Living and Believing

I remember traveling in a resort town in Patagonia many years ago with a British fellow my friend and I had met at our hostel.  Bariloche, the town, is well know for its tasty chocolate, and the Brit had bought me some.  I tasted a bite and almost gagged because it tasted so strongly of alcohol.  I told him I don't drink and somehow it was brought out that I didn't because of religious reasons.  He said that, well, I shouldn't eat anymore then.  That I should live what I believe, even though he didn't believe what I did.

I have thought about what he said various times since then, this weekend being one of them.  I, so far, have had one of the silliest, wishy-washy weekends of my life.  First, I had turned down singing upfront in church to do something on the Sabbath that I didn't feel right about doing on the Sabbath--capoeira.  I do a lot of activities on the Sabbath, but I had a huge urging, influence, conscience, something telling me this was something I shouldn't be doing today.  But I had already paid a rather large sum of money to participate and ended up going for about five minutes to a class this morning.  Within that time I slashed my heel open and just felt terrible about the whole situation.  I rushed out of the studio, changed into nice clothes, and bolted to church.  I wish I would have done that in the first place.

I now don't necessarily think a little bit of alcohol is bad or unbiblical, but I still won't touch it because of all the harm it can do.  And really I feel no need or that I would have any benefit from drinking it.  Perhaps one day I'll believe God doesn't think capoeira is a bad thing to do on Sabbath.  But I felt conviction, and if that conviction isn't harming anyone (I wasn't convicted to go kill innocent people or do other terrible things that sometimes we humans have done in the name of religion.), I feel I should follow it.  Especially because if God is real and the Bible is true, I believe the Sabbath is something that hasn't changed and that has true importance still today.  And so, with that I will finish this terribly written blog and speed off to enjoy some of God's nature.  Maybe I'll go searching for some mustard seeds.

Grandpa B

My last grandparent died this past weekend.  This was the last picture we have all together.  I just wish I could be with my family right now.

Hooray for Ouray!

Some of our friends had very wonderfully put together a weekend of ice climbing in Ouray and Darren was more than a little stoked to join them.  So, after work, we made our way over to Monarch Pass.  However, Monarch Pass, we were informed was being blasted for avalanches and we would have to wait several hours.  We drove back to the nearest restaurant which served authentic Thai food and hamburgers.  Crazy.  I'm not sure how really "authentic" my food was...it looked like Ramen noodles.  But they did give me a ginormously huge Thai ice tea.  

Finally we drove the 20 minutes or so back to the pass to find that it was open and we finished our snowy drive towards Ouray.  Our friends informed us that there weren't any rooms free for the night so for one of the very few times in Darren and I's relationship, we got a hotel (The only other time being our honeymoon and after we climbed Mt. Whitney and were completely exhausted.  In fact, that is the most exhausted I have ever been in my life.) in a cheaper town.  

The next day we met up with the gang and headed for the ice park.  There were tons and tons of climbers, but we found some good routes after a bit of hiking.

hitting myself with shards of ice

Darren on his way up our first ice route of the day

hiking along the walkway above the routes

Thankfully a cabin opened up near our friends, so Darren, me, and Olivia snatched it up

After a day of cold, cold climbing, we enjoyed the town's hot springs and later played Catchphrase in the cabin

The next day, we attacked the ice again, but were able to climb in the same area

For one of the routes, we had to belay across the stream

Stephanie, Olivia, me, and Joe all bundled up

This is me climbing up the scary part of the route

Darren leading up his first lead ice climb

Joe nicely made us a walkway to get back to the path 

Snowshoeing Birthday

Tara and Eric were gracious enough to let Joy, Darren, and I stay at their house last minute in Denver.  The next morning, while Joy drove carefully back to Fort Collins, Darren and I joined them for some blizzard snowshoeing up past Nederland.  I was actually scared when we first got out of the car because of the Patagonia-esque ferocious wind.  Thankfully most of the wind was blocked once we entered the woods.

The first lake

The very windy and exposed second lake

I couldn't actually look at the lake because the wind and snow burned my eyes

We stopped in Boulder on the way back for one final birthday treat: crepe-age!  I am quite sure the place is owned by the same company in Breckenridge.

Birthday Drama in the Woods

For my birthday I really didn't care what we did, I just wanted to spend time with friends.  Thankfully Stephanie helped accommodate that even though she had another friend, Wendi, in town.  Darren and I drove up to the valley Friday evening and met up with Joy who had driven down from Fort Collins for my birthday.  

Darren is always itching to go ice climbing, so while he hiked up to the ice on Saturday morning, we gals had a little worship and did a small but beautiful snowshoeing loop by Gore Creek.

We all wanted to do a little ice climbing as well, so even though I was sick, I trudged up the steep mountain with the gals to Fire House.  Joy and Wendi had never ice climbed, so Stephanie and I switched out our boots and crampons with them.  Unfortunately for Joy, she looked like a clown because my feet are around three times bigger than hers.

