Summer in Colorado

We finally found our backup camera since our nice one was ran over several months ago. Summer out here has been great. The weather isn't too hot, high 80's or low 90's, and it cools down at night. Scott has been doing a lot of kayaking on the Poudre River but the season is over now. We recently did a short backpacking trip up in the mountains with a friend and that is what we have pictures of. We are going on a four day rafting trip soon and we will hopefully have pictures of that when we get back.

Just The Beginning

Just the Beginning from rideon on Vimeo.

Stanford likes Zephyr

Stanford (the cat) would love to have everyone believe that he detests Zephyr (the dog). We have proof now that Stanford actually likes, maybe even loves, hanging out with Zephyr a little bit. Usually when Stanford is caught hanging out with Zephyr he runs away immediately with a look on his face that says he hopes no one noticed he was hanging out with a dog.

Thanksgiving and Other Stuff...

It is starting to get cold out here (although today was beautiful) and we had our first snow a few weeks back. I thought the ice on the chain looked kinda neat, although I think it might pull our gutter down if too much more builds up on it!


The sunsets and sunrises in Colorado are pretty much amazing on a consistent basis, I caught some cool light as I got home from work tonight. We are pretty excited to have put lights on our house for the first time in the history of us. They aren't as straight as I would have hoped but I still think they look cool.


We had a great time on Thanksgiving, it is kind of a tradition to shoot guns. DK had his first experience shooting the family 20 gague, and quickly moved on to my 12 gague. Towards the end he even got one in the air, we were all pretty stoked.


Here is dad nailing a bird, if you don't believe it, see below...


Amy got Isaiah a Jake Plummer Jersey for his birthday, he was pretty excited to have a football shirt, little does he know that Jake Plummer is the absolute man! Not to mention we pretty much have the cutest nephews known to man! (that includes you too Carter!)


Eli trying on my hat...



And I know this is cliche but as the Christmas season approaches remember that not everyone is lucky enough to have great memories and experiences tied to the holidays. It is really easy to block it all out and go about our busy lives, but there are people in your city, maybe even on your block that will not experience any of that. Figure out a way to take some love and joy to them this year. Like I said, super cliche, but very true.

A New Place To Call Home

First off I will start with our vacation to Disneyland in late September. Luckily we went before all the fires started. The weather was perfect and we were able to do everything we wanted to. We went to the beach, shopping, and of course Disneyland. Our trip was about four days long. We didn't take that many pictures but here is one of me eating a Mickey Mouse waffle in Disneland Park. This is one thing I really wanted to do because I had this memory of when I was little eating a Mickey Mouse waffle at Disneyland and I am glad that I got to relive it. Mmmmm....it tasted as good as it looks.
Here is a Jedi match. They had all these little kid volunteers face up against Darth Vader after they had some Jedi training. It couldn't have been cuter and none of the kids were scared which surprised me.
Here is our new house in Fort Collins, CO. As most of you know we moved out here October 1st because Scott got a job in Fort Collins. We just moved into our house last Wednesday and I am very excited. We are a little overwhelmed at the moment but it is getting better. One day when the house is set up I will show pictures of the inside. The house is a 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath. There is also a full unfinished basement. I am really excited that we have a master suite and the fact that we own a brand new house! I never thought this would happen. The neighborhood is quiet and so far the neighbors we have met have all been really friendly. Almost everyone has dogs which is great. I think we are the only people with a cat.
Here is a view of the backyard. You can see Ranger

relaxing in the shade.
I, of course, had to throw in a picture of Stanford. He decided to curl up in the plastic mattress protectors which I didn't think could be that cozy. Can I just say that Stanford is an awesome cat. He made the whole trip out here with barely a complaint. OK, so the first six hours of the drive he was mad because he was in a little crate but when we let him out to be free in the cab of the moving truck he was fine. He really liked curling up on the dash and watching the scenery or curling up on Scott's lap.

I have to tell you a really fun little story about this rascal. By the way, this is the mudroom that leads from the garage to the living room. Right now we are using it as a kennel for Zephyr. So, last Friday evening, two days after we had moved in, I went to feed Zephyr and she wouldn't eat which was very alarming because she loves to eat. We decided to wait until morning to see if she was feeling any better. The next morning, Saturday, I went to go let the dogs out and Zephyr could barely stand so we immediately put her in the car and drove to an animal adoption place down the street because we had no phone book or internet yet and I knew they could tell me where to take her. They directed us to a good vet who said that based on Zephyr's history (she has eaten a few leashes, a collar, and some other stuff that she has always passed eventually) and feeling her stomach that she had something in there that needed to be removed. They took some x-rays and then sent her immediately into surgery. They called a few hours later to say that she had swallowed a goat hoof whole and that it had been stuck somewhere in her system. We had given her a goat hoof a couple weeks ago to chew on and she apparently swallowed it instead. I don't know how she didn't choke or rip up her insides. So now, a small fortune later, we have to keep her calm for a week, feed her special food, and give her three different kinds of medication. I am glad that she is OK. As much as she can somtimes drive me crazy I do love her a lot.

