Pumpkin Carving

Brian and I have a tradition... now we've done it for 3 years (so I guess that makes it a tradition, right?). Every Halloween, we each pick out a pumpkin and carve a face! It's so fun. I love picking out our faces every hear and then drawing them and carving them. Check out our pumpkins this year!

Ghosthunting

On October 30th, I (Sara) decided to take a trip up to Cripple Creek and go on a ghost hunt! It was so much fun! Brian couldn't come with me, so I had to go on this adventure alone...

I had worked with a substitute teacher who is a member of a paranormal society here in Colorado Springs. He and I were talking about how much we both enjoyed the popular TV show Ghost Hunters when he mentioned that he often goes on ghost hunting trips with other members of his club. I thought it sounded very interesting... then he said that anyone could go and that there were a few ghost hunting trips scheduled throughout October in a Jailhouse Museum in Cripple Creek. So, needless to say, I signed up.

I got there around 8:00pm that night (the ghost hunt was scheduled from 8pm - 6am). They had very high-tech equipment and I was impressed at how they put so much effort into the camera angles and the "protocols" that we all followed. There were about 20 of us altogether on this trip. We split up into groups of 4-5 and wandered into different rooms/jail cells and tried to see if we could catch any disembodied voices/apparitions on any of our equipment.

We were welcome to bring our sleeping bags and crash in any cell of our choice when we got too tired to continue hunting ghosts. I chose a cell and laid out my things - later to find out that the cell I had chosen was apparently haunted. The last person to sleep in that cell claimed she heard a male voice ask, "What are you doing here?" Oddly, I wasn't intimidated. I felt fine and when it was time to go to sleep, I slept very soundly. :)

Personally, I didn't hear/see anything. It was a fun trip, though! I hope Brian can come with me on my next ghostly adventure...

Pikes Peak

There comes a time in every person's life when they are challenged to see what they are made of. Whether that challenge comes as an option is a completely different matter... some people choose to push the envelope a little bit, others need to do it as the road of life takes them over some "bumps." Either way, there are always challenges.

Certain challenges are fun! Take for example, our decision to conquer the mountain we see every day... Pikes Peak. It looms 14,110 feet above sea level, and still rises above our city by about 7,000 feet. It is gorgeous. It is awe-inspiring. And we conquered it!

(sorry, the pictures are a little bit out of order...)
After walking upward for 7.5 hours straight, we arrived at the visitor's station at the top and had to get a picture with a gold miner!

We stopped for a short break alongside a pretty stream. We were about 4 miles from the top!

Pretty view, huh?


I had to stop and "ice" my foot down in the freezing cold water when we stopped at the stream. My foot had gotten so painful at this point! (Wonderful plantar fasciitis makes hiking so much more interesting sometimes!) After doing this, however, the pain completely went away (thank the Lord!) and I could finish the hike pain-free. :)

We stopped at Barr Camp for about 15 minutes to eat our banana-peanut butter sandwiches and trail mix. We didn't stop for long because we didn't want our leg muscles to completely lock up on us! We had hiked 7 miles to Barr Camp and only had another 6 to go. We weren't about to let Pikes Peak get the best of us!

A few chipmunks also got to share our lunch with us... they were adorable!



This is a picture of the awesome beauty of Pikes Peak! As we rounded a corner on Barr Trail, there it was! We saw what we were going to climb.

This was actually the first glimpse we had of the peak as we rounded the corner on Barr Trail. Brian pointed it out to me and sure enough, there it was. (Admittedly, at this point, I was thinking that I would be perfectly content if we just made it to Barr Camp... but we made it the whole way!!)


About 2 miles from the top, Brian completely ran out of water. I wasn't sure how much water I had left since it seemed like I was having to put a little more effort into each sip of my Camelbak (that's what happens when it starts getting low). But, nonetheless, I thought if God could instantly fix my foot like He did at the creek, then He can provide enough water for us to make it to the top! :)

Sure enough, there was just enough water to get us up to the top plus about 3 more big gulps of it, and then it was out. I can't help but think that God was watching out for us... whether or not it was coincidence, I think it was pretty cool!

