Speed Boats

 Sometimes it's hard to find toys or things to give Gavin that are just for fun as he gets older.  The typical asks are a PS5 or a new iPhone or something like that but we always try to through in something that is just more for entertainment that isn't some sort of screen.  This year I found a remote control speedboat that rips through the water fairly amazingly fast.  I saw some more "adult" versions of these that look like they were gas powered during a long ride one day and thought it would be fun to have a less crazy version.  It turns out they are actually really fun!  It zips around and turns on a dime and has a little rooster tail behind it.  We had a fun (yet chilly) day trying it out for the first time.  We also found that smoother water would likely be a bit better for it to go around in.

Aspens Turning

These are actually a few pictures of the drive down from the Diamond Lake hike we took.  The aspens were pretty amazing as they change for the fall.

 

Here is one more from the side of the road.  There were whole hillsides just full of the bright yellow leaves.  I am sure the pictures don't quite capture the fool beauty here.

Diamond Lake - Part 3

Actually, we couldn't leave the waterfall without setting up an irrigation system running through this wooden stick straw they made out of a weed stalk.  They had the water flow down and filter through this make-shift straw.  They were quite excited about it!

Here is one last picture up the river from the bridge you pass below the waterfall and head off toward the lake.  So relaxing and so fresh feeling to be out in nature and all its beauty.

Though its hard to see, we found these big grey woodpeckers and one was being pictured here when it turned and starting flying right toward us.  It flew just past us and continued on to the next tree looking for some dinner.

Finally after almost two hours of adventure (and about three miles of hiking), we arrived at Diamond Lake.  It was truly beautiful up there.  The water was frigid and we grabbed some snacks on a little rock by the lake to take it all in.

 I think after realizing that getting here meant we had to get all the way back, the hike out started to feel a bit daunting to these two.  They were good sports though and we started the trek back.  Thankfully, it was mostly down hill but we didn't take the time to stop much at all the waterfalls going down.  I always love getting out with these guys and having time to adventure and explore and talk about whatever comes up.  I am sure we will look back at times like these and wish we had more of them.

Diamond Lake - Part 2

Some time further up the trail we arrived at a real amazing waterfall.  This place had a few stair steps for the water to come down and some great rocks to climb on and play around.  Gavin is giving the classic Borger picture arms and hands in the background.

Gage, meanwhile, decided to take the opportunity to douse himself with fresh, ice cold, mountain, glacial runoff water.  I think after he admitted that he might have made himself a bit too cold with this exciting activity.

We also spent some time helping to get some logs unjammed from the top of waterfall and helped them flow down the river below.  We probably stayed her a good 15-20 minutes playing around and was a great time just to be kids again and forget the stresses of the world down below.

 A great picture of all of us in front of the waterfall before we continued on in search of the destination (Diamond lake) at the end of the hike.

Diamond Lake - Part 1

The boys are often looking to find new hikes to do in the area on hot days.  As we continue to find a lot of trails, it becomes more and more challenging to find ones that meet all there criteria: water, rivers, lake.  After some searching we found this trail to Diamond Lake.  It starts about five miles west of the small town of Eldora up a somewhat rough dirt road.  We were thankful to be there on a week day so the traffic and parking situation wasn't bad.  Here we are pre-hike and ready to hit the trails!

The hike itself starts out at almost 10,000 ft, just a bit under treeline and was supposed to wind its way about 2.5 to 3.0 miles up to Diamond Lake.  This is a look across the canyon to a nice small river that flows down with little waterfalls.  The pine tree smell when you get back in the forest is so refreshing!

After about a mile in, we started to find these little streams coming down the hillside and making waterfalls almost every quarter to half mile.  Of course we had to stop at each one and build some rock dams and cool off along the way.

Here is a picture of the three of us at one of the bigger streams we found early on in the hike.  I have to imagine this could be a pretty crazy trail earlier in the season when there is still a lot more snow melt and water coming down.  In any case, we decided to keep pushing on in search of other new things to find.

One of the funny things we stumbled across was this tree that had a crazy bend to it.  They each took some turns trying to do some pull-ups off of the trunk.

Granby

My sister Jackie has graciously offered dozens of times for us to come up and visit and get the cousins together and to spend some time with each other.  The hard part is that with full time sports on our end and lots of visitors on theirs, the schedules have been difficult to align though it's probably more constraint on our side.  Anyways, we finally pulled the trigger (somewhat last minute) and headed up to their house up in Granby just after lunch time.  It's a beautiful house that's right on a golf course and of course has this amazing pool center for the community.  What a great way to beat the 95 degree heat down in front range!  We quickly met at the pool and cousins jumped right into the water.

There was some chicken fighting going on with each of them taking some turns on the top and the bottom.  We only almost drowned a few times but I think everyone had fun!

I think for this round, Gavin and Sara emerged victorious in the picture above.  It's hard to see in these pictures but there are some pretty crazy fires burning in the mountains surrounding their valley.  Thankfully there house isn't in any danger and the smoke wasn't too bad this day.  After several hours of pool time, we headed back their house to hang out for a bit and decided to drive home later in the evening when we would normally be sleeping anyways to beat the traffic.  The guys slept most of the way down but had such a great time.  I wish we weren't quite so far away from Granby and could make this happen more often, but I am thankful for the time we did have. 

 

Back Support

 

Over the past few years I have had a few episodes of back issues.  After some work with a Physical Therapist and a strength coach, they both identified that my issues are likely caused from the years of cycling where I became too dominant in my quads and too atrophied in my glutes and hamstrings.  The result of this is that my back muscles sometimes need to come in and support what should be stabilized and performed by the other muscle groups and can lock up from fatigue.  This tightness can be super debilitating and sometimes I can't stand up straight until I can get the muscles to relax.  Part of the solution is doing more stretching and strength training for better balance in the muscle groups, but also as I spend at least half my time working from home I finally made an investment in a nice office chair.  Here it is above, and yes it is a gaming chair.  There is no better group to know what a good chair needs to do than a bunch of kids/adults that spend 16 hours playing video games sitting down.  I ordered this almost back in June and it finally arrived.  I have to say it did not disappoint.  It has amazing support and is super comfortable.  The maker is a brand called Secret Lab and this is the Titan model.  I chose the nice oreo cookie pattern for its cool and clean look.  Hopefully it can carry me through these long office working days from the basement!