A couple of weekends ago Scott and I went to go visit my Grandpa and Aunt Gail in the Bay Area and we took my neice Lexie with us. We had a lot of fun. On Saturday my Aunt Gail took us to Tilden Park. We went to the Little Farm and got to see a bunch of animals and then we rode the Steam Train a couple of times. On Sunday we went to San Francisco. Lexie had never been there before and it was fun to show her some of the sites. We went down Lombard St. twice (The curviest street in the world!) , to Pier 39, Haight St., and then to the ocean (where Lexie got completely soaked, she said it was worth it). We also went across the Golden Gate Bridge. We came home Sunday and then since Monday was a holiday Scott and I took our lake kayak out for a spin on Lake Oroville. We took Zephyr along and got her to ride on the boat in between us which was somewhat of a challenge but she eventually go the hang of it.


Lexie feeding a calf at the Little Farm in Tilden Park.

Me watching the piglets annoy their mom at the Little Farm in Tilden Park.

My Aunt Gail posing with a goat at the Little Farm in Tilden Park.

Lexie petting an old ram at the Little Farm in Tilden Park.

Me, Lexie, and my Aunt Gail riding the Steam Train in Tilden Park.

Lexie in front of the sea lions at Pier 39 in San Francisco. (I could watch them forever. They are hilarious! Scott of course can only last so long.)


Lexie chasing waves at the ocean in San Francisco.

Zephyr watching me swim in Lake Oroville wishing she had the courage to swim out and join me. (Zephyr is still learning how to swim but is getting better every time.)

Scott and his good friend Zephry at Lake Oroville. Scott takes all of our pictures which is why this is the only one of him. Of course it is too far away and I forgot to focus it!

ANOTHER Post!...

Please make sure you read the post below this as well, but Cari and I just wanted to warn everyone that we are turning into "those people". By this I mean that we take pictures of our cat (the amazing Stanford) and then post them on our blog. You have to admit he is a funny cat! And meeting him in person is even better!

Cari and I can hardly believe that summer is already winding down but it has been a great one for us. As usual we did a poor job of posting so we will have to summarize again. Seems to be our style...

We were fortunate enough to host two Korean school teachers as part of a program where they studied at Chico State for 4 weeks. We had a great time learning about each other's cultures, eating a bunch of great Korean dishes and going to lots of fun functions, we went bowling, sang karaoke, and danced among other things. We said goodbye to Soojin and Youngmi last week and miss them a bunch!



I also wrapped up our Wilderness Experience program for work and thankfully no one got hurt! All the kids were wonderful and I just love them all. Kids saw the ocean for the first time, went rafting, camping, rock climbing, rappelling and all sorts of other fun stuff. One of the kids, Nimai was especially good at getting in front of the camera, here he is skim boarding in Ft. Bragg.

More fun at the beach, the surf was freakishly calm the day we were there!

I should also mention that Cari did a wonderful job raft guiding for her first time and even ran a really hard rapid called "Dragon's Tooth" and pretty much styled it! I am really proud of her! We have a really cool video that is too long for streaming but if any of you want to see our summer adventures let me know!

Just this past week I was able to get some good kayaking in, good friends and good white water are important to me! We ran the Pit River, it has a great 30 ft waterfall on it which we were stoked to fire up! I never get much video because I am always filming but my friend Darin got some good shots of me running the falls...

Here is a video of Darin running several of the fun drops on the Pit...

Darin on the Pit River, CA from rideon and Vimeo.

Well Cari and I are really bad at writing about everything that our summer holds but we have been pretty decent at taking pictures of all of our activities so here they are!...

We wrapped up our last day of our after school program with some fun at City Plaza! These are some of the kids I get to work with!




Cari and myself, along with our dogs, Ranger and Zephyr went to Colorado for some great time with family, I got in a few days of kayaking as well!






The Wilderness Experience, (through my job at the church) has started and the weeks are flying by, our first week was at Rock Creek, beautiful clear water and huge granite cliffs. This week we are going on an overnight trip to the coast, some of the youth have never seen the ocean before, it is going to be great!







We had some random river friends staying with us for a while and I was loving the scene in our garage!



And I also got a couple of good days on the water...




This is getting long I know, just a few more things we have done...

-Cari sang for a friends wedding and totally rocked!
-We worked at Kidder Creek for their raft training week, Cari is a SOLID guide!
-Cari and I took the youth from our church rock climbing last week, it was 107 degrees that day!

Ok I think that brings most of ya'll up to speed.