Moab - Friday and Saturday

On Friday I left the office early, ate lunch with some coworkers at Smashburger, and then headed over to Craig's house. After Lanny and Dwight arrived we packed up and then picked up Dave in Manitou. The 7 hour drive to Moab was uneventful. We arrived to the campsite tired at about 9:30 Friday night. However, once the tents and camper were set up we all got a second wind and sat around until 11:30 talking and sharing a few beers. The other 5 guys had already arrived that afternoon and they were fast asleep by the time we arrived.

On Saturday everyone hopped in 2 of the 3 white Toyota trucks and headed to the Porcupine Rim trail head. That's right, our group's 3 vehicles this weekend were 3 white Toyota trucks (my pickup, a Tacoma, and a Tundra). Porcupine Rim trail was by far the longest ride. We rode about 20 miles on this one trail. The trail climbs at first but then levels out at the top. At the top was a great view of the other ride of the valley. We rode along the ridge for awhile and then descended down the other side to the valley created by the Colorado River. The climb and descent were fun until it turned into a single track that hugged the mountainside. At that point the terrain was too rough to ride in many places. Once we got off the trail we still had 5 miles to ride down the canyon and back to town - that part wasn't fun. That night we ate at an "adequate" Mexican restaurant. That's saying something considering after days like Saturday anything resembling food usually tastes fantastic.

My initial impressions of the area were good. It's very pretty in a desert sort of way. There were a lot of people on bikes and 4WD vehicles. As far as the trail was concerned, I didn't think it was anything that special. As one guy said, it makes you appreciate what we have in town in Palmer Park, Ute Valley Trail, etc. It was pretty rough and we all took a beating from the terrain. There weren't any spectacular crashes today (see upcoming posts). I pretty much kept up with the lead riders. I soon realized that despite my inexperience, my conditioning and athleticism made me one of the better riders on this trip. I was the first one back to the other white Toyota truck at the end of the day. All in all, it was a good day out with the boys.

Instead of a video with small pictures, I'm going to post a lot of individual pictures with captions.

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View at the top of Porcupine Rim

At the top of Porcupine Rim - riders, Joey, Me, and Dave/Craig

My trusty steed - Rocky Mountain Blizzard

Taking a break - the group, Craig

The trail - upper section, single track (un-rideable section), group photo

Colorado River/parking lot

At the end of the day I called home and Julia finally said her first words to someone on the phone. All she said was "Dadda home".

Moab Trip

Tomorrow after lunch a bunch of us (10 to be exact) guys from church are heading down to Moab, UT for an extended weekend of camping and mountain biking. It should be a good time of fellowship, warm weather, fun, good exercise, and adventure. I'll be posting pictures and a recap of our trip sometime after we get back on Monday.

For those who aren't aware, Moab is known as Utah's adventure capitol. It's just on the other side of the Colorado state line, about 75 miles as the crow flies from Grand Junction, CO. The area boasts Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, as well as premier mountain biking and Jeep trails. Google Moab or some of the National Parks mentioned above and have a look at where we're going.

We'll be hitting the famous porcupine rim and slickrock trails on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. I hope to see some of the landscape or National Parks if we have free time. Hopefully we'll all return with nothing but a few bumps and bruises and all our limbs intact.

Star Wars Kid

Story Time

Story time with Momma and my new winter gear...nothin' but cozy.

Snow, Er, Window Day

We were released from work 2 hours early yesterday due to the weather. This morning, I got up and heard that we were on a 2 hour delay. Sometime between when we turned off the TV at 8 and when I left at 9:30 for work, the 2 hour delay turned into a closure. I knew it the second I turned into the parking lot.

SO, I headed for Home Depot and bought some more trim. I figured there's nothing better to do inside on a snow day (we didn't get 17 inches of snow in town) then to tackle phase 3 of the window project. I finished about half of the windows today. I've cut and nailed up some more trim inside the windows to give it an old, wood window appearance (and to cover up our painting mistakes). I think it turned out well. I still need to caulk the ends that don't perfectly fit and fill the nail holes.

Here are some pictures. They are a little dark, but I wanted to make sure I got enough contrast between the walls and the windows.

Snow Day

Woodland Park got 17 inches of snow today (or at least at Josh's house)! Josh, send this link to your agent and let me know if I've violated any image rights. I'll have my IT department remove these pictures immediately.

Baby Elephants Cry

Yesterday Stacey took Julia to the library and picked up some books for her to read. She’s been very interested in elephants recently since she’s been playing around with her little stuffed animal version. I’m not sure if Stacey, Grandma, or someone else taught her about elephants, but every time she sees elephants (either in a book or her stuffed animal) she wraps her arm around her head as if to make a trunk and lets out a big roaaaaar. It’s pretty funny to watch her pretend to be an elephant, tilt her head back, and roar.

Last night when I got home I asked her what she did during the day, and she very excitedly told me that they had gone to the library and checked out books about elephants. She really wanted to read these books together (even though Stacey had already read them to her a couple of times that afternoon), so after dinner we all sat down to read. Of course, Julia instructed both Stacey and me to “sit down right here” while touching/pointing the carpet in a specific location.

The book I grabbed from the pile was about a family of elephants who had one young elephant (like Julia) and whose mother was pregnant (like Stacey) and due very soon. It’s the typical "another baby is coming into the family" story. The book takes a twist and we find out that the mother elephant has triplets. In typical newborn fashion, the babies cried a lot. When we got to that point in the story I pointed out that “baby elephant” was crying…but unfortunately Jules doesn’t yet realize the reasons why newborn babies cry.