As soon as we got to the top, we were literally IN a cloud. The top of the cloud had socked us in and we couldn't see much. We heard thunder from the top of the cloud (it sounds really cool from the top!) and it began to rain a little.

We ate a delicious lunch inside the visitor's center and had some random people take our picture next to the Pikes Peak Summit sign. It was a really rewarding feeling to have made it to the top!

We were hoping to find 2 seats on a cog train that was heading back down, but every train that was still to come was completely booked full. Thank goodness for Glenn (Brian's mom's boyfriend!). Glenn saved the day! Fortunately, he lives pretty close to the Peak and came up and got us.

Later that night we sat in Brian's mom's (Mary's) hot tub and relaxed our tired muscles. Surprisingly, neither one of us were very sore the next day! Even after hiking 13 miles over 7.5 hours straight, we were surprised at how not sore we were!

I think I hear the Peak calling my name again sometime soon... ;)

My Muddy Buddy

So... a few days ago, we decided to go mountain biking in one of our favorite places to bike - Ute Valley. There were a few clouds in the sky, but hey - we live in Colorado. That doesn't always mean much. So we packed up the bikes and we were on the trail in no time.

We had been biking for all of 5 minutes when it started to rain! We got off of our bikes and found a tree that somewhat sheltered us from the rain - but we still ended up getting pretty wet!

The rain finally let up and then we hit the trail again... BUT it was MUDDY!!


We tried to keep going for awhile, but our tires got so packed with mud that they had no tread whatsoever and we were just sliding around on the trail like we were on a muddy Slip-and-Slide!



So... we headed back on the paved trail after we finally made it out of the quagmire we were in. As we picked up speed on the paved trail back to the truck, massive amounts of mud came flying off of our tires and our bikes!

Both bikes (and both of us!) got a good bath when we got back home.

Lesson learned: never bike in thick clay-like mud! :)

Marmots, Pink Elephants, and Icebergs - Oh, My!

Since Sara loves wildflowers and Brian loves marmots, we found a place to go backpacking that would have both. We decided to go to Lake Dorothy which is just outside of Boulder, Colorado. We left for our trip on July 20th and headed for the Fourth of July Campground to "car camp" one night and then head up the mountain to Lake Dorothy the next day. On Monday (the 20th) when we got to the campground, it wasn't too busy... but when we left on Wednesday, it was PACKED! WOW! We were so glad we had come up when we did because otherwise we wouldn't have had any place to even park the truck! :)

So we camped the first night there on our cushy air mattress and enjoyed eating our delicious hobo dinners and then crashing in the tent.

The next morning, we packed our things up and got our backpacks ready for the climb up. It was about a 3-mile climb, and it was pretty tame in comparison with our last two backpacking trips. We only gained about two-thousand feet on this one... so, not bad. Oh, and the wildflowers on the trail were breathtaking! We saw everything from Monk's Hood to Columbines and Cow Parsnip and Delphinium. I was THRILLED when I found the flower I had never seen before but had always wanted to see: Pink Elephant. My favorite animal is the elephant and the fact that there is a wildflower (which I love flowers, anyway) that looks like an elephant's head is incredible! (It's the first picture...)
On the hike up, we also had a breathtaking view of a HUGE waterfall... it was incredible! It was really running, too... guess there is still a lot of snow melt to feed the waterfall.
There was so much water we walked through, over, and next to on the way up! It was such a gorgeous hike; we could see why it was such a popular trail. There was one pretty big waterfall we crossed over by jumping from rock to rock. Fun!

As we neared the top of the mountain, it got pretty windy. It had been warm on the way up, but as soon as it started to get windy, it also got chilly. We were almost to Lake Dorothy, though... so we just pushed through the wind. There were times that the wind was so strong that it was pushing me sideways (my backpack acted as a big sail!). Once we arrived at the lake, we dipped into a slight valley, so the wind was a bit better.

We found a really cool windbreak shelter that was right next to the lake and pitched our tent next to it so we could use the structure for cooking. After our tent was set up and we had things somewhat arranged, we hiked around the lake and did some exploring.

There was still a lot of snow in the area and even a few icebergs on the lake! One of the floating icebergs was right on one of the shores that we explored and Brian couldn't resist... he had to try to jump onto it! He made it!

