding in a room with the door shut in fear of the giant, killer labradoodle! But it didn't take long for them to warm up. Wagner ate an entire box of treats, at least 3 full meals of table scraps and put himself to bed every night out of pure exhaustion! Jason asked Maddie on our way to the airport who she liked better... Uncle Clapper or Wagner... she didn't hesitate to respond that her new best friend is Wag-a-ner! She was disappointed to find out she couldn't take him home with her!

177 Miles in 29 Hours

Lisa asked that I write a post about the Colorado Relay. It was a great experience, and we were very happy with our finish. We ran the 177 miles from Georgetown to Carbondale in just over 29 hours, which was a team average of 10 minutes per mile. Not bad considering that we ran through rain, sleet, snow and ran up and down four different mountain passes. We had a 10 person team, and each person in our van ended up running about 19 miles. Pictures to follow...

It was a fun time plus we raised money for Sarcoma Alliance. THANK YOU to everybody who donated!

Celebrating Five Years!

It's hard for either one us to believe, but we have officially lived in Colorado for five years now. In celebration of our anniversary, we spent Sunday enjoying Colorado in true Colorado style.

We hiked Bierstadt Mountain which is a 14k foot peak. There are 54 14k foot peaks in Colorado - called "fourteeners". The highest peak in Colorado is Mt. Elbert at 14,433 ft. Mt. Bierstadt is the 40th tallest at 14,060 ft. It's a pretty tough climb to get to the top, but once you're up there you have 360 degree views of the mountains. This is our home!

This is what they mean by "purple mountain majesty".

Views from the top.

Does a Bear Pose for Pictures in the Woods?

I spent a day at Rocky Mountain National Park with my work group. We thought it was going to be a dreary day since it was raining in the morning, but it ended up being really nice. We drove up to about 12k feet above the clouds where it was sunny and beautiful.

The most amazing part of the day is that we saw a bear... and he was less than 10 feet from us! For those of you who don't live in Colorado, you could live here your whole life and never get the chance to see a bear. I got to see one and follow it (whether that was safe or not is irrelevant at this point) for 10 minutes. It's very exhilarating. There is no fence between you and a wild bear. You want to stand and watch in awestruck, but your instincts tell you to seek safety. It was awesome!

Weekend Down Home

Jason and I spent Labor Day weekend in Omaha visiting friends and family. Jason played in a golf tournament, we celebrated his nephew's second birthday and Nebraska beat Doane College (or Western Michigan, whatever). I visited my friend Renae and her family and had a good 'ol fashioned down home garage campfire without the fire. Good times!