A Saturday Drive

Yesterday we took a drive, happy to spend the day just looking and talking and relaxing. The drive had been suggested by the custodian at school - so a big shout out to Consuelo for the excellent recommendation. The colors have really started to change, and we wanted to check it out. We were told the drive was not for the faint of heart, and since Nick is not (which implies I am, and is probably pretty close to the mark), we decided to give-it-a-go.

The drive started out in Eagle, went west on 70 to Glenwood Springs, which is always beautiful going through the canyon. At Glenwood, we caught 82 east and headed down to Aspen. Nick tells me Lance Armstrong just purchased a place in Aspen. It's probably safe to say we will never be able to afford a place in Aspen; I balk at the $8.50 it cost us for one turkey sandwich on plain, store-bought bread. Anyway, from Aspen, you continue on 82 east where there are lots of viewing places alongside the road. So we stopped a number of times, to look, take pictures, let the dogs pee, and have lunch - the one sandwich we were splitting with 2 bags of chips :-)

The lunch stop happened at Independence Ghost City. It wasn't very scary, as Ghost Cities are prone to be, but it was beautiful. It's crazy the little towns people set up in the 1800's. Independence was settled because of the gold mining opportunities. I'm not sure gold would have been enough to convince me to settle at that particular point...10,000 ft + in altitude, I'm sure winters were not very forgiving. But it's very interesting anyway, and they still had some buildings left standing, so it was cool to look at.

After lunch, we continued on up a steep drive. I only questioned the ability of two cars to be on the road at the same time once...so the road wasn't as bad as I had thought it might be. It was at least paved the whole way, which is more than I can say for some of the other expeditions we have been on! At the top of the pass we got out and walked around a bit. We had made it above the treeline and there wasn't much color at this point. We did see snow, but not much else.

We were both apparently feeling pretty adventurous, because I drove us down from the top of the pass back to Eagle. The drive down brought us back into some beautiful colors. Nick was taking pictures out the window like crazy. It was an awesome fall day. We went through Leadville, Minturn and Red Cliff, and finally stopped in Avon to shop for a bit before heading home.

It didn't seem like we should have been too worn out, but we were pooped. And so were the dogs. We capped off the excellent day with a trip out for dinner to a place in Eagle. The lettering on the building reads "Mexican Food." Tiffany (from work) had suggested it, and said it actually has a name "Mi Pueblo" but for some reason that name is not on the building. It was great food though, and we came home full and satisfied with such an awesome day.



Side note: You can always click on a picture within the blog to see it bigger :-)

Perfection vs. Non-Perfection

My senior year of High School we started our first soccer team. That was the '98-'99 season. WOW what a long time ago.... Our record that first year was 0-6-1. That's correct, 0 wins. We had a few close games, but the best we were able to do was one tie.
When my brother Bob was a senior in high school, they had a fairly decent team. The leading scorer had 25 goals for the season, which is definitely a good mark. I believe they may have lost in regionals/sectionals against jacksonville or quincy notre dame, or somebody that had a pretty good team that year. His team had some talent, and while I am not for sure on the final record, I know they won more games than they lost.
Fast forward a few more years to the '07-'08 Teutopolis High School soccer team and my baby brother Michael is a sophomore. As a sophomore he was looked at to be one of the major scorers for the team. Game one he gets tackled and falls on his wrist/hand and breaks it. He is now out for the majority of the season. He made it back in time for the postseason and the final push which carried the team to the State Tournament in Chicago for the first time ever. At state they were slayed by Rochester who just had way more talent and skills and knowledge of how to play the game. Still a great result for Teutopolis High School.
What do you know, but the 2008-09 team starts out 10-0. A perfect record with a lot of excitement and optimism for the season. Michael (now a junior) being healthy leads the team with a School record of 26 goals with several games left in the season. On Tuesday night the team played Charleston High School always a perennial powerhouse in soccer plus they are a bigger school to a 1-0 loss off of a free kick by a club soccer teammate of Michaels. A stellar game it sounded like from what I read in the papers. A defensive struggle with TTown only able to get one shot on goal. But a loss is a loss....
Which brings me to my current question:
Is it better to have an undefeated season or to have a loss or a few losses? I'm sure there are many different opinions on this, but here is my view:
Perfection is a very hard thing to do in sports and carries with it a lot of pressure. Where a team gets in trouble is when they start playing not to lose (conservative), because they are afraid of not winning. (If that makes any sense) I think a loss or two can be a good thing because it can be motivating, and can help a team continue to play aggressive to win, and not be so conservative which is how a team plays when they are so afraid of losing.