There were some mouse-like creatures that we heard first - and then we began to see them darting around on the rocks... but they were bigger than mice. They were about the size of small rabbits! At first, we thought they were baby marmots. But after seeing several of them, we realized that they were not baby marmots, but something else... but what? We had never seen anything like these little guys! They made a cute little squeaking noise. After getting back home and researching it, we found out that they were little "pikas." Come to find out, the anime character Pikatchu isn't a made up little animal after all! Pikatchu is a Pika!

We saw a marmot, too. During the first day when we were there, we only saw the one same marmot hanging around the lake. We never heard any marmot noises (which is a squeak-like noise, but not quite like the Pika noise). "Hmm," we thought. "Maybe he is the only one around here for some reason?" He did have some scars on his back which indicated that maybe he had been in a marmot-scrap and lost. An outcast marmot, perhaps? Fortunately, the next day we did some more hiking around camp and found some others. Whew! There were more up there and the poor little guy wasn't alone. :) This is a picture of the one marmot that was hanging around camp. Brian has a new favorite animal! Marmots are so cute (and funny to watch!).
The night after we made camp, we cooked ourselves some yummy Mountain House dinners (freeze-dried meals that really are quite tasty... just add boiling water). We had green beans and beef stew and hot chocolate and tea. It was a delicious meal! (Brian can certainly cook a good meal!)Even after we ate all of that, we were still a little hungry. Fortunately, Brian had packed an extra meal - Mexican Rice and Chicken. It smelled so good and tasted great.

After dinner, we brushed our teeth and got ready for bed... even though it was only about 8:00pm - we were exhausted. There was still a bit of daylight left, too, which was amazing. I wanted to badly to stay awake and see the stars, so Brian did his best to keep me awake by talking to me and playing Uno (our favorite game!). After beating him at several games in a row, darkness had finally come and we poked our heads outside our cozy tent and gazed at the night sky. It was so cool to see all the stars that are normally washed out by city lights. We were able to clearly see the milky way!

Sleep came easily to us both after such a fun, long day of hiking and playing outside.

I was unaware of when Brian got up and left the tent in the middle of the night... until I heard him outside on the rocks nearby hurling up his Mexican Rice and Chicken! I was dreaming one minute, and then woke up to realize that he really wasn't next to me and he really was outside getting sick! Oh no! (There is always that moment of denial where you say, "No, this isn't happening!")

I found my poor husband out there getting sick in the middle of the night! There wasn't much I could do besides give him hugs and pray that he would feel better. Poor Brian had a throbbing headache and lost pretty much everything in his stomach. :( Finally, after some "midnight star-gazing" we went back to bed (and took some Rolaids that I so conveniently remembered to pack!).

In the morning, Brian felt all better! Wow, I was relieved.

We wanted to try hiking up to the top of Mount Neva which overlooked Lake Dorothy, so we hiked around the back side of the mount after eating some breakfast. On the trail over, we saw some very interesting looking birds... I believe they were White-Tailed Ptarmigans. The hike up the back side of the mount was a climb, but worth the view! We overlooked Lake Dorothy and could just barely see our little tent amongst the rocks. (Can you see the little black speck in the upper left corner near the lake? That was the shelter we found... our tent was right next to it.) We didn't quite make it to the top of Mount Neva, but we were totally satisfied with where we did make it to. It was a very pretty view! We hiked back down to camp and figured it was time to pack things up and start heading back down the mountain. So after paking up our sleeping bags, our tent, and everything else, we said goodbye to the marmots and the pikas and started back out on the trail leading down.

The wildflowers took my breath away on the way down just as much as they did on the way up! What a pretty trail.

Stinky and sweaty, we piled our stuff into the truck and headed home. It was a great trip! I hope that eventually we can get to a point that we can go more often. I'm just glad that I have such a mountain man to go campin' with! :)

The House Finch

A few weeks ago, I (Sara) woke up and walked out into the kitchen to grab my breakfast (our kitchen is connected to our living room which has a gas fireplace). As I poured my daily bowl of cereal, I heard some rustling of feathers that was coming from the fireplace... but I honestly thought it was coming from up in the chimney. Every now and then, I would hear a little "tweet tweet" and so my immediate thought was that we had birds making a nest in the chimney. "Silly birds," I thought. "Now how are we going to evict them?! There is no way to get up on our roof and walk over and take the nest out of the chimney!"

