Tag Archives: dogs

A Day in the Life

19 Aug

I always find it interesting to see what other people’s days look like (shoutout to SUAR!) so here’s one of mine (though not every day involves so much dog drama, clothes changing, and bean throwing. 🙂)

2:45 am — Get up to pee and decide to let the dogs out while I’m up. Charlie does not go. Go back to bed.

4:30 — Hear dogs moving around. Get up and feed them so I can leave them in the laundry room. Go back to bed.

4:45 — Hear dogs whining. Get up and let them out of the laundry room. Go back to bed.

4:50 — Realize that Charlie might have to pee now so get up to take her outside. She doesn’t go.

4:55 — Come back inside to see that Charlie didn’t go outside because she had already gone inside, right after getting out of the laundry room. Clean pee up and go back to bed.

6:00 — Alarm goes off for the first time.

7:00 — Finally get up after many, many hits to the snooze button, and eat breakfast.

“Do I look like a trouble maker?”

“Not to me.”

7:15 — Evaluate my hair in the mirror and decide to wash it. Hop in the shower.

7:25 — Do my hair and makeup.

7:40 — Get dressed in Outfit #1.

7:50 — Set up iron and ironing board for wrinkly shirt. Make lunch and snacks while waiting for iron to heat up.

From left to right: banana; Laughing Cow Sun-dried Tomato & Basil cheese; Triscuits; Colorado peach; 2 clementines; leftover Baked Mac & Cheese; spinach salad with craisins, feta, almonds and poppyseed dressing; and bing cherries. (For the record, I didn’t eat the clementines or peach and I ate the banana right before our swim.)

8:00 — Iron shirt and promptly decide to change out of the skirt.

8:03 — Get dressed in Outfit #2.

Eh. Not feelin’ it.

8:07 — Get dressed in Outfit #3. Winner. (Or I just no longer care.)

8:10 — Sit down for a short time in the Word.

8:25 — Make iced coffee while talking to the husband.

8:33 — Leave for work.

9:05 — Arrive at work. Our campus is comprised of four buildings like this one:

The desk where I will spend the next 8 mind-numbing hours being extremely bored:

At least the campus is pretty:

3:00 pm — Actually have work to do! Last 2 hours fly by.

5:05 — Time to go home! Traffic is bad but there are pretty views.

I can see Denver from my car!

5:35 — Arrive home. Let pooches out to pee while I check on our zucchini jungle garden.

Mmm… sweet cherry tomatoes.

Yes, our winter squash grew through the fence.

5:45 — Feed pooches. Travis gets home.

6:00 — Decide to do an open water swim so we change and leave.

6:35 — Get to Big Soda swimming beach.

The water’s actually not that bad once you get used to it. Decide that the water is too choppy for an extended swim (hello, water up the nose!) so do roughly 750 yards and get out.

7:10 — Drive home and take a shower to rid me of algae and stank. Eat Stacy’s Pita Chips while writing grocery store list.

7:40 — Travis takes dogs for a ride to the auto parts store and I go to the grocery and liquor stores to buy some dinner necessities.

8:15 — Get home and start making dinner (Spicy Crab Salad) while Travis grills some corn on the cob and waters the lawn.

8:20 — Crack open a glorious Mike’s Hard Black Cherry Lemonade. Hits the spot.

8:35 — Finally sit down to dinner. Delicious!

8:55 — Leave the dinner table in a huff after an intense debate on whether healthy eating involves carbs (one of those conversations where Travis and I probably agree but just can’t seem to communicate in a way that we both understand).

9:00 — Make Travis not do the dishes because he faked throwing my black beans in the garbage. (Hey – I was angry and nonsensical and didn’t want any innocent food to meet an unfortunate end.)

9:10 — Dishes done. Watch Downsized for a bit, feeling pretty good about our financial choices.

9:45 — Decide I need to go to bed so brush my teeth, make the bed (I can’t stand getting in a messy bed!), and soon after, Travis follows.

10:30 — Finally asleep, after laying awake thinking about what we’re going to do with the dogs on our upcoming trips, what my Warrior Dash outfit is going to look like, and how nervous I am to freeze my butt off during the Oly Tri in just a little over a week.

Whew!

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Weekly Recap: 8/08 – 8/14

15 Aug

Somehow, even with the impressive workout shuffling I did last week, I managed to log 5 hours and 45 minutes of training, burning 2,825 calories. Not too shabby.

Obstacles to Sleep #1 and #2

Monday: 19.8 mile bike (1:12:24)

Tuesday: 3.91 mile run (47:45), abs + upper body

I took the dogs on a 1.5 mile run, then went to the Rec and did a treadmill workout for the rest, which involved alternating a fast walk (4.5 mph) on an incline (4.5) with a run (6.0) on less of an incline (2.0). It’s a good workout! I ended with a 1-minute sprint at 7.5 mph – an 8:00 min mile pace! Fast for me! AND I finished it all off with 30 man push-ups (3 sets of 10). I was a good sore the next day.

Wednesday: 2 mile walk with pooches

Thursday: 13.5 mile bike (58:20)

This was my bike home from work and I finally didn’t take any wrong turns! I did, however, have a close encounter with the bike police. (Eep.) This was also my fastest pace on my bike to/from work route: 13.9 mph. Hey, there’s a LOT of hills. I think my getting up to 40 mph down Simms helped my overall speed a bit.

Friday: 14.4 mile bike (1:15:13)

This was more on par with my normal speed (11.5) going to/from work – distance was longer because I missed my turn (again!) and speed was slower because of those blasted hills! But the hills are precisely why this route is good preparation for the Steamboat Springs Oly Tri. I fear the bike course is going to be all downhill on the way out and all uphill on the way back.

Saturday: 7 hours of moving, 2 mile walk with pooches

We helped our friends, James and Cathy, move from their 3rd floor apartment to a house. I was exhausted by the end of the day (and sweating like a man-beast) and ran out of time for any workout because I went to church for a ladies’ night of Bunko!

Sunday: 1,750 yd open water swim (47:52), 4 mile run (45:33)

I was very sore from moving on Saturday – specifically my quads (from making 40 trips up and down those stairs!) and my biceps (from all that man-handling). I had pushed this open water swim from Thursday to Friday to Saturday to Sunday. And I still debated skipping it. But I’m glad I went.

