Sweet Surprise

This spring and summer my yard has given me several sweet surprises.

It started with Daffodils in March...

then came Tulips and Irises in April...

Roses in May...

and, saving the best for last, Peonies in June.

I wish I could take credit for these lovely creations, but it was nice to receive the reward without having to put in the work.

Drew's fun fact: The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick is the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

Hooked on crack

Drew and I just got back from a weekend of camping and climbing in Estes Park. And since my bruised, scraped, exhausted body has fallen onto the sofa and can't get up, I figured I'd go ahead and blog about it.

Friday night we met up with some people from Drew's work at a campground just outside of Estes. It was great to finally meet some of the people Drew works with. One girl I met told me that when she moved to Colorado from Michigan she sold all of her designer high heels and purses on E-bay to buy a mountain bike. My kind of girl.

Saturday we went climbing at a spot called Lily Lake. The area had amazing views of Long's Peak and was full of great sport routes. A group of people showed up and set up a slack line above the top of the routes we were climbing. When it got windy the slack line started vibrating and sounded like a helicopter was landing. Needless to say, it was an amazing thing to witness these guys traverse the high-altitude slack-line.

One of the coolest routes of the day was called "Edge of Time." It's a classic climb for this area (a picture of it is on the cover of the climbing guidebook for Estes Park Valley). Here's a picture of Drew on it with Long's Peak in the background:

After a full day of climbing we went back to camp for an evening of frisbee, hacky sak, Apples to Apples, campfire singalong, and smores. Today we woke up early, broke down camp, and headed back to Estes to a spot called Lumpy Ridge. This area mostly has longer multi-pitch climbs but our friends took us to do a couple of shorter crack routes. I had never climbed real cracks before and had no idea what I was getting myself into. With crack routes, instead of grabbing/stepping onto holds on the face of a rockwall, you jam your feet and hands inside of the crack and then try to go up. I wasn't very good at it. Drew did much better than me, which I attribute to the fact that his hands make bigger fists and he has a much higher threshold for pain. Regardless, we had a great time trying a new type of climbing. Now I see why crack can be so addictive.

We headed back home this afternoon, gorging ourselves on Twizzlers and Pringles, thankful for a weekend of amazing weather, cool people, and incredible new climbing spots.

Drew's fun fact: In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem Globetrotter."

Weekend Update

Not much blogging lately because there hasn't been a whole lot to write about. In May it rained for almost three weeks in a row. And if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all... I decided not to blog in May.

But now it's June and for the past four days the weather has been beautiful. It's strange how weather can dictate so much of your life. We've been itching to start hiking 14ers again but the mountains are still covered in feet upon feet of snow; looks like it will be another month before enough snow melts to be able to hike up to 14,000 ft without having to post-hole to the summit.

We've still been spending most of our weekends climbing. Drew recently started dabbling in trad climbing where you place gear into the rock as you climb to catch you if you fall (rather than relying on bolts that have been permanently placed in the rock). He also did his first multi-pitch on the 1st Flatiron- 8 'legs' of climbing up about 1,000 vertical feet. Yes, he has a life insurance policy.

Both of our parents are planning trips to Colorado this summer, and we are going to Alaska the last week in July. And at the end of this month we celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary. Lots to look forward to this summer. Now if only that snow would melt...

Drew's fun fact: March 2011 snow surveys show the snowpack in the Colorado River basin is still above average, at 128 percent of average and 164 percent of last year's figures.