What do you think? Perfection or a loss or two?

We're singing now, Go Cubs Go, Go Cubs Go....

Yesterday, Saturday, September 20, 2008 (the day before my mom turned even older!!! lol just kidding!)...anyway, yesterday, the Cubs clinched the division. Very exciting news in this household. My friend Mel was there and proclaimed it amazing! She also pinned down a shirt to send me, so soon I can sport that puppy all around the Rockies fans :-)

Very excited about the postseason and just want to remain as calm as possible about things. Our fearless leader Lou Piniella has reminded us that this is not the end of the trip, that there is lots more for us (as Cubs fans and those players) to accomplish before we can be satisfied. That being said, I did still sneak a peak at the schedule, and should the Cubs make it to the World Series (I said should which is really just like hypothetically speaking so no, I'm not going to jinx them), but should they make it to the World Series, you will find this here Cubs fan (without Cardinalish husband because someone has to be responsible in this partnership...we can't just both jet off whenever we like!) in Wrigleyville when the Cubs play at home on October 25 & 26. Yes kids, that's a weekend. So there will be minimal amounts of work missed as I fly (ewwww!!!) my happy butt from Denver to Chicago to meet up with my Cub-fan friends to experience Wrigleyville for a World Series. Now what happens if they don't make it that far? Well, obviously, that's money saved on the plane ticket, one more day at work and one sad Cubs fan who would say "wait 'til next year" :-(

Now, enough of that. Hope you have enjoyed the new pics of Flat Natalie, sent straight from Chatham, IL. Photos courtesy of Markiss & Tammijean!

Nice Rack!

No, really! Nice rack. Get your mind out of the gutter.... We received an REI gift card from cousin Steve and family for the wedding and used it to purchase a snowboard rack for the top of the car. When the ski resorts open in November, the bicycle rack will be temporarily removed, and the new THULE snowboard rack will take it's place for a while. We can hold up to 4 snowboards if anyone is interested in helping us try out the rack. Thanks guys for the gift card. I think we put it to good use!

5K Mountain Style and Octoberfest

On Sunday morning we made the trip up to Vail Ski Resort for Natalie's first 5k since we moved out. Temperature at 9:00 a.m. was 32 degrees. She hasn't even been running much and the course was mountainous, and she did an awesome job! Not her best time ever, but she also hasn't been training that much. I thought she did a great job for how little she has been running. We got a few good pictures.

It was pretty cool because there were 5 other teachers from GCMS that also ran it. It was neat seeing everyone from school running together. There are a group of them that run every morning and swim once a week together. Natalie may join them soon for some of the festivities....

After the run was over (I was the bag man along with another of the Ladies' husbands. I think at one time I was carrying 6 bags on my shoulders. It's cool though, more than happy to support Natalie in her adventures, cause she definitely does more than enough to support me!) we stayed around for a couple hours to celebrate October Fest. We had a large serving of Schnitzel and potatoes and goulash. It was awesome!!! Also had some good German Beers, including one of our favorites, also the favourite of a friend in Springpatch, called Erdinger Weissbräu. Excellent choice my dear friends. Highly suggest you try it if you ever get a chance. In Springpatch they have it at Brewhause.

Last night, (Wednesday) we went out to eat at Minturn Country Club, (sounds nice, but not so classy) for $2.99 grill your own steaks. I had a beer, salad, garlic toast and steak for less than 10.00. What a DEAL! One of those things they only have during the "offseason" for locals. The place was packed, and the grills were small, but the atmosphere was fun and cool. We went with a girl from work and met another girl from work and some of her friends. Good night, good meal, good company.

choco pasta and snickers

Andy's brother Trevor joined us last night(Friday) in anticipation of a long mountainous ride up to Steamboat Springs on Saturday. To fuel up properly Natalie made some wonderful sesame seed chicken pasta (yummm!) for us to chow on. Dessert was a new thing that we have never had before. Chocolate and orange pasta with orange chocolate sauce.... Andy loves orange chocolate, so this was a special treat for him. Pasta for dessert? A new concept for sure, but it was rather tasty! A little orangy for me, would have been a little better with just plain chocolate sauce I think, but it was still pretty good.
Saturday the plan was to be on our way by 8:00 a.m in order to avoid any afternoon showers. Once again Natalie made an amazing feast, oatmeal pancakes, which we proceed to slather in just about every topping imaginable. I top mine with pnut butta and honey, Andy topped his with Orange chocolate sauce (imagine that...), syrup and butta were also available as toppings. So with all this we didn't leave until about 9:30. I figured it was about a 5 hour ride, so Natalie was planning on leaving 4 hours after us, in order to arrive about the same time.
It was an amazing ride, lots of climbing, topping out at over 9000 ft. in elevation. There was one 6 mile downhill that was quite amazing, and one at least 4-5 mile climb, that was pretty crappy... After about 5 hours, we arrived in Steamboat, completely exhausted and spent, and ready to demolish some food at the Steamboat Smokehouse! Just like I had remembered from previous visits, the beer was large and cold, and the BBQ was fabulous. Just what the Dr. ordered to replace the 3000 calories I had just burned.
All in all, it was an awesome ride with good friends, and a beautiful day in the Colorado high country.