I discovered the real reason why I don’t like doing the breaststroke in a full-body wetsuit: it’s hard to bend my knees. As the knees are crucial in forward propulsion, it’s no wonder why I always felt like I was flailing like I did in the Boulder Sunrise. Even though I still don’t like swimming the breaststroke in a wetsuit, I think it’s a better option than braving water with temperatures in the upper 60s sans-wetsuit. (I am hoping to get up to Steamboat in time to do a test run on Saturday without a wetsuit, to see if I can handle it. Then I’ll make a game time.)

The 4 mile run afterward was done at a comfortable pace. I think my goal pace for the Oly run will be 11:00 min/mile (though really, I’ll be shooting for 10:00s).

Weekly Total:

Swim: 1,750 yards

Bike: 49.7 miles (woot!)

Run: 7.91 miles

Walk: 4 miles

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My decision to train at night and get in the Word in the morning has, so far, worked out very well for me. I keep telling myself, Only 2 more weeks! Then I can drop down to 3-4 workouts a week. Even though I have been training since the end of March, it wasn’t until the week before I went to Minnesota (4 weeks ago now!) that I started feeling very drained emotionally/mentally. I am actually impressed that I made it this long without feeling burnt out. But now, I just want some time to relax already!

Anyway, I’ve been doing good about spending time with God during the week and yesterday, I was looking forward to getting in the Word and reading a lot. Twenty minutes in, though, I knew it was useless and took a nap instead. That is going to be one of my main focuses (foci? 🙂 ) for this week and especially next week (taper time!): SLEEP. I’m hoping to go to bed at 8 and get up at 6. Mmmm… sleep. I’m going to need to do something about our dogs – they like to wake up at 4 am to pee and then again at 5:30  to eat everyday. Maybe I should tranquilize them? (Just kidding.) But seriously, I will have no qualms about locking them in the laundry room so that I can sleep more next week. It’s just for a week. And they’re really annoying.

But oh, so adorable.

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Minnesota: Pine City and Minneapolis

10 Aug

If you missed the first few days of my glorious vacation in Minnesota, go back and read it.

After we left the cabin in Voyageur’s, Travis and I drove down to my parents’ cabin in Pine City (about an hour north of the Cities).

We did some tubing.

I was very nervous about falling off (since taking a nasty waterskiing spill a few years ago) so asked my dad to treat me like a 5-year-old. It ended up being a nice ride, though I did almost fall off a couple of times.

Then we took a long boat ride around Lake Pokegama (the lake my parents are on), down Snake River to Cross Lake.

The most exciting thing we saw was a heron.

It was pretty late by the time we got back from our boat ride so we ate dinner and went to bed, after watching this video several times:

The next day, we ate breakfast and went to Walmart. Later, I amused myself by taking pictures of my mom’s flowers:

Aren’t they just gorgeous? I’d love to look at that garden everyday. I took pictures of some other things too…

That’s the view of the cabin from the lake.

While I was taking pictures, Travis tried to go fishing on our neighbor’s canoe before my brother and sister-in-law arrived from Indiana but didn’t get to. He did catch a few fish off the dock, though.

Once Jeremy and Jen got there, we ate lunch and went out on the boat for some waterskiing. I was water-sported out but Jeremy and Travis went.

Charlie made another friend.

My brother, Jeremy and sis-in-law, Jen (who’s due in January!).

Katy made a friend too.

When we got back to the dock after a little swimming, we decided to try to get Charlie to swim (both her and Katy don’t like water). I sat on the tube, called her to get on it, and pushed away from the shore. Then I got off and started walking back (it was about 3.5 feet deep) and called Charlie to follow. After much hesitating, and putting one paw in the water, she jumped off the tube and swam to shore. She can swim!

Soon after that, Chris (my younger brother) and sis-in-law Meg arrived. After some hors d-oeuvres, we played an intense game of croquet.

Chris and Meg

There was much debate over the official rules of extra turns and knocking other balls out of the way.

After dinner, we had a campfire and made s’mores (though I was so stuffed from Meg’s famous carrot cupcakes that I didn’t have one). My other brother, Brian and girlfriend, Lauren arrived then and we all played Two Truths and a Lie. Good way to get to know one another a little better!

Saturday, we were all heading down to the Cities for our cousin’s wedding (Ben and Nikki). Travis and I left early to take our dogs to Brian’s house (we left them in his yard) and to have lunch with some friends. I met up with 3 of my really good girlfriends from college – it was so great catching up! I only wish I could have stayed longer and had time with each of them one on one. Travis met up with his best friend from high school too.

Then we headed to the wedding. I unfortunately didn’t take any pictures of my lunch or the wedding but the wedding was so awesome. I really enjoyed it. Their ceremony was very traditional at St. Olaf Catholic Church in Minneapolis but their reception at the W Hotel was anything but traditional. The wedding party danced for their entrance, they made people sing songs instead of clink glasses to get them to kiss, their tables were assigned by various engagement pictures they took while wearing banana costumes, and instead of signing a guest book, you were supposed to write a message on a little chalkboard and get your picture taken. (Travis and I drew a rollercoaster with the message Hold On Tight! and put our arms up like we were on a rollercoaster.) The father of the groom (my uncle) wrote a very funny, cute poem for his toast and my cousins, Josh and Tim, made a really funny slideshow for their toast. And to top it all off, they had a candy bar at the end!

We left a little earlier than we would have liked, because we were worried about our pooches. Good thing we did, too, because on the way over to Brian’s house, it started pouring. Like can’t-even-see-where-you’re-going pouring. Poor pooches! Luckily we had left the kennel there for them so they had some shelter but I was sure they were getting wet anyway with how hard it was coming down. Travis braved the pouring rain to load the kennel and the dogs up while I sat in the cab, trying to see what was going on. Katy’s harness had gotten snagged on a bush and when it started raining, she had evidently wrestled out of it to get to shelter. Shows you how hard it was raining (or how much she hates water!).

That night, we stayed at our friends Holly and Eric’s house. The next morning, bright and early, we all met up for breakfast at Keys Cafe and then Travis and I hit the road stopped at Cabela’s again. Travis had a return to make for his dad so while he did that, I filled up the truck with gas, bought some cheese curds (!), and took the dogs for a walk. Then we were really off to Colorado! Oh so far away… We arrived home at 11:30 pm, mountain time. Long, long trip that I am still recovering from.

