The last two weeks...give or take

Here's the deal...the computer broke and blogging is difficult -actually impossible - without a computer. We do still have the work laptops, but neither of us really has the complete hang of Macs yet and we can't upload pictures on the Mac, which takes a lot of the fun out of the blogging experience. So, anyway, we have had a broken computer which should be returned to us shortly. And then there will be some awesome pictures to send out on the blog :-)

A drama:
A few weeks ago we had the oil changed on the car. One week after that, we were driving in to Denver to get Anne Marie and Cathy and suddenly, going up Vail Pass, the car was lurching and going about 30 mph. So we (mostly just me) were freaking out because I am not a big fan of semis riding right up onto our bumper, especially when the only thought going through my mind is how easily they could push us over the side of the mountain! The car reacted much the same way getting up to Eisenhower Tunnel. I only cried once :-) Nick managed to get the car down to the flat-lands, where it performed perfectly, of course. We considered getting a rental car but were hopeful the car issue was just a fluke. Unfortunately, the car freaked out going up the foothills as we were coming back home, so we had to drive back across Denver to the airport (for the 2nd time that day) and get a beauty of a rental. The car did get fixed by some super-nice mechanics in Golden at Planet Honda and we now have new front brakes, a flushed transmission and clean fuel injectors.

2 visits:
Nick's sister was in Denver for an interview with FOCUS, a missionary group she is looking at being a part of after graduation. We spent the day with her on Sunday after her work was done. So we got to hang out with her, eat at Woody's (fire-grilled pizza!) and just spend time catching up. We picked up Nick's mom, Cathy, when we had Anne Marie with us, then left Anne Marie in Denver to catch her flight home, and brought Cathy back up to Eagle.
Cathy came to stay with us for 5 days. She found something to do most days on her own since we were in work, but I think she was really able to explore the area. She did lots of hiking and walking and even spent a day working in Nick's classroom with him. Nick took a day off and went hiking in Minturn with her; they started in Minturn but made it to the back bowls of Vail. It was a lot of fun to share all of the things we like about the Eagle area with her!

Thanksgiving:
We had a great day spending time here at home with some of our new friends. It all started waking up to a slight dusting of snow, which we hoped would stick around but was gone by 12. Church was nice, but we didn't know we were supposed to have taken our bread and beverage for lunch to have our meal blessed by Father Bob. One little boy brought his Capri Sun up to the altar as his drink for Thanksgiving meal! It was cute :-) We had all of the traditional fixings, plus the Macy's parade and lots of football. Tiffany and Niles brought some awesome stuffing and sweet potatoes. I hear the apple pie was also superb! Deb & Kent brought little weenies for appetizers. Poor Kent had to make these silly appetizers to make Nick happy; what they didn't know is I had already made some too! Jeff and his lovely girlfriend Jess (who was visiting Eagle from California) brought rolls and jalapeno artichoke dip with some awesome bread garlic crackers. They also did all the dishes and I will be eternally grateful to them for this! We talked lots, played Scattergories and just had a great time.

Now what???
Well, now that Thanksgiving is over, I can put up Christmas decorations. I'll get started on that today. I'm sure Nick is very excited to carry up all those heavy boxes for me! We will be getting a real tree, so I'll also go down today and get our tag for the tree. Only $10 to the forest ranger for our tree permit, which will allow us to go out in the forest and cut down a tree to haul back. Torrey and Alana will be going on that trip with us, so we'll wait to get the tree til next weekend when they are home.

Also, today is our deadline for ordering the new house. Nick's going to call on it later to make sure everything is a go. The interest rates dropped earlier this week and we signed on to a great rate. So, after today, much more house information to come!

And.........pictures to come once the other computer is fixed :-)

A Special Visit

Yay...we had a visitor! The much-anticipated visit from my sister finally happened. Lindsey flew out on Saturday via Peoria-Denver-Eagle flights. She wasn't a big fan of the puddle jumper she rode from Denver to Eagle, but she made it right on time. We spent Saturday showing her our school, the new house and just basically around all of Eagle and Gypsum. Saturday night we had a few friends (Torrey and Alana from Cali, Torrey teaches with Nick & I and Alana teaches 2nd grade right down the road from the middle school - I think Nick has mentioned them in previous blogs) over for hamburgers (Lindsey insisted upon her cheeseburger!) and a hotly contested game of Phase Ten. Alana pulled it out somehow...no clue how really...and that was our night. CORRECTION: NICK WON PHASE TEN!!! my bad :-)

Sunday we went to church then ventured up to Vail pass for some snowshoeing. It was pretty awesome. Lindsey was very excited that she didn't have to be carried back to the car on a stretcher, so I think it was a pretty successful trip. There was snow (duh...snowshoes) up there but not too much snow just yet. Pretty much the perfect amount for our hike.Monday I took the day off. Lindsey and I had planned to do a hike (Hanging Lake) but the weather was less than pleasant, so we just drove down to Glenwood to look at the pretty views of the canyon. We were lucky enough to see big horn sheep and some mule deer while out on our drive. After we drove the canyon, we decided to go up to Sylvan Lake and catch some more views. For those of you who don't know, I'm a little (or a lot, depending on who you talk to) squirmish on nasty roads...especially those covered in snow and ice. So, Sylvan Lake took every ounce of bravery I had (and maybe some I didn't have??), but we survived. We (aka Lindsey, the one who wasn't driving) got some beautiful pictures of the snow on the lake. The roads up at Sylvan Lake are a red dirt, which turns to mush when it's wet. Which means we slid down the mud worse than when we were on snow or ice. That was a bit freaky, and I did actually stop the car at one point and say OK, I have to take a deep breathe before I can continue driving. Monday's drives were followed by an awesome dinner (with Nicholas, Torrey and Alana) at The Rittenhouse Restaurant in Gypsum. Their Monday night special? $5 burgers with waffle fries and $2 drinks...what could be better than that??