Oh yeah... by the way I had my first SNICKERS in over 2-3 years. And I love Snickers!!! We once had one in our Fridge in plain view as motivation to stick to our diets, and after over a year or so of looking at it everyday, I finally threw it away. It was wonderful to finally eat one! A taste I will relish for a while to come, for it takes a ride like this to deserve something that good!

Big shout out to my lovely wife for coming to pick us up in Steamboat. That would have really been a long ride home (170 miles). It may have been a little bit of a stressful drive for her, but she persevered in order to join us for some BBQ and Beer and intriguing conversation. In return I bought her a new pair of smartwool socks (nice guy hey?)

Snow!

Well, not here in Eagle...not yet! But, you can definitely see snow on New York Mountain (see pic below - look very carefully!), which is viewed from the mountain bike trail about three miles straight up from our house. Nick and Andy went mountain biking tonight up Boneyard and said they could see snow on New York Mountain. We also saw snow when we were going to school this morning. It's been raining here a lot - last night and this morning, so in the high-high country (they just call us high country here, so I think that is high-high???), they have definite snow. Guess what that means? Snow will be here soon! Who is coming snowboarding with us?? :-)

Andy's in town

Last night I took Andy on the Wednesday night mt. pedaler ride. He was kinda nervous before we went out since he hadn't ridden his mountain bike other than the night before and in february when we went out in the snow. Plus he had to deal with all my stories about how hard it was every time. He did pretty well though, considering that 1/2 the ride was in the dark. We all had light, there were only 4 of us, so it was a nice group. I had my brand new nightrider minewt X2's that just came in yesterday afternoon. They were awesome and super bright, kinda like having car headlights. They are also super small. We went up abrams, through scratch, across eagle scout, back down elk drop, down star wars (which was amazing in the dark), and over to and down THE PLUNGE and MIND ERASER! I had yet to do mind eraser even in the light, but for some reason it actually seemed a little easier in the dark. I crashed almost at the bottom, but not a bad one. Being Andy's first time and the fact that the hills were so steep, he was able to walk/slide down the plunge and mind eraser, it was super cool though being at the bottom and seeing his lights coming down the hill. What an awesome ride, made even better by the fact that I was able to share it with a friend from the flatlands.
Tonight we went up to Vail for some 50% off all sushi rolls. That's right friends, you heard it here first! Sushi rolls at Nozawa in VAIL for $3-$9! The place was kind of a dive, and the lights were not very bright, and it was loud, but definitely a good place to go with a lively group. The food was excellent, and the rolls were nice and cheap. Natalie had Pad Thai, Andy had Peanut Curry plus 3 shushi rolls, I had 3 shushi rolls and was forced to finish Andy's cause he had bitten off more than he could chew....(sorry) I just couldn't stand to see them go to waste. Good night, good dinner, topped off with frosties from Wendy's.

Tour de Fat

Welcome to the world of all things bicycles! It was kinda like heaven, bikes and brews, even got a pic with Adam and Eve! It really was like a mix of Woodstock and bicycles. Everyone had costumes on! I've never seen so many dreadlocks in one place, and they weren't even wigs. It was wild! and Awesome! They had beer and shows, and bands, all surrounded by food and bicycles. There were about 9,000 people in attendance. I guesstimate at least half of them rode their bikes and were in costume. I have never see so many bikes in one place. People were just locking their bikes to other bikes, cause there were no more places. It is all to promote bicycle commuting and a green environment.

