Snowboarding at Copper Mountain

A main reason for us to road trip out to Denver, Colorado was to snowboard with our friend Nate. We had bought a discounted pass for four days at Copper Mountain that we were looking forward to using. In addition to being excited, I was also a bit nervous. I hadn't been out snowboarding yet this season, and I'm still learning and improving technique. The memory of breaking my wrist the first time I ever went out snowboarding is also still fairly vivid.  

We woke early on Monday to drive from Nate's parents' home in Denver to Copper Mountain with the promise of fresh snow on the slopes. Unfortunately the snow also made driving through the mountain pass a little more treacherous. Treacherous, but so beautiful. I always forget how giant and stunning the mountains are. We didn't make it to Copper for first lift, but arriving without disaster and ascending the mountain only 30 minutes later was just fine. 

Going up on the lift

Beautiful mountains

So majestic

With the first run down the mountain I was happy to realize that all the new skills I had attained during last year's snowboard season had been retained. What a relief! In fact, after a few times up and down I was improving from last year. Brandon coached me on some new drills to work on and switching between toe and heel edge began to become much more natural than before. I still lack speed though, and most of the time I just took my time down the mountain while Brandon and Nate sped past me. Nate was impressively fast on his skis as usual and Brandon spent some time weaving his way through the trees and working on jumps and rails. So fancy. 

Making my way down the mountain

Nate getting ready to speed off

Brandon crushing the jump

We stayed in a cheap hotel in Silverthorne to hit the slopes on Tuesday as well and avoid the drive back and forth from Denver. My quads were killing me, and Brandon and Nate admitted to some aches by the end of the day as well. Of course, I knew the stretches to take care of my legs (physical therapy = good career choice!) and most importantly actually did them. Those stretches paid off on the mountain the next day. It was another day of frigid fun. 

Showing off my classy helmet hair during a break to eat lunch and stretch

On the way back to Denver on Tuesday night we stopped at our favorite Colorado pizza place, Beau Jo's. The two distinguishing characteristics of Beau Jo's are that you order your pizza by the pound and that you're served honey with your pizza to put on the crusts as you eat them. It's a delicious combination! We easily consumed two pounds of pizza between the three of us. We probably could have dug into three pounds, but not without some discomfort. 

Beau Jo's Colorado Style Pizza

Mmmm. So good. 

After a rest day in Denver on Wednesday, we headed out to Copper Mountain again early Thursday morning. Quite opposite of the bitter cold on Tuesday the temperature reached the mid-forties by Thursday afternoon. We all had a good day on the mountain except for Brandon receiving a sizeable bruise from a rail. Don't worry. He's fine. Of course, we couldn't resist returning to Beau Jo's again in the evening. 

Good times

We were hoping to use the fourth and final day on our pass before leaving Colorado, but it was not to be. We were too tired to return to the mountains on Friday. Weekends are super busy on the slopes, but we were willing to go on Saturday if Nate's friend Chris could come. Some bad weather was on the forecast for the weekend, so we were going to need to leave earlier than expected to continue out to California, Saturday afternoon at the latest. The hope was to leave from Copper on Saturday after snowboarding. Alas, Chris was not able to make it, so Nate wouldn't have a ride back to Denver. 

Even though we didn't get in the fourth day, we still got our money's worth from using three days. Plus, we could still use that fourth day when we return to Colorado in March. Most of all, I'm happy to report that we all had a great time together at Copper Mountain with no broken bone or torn tissue (just some bruises and sore muscles) over those three days. Success! 

On the Road from QC to Denver

After spending several days in the Quad Cities we left on Friday, January 22nd, to head further out West. We left around 10:30 am so that we could stop for lunch at a gas station near the Amana Colonies. Generally, lunch at a gas station doesn't sound appetizing. But being near the Amana Colonies this gas station has really good sandwiches made with meats, cheeses, and breads from the Amish. I was skeptical when Brandon took me for the first time on a visit to Lincoln a year and a half ago, but he's right...the sandwiches make for a delicious road trip. 

 Gas station near the Amana Colonies with a delicious secret

Delicious sandwich loaded with Amish meat and cheese on some German black bread

After just six hours down I-80 we were able to stop in Lincoln, Nebraska for the night. We're so thankful to have Brandon's brother and his family living in Lincoln to visit with and help break up this leg of the trip to Denver, Colorado. We had fun catching up with family and learning how to play the game Zombie Dice. We were even able to see Brandon's dad as he drove in from South Dakota to coach our nephew's basketball team on Saturday. 

