July

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

Hello all! I feel like this is my first post in a really long time...

We are having a great July, especially after Jenny gets back from the grocery store with food.

As you can guess from above, we went to Colorful Colorado! We flew into Colorado Springs on July 9th and didn't leave until July 19th (boo). We stayed in the Springs with Jenny's family a couple days. Then we picked up my family in Denver and all stayed in a cabin at the YMCA in Estes Park for 6 days of fun! I spent my birthday with my (twin) brother for the first time since 2001 - crazy! Then we spent a couple more days down in Colorado Springs before flying home. More pictures below.

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

On July 10th, we had a HoJoWeMo get together. We ate food, talked, and played Scattergories. I didn't win, but they let me use catheter as a school supply.

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

On July 11, we picked up my parents and brother from the Denver airport and headed up to Estes Park. We didn't get into our cabin until around 5PM, so we ate a picnic lunch and played a lot of Blokus. Jenny's parents and sister joined us later in the day.

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

On Sunday, July 12, I spent my birthday with my parents and brother for the first time in a long time. Jenny got my Ticket to Ride: Europe, my parents got me Agricola, and John got me a Carcassonne expansion. I can never think of anything I want, so this year I went with board games. It was a good day - we played 32 holes of golf (14 disc, 18 mini), went swimming, played Blokus, and Carcassonne.

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

Monday, we went up the Tramway and fed peanuts to chipmunks and hiked around. Then we walked around downtown for awhile. Above is a picture of Jenny's dad in the wild...

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

On Tuesday, Jenny, John, Karin, Johanna and I went on a hike. We wanted to do Long's Peak, but the way was shut (unless you have an ice pick and know what you're doing with it), so we settled for a 9.2 mile hike to Fern Lake. We had to climb over two treacherous snow fields of death, but we made it fine. We saw some cool waterfalls.

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

Wednesday, we all went on a hike to Moraine Park. In the afternoon Jenny, John, John, Karin, and I did some archery. The instructor put a dollar bill on the target and said whoever hits it gets to keep it. I missed it by a couple inches... Also, Ben (Karin's husband) was able to drive up for the next few days. We went swimming, played disc golf, and 16.5 holes of mini-golf before it closed.

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

Thursday, we went up Trail Ridge Road and saw lots of Elk (see picture at top). Jenny and Karin made a silk screen painting, and for dinner we went to The Dunn Raven Inn and had some really good Italian Food.

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

On Friday, Jenny and I drove my parents back to the Denver airport, sadly. Then we met Jenny's parents and Karin at Water World for a day of water rides. Jenny's parents were pretty excited that they got in for $5 (>60).

On Saturday, we went to a million garage sales, I ate at Red Robin with my birthday coupon with Jenny, and we went to another HOJOWEMO get together - a graduation party.

On Sunday, we went to Church, saw Amy and Matt for a small bit, and then we flew home. We got home about 11 PM, so work was a little rough on Monday, err... the whole week.

Other things in July

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

On the fourth of July weekend Jenny and I went camping at Itasca State Park (5 hours+ north). Itasca State Park is probably the nicest State Park I have ever visited. There is a 17 mile bike trail loop, lots of hiking trails, over 100 lakes a beach, many interesting things to see, and you can walk across the Mississippi River (pictured above)! Our camp site was a backpack site, and it was over a mile away from where we parked. We weren't exactly prepared for this, so we went spent a lot of time "hiking" back and forth to our car... But, our site was very remote. and we could hear the Official Minnesota state bird (the loon) and the unofficial state bird (mosquito - 100 lakes=LOTS of mosquitoes). Good thing we have bug nets for our heads. We also saw Jenny's friend, Amy (mentioned above in Colorado), and her boyfriend in St Paul for brunch. They were visiting her boyfriend's parents.

From July 2009 - Itasca & CO

Mark flew to Brazil where he will get married to Melissa next week!

We also had a going away party for Ben and Jaime as they moved to Northfield this month.

OK the food is here, Bye!