Stephanie killing it

Getting prepared safely away from the falling ice

Joy wearing my massive boots

Both gals did fabulous climbing up the ice, but sadly Joy did not get away unharmed.  The most fun aspect of climbing at East Vail is the luge-ish slide down the mountain when everyone is done climbing. One just sits on his or her bum and glides down.  It can actually get quite speedy.  I had been very hesitant the first time I did it (like I always am with new things I'm not sure I can control) and had been told if anything to slow myself down with my feet.  Joy is not nearly a scaredy cat as I and zoomed down right away.  Unfortunately she briefly stuck out her wrist which caught on a tree.  An hour later we were at the Avon Urgent Care and had been told she had a Colles' fracture (distal radius fracture).  

Everyone was nice at the Urgent Care and got her fixed up with a temporary splint to wear while her swelling goes down.  I tried to entertain Joy with a "name that muscle" game with the plastic anatomy fixtures as we waited for everything to be taken care of.  Eventually we made it back to Stephanie's where she had a Mediterranean supper and a homemade climbing cake ready for our consumption.  I was happy and surprised that most of the friends that live in the area were there.  We were going to play games, but a big blizzard was coming and we decided it would be best if I drove Joy to Denver that night so she wouldn't have to try to navigate her car over treacherous, snowy passes with one arm.

Close to Home

I still get frustrated that Darren and I don't live in the same town as any of our friends, but it does give us an excuse to go traveling to see the friends who are spread out all over the state.

This past weekend we chose to go to Denver which is really only an hour away.  We went to church at probably the best one I've been to so far in Colorado. We should go to it more often because, like I said, it is only an hour away.  And a small heap of people I know go there.  

Darren and I were itching for some outdoor and sun time, so after lunch we went hiking with our friends Brian, Brenden, and Chaco (the dog) near the Flatirons in Boulder.  We saw the Royal Arch (I didn't know there were any Royal Arches outside of Yosemite, but apparently there are!), and quickly tromped down the mud and snowy path before the sun went down.  

We drove back down to southern Denver and played our first ever game of Bunco with about twenty other people from the area.  Bunco is a very social game, which was super nice since we only knew four people there.  We didn't drive home until way after most everyone had left, but we were having too much fun chatting with peeps.

The next morning, we had a tasty brunch at my favorite restaurant in town with one of Darren's coworkers.  I had orange/almond French toast and non-powder hot chocolate.  Amazing.  Afterwards, although snow was pounding our town, I invested in some crampons (happy birthday to me!) and Darren and I went to ice climb at our local ice waterfall.  The temperature was in the single digits or less, but we stayed almost until dark anyways.  I was so proud of Darren because he safely did his first lead ice climb.

Snow and New Years

We had our first big snow while I was working, and I definitely freaked out driving home from work.  When I got near our driveway a massive van was blocking the entire road.  Numerous people were buzzing around it dumping sand and shoveling snow.  I slid (literally slid) back down the road almost into traffic, so I called Darren who walked down the hill and drove my car for me another way home.

After my nerves were calmed, we put on our winter gear and ambled into town.  Ferdinand the Fox was in the middle of town.  I guess he felt safe in public with all that snow about him.  Perhaps he channeled his primordial fox who could roam the open land without silly people getting in his way.

The 12 Tribes place was definitely the busiest shop in town.  Darren and I bought some mate, played Scrabble on his phone, and listened to the 12 Tribers wale out some folk songs on their guitars.  Unfortunately really annoying youngsters sat near us and one could tell that one boy REALLY liked to hear himself talk.  I couldn't help but hear him cover such interesting subjects such as fighting, doing drugs, getting girls to get it on with him...omgeezers.  I had to try really hard to have a right spirit.

New Years Eve rolled around a couple days later and we wanted to spend it with friends, so we drove up to Vail.  On the way we saw fabulous fireworks from Copper Mountain.  Later we celebrated with Joe, Stephanie, Jay, and Lindsey and toasted with apple juice Stephanie had previously used to represent pee--she was advertising for her skills with Women's Health PT.

The next day was absolutely freezing, so we did the warmest outdoor activity we could think of: cross country skiing.  I did stay quite warm and it was much more fun then I thought it would be.

Pizza!

The holiday crew: Brad, Tana, Lindsey, Darren, me, Stephanie, Jay, and Joe (in front)

The boys racing

Sunday I did my first ever ice climb.  There were a lot of people in East Vail, but we still found a small spot to climb and lapped the route various times.

This guy lost his glove.  We couldn't help but laugh.

My first route

Stephanie's awesomely warm and puffy belay jacket

We stopped on our way home at our favorite crepe place in Breckenridge.  Joe and Stephanie had these people cater for their wedding reception a few years back and I think it was a brilliant idea.