After a wonderful evening and morning with everyone we were torn between staying for our nephews' basketball games that afternoon or getting on the road to Denver. Our friend Nate had already flown into Denver the day before, and we didn't want to keep him waiting too long. So we decided we should head out. It's too bad the basketball games weren't earlier in the day. But, we'll be staying in Lincoln for a month this summer, so we can look forward to watching our nephews play a lot of baseball. 

So, we continued down I-80 to I-76 to Denver. I have to say that the seven hour trek felt much longer than that to me. Maybe it was because we had already driven six hours the day before. Maybe it's because I'm not good at sitting still. Maybe it was the somewhat monotonous scenery. I'm not sure. But, we made it safely to Denver and were thankful for good weather and traffic all the way there. Upon our arrival we were warmly welcomed by Nate and his parents. Shortly thereafter we began planning what days would be best to drive into the mountains to ski and snowboard and make good use of our Copper Mountain passes. More fun to come! 

Buffalo Bill Cody cut-out contributing to the Nebraska scenery 

Lovely sunset in Eastern Colorado highlighting our dirty windshield

Our January QC Visit

The first stop of our road trip was of course the QC. We had spent a little bit of time there during Christmas. But that was a whirlwind of family get togethers, not leaving much time to catch up with our friends in the area. So we wanted to make sure we fit in some more time for them before we head further out west. Plus we also thought it'd be nice to hangout more with my mom and grandma without the holiday busyness. 

During the mornings and afternoons we did a variety of different things to keep busy since most the people we wanted to hangout with worked during the day. Katie crocheted some more and managed to complete her afghan! We went over to hangout with my mom at her work a couple times. We also made it out to my Grandma's place a couple times at the fancy Fountains. There we caught up on life, ate lunch once, and even managed to track down plane tickets for getting to Spain since we were able to use the fancy Fountain's WiFi. So it was both fun and productive: Win Win!

Just chillin under our newly completed afghan! 

Also, since it was bitterly cold and we still needed to get in some exercise, we decided to take up the typical retirement activity of mall walking, sampling the scenery at both the North Park and South Park malls. For what it's worth, North Park was way better since the recent renovations on South Park are just dumb. They at least still have Chick-fil-a and an Orange Julius. But I am quite proud to say that I resisted the temptation to get either. We did however pick up a couple of sugar cookies from Old Town Bakery (not in the mall) since our efforts to get one were thwarted the last time we attempted. If you've never had one or it's been a while, its worth a visit for sure! We even had them brought in by my mom for our wedding all those years ago. 

Katie with her cookie. Exciting times!

Our free time wasn't all fun and games though. We ran errands. We had to deal with more insurance stuff as well as get our car checked out by a mechanic. But the good news is that there really did not seem to be any additional damage from the accident we had the week before. Huzzah!

[Disclaimer: The rest of our QC tales are sadly lacking in the picture department. I missed the opportunity to picture document tacos, a cat, and fun times with some super awesome friends. For this I apologize. Hopefully my words will paint a good enough picture for us all.]

In terms of the times with our friends, on Monday we hung out with my good friend Mike and his fiance Anna. We met them at Mike's place and ordered the QC delicacy Harris Pizza. It was quite delicious! We even got two free pizzas since the first two were a little burned, so they made us new ones and let us keep the old ones too. If you've never had Harris Pizza, you are missing out. Since it had been awhile, we all chatted a lot and caught up on life. It seemed like there must be lots to catch up on since the first thing we learned when we walked in the door was that Mike has a cat! Technically it was Anna's cat, but still, seems like something Mike would have mentioned to me since we usually chat online once a week or so. Their cat's name is Zahra, and she was awesome and super friendly. She especially liked Katie, so much so that I'm pretty sure Katie wants to steal Zara. Watch out Mike and Anna! :) We also watched some episodes of Parks and Rec and ended the night by doing a kickboxing/martial arts workout video since that what they do on Monday nights. It wouldn't have been too bad except for the pizza sitting heavy in our stomachs. But it was still a fun way to live life with them for at least one night. 