Minnesota vacations never disappoint! (Maybe I can work for MN Tourism if I move back, huh?)

Next up: My awesome birthday presents!

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Minnesota: Nevis, Grand Rapids and Voyageur’s

9 Aug

The long-anticipated Minnesota pictures! (You were just sitting on the edge of your seat, weren’t you?) Since I took so many pictures, I’m going to break our vacation up into a couple of posts. Prepare to be shocked and awed by my awesome photography skills.

We started out for Minnesota around 4:00 pm on Friday afternoon, since we had to stop at Cabela’s in Sidney, NE, for a new gun (for Travis’ dad). While Travis shopped…

…I walked the pooches around this nice lake…

…I subjected Katy to taking photos with me – you can tell she’s thrilled…

…and we all rolled around in the grass for a while. I was incredibly itchy afterward. Note to self.

After grabbing some greasy deliciousness from Arby’s, we hit the road for the horrendous 16-hour drive to Nevis, MN, where Travis’ parents have a house (they live in Grand Rapids right now and rent their Nevis house out, but plan to move back to Nevis eventually).

About an hour into the drive from Sidney, I was wondering WTH made me think that I could handle the deadhead to Minnesota, overnight, after work? I hate to say it, but I’m getting too old for this.

I’ll spare you the gruesome details but we finally arrived at the Nevis household. After chatting with Al and Beth a bit, and giving Al his birthday present, I took a 2-hour nap (which in no way compensated for missing an entire night of sleep). True to form, Travis headed out to ride the ATV, shoot guns, and do all sorts of “fun” stuff…

 …like grate the driveway with an antique tractor.

The next day, I tried going on a run at 6 am (after being woken up by the pooches, as usual) but the deer flies were so bad (and those buggers hurt!), I turned around after a mile. It was a nice try. Then Beth, Carolyn (Trav’s sister), and I went to a place near Park Rapids called Summerhill Farm. It’s an old farm that has been turned into shops. There were a lot of things I wanted to buy but I confined myself to these finds:

The jam was made locally in Park Rapids but the salsa was made in Texas. No matter – it’s delicious and has a nice kick. I mostly bought it for Travis, who loves salsa. And the journal was just too darn cute to pass up (some of the trees are actually shimmery gold).

I spent some more time reading and doing crosswords until we packed up and headed for Grand Rapids on Sunday night. Their house in Grand Rapids is on a lake, which is great, but it’s also near a busy highway and other neighbors, which meant I had to watch the pooches instead of just letting them run wherever they wanted. Thus, my many, many mosquito bites. I definitely got bit up while I was there more than anywhere else.

The next day (Monday), we headed up to Voyageur’s National Park, where Travis’ extended family all co-own land that their great-grandmother bought in the 30s (I mis-typed before when I guessed the 40s or 50s). Like I said before, it is absolutely beautiful up there.

It was pretty windy on Monday, which made for a jolt-y boat ride and water too rough for floating. So we relaxed and picked some blueberries.

Tuesday was the perfect day though. Just the right temperature, calm water, nice breeze. Perfect.

Travis and his parents went fishing at sunrise. They brought back quite the haul.

While Travis filleted the fish,

I took my pictures of my feet.

After breakfast, Travis climbed a tree and cut the top off with a chainsaw. Seriously.

The top of the tree was dead, which is why they wanted to cut it off.

At first, the tree fell in the right direction but unexpectedly, got hung up on another tree. Then when Travis cut the trunk more and it actually did fall, it didn’t fall where expected. Luckily, no one got hurt.

After that excitement was over, I headed down to the beach and laid on a free-standing hammock. Katy was hilarious – whenever I was on the hammock, she would come lay underneath it – it was a pretty good deal for her. She got to be by me and in the shade. But there wasn’t a ton of room under there so I got jiggled around whenever she was switching positions.

A little while later, Travis suggested that we swim out to Fish Island and back. Since we’re at different levels swim-wise (the one and only thing I’m better at than Travis, he [jokingly] told me this past weekend), Travis swam out to the island and I swam back, while Beth, Matthew and Drew followed along on the paddleboat. We estimated the distance was 500 yards. Score 1 for an open water swim practice!

Then we went boating and the pooches came along.

I think Charlie actually enjoyed the boat rides.

She sat on the side of the boat a lot – maybe it gave her better balance?

She made a new friend with Drew, Travis’ nephew.

Matthew waterskied for the first time! Travis and I also waterskied a bit.

That night, we sat around the campfire and ate s’mores. Katy also took her first ride on a swing.

The next day (Wednesday) was rainy and overcast.

Travis and his parents waited to go fishing until after breakfast, when it had stopped raining.

Matthew, Carolyn, Drew and I stayed at the cabin and played the quintessential cabin game – Rummy. Carolyn won. (I lost, as usual. Those Kluthes are Rummy-playing fools!)

While we were playing Rummy, Katy and Charlie were vying for a spot on the only dog-friendly chair.

Hilarious.

Luckily, the rainy weather did not affect the fishes’ appetites.

They caught mostly walleye but a few small-mouth bass as well (I think – I only know so much about fishing).

After a lunch of delicious fish, Carolyn and I took the paddleboat out to Fish Island to pick some blueberries. Of course, we had to take the dogs with us (Carolyn has two dogs adopted from humane societies as well – one a golden retriever, the other a Rottweiler mix).

After a nap, Travis and I took the canoe out.

In vain, we tried to leave the dogs behind. They weren’t having it.

They chased us down the shoreline, whining and baying, “Come back! Don’t leave us!”I crumble immediately when Charlie bays so we pulled around to the dock in the bay and let them get into the boat with us.

Hence, dogs in a canoe. They actually did really well.

The sunset was gorgeous that night.

The next morning, it was time to leave already. Vacations fly by way too fast!

Stay tuned for tales from Pine City and Minneapolis.

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Fourth of July on Eaglesmere Trail

12 Jul

Here, finally, are the pictures from our wonderful and challenging backpacking trip.

We hiked Eaglesmere Trail, which is about 45 minutes NW of Silverthorne. The trailhead is located near Lower Cataract Lake.

Thank you, Google Maps.

