Bear Lake and Mt. Harvard

To celebrate the 4th of July, Matt and I headed into the backcountry to avoid fireworks at 3am and drunk drivers. It was a beautiful weekend to be out and we went down to the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness Area to hike to a lake and summit a fourteener. It was perfect! The peak was busy (no surprise there), but we were the third and fourth people at the summit before about twenty more people arrived. Guess other people shared our idea! On the way to the trailhead, we stopped in Leadville, CO for lunch. Leadville sits at about 10,000 feet and is a cute old mining turned tourist town. We'd love to come back and explore a bit more sometime.

On the trail to Bear Lake.

A view of Mt. Harvard - 14, 420 feet.

Bear Lake! It was a 5-mile hike to the lake, which obviously is above tree line. Upon arrival, we found the lake to still be half frozen over.

Our tent... it serves us well wherever we go!

We hit the trail about 7ish and hiked only a few miles but gained about 2200 feet to the summit. Mt. Harvard is directly above Matt's head - right over the highest snow field.

It was amazing... the higher we got, the more peaks emerged from behind other peaks.

We made it! We met one other couple on the summit and we took pictures for each other. (Coincidentally, they were originally from Minot. Small world!) It was cool, but not too windy up top. It was about 9:30 when we arrived - well before the afternoon storms rolled in. Somewhere behind us is Mt. Huron, which we hiked a few years ago... oh, and a thousand other beautiful peaks!

This is a zoomed up shot of Bear Lake. You can't see our tent, but it's down there!

Our marmot friend... when we showed this picture to Kathy and Jill, who came out for a visit in July, Kathy said, "What? A MarBOT?"

The rock on the bottom left is the exact top of Mt. Harvard.

Standing on the exact peak wasn't possible, but Matt settled for a giant bear hug instead!

This is on the way down. We stayed at the summit for about an hour, taking pictures, soaking up the scenery, and eating a TERRIBLE power bar that I got on sale at the grocery store. Typically, even questionable food tastes like a feast on the trail, but this power bar was awful. I think it was because it gritted in my teeth (like sand) and had cocoa and chili powder in it. Ew. But it was energizing!

Behind Matt is Mt. Columbia, another fourteener. (Fourteeners are mountains in CO that are over 14,000 feet tall. There are 54 of them. Matt and I have officially hiked two: Mt. Huron and Mt. Harvard!)

I love taking pictures of trail signs to make sure we remember where we hiked!

Carbondale!

We spent June 23-27 back in Carbondale attending the summer church conference. It was an incredible conference with an Unshakeable Faith theme. It was absolutely wonderful to be back at the church and with our friends!! We missed them so much! It was a busy visit with the conference and trying to squeeze in as many lunch/dinner dates with friends as possible. We also got to meet our BFF's new daughter, Peanut (not her real name), who was just over three months old then. And we played a bunch with Peanut's big sister! So sweet! We have some of these same picture poses that were taken the very evening that Matt and I left to move to CO. Hilarious! We stayed one night with our BFFs to try to soak them up as much as possible. Time went way too quickly.... (Matt, me, Michelle, Cory, Andy)
LOVE this pose. Totally my new favorite! Isn't it hilarious? But I can't take credit for the idea. I need to thank our friend Skyler. He's a creative genious.

Me and Michelle (AKA Peanut's (and Peanut's big sister) Mom)

Playing beanbags in the Southern Illinois heat and humidity. THAT we don't miss. At all.

Our other BFFs! You might recognize these two as our backpacking companions from last summer's summer trip to Colorado. We love Doug and Tiff! They were generous enough to let us stay at their house while we were in town. We had so much fun catching up!

Second Work Crew Arrives!

Looks done, right? Ummm....

Can I just take a moment and brag on my husband for a bit? Matt has really added some new tools to his collection and learned some new tricks and skills for himself. Matt's the kind of guy who says, "What's the worst that can happen?" And then he proceeds to tackle a project head on. Every outcome is a quality project that was done well, without any shortcuts taken. Guaranteed. That's just how Matt does things! I love it. With the house, Matt's agreed to take on multiple projects that he's never done before, and time and time again, they all turn out wonderfully! Below is the entry tile. The old tile stopped about 3 feet after the door, but we blew that right out of the water and extended it about 10ish more feet for a nice, big entry. Matt and I came up with the pattern, picked out the tile, and then Matt cut and laid the tile himself. And doesn't it look beautiful? See what I mean? I'm not lying. Matt ALWAYS does quality work!
Our second worker arrived on June 19th! In the 10 days between when my parents left and when Jean arrived, Matt and I were really busy prepping all the rooms for paint and Matt laid tile like a crazy man. In the time that Jean was here, from Fri-Tues, we painted 6 rooms, trimmed another one, and painted 8 closets. Whoa. It was really intense! I'm not sure Jean knew what she was getting into, but she was a hard worker! We literally painted the entire time she was here! One night she was here, we ordered pizza and had it delivered to the house. Not having any plates, we used clean paint tray liners. It worked pretty well and the pizza was delicious. What doesn't taste good when we were starving?