Tuesday night we met up with our friends Auzie, Kristy, and their two kids at La Flama Mexican Restaurant. The food was great. We ordered tacos! Though good tacos are easy to find in the QC since there are so many great Mexican restaurants. It was really nice to catch up with them. We exchanged stories of the last few months. We were especially eager to share with them about our time in Melbourne given that we someday hope to return to Australia with Auzie and Kristy. After all it is Auzie's homeland and they are just an awesome couple who we want to take everywhere with us. Our time with them was too short, but that just means we all the more look forward to the next chance we get to see them again.

Wednesday night we met up with our friends Liz and Christian at a new burger place in town called Central Standard. The burgers were quite good, but we felt their $3 charge for changing/"upgrading" our sides without telling us there was an up-charge was a bit lame. But at least again we had a great time catching up with two very awesome people. Afterwards we went back to their house to see their dog Ren and catch up a bit more over a little beer tasting. Good times were had indeed! Hopefully we'll get to do some travels with them in the future as well.

Thursday night we were treated to appetizers and dessert at TGI Fridays by my mom. She was given a gift card and wanted to take us out for a food adventure. It was tough to pick what we wanted, but our choices ended up being quite delicious. Afterwards we picked up the movie Tomorrowland from RedBox to watch that evening. It ended up being pretty decent. 

And that covers our time in the QC. It was a great visit! We took off Friday morning and continued our road trip onward and westward. Thanks to all our friends and family that we got to see while we were in town. I know we missed several people, but hopefully we'll get to see you all next time. 

Cheers!

Our Winter Road Trip Begins!

As we mentioned in the last post, we ended taking one extra day to hang around Grand Rapids to recover from our day of extreme "adulting". But we got the car packed and hit the road on Sunday (January 17th) without any problems.

The trunk packed full.

Just a few things overflowed to the backseat. But not too bad.

Pre-road trip smiles. We'll see if we're still smiling like that after driving across the country and back

Took this about 90 miles into the trip. Let's see how many miles we put on our poor car Lucille.

Sadly by waiting a day we missed a window of good weather for easy driving. Sunday we ran into some lake effect snow along I-196 and a bit on I-94. But once we hit Indiana it was smooth sailing from there, and we still made it to the Quad Cities before dinner. 

We also quickly realized that we didn't quite have all our electronics prepared for this trip like we usually do. Normally we try to have my phone pre-loaded with an assortment of music, audio books, and a couple sermons. But those steps in our trip prep were forgotten.  Luckily everything we need is online, so we could take care of downloading that stuff once we got the QC and could use someone's WiFi. We made do with the radio, Katie's old iPod, and games we made up as we drove.

In terms of being the first leg of a long multi-week road trip out West, it was a pretty good start. Lets hope for days just as good, if not better, for the rest our trip. 

Cheers!

"Adulting" and the Rule of Three

Well, we started our road trip on Saturday without driving anywhere all day. I guess that's another way of saying that we decided to leave on Sunday instead. Friday turned out to be a traumatic day of "adulting" so we weren't quite prepared to leave Michigan. 

I thought Brandon and I had made up the word "adulting", but a google search proved otherwise. Apparently it's a thing. Urban dictionary defines it as the following: Adulting (v): to do grown up things and hold responsibilities such as, a 9-5 job, a mortgage/rent, a car payment, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups. 

There are many benefits of adulting (including eating ice cream or cheesecake for any meal you want), but, of course, all good things come with difficulties and responsibilities as well. The first chore of adulting on Friday required us to make sure our car insurance company had our new address. We've changed our address to my parents' house after giving up our rental in Holland. The insurance company required current pay stubs or utility bills to prove our new address, both of which we don't have as we're not working or renting a place. We had done the address change on our driver's licences, so we were hoping that would suffice, but we hadn't heard back if the change was accepted or not. Brandon chatted with the insurance company online and they straightened the situation right away. It was a blessedly easy interaction. 

A second session of adulting occurred on Friday after discovering that our health insurance company had not been receiving our electronic automatic payments set up through our bank and was terminating our health insurance. What?! We had done all the appropriate paperwork for this payment system weeks ago. And the company had already been doing this for our health account with them last year. And, despite requesting paperless communication from them we learned all of this from paper mail. Seriously?! After many discussions with our insurance agent and the health insurance company, it was determined that our insurance plan from last year had never been cancelled. Ironic, since we wanted to keep that one, but the insurance company required us to drop that plan and get a better one. Brandon is 30 years old, and apparently at 30 years old your health is depleted enough that you are required to have a plan with a lower deductible. So, in the end we had two health insurance plans and confusion of the automatic payments. Brandon did his best to resolve the whole thing, but with it being a Friday and the weekend coming, we're still going to have to check in again next week to get it all sorted. 