The road to get to the trail head is pretty rough (washboard dirt roads) and tight (which makes for some interesting times when there’s an oncoming car). When we arrived at the trail head parking lot around 10:30 am, both the main lot and the overflow lot were completely full. We had no choice but to create our own spot, which was difficult because the Forest Service has lined the open areas with logs to prevent you from doing just that. Secret: there’s an open spot near the outhouse, which is where we parked.

We finally got on the trail, which was absolutely gorgeous. It was very wooded and green, with lots of plants and flowers. It actually kind of felt like a jungle. Since the last couple of hikes Travis and I have gone on were near Colorado Springs where it’s very rocky, this lushness was a pleasant change.

It was very hot this July 4th weekend with temperatures reaching 100 in Denver and mid-80s in the mountains. Within 10 minutes of starting out, I had sweat streaming down my face and dripping off my chin – and we were still in the shade!  There are a few stretches of this hike in full sun and while it gets hot out there, they’re not the steepest parts. But you do get a gorgeous view.

I totally think I look like my mom in that picture. Like mother, like daughter. 🙂

Our dog, Katy, was so cute on this trip. While our dog, Charlie, stuck to the front of the pack with Rocky (Ahren and Lauren’s dog), Katy followed along after Ahren and Lauren and would come back to watch for me and Travis pulling up the rear. Once we were in sight again, she’d continue on. Just wanted to make sure we I hadn’t died, I guess.

See my massive calf muscle? Hells yeah!

Also, note my little lantern hung on the back of my pack (it’s the blue thing at the bottom). Travis laughed at me when I bought it. I laugh at him when he wears his headlamp.

At about the time the last picture above was taken, my legs and my mouth were cursing at the never-ending hills on this trail. The highest point of the trail is 10,300 ft – starting at 8,500 ft – an elevation gain of 1,800 ft, which isn’t that bad except when you’re 1) not in backpacking shape and 2) doing hard workouts all week for triathlon training. My legs were just so tired. I have never felt like that on a hike before (well except for the first time I went backpacking, but I’m in a lot better shape than then. Last year, we did 30 miles in 3 days but they were flat miles. I hate hills!)

Finally, we were getting closer. We arrived at a stream (which was more like a small river it was flowing so fast) and then bushwhacked it on the ‘Rock Superhighway’ to the lake (which I don’t think is actually Eaglesmere Lake but some other obscure, yet well-known, little lake).

Finally, to my immense relief, we arrived. I survived! But the thing about backpacking (or really camping in general) is that once the hard work is over, there’s more hard work. Like setting up your tents, making a fire ring, keeping an eye on your dogs so they don’t piss your neighbors off (even though they piss you off with firecrackers at 10 pm and a dog named Slim that keeps visiting), cooking your food, filtering water, gathering fire wood, trekking up hills just to go to the bathroom, etc. Camping is so much work.

But at last, with all the dirty work out of the way, it was time for fishing, reading, picture taking, and a campfire.

The view of the lake from our campsite

The view of the mountains from our campsite

Our tent (borrowed from Ahren and Lauren because ours would not fit us + 2 pups)

Yay for self-portraits a la SkinnyRunner!

Isn’t that a totally awesome picture? Yeah, I took that – on my little Canon PowerShot.

The next morning, I woke up as the Green Hulk. That’s what happens when two dogs that should be exhausted beyond recognition still decide to wake up at 5 am. Grrrr…

Instead of accepting my early wake up call like I should have, I took the dogs on a little 10-minute walk, then tried to get them to go back to sleep in the tent. They weren’t having it (for the record, they hit their daily energy peak at 6 am). So I had Travis tie them to a tree when he got up to pee. Which was pretty much useless because I just laid there the whole time, hearing them walking around, tangling themselves together, and then Charlie digging a hole.

Finally, I resigned myself to my fate and got up. Not too long after that, Ahren and Lauren were up, and then I made Travis get up too.

After a breakfast of oatmeal and Strawberry Goober, we hiked down the stream that flows out of the lake to go fishing (I went to go reading). Actually, after contemplating an entire day of reading, I decided I would try my hand at fishing. Three casts in, I snagged my line on a rock or log and Travis broke the rod trying to get it un-snagged. Fishing FAIL. That is why I just shouldn’t fish. The universe was telling me something.

So instead, I read The Autobiography of George Muller and the Bible.

I also snuggled Katy.

She’s my little sidekick.

We also sat back-to-back for a little bit, which I thought was funny. (It’s also funny that I double as Popeye in this photo.)

I watched Travis fish for a bit.

Ahren and Lauren have been to this spot before and had tremendous luck catching fish. But the stream was a lot higher and faster than past years (due to the abnormally high amount of snow the high country received last winter) so we weren’t having much luck. After 30 minutes of no luck, we moved downstream to find Ahren and Lauren.

They found a great fishing spot where there was a bend in the stream and some trees had fallen across, creating slower water. It was also hilarious to watch the dogs make their way across these logs. Their balance wasn’t always the greatest, but not one fell in (though Rocky got wet a lot on purpose). Our dogs want nothing to do with water.

Kluthes didn’t have the greatest fishing luck. While Ahren and Lauren caught 4-5 small brook trout (and Lauren had caught a nice, big one the night before at the lake), Travis caught a few (I caught none of course) and then he caught his line on a log. After a wholehearted attempt to save the lure (I’m not a fisher so I don’t know what you call them), they cut the line and said RIP.

Meanwhile, the early-rising dogs were peetered out and trying to take a nap anywhere they could.

We all laughed at the places Charlie tried to sleep. While we were at our campsite the second night, both Katy and Charlie were so tired that they found little nooks to curl up in. Charlie even tried to crawl under the vestibule on Ahren and Lauren’s tent. When we told she couldn’t do that, she found a cozy spot in a some tall grass. I kept telling her that she wouldn’t be so tired if she’d just stop getting up so early but she just looked at me with her Eeyore face. Oh, bother.

Since the pooches were so obviously tired (and so was I), I decided to capitalize on their sleepiness by returning to camp for a nap of my own. It was glorious but I felt a little guilty because by the time I got up from my nap, Ahren and Lauren had filtered water, collected more firewood and gutted their fish. Whoops.

After dinner and some campfire discussion, I retired to bed with the pooches at 9 pm.

