The Koel Times Are A Changin'

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Halloween


Halloween took on a bit of a different experience this year.  We got an early jump start on socially distancing our candy really with the purpose of helping people take just one pile at a time while we were making our rounds in the neighborhood.  People must have done ok with this strategy as there were a few individual piles still left when we returned.  I do find that as the kids get older they tend to outstrip my desire to make the rounds to the far stretches of the neighborhood.  At least the weather was good this year and not some arctic blizzard that seems to happen every other year!

Blue Train

This year I formally joined Boulder Racing, after a year or two of training mostly with the team but racing just as one of my coach's (Eric Kenney's) athletes.  There are 12 of us on the team and almost everyone is either heading to a World Championship race or is expecting to quality for one this year.  Quite the fast crew that I hope to continue to learn from as we train together.  Also, we are somewhat known as the blue train around Boulder and here I am rocking my new team kit...and apparently a little bit of a mustache.


Infinit Nutrition continues to be one of our sponsors so I get this awesome recovery powder mix to finish off long rides with.  Tasty!

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Winter Swimming


 It is always a little rough getting to the pool with snow on the ground, but really hard to pass up swimming with a view like this!  I find that it never gets old.  Thankfully, the heater was working overtime to keep us nice and toasty during this morning's workout.

Saturday, October 17, 2020

Fire in the Neighborhood

 

This is close to the craziest thing I have seen in our neighborhood in the 19 years we have lived here.  One night I was up fairly late (~11 pm) for me and I heard some loud voices outside our house.  I came up from the basement to our backyard to see what was going on and this is the view over the fence to our neighbors house.  They had smoke pouring out of their roof and I could hear the sound of engines pulling up and people shouting commands from the other side of their house.  Moments later, my neighbor to the left of me also ended up on his porch looking at the same thing later.  We then found ourselves alerted by a police officer who came in to my back yard that we needed evacuate our house and come to a staging area.  I believe this is because we basically share fence lines, trees, and are in very close proximity to what is almost a fully involved house fire right there!

We decided to take the advice and I woke up Tara and the kids from their sleep, had them put on some warm clothes and we headed out to the street corner while the fire was worked.  Here is another view from the down the street.  I think they had four or five engines, an ambulance, and several police cars all working the scene.  Luckily, they "saved" the house and all of our surrounding houses...though the house on fire does look like it might be damaged beyond repair.  If not for the fire, I am sure the holes they cut in the roof and all the water that they rained down surely caused irreparable damage.  After about an hour an a half on the lawn outside with blankets, we were allowed back inside our house and we tried to get everyone back to sleep.  What a crazy night!

Thursday, October 1, 2020

Gavin Art Pieces

 

Gavin's art continues to amaze us!  I think it really is something that allows him time to slow down and relax and create some truly great things.  Some of these are from school projects and some are just things that he saw online or somewhere and has recreated.  This one above is one of my favorites and is a butterfly using individual dots from a black pen.

This is a picture of a Rose with some art and doodles coming off of the sides.

This was a colored pencil drawing that Gavin made with the instructions just to be creative using an Eagle.  I love that he created something patriotic with it!