Unfortunately the "Rule of Three" of the universe required that we had to have one more incident of unfortunate adulting on Friday. So on our way to get some errands done around town we were rear ended by another car. Arghhhh! We weren't at fault; the road was wet and the 20 something year old driver failed to pay attention and apply his brakes soon enough. The hood of his car was clearly a bit crumpled, but we had no visible damage other than some small paint loss. The bumper did its job. Despite having no visible damage we now had to worry that there could be hidden damage and we were leaving on our road trip out West the next day and it was too late on a Friday afternoon to have our car looked at with the weekend fast approaching. Arghhhh again! 

Since then we've test driven our car a couple times and there seems to be no issues. We thought at one point during our test drives we smelled smoke, but oddly it smelled more like cigarette smoke. Upon further investigation we found a cigarette butt smashed on the driver's side floor, so Brandon must have accidentally tracked it in during our errands. The universe was just not on our side Friday. But at least it wasn't something wrong with our car. Thankfully, our car insurance company is a large national corporation so we can always have things checked out in the Quad Cities if something comes up in the next few days. And, most importantly there was no bodily injury. 

So with all that adulting and the "Rule of Three" we gave up on leaving on Saturday and pushed back our road trip a day. Life improved with a visit to our friends, the Blanskis, on Friday night and then hanging out with Pauley on Saturday and doing some productive Spain planning. We gave ourselves more time to pack and to relax. So now we're calmer and ready to go. Onward and out West! 

What We've Been Up To Around the New Year

The main event of our time back in the Midwest has been Christmas, of course. This year we had Christmas Day with Brandon's family. In the five days we spent in the Quad Cities we had six family gatherings to attend. Admittedly this was exhausting, but it did give us a chance to catch up with a lot of family, many of whom we hadn't seen for awhile. Besides the obvious highlight of spending time with family there were several other things that stood out: 

• We caught up with friends Andrew and Kady and their twins over Habanero's Mexican food
• Brandon helped a nephew and niece follow in his footsteps and make a duck tape wallet
• The massaman curry we learned to make in Thailand won third place in a family cooking competition where the key ingredient was cinnamon
• We shared our homebrew Ghiradelli Stout, Saugatuck Neopolitan Stout, Bells Expedition Stout, and Founders KBS with Brandon's uncle
• We enjoyed a Whitey's hot fudge banana shake
• We stayed at the Fancy Fountains with Brandon's grandma 
• We participated in a sock exchange and came home with some pretty sweet patterned socks

Many of the cousins on one side of Brandon's family

Quad Cities favorites

After returning from the Quad Cities we celebrated Christmas with my family. My brother lives a full day's drive away in the UP, so it was a treat to see him and have everyone together. We enjoyed our traditional meal of twice baked potatoes and chicken cordon bleu and watched the dog try to open his Christmas present as usual. 

We rang the New Year in by rock climbing for several hours with much of our climbing group and then going out to Old Chicago. We did this last year too, and we think it's become a fun tradition. New Years Day we celebrated with a brunch at the Horos' new house. It was fun to see many friends there and help the homeowners envision how they could incorporate an indoor trampoline and rock climbing wall into their new home. Seriously, the space was perfect for those additions. 

Obviously, we've had a stint where we didn't blog much. I'm not sure why. We've been busy in the evenings, but we've also had plenty of down time during the day since the holidays are over. I hesitate to say this, but I even think I've experienced some boredom during the days. Brandon has been varying degrees of sick for the past three weeks so I'm often without my partner in crime at my side or we just do low key activities like watching multiple episodes of Doctor Who. And, of course, everyone else has been occupied by the holidays and working. In desperation I've taken up crocheting and started with the ambitious project of an afghan. Thanks to my sister's extreme patience in teaching me, I've made excellent progress. And, I've rather enjoyed the process. 