The next morning, pooches didn’t get up until 8 am! It was a miracle! I slept a lot better the second night (I got a little chilly at night but warmed right up by sticking my head in my sleeping bag). We ate our breakfast of champions (oatmeal with Strawberry Goober) and packed up camp. We took some pictures of the gang:

I had been nervous about the hike back and even prayed the night before as I was falling asleep that God would give me the energy and strength I needed to make it back. The first mile and a half on the way back was mostly uphill (since the lake itself is only at 10,000 ft) and I was sweating buckets again. After that, it was downhill. While I was glad to not be incredibly out of breath and ridiculously sweaty (I was only really sweaty), my legs were still exhausted.

I was SO ready to be done that I welcomed a break for this photo op (Travis took that pic – I think he did very well!):

Little did we know that the appearance of Colorado Columbine means the end of the hike! I rounded the trail bend, saw the trail head, and exclaimed “We made it!”

After using the outhouse, replacing our hiking boots with sandals, and loading up the tired pooches, we made our way to Silverthorne for some delicious food at Dairy Queen. I had the chicken finger basket and a mini Banana Split Blizzard. Delish!

Then we discovered that eastbound I-70 (the main interstate connecting Denver to the high country) was closed due to a semi-trailer that overturned. So our drive home looked like this:

It was a cluster. People were doing whatever they wanted or thought was necessary. What should have taken us an hour took us 2 1/2 but we finally made it home. We were so exhausted from the weekend and fed up with crowds that we decided to forego fireworks (and if you know how much I like fireworks, that is saying a lot). The annual Carnation Festival in Wheat Ridge always has a fireworks show so I figure I can just catch them then.

Well, that was our weekend. Backpacking is a fun adventure but man, it is hard work!

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Weekly Recap 6/13 – 6/19

20 Jun


As I mentioned a few days ago, I am going to post weekly recaps of  my training and time with God.

This past week went pretty well training-wise. I was able to stick to my schedule and get in all my workouts except for one.

Monday: Rest Day

Tuesday: Swam 750 yards; Ran 4 x 800 (in negative splits: 4:30, 4:20, 4:10, 4:07!!); abs

Wednesday: Biked 14.4 miles in 1:06

Holy hills batman! This was supposed to be 15 miles but I couldn’t remember the route I had mapped so I just followed the trail but ended up turning back early.

Thursday: Swam 1,500 yards; Ran 2.6 miles with pooches in 29:40 

Can we say spastic dogs?

Charlie actually did really well on my run. Her attention span waned after the first mile and a half but she didn’t pull on her leash or misbehave hardly at all.

Running makes some hungry dogs (like they aren’t hungry all the time, though):

 And a very sweaty me:

See the sweat dripping off my chin?

Friday: Supposed to swim 1,000 yds but instead ran 4.1 miles in 45:50.

Saturday: Hiked 7 miles in 4 hours

Travis and I went down to Divide (an hour west of Colorado Springs) to visit some friends. We hiked to Pancake Rocks and little did we know that the trail was all uphill on way out and downhill on way back. It was a challenging hike so we went up at a leisurely pace, enjoyed our lunch at the top, and then hiked back down. When we got back to their house, we watched Flushed Away and took a nap.

The hiking crew

Sunday: Biked 20 easy miles in 1:35 ish (13.5 with Travis, 7.5 on trainer)

The trail that I had mapped out (Clear Creek) was closed about 4 miles into our ride, so we improvised by going down the Ralston Creek Trail, which was actually very pretty, and then taking side streets home. The last 7.5 miles on my bike trainer were brutal because I was so bored. I need to figure out something to do on the trainer that keeps me entertained.

I also did well at spending time reading the Bible every morning, except Saturday when we were visiting friends, and Sunday when we were going to church.
It was a good week but I am living up my much-needed rest day today (by doing laundry and cleaning the house).

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More Memorial Day Pics

3 Jun

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Memorial Day Fun

3 Jun

On the hike up Cedar Mountain

This post is  happening a work week later than I had planned on but hey! that means I’ve actually had work to do at work this week… gasp! As my workload has dwindled today, here’s the recap finally.

Summer is officially here! (I don’t care what the calendar says.) Travis and I went camping Memorial Day weekend for the first time of the year. Our friend Randy’s family has some property down there so we got to stay there for free. Sahweet! Their land is rented from the Lutheran Valley Ranch so there were quite a few other people there besides us, but the land plots are so big (5-6 acres) that it’s definitely not a campground feel. BUT there is a Ranch House with running water and toilets (very much appreciated). I may advocate tents over campers for the feeling of camping, but I definitely do not advocate peeing outside over inside (at least for women).

After a couple of long, hectic weeks, Travis and I decided to leave for camping Saturday morning, which was definitely the right decision. We got a lot accomplished Friday night in preparation for leaving (loading the truck, grocery shopping, laundry, an episode of Bones) and still didn’t leave our house until 8:30 Saturday morning.

As we went through Colorado Springs, Travis asked to stop and take some pictures of a culvert. No, that’s not weird. It’s for his job. And he enjoys it. In return, I asked to stop and get a chicken biscuit from Chick-Fil-A. No, that’s not weird. I’m always thinking about food. Especially chicken biscuits from Chick-Fil-A.

Our cooking setup

Then we continued on up into the mountains, arriving at our campsite around 11:00. After setting up our tent, sleeping bags, and eating lunch, we took a short nap with the pooches in the tent and then went on a hike suggested by Randy up Cedar Mountain. There are no signs at the trailhead for the hikes in this area, so we had to drive into the Retreat Center and ask someone who worked there where the trail was. Their directions were just as nebulous but we did end up finding the trail.

The first 30 minutes were very easy. But once we got to where the switchbacks started, things only got harder. Randy had told us it was like rock climbing in some areas and during this part of the hike, I was sort of laughing at him because it wasn’t at all as steep as I had expected “rock climbing” to be. That’s because we hadn’t gotten to that part yet…

When we finally did, I was skeptical as to whether we could actually get the dogs up such slopes. We ended up having to have one of us go up partway while the other stood at the bottom. We’d call the dogs up the slope and as they got their running start but didn’t *quite* make it to the top, the person at the top would grab them and pull them the rest of the way. Then there was another part where Charlie was too scared and wanted to go back down but I just grabbed her and carried her for a little bit. She was a trooper, though, for this having been her first hike ever.

