Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Vail Visitors

We had the great pleasure of hosting some Blanchard and some Elwood visitors on two consecutive weekends in October.  We had a great time with our families, showing them around some of our everyday sites, as well as discovering some new things.  Thanks for coming to see us Paul and Kim and Richard and Peggy and Heather and Kylie and Megan!  We love you.

P.S. People who may read both The Original Kim Blanchard blog as well as ours will probably feel a little deja vu while reading the first half of this post.  Thanks to Kim for capturing some fun memories that we could steal because we didn't have our camera out as much as we could/should have.

Gregg in the Storm Trooper - ready to give the parents a
grand tour of our new town.
A gorgeous day and a beautiful trailhead that
 we'll have to come explore another time.
Kim and Paul and the lovely, lovely mountains.
Yum!
Picking out a pumpkin at Wildflower Farm.
Guess who?
A peek of color and condos in Vail.
They've been making snow!
Steel Roots ... only Gregg guessed correctly
what these were - the rest of us thought
they were antlers.
In the Ski and Snowboard Museum - the History of Bindings display.
Dinner at Fiesta's.
So SO so yummy!
Ready for church.
The Betty Ford Alpine Gardens.
There were lots of cool benches in the gardens.
The only blooming thing we saw.
The Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater - I want to check
this out in the summer for some sweet concerts!
Exploring in the Children's Garden.
Cute fam.
More snowmaking - on the sidewalk!
Statue honoring the 10th Mountain Division soldiers.
We were lucky enough to be in the museum at the
time that one of the former soldiers, Sandy Treat,
was there telling stories of his experience
 in the 10th. So cool!
Sisters, sisters.
Pretending to warm up by the fire - it wasn't really that cold,
but the gas fire pit was pretty sweet looking,
so we couldn't resist a photo-op.
Camp Hale (or what's left of it) - where the 10th Mountain Division
trained before entering WWII in Italy in 1945,
just a few months before the war ended.
Those rocks across the way are where the soldiers trained in rock climbing.
 They also learned skiing techniques and weaponry while here, too.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Fall in Col...orado

We thought the leaves around our new place were breathtaking, but upon driving up the road a ways, we found that we were quite mistaken. This place is gorgeous!









Thursday, September 29, 2011

As Requested...the New Pad

The front door.

View from the front door across living/dining area to far wall with fireplace.

View from front door to the right of the bar and kitchen.

View from blue couch in the above picture back across the main room.
The front door is on the right.

View of kitchen area from blue couch.

View from kitchen entrance.

Another view from kitchen entrance.

Master bedroom.

Bathroom dos.

View out sliding glass window 1.

View out sliding glass window 2.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

A Hiking We Will Go

I really wanted to get one more hike in before we head out of Logan with our U-Haul loaded and our bags packed.  Luckily I had two sisters and a great friend (pretty much a sister, herself) who were willing to join me on a rather marvelous morning hike on Saturday.  We drove to Blacksmith Fork Canyon and turned up Left Hand Fork where we embarked up the mountain on the lovely Leatham Hollow Trail.  

Total distance according to Jim S in the Blue Bible: 7.4 miles
Total distance according to my pedometer: 10.21 miles
Total hiking time: ~4 hours
Total hiking buddies: 4 - Heather, Megan, Sarah and Kim
Total tissues used because of allergies and colds: half a roll of TP
Total red leaves seen along the trail: millions
Total tears shed because we were laughing too hard: numberless



These cliffs always remind me of the Salt Lake
Temple.  And those clouds you see?  Totally
and completely real!


First glimpse of Leatham Hollow Spring,
hence the name of the trail.


We hiked way above the spring.





Our lunchtime view of Hyrum and the Wellsvilles.




In a word: Glorious!