My boys on the ski lift!
Earlier this month our family took advantage of a local Boy Scouting promotion called “Scout Family Day” at Copper Mountain Resort. A day lift ticket, breakfast, and lunch all for $32 per person!
I had to clarify that this is “Copper” and not “Cooper” because I wrote about Ski Cooper last season. Ironically, the two resorts are very close to each other. More »
I’ve had these for a couple months, sorry it took so long to post these. Enjoy!
Jacob took up cello at his new middle school. It’s been a joy listening to him practice: the 4 years of piano has helped him get a leg up on reading bass clef and understanding things like tempo, dynamics, and rhythm. Here he is playing at his winter concert on November 11th.
Ranger has made great progress integrating with our family. After a couple weeks of separation anxiety issues, we’ve found a great system of crating time with two days of “Doggie Day Care” per week does the trick keeping him happy and healthy. In the picture above he’s lounging on our brand new deck that just finished last weekend: the original deck was rotting and becoming dangerous to use.
We’ve had several medical issues with Ranger; so much so that we were pondering whether it was the right decision to keep him. First of all he was seemingly eating everything in sight. One day, he got into the kitchen trash can, and within a few hours he was acting very lethargic: not eating or drinking. That resulted in a trip to the veterinary ER to get his GI system X-rayed to rule out any stomach or intestinal blockages. Then a couple weeks later Ranger sliced his paw DEEPLY on some metal landscape edging in our backyard and he needed several stitches. That required the “cone of shame” for several days. More »
Globallighting.com
Okay, so I’m not an old master. But I have been scarce.
In the middle of my series of posts about our awesome summer vacation, I dropped off the face of the earth. I predict it was around the time of the first midterm I had to give, and from then on out, I’ve been crazy busy at work, thus coming home exhausted. More »
One of my favorite photos ever. My boys enjoying America’s beauty.
On the 2nd full day of our Grand Canyon trip, we decided to get an early start and hit the Bright Angel Trail.
The Bright Angel Trail originates at the heart of the “touristy” part of the South Rim Grand Canyon park. It’s a well-maintained trail, in part because this is the trail that the mules use for those tours. Because of the accessibility, it’s definitely more crowded than the remote Hermit’s Trail. More »
Hermit’s Rest is on the far western end of the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.
We had made it clear to the boys that we would be hiking at least part of our two days at the Grand Canyon. I saw a list of family-friendly activities in the park summer guide. We chose the Junior Ranger Family Adventure Program, in which families can descend down into the canyon via the challenging Hermit’s Trail. Dave and I wanted to get some exercise, and we were confident our kids could handle it.
Getting to Hermit’s Rest, where the program began, was a task in itself. We drove to the Grand Canyon Village part of the park, where we then caught a bus that took us on the 45 minute drive to the western end of the park. It was a gorgeous drive with several views of the canyon to enjoy. More »
We arrived at our campsite with plenty of time to set up camp. We enjoyed a relaxing evening with a camp stove dinner (I can’t remember what, probably burgers and hot dogs).
We had to walk 1-2 campsites over to reach the restroom building. On one of our walks to the restroom building, we saw this magnificent elk feasting on tree branches. The kids were awestruck, and I rushed over to the truck for our camera’s telephoto lens.
We chatted with the kids about what we were observing: the size of the elk, the size of his antlers (at least 4′), what he was choosing to eat, the trouble he seemed to be having getting his antlers tangled in the tree branches. Enjoy some photos of what we spent about 20 minutes observing. You can see the full album here. Several other nearby campers were similarly photographing it.
Jacob said, “Hey Mom, take a picture of me with the elk!”
Then Timmy said, “Take a picture of me too!” This photo cracks me up!
My favorite of the 70+ photos I took.
Our first views of the Grand Canyon at the Desert View overlook were breathtaking.
The day we stopped at Mesa Verde National Park and the Four Corners Monument, we had to eventually make it to the Grand Canyon campground. It’s only about 5-6 hours worth of driving from Durango, but we made several stops. So we were hard pressed to get to the campsite with enough time to pitch our tents before dark. More »
The Four Corners Monument is a very *short* stop off U.S. 160, at…well…the junction of four states.
You can’t drive between southwestern Colorado and New Mexico/Arizona without stopping briefly at the Four Corners Monument.
The monument is operated by the Navajo Nation. Since we were in the Navajo Nation. We paid an entry fee of $5 per person to enter the monument area, and what I saw was quite surprising. Not in a good or bad way, I simply didn’t know what to expect. More »
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