About halfway thru crocheting the afghan

When Brandon has been feeling well we've done plenty. We've been climbing at least once a week. We took a hike in Saugatuck Dunes with my sister and brother. I had dinner with my friends Rachel and Christie and saw Rachel's new house and puppy. We made a Thai meal of hot basil chicken stir fry, khao soi, and sticky rice and mango for my parents. Both Brandon and I have visited our workplaces and co-workers. We had lunch with some Holland friends, Craig and Vicky. We've visited the Blanski's just down the street from my sister's house. And, we've found new snow gear to replace Brandon's worn things. 

On the beach at Saugatuck Dunes State Park

Lake Michigan was quite windblown that day

This past weekend we've kept busy as well. We had a fun game night with friends. We went to Hillsdale to see our niece and nephew play basketball, which is amusing since the kids are still learning the game. We also went to a skating party with the family and managed not to injure ourselves. And, we've spent some time in Lansing battling viruses both physically (darned colds) and in the game Pandemic Legacy with Nate. In Lansing we were also able to attend Riverview Church, which feels like home to us, and have lunch with friends John and Sarah and their baby. Monday night we were able to have dinner and catch up with another Lansing friend, Jenell. 

Me and Charissa managing to stay upright on our skates for a picture

Pandemic Legacy: We're trying to save the world

The weekends and evenings have kept us busy, but midday of a weekday can go by slowly after a week or so. In the slowness of the daytime I think I've realized the importance of working. Working not just to fill time, but also to bring more purpose and meaning to life. Working may not have to be a normal job; it could also be volunteering or something. But, I've seen more clearly how I (and probably most of us) am not just meant to be completely idle, but need and want to be involved in something meaningful to me and others. There's definitely a balance there...I'm still working on discovering it. 

Winter Road Trip Plans

Yes, we know. We haven't made a blog post in a very long time. We've been frequently asked "What's next for you guys?" and "Are you looking for jobs yet?". The answer is that no, we're not making decisions about jobs yet. Instead we're headed on a road trip out West for the next couple months to visit and spend time with some friends. 

Our plans continue to fluctuate on a nearly daily basis, but for now we're planning on leaving Michigan this Saturday, January 16th. It's definitely come quickly! We're finding that we're jamming a lot into our last week in Michigan what with seeing my parents one last time, climbing at our local gym one last time, catching up with a few more friends, starting the packing process, and recovering from some nasty colds. 

Our first stop is the Quad Cities for nearly a week. We were able to catch up with a lot of family during the holidays, but missed out on time with our friends there. So, we're hoping during that week to catch up on life with a bunch of friends as well as spend time with Brandon's mom. 

After the Quad Cities, we'll be driving out to Colorado for our first snowboarding of the season. We and our friend Nate were able to get an awesome deal on a four pack of lift tickets for Copper Mountain that were are excited to make use of. Nate is flying to Denver to join us for a little over the week, and we'll be able to stay with his family there. 

From Denver we'll be driving all the way to our friend Becky in Santa Cruz, California. When we visited her about a year in a half ago we had a hard time tearing ourselves away after just a week. We're hoping to spend at least three weeks out there to live life with her. Her life includes a lot of rock climbing, which we're thrilled to be a part of. I'm sure we'll also enjoy some warm weather and the ocean as well. 

As incentive to eventually leave California again, we have our friend Jill to visit in Park City, Utah. It's been far too long since we've seen her smiling face. We'll get to spend at least a week and a half living life with her, which will definitely include some snowboarding. 

Our time frames for California and Utah are pretty flexible. We just need to reserve enough time to make the drive back to Colorado for the week of March 7th. That week is spring break for our nephews in Nebraska. The family is headed to Granby Ranch in Colorado for a spring break ski trip, and we get to join them and Brandon's dad there for a couple days on the slopes. 

As luck would have it, my good friend Heather is a teacher and her spring break is the week of March 14th. So after some time with family we'll get to spend some time in Fort Collins, Colorado with Heather and Jonathan and meet their new baby. We'll then bring the trip full circle and return to the Quad Cities for the wedding of our friends Mike and Anna on March 19th before returning to Michigan. 

Whew! A lot of planning, coordinating schedules, and driving, but it should all be worth it! Of course, the whole plan depends on the ability of our little blue Ford Focus, Lucille, to make it through the weather and the mountains. It's bound to be an adventure! 

A possible route from Michigan to California and back. That's a lot of miles and a lot of hours. Hopefully the only car maintenance we'll need is an oil change and tire rotation.