Trip to Moab UT last week.

The dusk canyon photo is from our drive in on Wednesday night. We did a hike the next am and a bike ride in the afternoon. The bike ride has a really steep portal back to our campsite, which you can see on the photo of the canyon with a very faint trail on the right. Needless to say we were not riding our bikes much on that part of the trail. The pals with jobs met us on Friday for some more hiking and riding. It was a great weekend. We rode Poison Spider Mesa, Amaza Back, a new ride I keep forgetting the name of and on the way out of town on Sunday we rode Sovereign. The weather was perfect, sunny and not too hot.

Monarch over Presidents day weekend.

Matt and I headed off to Monarch ski area last weekend for a very cheap weekend. We get free tickets at Monarch with our Loveland pass, we had a free place to stay on 35 acres, and the weather gave us sunny warm days with some fresh snow. It was awesome. We did hike a couple times to good skiing, and the view at the top was beautiful. The photos here are from the view at the top of the hike and me finishing my hike up. And, my foot by the monarch imprint at the local park.

Mom's China

After driving home with mom's china in the back of the golf, I decided to have 12 of my friends over for dinner. I think the last time the china had been used was 1973 or earlier, so I wanted it to be a festive occasion. Turned out to be Allison's birthday and we called in China on China night. We have a Chinese restaurant next door, so we ordered Chinese food, and then I made fabulous gluten free molten cupcakes. It was fun to just sit and chat with everyone and the china looked great. There is talk of us doing this pretty regularly just to keep in touch with everyone. Although my house isnt really set up for 12 people, luckily we are all really good friends.

Roma Rap

Hey all,
So I thought I would send you a link to a rap video we made f0r the Catholic Studies talent show back at St. Thomas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCTcltkqV0A

Finally Some Rome Pictures!

This is a picture from our beach trip last Sunday. It was absolutely gorgeous and in the 70s... although, the Italians definitely thought we were insane for going swimming this time of year, we had fun! :)
This is from Oct. 7th when our desire for hamburgers led us to the Hard Rock... and that guitar, which I sat under throughout dinner, belonged to Tom Petty! So Andrew, I celebrated your birthday in Rome by hanging out w/ Tom Petty's guitar and having an extremely expensive drink!
The view of Saint Peter's from our terrace!
Alyson and Laura doing homework on the terrace.
THE POPE IN HIS POPE MOBILE! (yes, i was this close to him!)

More of our awesome terrace!

Garden Drive Zoo

Kitten #1 and her mom

One of the cats whose name I always forget

Kingston the dumb puppy

Dante, who has a bit of a staring problem

Kitten #2

Monument Valley

One of the better parts of the drive.
The Jetta, starting to smell a little pungent on the inside but still running well
Cool rocks
Enterprising Indians
At long last, the mountains of northern AZ

Boulder to Phoenix

In the vicinity of Moab
Western Colorado

Getting into Utah

the Jetta in front of the Colorado River, Moab Canyon, Utah

Off to Phoenix.

Andrew set sail Wednesday at 7, heading to Phoenix through some beautiful and then not so beautiful country. He arrived safe and sound, ready for his next adventure. Can you believe that car made it?

Mt Bierstadt

The Sawtooth is above Andrew's head in this photo. Its the connector to Mt. Evans from Mt. Bierstadt. Mt. Evans, 14,264 feet, is the peak to the left of Andrew. This is on the next time list for sure. Want to bag both via the Sawtooth. Anyone in?

Mt. Bierstadt to the right of Andrew's melon. 14,060 feet.

When we knew we weren't going to make it much farther, we stopped to eat some fudge and take in the view.

Baron Von Cheese and Kikicheesmeister.

Attempt to hike Mt. Bierstadt.

We did some research on which 14er we could do relatively quickly since I had to get back to class at 4pm for a quiz. We read there was a bit of road construction on the pass but we didnt expect 4-5 stops at 20min each as well as the road being closed from 9-11 and then 1-3... The hike takes 4-5 hours so we weren't going to make it to the top this time. When we saw what they were doing to the road, it was amazing the road was even open.

Luckily I had a shirt Andrew could stretch on, since it was so cold he could have cut glass... you know what I mean.

New friend.

Must have been a lot more snow a couple weeks ago.

Afternoon hike to Isabelle Lake.

After a lazy day hanging out in Boulder, we decided to head up to Brainard Lake and do a quick hike. The light was just right, we saw maybe 3 people and the air was cool. Andrew said it reminded him of Glacier National Park and I would agree. Its beautiful up there, and its only a 45 min drive from my house. It is a busy place in the summer and on weekends, but on a Monday night, no problem!

Full moon on the drive back to town.

The moon was a true harvest moon: big on the horizon and golden yellow. Hard to photograph though...

Holy Mole!

After our fun and fast hike, we made Mole. It was so yummy, pretty easy and something Andrew and I want to make at our next Wachtel Family Adventure. Not real spicy, but we can change that. Chicken Mole Enchilada's.