I wandered upstairs for my daily e-mail check and heard the same rustling sound. The sound came and went, and naturally, I assumed that the bird who was building a nest had gone to find more twigs and stuffing during the times there was silence. No... But something was strange. I was sitting at the computer in our loft which overlooks our living room and something just told me that I should look more closely at the fireplace. I really do think it was the voice of God that I heard because as I stared intently at the fireplace, I saw something poke out from below it! There is a little vent under the fire box and something small had just poked out for a brief second and went back in! Instantly, I knew what it was.

I sat my bowl of cereal down and ran downstairs. I examined the vent area and saw that it could be removed with a standard screwdriver, so I ran out in the garage and grabbed the first one I saw in Brian's toolbox. With my screwdriver (and a pair of leather gloves) in hand, I ran back in and pried the vent cover off to find a very frightened little finch stuck under the fireplace!! She was terrified! (I know it was a female now after doing a little research on the marking differences between the males and the females. It was a learning experience for me!) She was so terrified that she was frozen in fear, so the best thing I thought to do was to simply let her be and let her wander out on her own. Her poor little feathers were so ruffled! As I watched from a distance, I saw her hop out from the dark and scary place into the bright living room.

Unfortunately, she found a big window that cannot be opened in our living room and was absolutely convinced that that was the way out. Over and over again she slammed her poor little body in to the glass - when all along there was the big, huge patio door that was totally opened for her RIGHT BELOW the window where she sat perched and frustrated. She could hear her friends outside chirping away, and she even returned their chirping. She sounded so forlorn. I felt so sad for her!

Finally, after almost an hour of flying throughout the house (which must have seemed like an eternity for this poor little finch!), she found a window upstairs that I was able to remove the screen for her and she flew out. Whew! What a little ordeal for this poor little creature.

I think I've seen her once or twice getting a drink from the fountain on our patio that Brian built. I'm glad she is okay!

While I was trying to gently guide her down the patio door with the end of my broom while she sat perched on that big window's sill, it reminded me of how God sometimes tries to gently guide us in the direction that we should go - but we are so convinced that we know better than He does (like she thought the window WAS the way out of her crisis!). The open door may be very near to us, but we are sometimes too stubborn to trust His guidance. It broke my heart every time I heard her hit the glass and try to fly outside; similarly, I am sure it hurts God to see us suffer unnecessarily - especially when He loves us so much and wants what is best for us! Just like how I wanted that little bird to be able to spread her wings and find her friends and play outside, God wants us to be happy.

Anyway, what a little ordeal! I'm so glad that I could be home to rescue the little house finch! (That really is what the name of the bird is... a "house finch" - even though they liveoutside! haha). We called the repair man and had them put a screen around the top part of the chimney so no more little birdies can fly in and get trapped under the fireplace! :)

Our One-Year Anniversary

We made it one year already!

On June 20th, we said "Happy Anniversary" to each other for the first time. :) We had to wait until June 21, however, before we were able to celebrate...

We had planned to go on a camping trip to celebrate our anniversary and planned to leave on June 21 after Brian got back from work that morning (Brian is currently on the midnight shift and usually comes home around 6:30am). When Brian got home from work on the 21st, he came into the bedroom and kissed me awake and then told me that I had to wait before I came out of the bedroom. When he told me it was okay to come out, I found a small box sitting on the floor wrapped in pretty paper. I truly had no idea what could be in the box!

When I opened the box, I saw that it was ammunition for a shotgun.... could it possibly be? I had been drooling over a particular shotgun in the store. Brian had taken me there a few times to go look at it because he knew I liked it so much.

After opening the box of ammo, Brian said I should go look in the garage. When I saw a long skinny box sitting there (he wrapped it up, too!), I knew exactly what it was and I tore into it. There it was! It was the Mossberg!

