Capital Grille

If you have not had the pleasure of eating at the Capital Grille, I would highly recommend figuring out a way to get here!  This place is probably the nicest steak house I have ever been to and (apparently) has private liquor lockers that people store their expensive alcohol for the next time they return.  I was actually here for a work celebratory dinner with several of my colleagues for a big project that we had completed.

I had a Filet Mignon steak with garlic mashed potatoes.  It was amazing!  We also ordered some other side dishes for the table that we didn't quite finish, and I brought Tara home some grilled Brussel Sprouts which see quickly stated that they were the best she had ever had.  Apparently, lots of good wine was also had this night by the crew, but I am a cheap date and had a simple cranberry juice.  

I am thankful to work for a company where we work hard but also really celebrate that hard work.  Thanks, Leprino Foods, for a great dinner and night out on the town!

This Deck Will Be The End of Us...

How much work goes into building a deck??  Apparently, quite a lot with Taylor delivering top notch quality work for us.  We really appreciate his effort so much as it seems like such a rare thing to find someone that cares this much about their work.  He prides himself on doing the same quality of work he would do if it was his own house.  Also, as you can see above, because of very strict regulations on decking and deck stairs, the amount of woodwork that goes into these things is crazy.  At least we can be sure this thing will last almost forever.  With the support work almost done, it will not be long until we can start installing the actual deck material...

Riding w/ Family

I always enjoy some time out on the bike with family.  Here is a picture of Gavin and I with him rocking an old team kit of mine (GS Boulder pb Studio 1 Dental).  It happens to fit him quite well - which may be kind of sad or funny - and he is riding my old Trek Madone that I raced before I had my Pinarello.  I really do think Gavin enjoys riding, so it's not much of a hard sell to get us out together.

Tara also was along for the ride, hiding behind us to get the benefit of a draft.  I love that she has taken to biking so much as this still remains a great activity for us to do together.

20th Anniversary

 

It's hard to believe that it has been 20 years!  I had planned out some special adventures for us to celebrate this significant milestone in our marriage.  The first stop was taking a hike (parking at Eben G Fine Park) and ending up at the place shown above where I proposed to Tara so many years ago.  While she enjoys a good hike up Flagstaff, the whole time she couldn't quite figure out where we were going until the very end.

It was a great temperature for a hike with a nice cloudy, overcast day.  This picture is from the hike down with Mount Sanitas in the background.

After we finished up the hike we checked into our accommodations for the night, which was the Hotel Boulderado.  This hotel is where we stayed for our first night after being married, though we originally stayed in the historic side of the hotel and tonight we were in the modern side.

This corner room had quite the view of the Flatirons and huge vaulted ceilings and full windows extending up from the floor.  We changed for a fun dinner on Pearl Street and shortly headed out for some good eats.

Our dinner reservations were at Centro, which is kind of a new age Mexican restaurant within walking distance of the hotel.  It was our first time there, but the food was great.  We also had a nice patio seat outside to enjoy the fresh air and enjoy the epic people watching that Pearl Street always delivers.  We had a great day together celebrating and it was awesome to get away for some relaxed together time.  Happy Anniversary Babe!

More Deck Progress

This is a pretty exciting day for the deck project.  It's cement pouring day for the foundation of the stairs!  This turned out to be a bit crazier than anticipated, as the company we found to deliver the cement only accepted orders in person and in writing.  They also needed a check in hand 24 hours before delivery or they would cancel the order and they happened to be all the way over in Boulder...so not so convenient.  We finally got the order sorted and then our plan was to load three revolving wheelbarrows and shuttle them back and forth between the front and back yards.

This all had to be done very quickly as the cement will set up if it sits too long.  Here you can see the wheelbarrow train waiting patiently for the next pour.  You can also see the delivery of all the decking material to the street behind Gavin.  Unfortunately, each of those boards weigh like 60 lbs. and we had to carry each of them individually by hand to the back yard.  That took a few hours just by itself to do!

As the loads came in, we were dumping and smoothing out the foundation along this wooden mold to form the concrete pad.  It was all hands-on deck!

