The Deck is Finished and Open for Business!

Finally!  The day we had all been waiting for.  The deck was finished, the new furniture had arrived and was put together, and the smokeless fireplace was ready to cook!  Here is Gavin taking it all in as we started the inaugural fire. 

This is a closer picture of the satisfaction in his face!

Tara was quick to join in on the action and enjoy the afternoon sunlight and the fire picking up.  I really love the darker grey trim lines and the divider that we ended up putting into place to break up the long light grey boards.  This material was a competitor to the normal Trex deck, called Fiberon.  We were quite happy with the quality of the material, the graining of the surface to make it look somewhat natural, and the heat resistance capabilities.

Of course, we had the whole construction crew to celebrate the first night we the deck!

We were also able to hang some lightning that my mom sent us from Washington that they weren't using to provide some ambiance/party vibes that could keep going late into the night!  This was quite the financial investment, and we couldn't be happier with the end result.  Massive thanks to our friends and primary workforce Taylor and Melanie Hood for investing their time and energy in this project.

Tara's Dad Visits

Tara's dad or "Grandpa T" came to visit us in July.  It had been quite a while since he has been to our house as we usually meet at a restaurant or some other outdoor location.  Here is Grandpa T with Gage.

Here he is with Gavin and was quite impressed that both of the boys were actually taller than him now.

We had hoped the back deck would be complete in time for him to see the finished product, but it wasn't quite done.  So, we opted to give him a tour of the progress and walk him through what all the final plans were.  I think he was quite impressed with how things were moving along and all the work we were doing alongside the decking (i.e. the landscaping changes).

I also caught a picture of Tara and her dad just catching up and spending some time together.  It is always great to see Terry and Sandra when they are able to make it out.  Tara visit's her dad at least once a year out in Arizona, but they don't make it up this way quite as often as they used to.

Big Work Project Go-Live

Continuing on from the Capital Grille celebration that proceeded this a bit, here was the actual main event for the project we were working on.  This was the conversion of Leprino's SAP system from ECC to S/4, which is the latest version.  I served as the Program Manager for this effort that culminated in this Saturday night at the office with almost 20 US resources and 10-15 European support resources onsite.  We set up the "War Room" in the Corporate Board room so that we could call out tasks and triage any issues that arise.

Here is just another picture from the night with Mattias in the background.  We started calling out tasks sometime during the day but were monitoring things well into the night.

Here is a view of downtown Denver from the porch off of the Board room.  It was a beautiful night to be into work on a Saturday.

Here is another picture of the day with Diana and Vedavyas checking the progress.

At the conclusion of the night, with only Hypercare left to monitor throughout the week, here is the full team picture.

The celebratory high-five being captured before we all turned it in for the night.  What a great effort by so many people to execute a huge project go-live with minimal issues.  This was the result of thousands of hours of planning, testing, training and hard work and it felt great to be finished with this phase!

So Close on The Deck...

As you can see, the deck work continues as we forge through the summer months.  The picture above shows the North side of the house and the new landscaping work I have been doing alongside the deck.  We pulled back all of the rock from this back area alongside the house and then leveled over the old flower garden that was alongside the fence to create a more defined rock area.  The dirt was also releveled to have the proper gradient sloping away from the house.  You can see the start of the tarping and re-rocking of the area that will ultimately be extended up to this metal barrier.

While I was working on the landscaping, we had all hands-on-deck to continue the support work for the main joists spanning the deck from the house.  This was quite the regular view for several nights each week as we pounded this out.

Here is another view of the work that is being done.  You can also see that with the new steps added, the deck area extends another 12-16" into the old lawn area.

This is a picture from South side of the house and shows the path going to the front yard.  The new landscaping work started out looking like this.

However, I am happy to report that the almost finished product looked like this above.  We redid the gradient, as well, on this side of the house and installed new tarp paper and rocks next to the house.  The crusher fines path was also extended and cleaned up to get out to the new yard barrier.  I am really happy with how this is all coming together alongside the deck work that will soon be finished.

Team Ride Fun

It was great to get out with the Boulder Racing crew for team ride.  We don't often get everyone's schedules to line up to have a big group together, but all the heavy hitters were here and ready.  I have been training/racing with these guys for several years now and even though we are in quite different places in life, in this simple area of training we all are chasing the same thing together.

Here is another picture of the group as we decide what the route for the day is.  We ended up going over Old Stage and then heading up to Ward for some fun.

This was probably the highlight of this trip.  As we were waiting to regroup before proceeding up to Ward, someone got this fairly epic picture.  I just love this picture as it seems to capture the "team" feeling that I get when I ride with these guys.

It was also good enough to be used in an advertisement for one of our sponsors: Zone 3.  It seems kind of surreal to see yourself on the front of an ad that is being sent out to the masses.  What a great honor for our team to be the face of one of our sponsors, at least in this one case.  I am so happy to call these guys my teammates and just my time in general with Boulder Racing!