Lindsey was dropped off at the airport this morning (it's fun getting up at 4 am!) with a few hugs and some good wishes. Apparently, it will be a good while before she tries the Denver-Eagle flights again (mountains cause turbulance...what else can I say??), which is fine...we can always drive the 2+ hours over 2 passes to go pick her up :-)

After School Soccer Club and Mt. Lions

The kids in the after school club, do homework after school on Monday and Wednesday, and then on Friday they get to play soccer. I first played with them a couple of weeks ago and we played outdoors on the school field. Tonight I played with them again but we played indoor in the gym. The social studies teacher (who is also new this year from Cali) and I were on the same team. We had 4 teams, all pretty evenly matched. It was a blast. I always forget how much I enjoy playing soccer. It is really fun playing with the Jr. High kids and seeing them learn more everytime we play. I think all but 1 or 2 of the kids are of hispanic heritage. It reminds me of the couple of times that I played soccer with the Mexicans that worked in Effingham. It's really cool to see their passion for the game.

In other news, there was a reverse 911 call last night to some of our neighbors, alerting them to a Mt. Lion being in town and to keep their pets inside. WOW! A mt. lion right in town just down the street from the house.... Wrigley woulda tore him up is probably why he didn't stop by for Sophie's birthday party..... (more on that to come). As we get more snow up in the high country the animals are starting to move down into town. We have seen mule deer in town the past 2 days, 6 of them this morning. In a couple more weeks we have been told the Elk will begin to move into town as well.

A Day of Firsts!!!

Hi! My name is Nicholas Joseph Brummer and yesterday on the 3rd of November, at the ripe old age of 27, I voted in a United States of America election for the very first time! I know, I know, you ask why did I vote so soon after turning 18..... Seriously though, for some reason I really got into this election. I believe it was because there are so many issues facing our great country that I have a personal interest in. Whatever the reasons, I am kind of ashamed that I haven't voted before this, yet at the same time excited that I finally have voted.

We are also witnessing a piece of history, it is the first time in the history of the U.S.A., that we have had an African American President. I pray that he leads our country in a good direction and fights for the issues which I find so important.

Side Note: I had a cool encounter tonight with one of the horned kind. The District Office is a block from our house and I had a meeting with the powers that be to learn about a couple of new intensive reading programs that we are implementing at school. Training was from 4:30-6:00. I got done about 6:30 and was walking home and all of a sudden I see this shadow walk out in front of me on the sidewalk.... (Eyes were still adjusting....) Then all of a sudden I was seeing clearly. About 3 sidewalk cracks in front of me stood a buck mule deer. A small rack of about 8 points or so, and I was like WOW! COOL! Then all of a sudden, I was thinking this thing could freak and decide to attack me, so I started waving my arms and yelling like a madman. The deer just stood and stared at me, like I was some sort of weirdo! (debatable...) Then he kind of trotted back the direction he had come to stand on the street to wait until after the strange thing (me) had passed. After reflecting on this special encounter, I realize how cool it really was, the thing was about 5-6 feet away from me and I didn't even see it until the last second.

Truly a night of firsts.

FRUITA!!!!!

One day earlier this week when Natalie and I were riding in the car I suggested we take an end of the season camping trip down I-70 to Fruita, CO. She was all about it, so Friday night I loaded up the car while we waited for Trick-or-Treaters (we had 0 :( We had gotten a camp and trail map and suggestions from James, one of the teachers at work. Fruita is really known as a high desert Mt. Biking paradise! It's known for how smooth it's trails are. We had Saturday school on Saturday morning from 7-10 and then headed down. It's about 2 hours west toward Utah, only about 20 miles from the Utah border.

The camping is free and we were able to get a great site. We were in the North Fruita Desert area, a.k.a 18 road Book Cliffs recreation area. The site is down over a ledge off the road and set back among the juniper trees. You can't see, but right behind the tent is about a 20 foot drop down into a gulley. After we arrived we got the tent and camp set up and went for a ride. When we returned I found creative ways to hang the bikes...
These are pictures of Natalie and I at the bottom of Prime Cut. We rode up Kesslers Run and down Prime Cut for about 7 miles of riding on sweet smooth singletrack that was rated Blue and Green. You shoulda seen Natalie, she was rippin it up. She was really doing good and it was fun being able to ride with her for a bit. As you can see the terrain is rather dry and barren, yet it was still very beautiful!

Thanks to Chef Natalie we had two amazing meals, pork chops and potatoes with red peppers and Coors Light for dinner, and hash browns and egg and sausage links for breakfast! Here is the Chef herself slaving away over the fire that I had built. I also did the dishes after dinner, although she did them after breakfast so I could go for a ride.
After breakfast we were talking about going for another ride, but unfortunately Natalie had an extremely swollen toe and her back was a little sore (due to the sleeping on rocks...), so she said she would stay with the dogs and clean up camp so that I could still go for a ride and hit some of the more difficult terrain. I ended up getting about 10 miles and rode some black diamond and double black trails. The picture above is on Joe's ridge, taken by Natalie down at camp about 1/4 mile away. This morning was an amazing ride! I did Joe's Ridge down to V7 road and over to Western Zippety. I took this trail up and then took a connector over to Zippety Do Dah and from there had an about 3 mile downhill/rolling section down Zippety Do Dah! These two ride were all along the top of spines and had some good steep drops, some rocks and jumps, and a few breathtaking climbs.

Will we go back? You betcha, next spring I think we will head back. There was good riding for the both of us and the camping was excellent! It was a great short trip with Natalie and the dogs.