But then we found ourselves faced with a ladder and decided that it wasn’t worth trying to carry the pooches up and down that. So we turned around after Travis climbed to the top and took some pictures. He offered that I could climb up while he waited with the dogs but I started up the ladder and then decided I was ok. I’m not huge into steep, technical hiking. Plus, he said the views were pretty much the same at the top as where I was. Settled.

When we got back to our campsite, it was about 4:00 – too early for dinner. Travis cracked open a beer and I brewed some coffee. Both beverages were soon abandoned due to an emergency: Katy and Charlie got quilled by a porcupine.We had been letting them run around off their leashes and being dogs, they kept going far enough that we lost sight of them. After calling them back several times, we wondered, maybe it’s ok to just let them run? They wouldn’t go too far… which was true. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t get into trouble though.

But as I took my first sip of coffee, we heard barking. Crap, we thought, they’re barking at one of the neighbors and annoying the crap out of them. Lazily and mostly annoyed, we walked in the direction of the barking, calling for the pooches to come. They didn’t.

Until we heard them yelp and then emerge with snouts covered in what appeared to porcupine quills. Katy was making gasping and choking noises and Charlie seemed to mostly ok. We ran back to our campsite and got out the pathetic plastic tweezers from our first aid kit. They were completely useless. Luckily, Travis had some pliers so he got those out and while he sat on Katy and I helped hold her mouth open, we pulled those quills out. Poor Katy – she had probably a couple hundred quills in her lips, on the roof of her mouth, in her gums, on her tongue. Every quill pulled out brought blood and made her wiggle trying to break free from our grip. She did really well, though, considering the circumstances.

Charlie’s condition wasn’t nearly as bad. She had 25-30 quills, mostly in her gums and lips as well. But she did not like getting the quills ripped out one bit. She thrashed and whined and wriggled so much that Travis had to literally sit on her with all his weight.

After one more switch in instruments (forceps worked the best), we were finally done – both with pulling quills out and with letting the dogs run around off their leashes. We didn’t need to deal with that anymore.By that time, it was time for dinner so Travis started a fire and we put some brats, asparagus, and baked beans on the grate over the fire. (Note to self: Defer to Travis in all matters related to cooking on the fire or grill.) After a walk around the lake near the Ranch House and some wine/beer and s’mores, we retired to bed at the hour of 9 pm.The flapping tent

But it was next to impossible to sleep. When we first went to bed, it was dead silent except for these god-awfully loud crickets that seemed to be in my eardrums. I couldn’t stand it so I got out my iPod and put on some sleepy tunes. That helped and within 20 minutes or so, I was falling asleep.

Only to be awaken around 3 am by the howling wind and constantly flapping tent. After that, every time I was almost dropping off, the wind would pick up and send our tent flap a-flappin’ and wake me up.

Travis also had a hard time sleeping. At first, he couldn’t get to sleep because he was worried about bears. After he got up and hung our garbage bag in a tree a ways from our tent, he figured he’d be able to go to sleep. No such luck. Because that was when the wind picked up and then he laid awake worrying about a tree falling on our tent. Ay-ay-ay.

The next morning, the pooches woke up at 7 am. I took them on a nice little morning walk, drank some coffee, and spent time in the Word while Travis tried to sleep a bit longer. At 9 am, he finally got up and we made breakfast. After washing dishes and grooming, we headed out for the hike we were thinking about doing down a drainage that led to the South Platte River. But we were prevented by two words: ATV Mecca. There were so many ATV-ers out and about that we decided to not do the trail we had been thinking of (not with two pooches off leashes). So after an hour spent driving around on eroded, extremely bumpy dirt roads getting our brains scrambled, we retreated to another hike Randy had told us about.

Like the previous hike, there was no sign for the trail leading to the ‘Stone Cabin’ and the directions we had from Randy were pretty vague. We started out walking on what appeared to be a trail but quickly vanished into nothingness. There was a trail on the other side of the stream but we had seen ATVs on it as we started out and that was exactly what we were trying to avoid. So we kept walking. After about .75 mile of hiking through the woods seeing no sign of a Stone Cabin, we started getting pinched out of the drainage and decided to head up the slope and walk the ridge back.

As we were sitting on a downed tree trunk eating trail mix and PB&J sandwiches, we heard voices. Hmmm, we thought, the ATV trail must not be that far away. Come to realize, those voices were coming from above us – a group of 4-5 people were coming down from the peak about 200’ above us. We decided to ask the people if they knew where the Stone Cabin was. They did! After giving us some more vague directions (“Follow this trail and turn right”) and encouraging us to check out the view from up top, they left and we hiked up to the top

.As typical with any peak (and especially so that day since the wind from the previous night had not let up but continued to blow at gusts of 30-40 mph), it was incredibly windy at the top but it was gorgeous. A panoramic point if I ever saw one.

We continued on our journey to find the Stone Cabin, not really sure we knew where we were going. But then we reached a T in the trail and the directions those people had given us made sense. The detour to the Stone Cabin only took us about 35 minutes of hiking time and was definitely worth it – I love seeing old cabins like that tucked back in the middle of nowhere. To think that someone actually lived there!

Finally, we were headed back. When we got back to our campsite, we fed the pooches and then put them in their kennel because they were both exhausted. Every time we had stopped during our hike, they both found shady spots and lie down.

Travis and I were also tired so we went into our tent and read our books for a while. The wind was still ferocious (I swear, it had to have been 50 mph at times) and our tent was still flapping and we had had it up to here, so we decided to eat our dinner of white bean chili and beer bread sitting in the cab of our truck, just to escape the wind momentarily. That was when Randy showed up. He and Travis were going to go fishing on Monday while I went back to Denver with the pooches.

After helping Randy get settled, we sat around and talked in the wind and the dark (no campfire when it’s so windy), ate some uncooked s’mores, and went to bed around 9 pm again. Pooches slept in their kennel that night because the bottom zipper on our tent door broke and we didn’t want to have to deal with them trying to sneak out at night.Though it was still very windy that night, I slept a LOT better than the night before. Travis did too, once he got up to rig the tent flap to stop flapping. (So that’s why it was so quiet!) Morning came very early though, at 6:15 am.

