Home Sweet Midway: March 2009

Oh s(no)w it did not!

27 March 2009

So Jake and I are training to run the Park City Marathon on August 22. We were motivated by a book called the Non-runner's Marathon Trainer that takes you step by step from not running at all to running a Marathon in just over 5 months! We may not be sexy now but we will be by August! Anyway, it's been beautiful weather in Denver the past month or so but yesterday mother nature decided to do THIS! (I took these on my cell during my run so they're not that great, but you get the idea!)

School was canceled so there were lots of kids playing in the snow.
This is the trail we run on that heads out of neighborhood and back behind our house.

Looking down from our neighborhood towards Denver.

It runs behind our house and all the way to our church and the community pool. It's awesome.

Durango/Mesa Verde National Park

16 March 2009

Jake had a business trip to Durango, Colorado and since he was driving, Dash and I decided to tag along. It was a BEAUTIFUL drive through the San Juan River Valley, thru Pagosa Springs and on into Durango. Before we headed back we stopped by Mesa Verde National Park for a couple hours to see the cave dwellings built in 1200 A.D. It was amazing!

San Juan River Valley, nearing Pagosa Springs, CO.

It was about a 6 hour drive from Castle Rock to Durango, and another 1.5 hours to Mesa Verde.

Durango, CO.

MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK Mesa Verde offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.

Spurce Tree House, looking down from the Museum

Panoramic pic of the cliff dwellings

Dash at the Spruce Tree House

A ladder that leads down to a ceremonial room.

The "Cliff Palace" is the largest cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde. It has 150 rooms and 75 open areas. Twenty-one of the rooms are kivas, and 25 to 30 rooms have residential features. The number of Ancestral Puebloans living in Cliff Palace at any one time was 100 to 120.

The Cliff Palace

On the long ride home... chewing on his favorite parrot

Treasure Falls

Ice Climbing

Jake met up with some of his good friends for an ice climbing festival near Gunnison, CO.

Jake's friend Derek climbing. I guess this climb took almost 4 hours.

This is Jake doing his first ice climb ever!

Just another day at the office

Ever since we got this thing, Dash hasn't stopped bouncing... and I don't mean just while he's in it either. He bounces while he's eating, he bounces in church, he bounces ALL DAY LONG. And he's so focused on his bouncing that he doesn't like to be interrupted-especially by a pesky photographer. We say "don't bother Dash, he's in his office."

Fearless

There's a pasture by our church where there are horses grazing so we took Dash for a walk to see if Jake and I genetically passed on our fear of horses. Apparently not.

Turn your volume all the way up for the video.. his laughs are the best!

Don't call CPS..

Dash has a thing with burying his face in stuffed animals while he sleeps. I swear I don't encourage this type of behavior. I just give him something to play with and next thing I know he's doing this!

Wendy Turns Old in Steamboat

15 March 2009

For my birthday, Jake's family reserved their timeshare for us at Steamboat Springs for 5 days. Steamboat is a resort town about 3.5 hours drive from where we live. We invited our friends Desi and her kids and up for a couple days and our friends Shauna & Doug and their kids for the weekend. We took turns watching kids so we could get a day of snowboard in and it was soo fun!