We played around with it for a little bit and then finished getting all packed up and we headed for the mountains.

There is a certain campsite at Buffalo Creek that we really like, and fortunately it was available on this trip! We made camp; Brian set up a hammock, we pitched the tent, brought down firewood, unrolled our sleeping bags and just enjoyed the scenery for awhile.

That night we ate a delicious campfire dinner under the stars and wished each other "happy anniversary" again!

The next day, after Brian made breakfast, we hiked up to the top of a nearby mountain with a really cool outcropping of rocks on top. We hiked all the way up to the very top! What a view. It was a hot day that day, though, so we thought we should go to the nearby lake and cool off...

We drove up to the nearby lake and rented a canoe. We paddled on the lake for about 2 hours and challenged each other to take a dip in the freezing cold mountain lake. So I stripped down to my bikini and Brian was down to his swim shorts and we took turns dunking our whole bodies into the water. I went first because I am so brave (haha, whatever)... although it did take me awhile before I got the courage to dunk my head under. Brian went next and he "just did it" to get it over with. The cool water did feel good since it was actually really hot up there (even in June!).

After goofing around in the water, I felt something weird in my eye. It started getting pretty red and feeling like there was dirt in it or something... since I get pink eye very easily, I knew exactly what it was. We went to the little shop near the lake and bought some eye drops and I flushed out my eye using half the bottle! With prayers, our hoping, and a little faith, my eye eventually cleared up, but it did take about another day before it was better! Whew! That was close. :)

After we messed around at the lake and ate lunch there on the shore, we headed back to camp. We took this opportunity to bust out the shotgun (and Dad's tiny Ruger that he let us borrow to try out) and also Brian's Glock. We went for a hike to find a good spot for target practice.

We found one - we tied a line between two trees and hung targets from the line since I am a stickler about not shooting up live trees and plants. :) We practiced target shooting for awhile and we had a blast! (Literally, haha.)

I really like my new shotgun. :) Surprisingly, Dad's little tiny gun also did really well. I didn't think I would like it, but truly, I actually did.

That night, like every night, we enjoyed eating a delicious dinner from the dutch oven and we enjoyed some star gazing after dinner. We were surprisingly tired (especially the first night!) so it was all we could do to stay up until a few stars were out...

The next day, we got geared up and went mountain bike riding. We rode a ways on the dirt road that led to our camp (which was an uphill butt-kicker!) and then got to ride a ways on the Colorado Trail. What a beautiful trail! There were Columbines galore and lots of pretty flowers. It was so green! It was also very hot. :) Fortunately, there was more shade on this trail than other trails we have been on in the same area. We passed through lots of aspen meadows and I couldn't resist stopping for some pictures. There was one very technical downhill part that Brian FLEW down (I was amazed at his mad skills) - I enjoyed the downhill riding as well (but I pick my line a little more carefully than Brian does... so it takes me a little longer!).

We enjoyed just hanging out the next day... it began to rain on the final stretch of our ride back to camp, so we pedaled as fast as we could on our return trip "home." Brian used a tarp and strung it between a few trees to make a protective cover that we could cook our lunch under - and we made "beans and weenies" and tuna fish sandwiches for lunch while it rained all around us. We were snug under the tarp while we cooked and ate! For dessert, we had some tasty cherries. Then we snuggled in the tent and played some games and took a nap.

The next day (Wednesday) we had to get ready to come back home. Although we kicked around the idea of never returning back to civilization, we reluctantly packed things back into the truck. Brian said he didn't think I'd like living on squirrel meat, and I told him I would be fine with it. :) I just need lots of vegetables and there wasn't a whole lot to choose from out there in the woods... especially in the winter time. :)

We got most of our stuff packed back up and left out the guns and the shotgun so we could go do some final target practice. Brian also wanted to adjust the sites on my shotgun (yeah, I KNOW it's a shotgun with sites. Don't laugh!). After we blew up some more stuff and our shoulders were thoroughly sore from shooting slugs and birdshot, we finished putting everything back into the truck and headed home.

It was a fun, adventurous trip! We had a fabulous anniversary and we hope to enjoy many more!

Stay tuned for our backpacking trip this July....