After a breakfast of burritos and coffee (provided by Randy), we packed up camp and headed out. Travis and Randy went camping and I and the pooches went home. Traffic wasn’t bad at all and I got home by 11:00. I unloaded all the coolers, totes, pooches and bags; put everything away; cleaned out the coolers; watered the garden and landscaping; did the dishes; took a shower; and then read a bit until I fell asleep for a sweet hour-and-a-half nap.

I ended up going grocery shopping and doing laundry later that night but overall, it was a pretty chill evening. We got dinner from Sonic (chili cheese tots for me, popcorn chicken for Travis) and then rented Knight and Day from Redbox.

Then Monday, it was back to the work grind. (But I actually had work to do, so it wasn’t too bad!)

Note: WordPress won’t let me insert any more photos without dismantling my text so I will post more pictures in a separate post.

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The Hooligan Twins

20 May

Katy and Charlie

One cause of my recent lack of blog posts has been the two dogs to the left. Cute, yes. Well-behaved, no.

It all started back on April 8th when I took Katy to our new vet at PetSmart for a routine checkup and a refill on her heartworm meds. Charlie was there, newly rescued from an indian reservation in Oklahoma. After several discussions with the rescuing vet and Travis, we adopted Charlie. We did not know what we were signing up for.

While some behaviors like guarding her food and putting her paws up on the kitchen counter were quickly remedied, other behaviors like peeing inside the house, waking up at god-awful hours like 2 and 4 a.m., and disappearing into the juniper bushes behind our house to avoid being disciplined are still works in progress.

In those first days, I wasn’t working yet so the most challenging aspect of having Charlie was that she didn’t like her kennel all that much and would start whining and banging around to be let out at the hour of 5:00 a.m. most days (and when you’re unemployed, that is a VERY early hour to rise). My initial ideas were to 1) let her out to pee, then put her back into her kennel and go back to bed; 2) leave her outside and go back to  bed; 3) leave her out of her kennel and go back to bed. Notice the familiar theme? Well, not a single one of those options worked. Putting her back into her kennel only caused her to whine and sometimes bark. Leaving her outside started a barking contest between her and the neighbor’s dog. And leaving her out invited either little surprises left around the house or her pawing at our bedroom door. So I finally sucked it up and realized that my reality was I just had to get up and stay up. During that period, I actually knew what was going on in the world from watching the morning news and I got a lot of curriculum editing done (both of which have dropped to nothing since I started my job).

Adding to the frustration of the early mornings was Charlie’s refusal to sit still or lay around for longer than 30 minutes at any given time. Therefore, my afternoon naps were also out of the question. I couldn’t let Charlie just wander around the house because she still didn’t quite understand that she needed to hold her bowels until we were outside. So I’d be just dropping off into a most glorious slumber when Charlie got up and walked off down the hall. I would call Charlie back, lay there for 10 seconds cursing my life, and then get up and follow after her. It didn’t work either to have Charlie lie with me on the couch but she is the squirmiest dog EVER. She will NOT lay still for anything but instead feels the need to stick her cold, wet nose on your cheek and lick your neck. Again, very cute, yes. Charming? No.

The way she looks when she does this makes me melt

Then there were the walks. Being a rescue from a reservation as well as a puppy with loads of energy, Charlie did not (and still doesn’t) understand the concept of a leash. Taking two dogs on a walk would be a challenge regardless, even if one of those wasn’t swerving back and forth the entire time, trying to get to things beyond the reach of her leash, and running into the other dog as if they weren’t even there. On those walks, I admire Katy’s patience – instead of snapping, growling or barking, she just steps around Charlie, going on her merry little way. I, on the other hand, wanted to kick Charlie. I’m not a good doggy mommy.

Ah, and then there have been the times when Charlie peed on the floor in our house right in front of me. First, she went into the corner behind the chair in our living room. Then, I walked into our bedroom just as she was squatting down. Then, I was laying on the couch attempting to take a nap and she decided that right in the middle of the room was the best place to relieve herself. On every one of these occasions, as soon as it clicked in my head what she was doing, I spastically yelled “NOOOOOOO!!!!”, scaring the living daylights out of her so much that she promptly stopped long enough for me to get her outside to finish what she started. (Although now, for some reason, Charlie can’t hold her bladder when she’s scared, and she’s scared of us often – our own doing – so we find little puddles of pee around.)

I tell these tales (slightly) light-heartedly now but let me assure you, there have been many angry, enraged outbursts from both me and Travis. This dog (and Katy, who I will get to shortly) has tested our patience, kindness, longsuffering, and sanity more than I ever thought she would. It is only by God’s grace that both of these dogs are still alive (I’m serious). To deal with the frustration, I have locked the dogs outside or locked myself in another room. I have lectured them (which actually made them scared of me – now whenever I lecture them, Charlie runs and sits in her kennel). I have smacked them both on the heads, grabbed their collars and dragged them forcefully when they wouldn’t come willingly, and shook their heads with force. I have also ignored them, shouted at them, and been a little rougher than I would if I wasn’t mad. I’m not proud to admit these things and I do not think it is ok to treat dogs, even though they’re animals, like this. In Charlie’s case, she doesn’t know better.

But Katy does. Katy is a smart dog and she’s not a puppy so she has been trained, taught and disciplined. When she grabs a pair of my pants from our bedroom and drags them out into the living room (but doesn’t chew them), all you have to do is hold them up in front of her and she cowers. She knows that’s naughty. Katy has also removed and chewed up items from our bathroom garbage can (some more disgusting than others), relocated shoes from the garage to outside, and slept directly on my bedroom pillow. But while I worked at home, and then was unemployed, these episodes were at a minimum.

But then we got Charlie. We don’t leave Charlie out of her kennel while we’re gone for potty-training reasons, which has caused Katy to seriously go berserk. She has started chewing blankets up again and pulling stuff out of the bathroom garbage. We started putting all of our blankets into a wicker basket but I came home one day to find Katy had dumped the wicker basket over, pulled out all the blankets and chewed up a few she hadn’t gotten to before. She’s tipped over potted plants, picture frames, and coasters. But in the past 3 weeks (since I started working), she has taken her mischievousness to new heights.

Don't let that sweet face fool you... she's a very naughty dog.