Melanie was also a key helper in this part.  While Taylor monitored the front-end delivery process, she was in the back helping make sure the concrete was being set up correctly in the back.  It was actually pretty awesome to work through it all.  I wish I knew how to do more of this stuff myself as I really like to do home projects.  

Kansas Trip - Part 2 of 2

It was also really great to spend some time with my Grandma Swindler.  She is the only remaining Great-Grandparent that our kids have.  We went out to the park and did a little walk with her before the heat of the day came full on.

She lives in Oberlin and has immense love and companionship from and with her dog.  I wish that we were able to make it back and see her more often.  Perhaps we will try to make another trip soon!

Kansas Trip - Part 1 of 2

We haven't been back to my area of Kansas (northwest corner near Oberlin/Norton) in quite some time.  The stars finally aligned and we many of my extended family all descended on the area which turned out to be an amazing time.  Th first stop was actually in Oberlin to my Unkle Zeek and Aunt Jonna's house.  My boys haven't really had that much exposure to what small town USA looks and lives like.  It is a true haven for boys.  Here they are exploring my Unkle Zeek's shed where women "aren't allowed".  He's got everything you could think of hunting, fishing, cowboying, farmering that you could think of there.  

Here is my Unkle Zeek.  He is retired these days and spends a lot of time doing all the things I just mentioned.  However, one of his passions definitely is new to our kids...which is shooting.  

He was (and still is) a competition shooter in Kansas and is quite impressive.  We went out to the range and he gave a few lessons to the guys.

After some shooter safety lessons, they were able to give it a go.  The first thing Gage noticed above is how heavy this shotgun actually is.  It was about all he could do to hold it up and sight down the targets being thrown.

Here is Gavin, who did a bit better handling the shotgun.  It still was quite a lot to handle, but they both did great and even managed to hit quite a few targets.  What an amazing experience...though I might add that the Kansas heat was kicking in something fierce!  It had to have been at east 90 degrees and then you can layer on some humidity, and we were all sweating pretty good.

The highlight event of the day was a friendly family bowling competition at the Oberlin bowling alley.  Here is Garret helping instruct Gavin on the proper way to bowl.  He is a fierce bowler and takes it very seriously.  He was surely the best bowler of the bunch, though a few of us gave him a run for his money.

After the fun in Oberlin, we continued on toward Norton.  We all collected at my Aunt Randa and Uncle Steve's house.  They have this amazing house for entertaining and we all gathered around to feast on some amazing food.  So much fun to be around a big gathering of family.  It brings back so many memories from my childhood with all the big holiday celebrations.

Deck Progress

Our friend, Taylor, that is taking on the deck project for us came up with the above design for the deck after working with us.  It is pretty fun to think through what it will look like.  As you can see, we are adding steps down from all three sides.  We think this will really make the yard more accessible and be more conducive to people just hanging out more casually out there.  We are going to try to put some lights on the steps, as well, if we can find some that will work.  So excited! 

We have made some good progress pulling off all of the decking boards from the support joists.  The kids (i.e. "The Muscle") are working to dig out the grass and the dirt around the outside of the deck that will at some point become foundation for the steps.

Here you can see the entire support structure exposed.  We need to go through each board to see if it is warped and/or water damaged.  Replacements will be inserted for any that are too far gone.

This is a common sight these days with Taylor being a perfectionist.  He has spent countless hours just working on getting the foundation level and straight.  By his words, if this isn't almost perfect then when you get to the new decking material you will have a nightmare on your hands.  We really appreciate all of his hard work! 

Boulder Peak Triathlon Spectating

As I am still working through what the future holds for me with competing with my heart condition, I was happy to be able to be at the Boulder Peak Triathlon to cheer on some teammates.  Here are two of them (Ed & Sam) with two other pseudo-teammates (Ali and Rachel) all ready to head into the swim.  These guys (and gals) and just great people to train and do life with as we all struggle with our own individual challenges in life.

As you can see, Boulder Racing had quite the crew there on this day with almost everyone being on the podium in either their Age Group or the Overall.  Such a fun crew to be with and this race on home turf never disappoints.