So, Julia thought about it for a second and then got the most pathetic/worried/scared look on her face. When the lower lip came out and started to quiver I knew where we were headed. It probably didn’t help that we chuckled at her. She lost it and started balling. Of course, she wanted a big hug from mommy and could barely get another word out through her tears. She kept saying “baby elephant cry” through her tears until we assured her that the baby elephant was “all better” by flipping forward a couple of pages and showing her a new picture where they were all happy.

It was one of those situations I’ll probably remember for a long time. I took the picture of the page (below) we were reading when it all went down…now that I really look at the picture it is a bit scary… It will be interesting to see what she does when the next one arrives and starts to cry.

THFC's New Stadium

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club today confirmed that the Northumberland Development Project planning application has this week been submitted to the London Borough of Haringey. The move marks a major milestone in the delivery of the Club’s regeneration proposals and the final plans include one further major improvement to the stadium design – the inclusion of a single tier stand. The stadium is expected to open for the 2012/2013 season.

- The new stadium will seat 56,250 people, a 56% increase
- A new 63 row single-tier stand to create/maintain atmosphere
- Will be built on the current site & adjacent land, ending concerns about moving out of the Borough without a temporary move during construction
- Vibrant public space around the stadium, open and accessible at all times
- An exceptional public square, located on the High Road and including two amphitheatres as a focus for community events and activities
- A new 150 bedroom hotel with restaurant
- A café opening out onto the public square
- New Tottenham Hotspur Foundation offices with state-of-the-art facilities
- A new Club museum together with a new 20,000 sq ft Club shop
- A new 77,000 sq ft supermarket with parking, offering increased shopping choice for local people and this part of the High Road
- 434 new homes including high quality living and 40% affordable housing

Check out the single stand inside - awesome!

EDIT: Apparently, both ends of the stadium will be single tiered stands! EPIC!

Window Sill Update

I spent yesterday (pretty much all day - 6 hours worth) finishing up phase 2 of 4 of my window project. When you cut out trips to the store and lunch, I didn't exactly work that long but it was long enough. I was tired.

For most of yesterday I experimented, measured, cut, and nailed the aprons (trim) up below the window sills that I had installed the previous weekend. This was a fun part of the project because it was easy and because it made the area look really good (finished). In the beginning I spent a lot of time thinking through and experimenting how I wanted to finish the edges of the piece of trim. In the end, I think I stumbled upon a trade secret. That, or I invented a sweet shortcut on my own.

First of all, I went with the same trim that is throughout the house - only it's turned upside down so that it looks more like a "support" (that's standard though). I experimented with what to do on the ends, and after some time I realized that if I set my miter saw at 30 degrees and 30 degrees I could achieve a nice looking cut with minimal effort. The minimal effort comes into play because the ends of the trim are actually cut back towards the center of the window, leaving the ends unfinished BUT not visible unless you look directly down the wall (i.e. your head has to be within about 12-24 inches of the wall). Since there is only one place in our house that you can look down the wall, it really was a non-issue. If not, I would have had to cut about 50 tiny end pieces and glue/nail them into place. It would have taken a lot of time and been a big headache. It's hard to explain, but basically you can't see the cut ends because they are hiding behind the leading edge of the trim and in the shadows. So, it was little to no work and with that setting I was able to make the angle of the visible front edge greater and more attractive. Better looking and easier - that's what I'm talking about.

Phase 3 is going to involve a small piece of trim installed around the inside of all the windows to make the windows look like they are wood (i.e. an old window). Then, we'll paint everything and be done. It already looks nice before painting and installing the other trim (which is a great sign). It's amazing the difference a little trim makes and how cheap and easy it really is to do. After I logged the receipts in my binder (I keep track of every upgrade I do to this house and its cost) I realized just how cheap it really has been to do what we've done to the house. Not counting things that aren't improvements to the structure and excluding the basement finish (i.e. only counting things like landscaping, painting, trim, etc), we've completely re-done the entire inside of the house and the front of the outside for under $150 a month since we've moved in. That's really not a lot of money when you consider most people spend upwards of $100 a month on a family cell phone bill.

Anyway, I love how this project is turning out. I'm tired, but it's good tired. I hope you like these pictures (but as usual, they don't quite do it justice).

Julia Says Her Name

Julia has totally been talking up a storm the last week. As we like to say, "the floodgates have opened".

She's not quite 23 months old and we can essentially have a conversation with her now. Believe it or not, she is stringing 4-5 major words together at one time. She says things like "love you Dada" and "bye-bye Dada's truck me fries milk" for when she wants me to take her to McDonald's. She knows odd words like "snow" and "doggie go outside stinkies towel water" for when the dog goes outside and it's wet we have to dry off his paws with the towel before he runs around the house. The best one is "Jesus loves me" while patting her chest.

The point is, she's been a lot of fun lately since we can now talk a little. I realize that girls develop earlier then boys but this a bit early (or so it seems). From the moment she was born we could tell (and were told) how alert she seemed. I think she's like me in that she's really aware of her surroundings. That is, she's known what's been going on for awhile even if she hasn't been saying it. But I also think that having a stay at home mom, breastfeeding for over a year, watching limited TV, having the right kind of toys (i.e. not ones that blink and make noise all the time), listening to music, as well as us trying to really talk to her or repeat a word she says has helped a lot too.

This video has a short section at the beginning where she repeatedly says her own name. It's not the greatest example of her talking, but it's the most recent we have on film. I mean, do many 23 month-old toddlers know their name? Maybe. I don't really know. All I know is that we pretty much can talk all the basics to her now and she knows what we're saying and is repeating a lot of it on her own.