It really started the weekend we got a “new” couch. We bought it from a girl I used to work with for $25. It wasn’t in perfect condition but it was a nice couch – a dark tannish brown microsuede with seats that didn’t get pushed out when you sat on it. I was pretty excited.  That was Saturday. Monday at lunch, Travis came home to let the dogs out and discovered that Katy had chewed two giant holes in the couch and pulled out a bunch of stuffing. The holes also happened to be in locations where they can neither be repaired, nor re-covered. The couch is toast. While we were thinking about what to do (luckily we kept our old couch), I decided to put the old couch cover on the new couch, hoping to dupe Katy into thinking it was the old one again. But like I said, she’s smart. When Travis came home on Tuesday, he found Katy had chewed through the cover in the exact same spots to the holes she had created the day before and once again pulled out stuffing. Thus we began locking her into the laundry room while we’re at work. It hurts us to do so, but she absolutely cannot be trusted anymore.

A couple times this past week, though, we have felt crazy and ventured the risk to trust them. Charlie has gotten much better with the potty-training and both times we’ve left both of them out, Charlie hasn’t done anything inside – except perhaps to follow Katy’s lead in destroying everything in sight. Yesterday, Travis came home from work to find that the dogs had somehow pulled down the curtains and curtain rod in the living room – hooks, sheetrock anchors and all – as well as knocked over everything sitting on the windowsill (things we had on there to teach them to NOT walk on it), pulled stuffing out from the couch,and grabbed cardboard boxes from the kitchen and chewed them to little shreds, which they scattered everywhere. Travis said that it looked like a bomb had gone off. It took him 45 minutes to clean up the mess.

So once again, we’re back to both dogs being locked up all day long. We hate to do that but it’s necessary if we want to protect the limited possessions we have left untainted. I’m sure that Katy’s rebellion is the result of my returning to work. At first, we thought she was acting out because Charlie was locked up. Well, her behavior with Charlie has proven to us that that is not the case. If anything, she coaxes Charlie into being an accomplice. I’m hoping that this will get better with time, as Katy readjusts to this schedule and we are more intentional about taking them on walks and runs. But in the meantime, I am praying for God to give us grace because this has been a huge test of our patience and love for our pooches. Travis calls them Pooches O’Hoolihan (like Patches O’Hoolihan from Dodgeball). I call them The Hooligan Twins. They are a handful to say the least.

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When it rains, it pours.

20 Apr

The past week and a half have been ridiculously busy. Mostly because we got a new dog who isn’t completely potty-trained but also partly because I have had dinner dates, church functions, and job interviews to attend.

Without going into all of the boring details, I will just say that there have been several days with things that have gone wrong, taken forever, been frustrating, or days that just seem so jam-packed with stuff to do that I don’t see how it will all get done. When I am not being anxious or angry, I am actually sort of excited about all the stuff going on, the trials, the challenges, and the anxiety because it has allowed me to put my theories about the Christian life and walking with God to the test. Kind of like, how do they withstand trials and struggles?

Well, I’m happy to say that the truths are true. They’re just impossible for me to practically follow. It’s amazing how in the times when everything is going fairly smoothly and I’m happy and peaceful, trusting in God seems easy and I feel like I am actually doing it. But when the road gets rough and things start to fall apart, that’s when I stop trusting God. The times when I need God most are the times that I turn from Him. Does that make ANY sense at all?

This is what I wrote in my journal this past Sunday morning: “I’ve been saying lately that the Christian life is simple and yet impossible. Trusting God for everything–validation, security, comfort, provision, identity, etc.–is where we find joy and peace, yet it is the hardest thing for humans to do!

“Upon first thought, it seemed like God had designed us to be completely incapable of being good and relying upon Him, even though the result was more sin on our part. Is God more concerned with our reliance upon Him than our sanctification? Verses like 1 Thess. 4:3 seemed to contradict that.

“Then I thought of Jesus, who was holy and perfectly dependent on the Father. So reliance on God is God’s way of sanctifying us. It is only as we rely on God that we become holy. Relying on God and being sanctified are one in the same thing.

“All of our sins are failures to rely on God–to find everything we desire and long for in Him.”

The Christian life is really so simple. We walk through every day in communion with God as we trust His sovereignty and wisdom, His goodness to us in all circumstances, and accept everything from His hand. But that is definitely easier said than done!

Last Thursday morning, I was at my breaking point. Charlie had peed inside the house AGAIN, I was frustrated and impatient with her constant need for attention and decision to get up at 6 am every morning, I had another interview that afternoon (which I was dreaded since the one I had had on Tuesday went horribly), and I had another full day ahead of me. I felt pulled in a hundred different directions, with no time for me or rest or reading or fun. I was ready to blow a gasket and was wondering, “Didn’t God say that He provided grace in the time of need? Well, I need grace. I’m asking for grace. But I don’t feel Him providing it because I am just barely making it through today.”

During my coffee time with my friend Cathy, I asked her what God’s practical provision of grace looks like. I explained to her my situation and on the verge of tears, told her that I didn’t feel God’s grace because I just wanted to crawl back into bed every morning. She told me that just the fact that I haven’t thrown in the towel, haven’t crawled back into bed and abandoned my responsibility is God’s strength to me. Just like in exercise, we have to burden our bodies with almost more than we think we can handle in order to grow stronger. You don’t grow stronger by lifting manageable weights.

As soon as she said that, the tears started falling. I felt God saying to me, “I am growing you through this.” I felt burdened beyond my strength but I hadn’t given up. The next day, I read this in Elisabeth Elliot’s Keep a Quiet Heart from Lamentations 3, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.” I am humbled once again by how quick I am to accuse God of abandoning me when He has been carrying me through the trials of my life.

As much as I have struggled with being busy, I do see the Lord’s mercies to me in this season. I just found out yesterday that I got a job as a Marketing Communications Copy Editor! (Praise the Lord for His provision!) So those early mornings with Charlie? Preparation for going back to work. Having a lot to accomplish in one day? Preparation for having a full-time job again. God is slowly easing me back into the working world, one trial at a time.

I am so utterly grateful to God that even though I continue to doubt Him and question His ways, He continues to give me grace, insight, and understanding sufficient to continue on in faith. My impatience and anger with my dogs this past week have stood in stark contrast to God’s infinite faithfulness, patience, long-suffering, and love toward me. I am so humbled.

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