Here's the entry tile with the spacers still in. See where I mean when I said that the old entry tile stopped about 3 feet in - at the banister? It was way too small!

Calling For Backup.... Dad? Mom?

I'm terrible at remembering to upload the pictures in reverse order, scroll down if you want to start at the "beginning". Let it be noted that Matt and I spent a whole week scrubbing the kitchen and working in the house BEFORE Mom and Dad arrived. It's not like we sat around eating bon-bons and watching soap operas before our work crew arrived! Mom and Dad came out for a week to help with the repairs and various projects. Matt and I loved showing them the house and they were a HUGE help to us throughout the week! Plus, 8 hands are so much better than 4!

Our HUGE load to the dump - we had a coupon for a free dump so we unloaded all this crap for free! Score!

Matt and Dad standing proudly on their finished product. The bamboo floor took two days to put in, and after some very sore knees and one close incident with the nail gun going through Dad's glove THISCLOSE to his thumb, it looks just beautiful! We love it!

I have taken many pictures with Matt and Dad's heads together working on one project or another. About half of those times are us prepping for a move, but a majority of the other ones are car repairs. Now we have a new category - home repairs!

Not that this really needs to be remembered, but can you take a guess as to how Dad is able to reach the ceiling, when right underneath his feet drops down to the lower level? Two words: makeshift scaffolding. Two words I really loathe.

Putting the first paint color on the walls! This is the green in our living room. It was so exciting!

We're In!

Whew! Now that we're officially living in our house, I should be able to post more of what we've been doing for the past two months! I have done a terrible job at keeping up!! No one to blame but myself on that one. Bummer. It will take several installments, but I'm ready to tackle the tast!

Let's start with a quick summary of our summer so far:
- working on the house like mad, day and night, every day of the week
- Matt and I went to Carbondale, IL to attend the church's summer conference
- my sisters came out for a 5-day visit where we giggled, got pedicured, took a tram ride (against my better judgement), shopped, garage saled and laughed some more
- Matt's been umping baseball games this summer, which makes for some long days for him! Good thing he likes it so much!
- we've snuck out for a few backpacking trips, when we either needed a break from the house or we just couldn't pass up the beautiful weather!

Ok, TONS of pictures are coming!

Day 21

21 days into being home owners, Matt and I are losing energy. Poor Matt has been working 10+ hour days and then coming home to no dinner and going straight to the house to work. And this week, he's been umping some baseball games through Rifle Park and Rec Dept. As if he doesn't have enough going on, right? My "summer job" gets me up at 6ish and at the house usually around 7, only to work for the remainder of the day. On a positive note, I can now sing along to about 8 straight hours of listening to my favorite radio station, KLOVE - every single word to every single song. Score!

I've been terrible at posting pictures, but I've been great about taking them! Sometime, when things slow down (2010 is looking open so far) I'll post a few of the changes in the house. My mom and dad can attest first hand to how dramatic the changes are! Tomorrow, Matt's mom is coming out for a long working weekend. We have LOVED the help and it makes the work so much fun! (Thanks Moms and Dad!)

Just because I love a good funny story, I'll share my most recent "can you believe that?" moment with you. On one of the many trips to Lowe's, I went to retrieve a flat cart so Matt could load up some tile and materials. Well, those things aren't really easy to steer, so as I was coming out of an aisle with the cart, I had to abruptly stop so I didn't hit a guy, who was just sauntering along. I said, "Oops! Excuse me!" and carried on after he walked by. Just after that, I heard him say something to the effect of, "That's a woman driver for ya!" CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? It was a shopping cart, guy. No big deal. You're fine. I didn't even hit him at all. It wasn't even a close call. Maybe he was joking, but I didn't take the time to turn around and find out. I was finished with him.

Also, a recent visitor to the house asked me, "Is that window open?", pointing to a recently cleaned window. I rejoiced, hugged her, and thanked her for the compliment! There was a window pane there, but it apparently looked so clean that it wasn't even there! YES! :)

Ok, I'd better get back to work. My hands are craving Purple Power or a paintbrush...

What's for dinner?

Two weekends ago (I know I'm behind!) Matt and I went hiking in White River National Forest, which is a short 15 miles from Rifle. It's great to be so close to trails! Anyway, we spent 4-5 hours out hiking and actually saw some pretty fresh bear tracks and a wild turkey. What an odd combination! After the hike, we stopped at Rifle State Park, which we drove through to get to the national forest, so Matt could do a bit of fishing. While Matt was busy catching dinner for us, I was snoozing in the truck. Just as I was about to really fall asleep, Matt came over to the truck with a pretty nice fish! I took his picture and he headed back to the creek to catch some more trout. He made them for dinner on Sunday night - VERY delicious! :)