Weirdness

As promised, here is the "stunning" shot of myself with Jerry Springer...taken last Friday at FAC. From left to right, Alana, Jeannine, Lisa, Jerry and moi:


And now, something that is actually cool. My 6th hour is an English language learner (ELL) math class...aka they speak Spanish...alot :-) Two of the students are labeled NEP...that's right, non-english proficient, as in NOT bilingual. And today it just so happened their interpreter did not show up. Now, obviously everyone in the class can help translate except for me, but it's a bit disruptive for students to try translating and listening at the same time. So we were making do as best we could. And one of the NEP's had a paper to turn in but he did not have his name on the paper, so I pointed at his paper and said "nombre". And lo and behold, he wrote his name at the top of the page and handed it to me! Tada!!!!!! It was a feeling of great success. And it got me to thinking...which is never good...but I have been thinking what will I do to further myself...should I take culinary classes?? Learn a new activity...like rock climbing or something? Then it hit me, I could learn Spanish! That would actually be useful. So I think I'll check it out...it would open up lots of opportunities for me.............................. (can you see the wheels in my head spinning???) Maybe I will post an ad in the newspaper: local teacher wants to learn Spanish...for cheap!

Next bit of info...sadly, my friend and older (and I mean OLDER) brother Marc's young life has come to an abrupt end. Yes folks, he still walks among those other teacher people at Glenwood Middle School in Chatham...well, maybe he doesn't walk...his hips have probably gone bad from old age...but he still works in that building. But his youngness is gone...and has been replaced by the fact that Marc is now 1/2 of a century old. For those of you that aren't mathemeticians, that means poor Markiss is now 50!!!!!!!!! Can you ever imagine being that old????????? Most likely not. Unless you're like Christopher Columbus or someone who is ancient (sorry I don't have a better historical reference...should have checked with someone smart on that topic...Kyle, where were you??). So where was I going with this....hmmm, no idea. Anyway, congrats on being old Marc. We love you! And your puppies miss you :-)

Soccer........at Altitude

On Friday at the end of the staff development day, a district employee announced a staff soccer game to be played on Saturday in Eagle. Now in my day I played a lot of soccer. Not the most talented, (definitely not as talented as either of my brothers) but I did have decent skills, and was more of a bruiser/enforcer than the skilled silky smooth type of player. I have not played soccer in probably over 2 years, although it is still one of my favorite sports to play.

So saturday at noon, I showed up to Terrace Park with my spikes and shin guards (which I elected not to wear in order to look much more cooler... shin guards that is) We ended playing 7 v 8. We had a good mix of guys and girls. We played 2 fifteen minute halves, then another 10 minute game.

Of all the people that showed up I figured I was in better shape than most of them, (although I have been taking it kind of easy lately). However, after the first short intense burst I was left gasping for breath. Soon after a series of short intense bursts I found myself taking a few plays off (it was a pickup game for crying out loud...) I had forgotten how much soccer can wear you out. It's the short intense bursts of energy that do it to ya. The altitude prolly didn't help much either. Even though I am well acclimated by now, it doesn't make it any easier to breathe during these short hard bursts of energy.

It was a blast! I love playing soccer and had forgotten how much fun it is. I think it may be something that we start doing a couple times a month. I ended up scoring a few goals and I think my team won, but who was really counting anyway..... :) Oh yeah! instead of halftimes, we had beer time, the Human Resources director brought a cooler of beer out and at halftime he would yell "Beer Time" and we would go to the sideline and rest, then get back out there to burn the carbs.... Good plan if you ask me!

We found out about this awesome website from a guy at work. It's called steep and cheap . It is a website that sells outdoor type clothing one at a time for super reduced prices. Can find some awesome deals if you keep an eye out for them. We have found a few already.

Where did we go???

Well, time sure got away from us since our last blog. Contrary to what some may think, we were not smashed by a boulder, nor were we eaten by mountain lions. We've just been busy!

Thursday and Friday we had some awesome workshops up at Beaver Creek as part of our back-to-school professional development for the entire Eagle Valley Schools staff. They had some awesome presenters and we learned a lot. The views were great! After Friday's training, we headed up to Vail FAC (see Friday, August 22 if you are confused) with some of our new teacher friends. Natalie met Jerry Springer (for real!!!!) and got her picture taken with him. That pic is on the way and will be posted ASAP.

Saturday was a ho-hummer...went out to school to get some work to do, stopped by the Farmer's Market (only a few more weeks left) and then kinda bummed around the house...never really accomplishing anything.

Sunday...we went to church, then got home and worked the entire...and I mean entire...day. From like 1030 a.m. until about 8 last night. But we accomplished lots!

Today, Labor Day, we labored in our classrooms finishing things up and getting ready for the first day of students tomorrow. I think we are about ready to go...we're pretty excited about tomorrow and will be sure to keep you posted on how it goes.