New Pictures

Boyd's preschool class has been skiing one day a week. Wednesday was their last day for the sesaon, so they rode the snow cat up to the top. Boyds been up there plenty of times, so the hill was no big deal. But, I think he really liked the snow cat ride.

Boyd skied quite a bit last year and the lessons at Beaver Creek were quite a bit more advanced, so he is normally well out ahead of his class. They skied twice this week on Tuesday and Wednesday to make up for a missed day. They had a different instructor on Tuesday than normal. When the instructor here asked his name and he said "Boyd", she said "The infamous Boyd, I've heard about you". I joked with him and told him a couple years we wouldn't have to buy passes because all the lifties would be saying "hey, here comes Boyd". The second photo looks more like a train wreck than a ski lesson, but I think some of these kids had never skied until this year.


The next set of photos are at the house. The snow overhanging the roof is now gone. I spent yesterday evening on a ladder w/ a snow shovel getting as much snow as I could from the ladder. The snow was about 30"+ near the gutters. Today the sun was out and the rest of it all slid off.
The biggest mounds of snow are from the roof and shoveling the driveway. We've had a lot more snow than that fall, but after it sets and the sun comes out it consolidates. Its still deeper than waist deep and I've almost lost control of the driveway. The kids have made a sledding hill from the top of the shoveling mound through the yard into a hole in the front yard. They also spent part of the day monday climbing the tree in the back yard and jumping into the snow to almost bury. They've been told not to do that any more, but Heather had to get a couple pics first.

The photos from the tree in the backyard was on Monday when school was cancelled. We had around 10" of snow, but school was closed because the bus barn had a gas leak and they couldn't start them for fear of causing an explosion.

The sabertooth and unicorn. I think Isaac looks more like snotsicle man.

Bow is growing and is now around 18 wks. He has become a handful lately. He stole a whole burrito off of the counter last week and eat it before I got upstairs. He doesn't get to eat table food, so he made a big mess in his kennel that night (if you know what I mean). It wasn't pretty.

Links to our pastor's web site

Here are a couple links to Ethan's (our pastor's) web site and the weekly article he writes ("first tracks") and places on the Trinity's web site. We really like attending Trinity and have made a lot of friends there. It is, honestly, the best thing we have become a part of here in Colorado.

First Tracks - http://www.trinityvail.com/Firsttracks/firstracks.htm

Ethan's web site - www.gracecommando.com Ethan is the guy shown under "What happend to me"

Spring Break Trip to IL

Well we've decided to come home to visit over Spring Break again this year. We were going to wait until June and go to California over Spring Break, but the CA trip was going to cost too much. Heather may still come in during the summer, but I will not have the vacation time.

We will probably start driving on the evening of Wednesday, March 26th and get there the evening of Thursday, March 27th. If I was brave enough to drive all the way through, we could get there Thursday morning. We will head back to CO on Saturday, April 5.

Of course I've already cooked up some turkey hunting plans. Sean's boys will have youth permits for the 29th and 30th, so we'll try to get them both a bird that weekend. Also, Isaac and myself will probably skip out from IL for a few days to hunt in AL where he can try to kill his first bird, and I'll be backup. :-) I've talked to a few others about going and sounds like a couple are in, if everything works out. If I haven't talked with you and you want to go, just let me know. Anyone will be welcome. A 3 day lic. will be $120 and a WMA permit is $16. Other expenses would be food, and depending on how many of us go, fuel and hotel.

We will be hunting Northern Alabama in the Bankhead NF. The Black Warrior WMA is within the NF and can only be hunted until noon, but the rest of the NF can be hunted all day. The terrain is steep rugged hills w/ hardwoods and pines. We (Dad, Sean, Kenneth, Sonny and myself) hunted it in 94 and there were birds everywhere. In 97 Sonny and I went back and didn't hear much of anything, but the weather was cool and rainy. It will be like any other DIY public land hunt, a hunt, not a guarantee.

Basketball Players

Isaac and Olivia had their first games on Tuesday and Thursday. They both have the same coach. She asked for my help during Isaac's games, so I pretty much sat and yelled at Isaac because I don't know the other kids names yet. Isaac (4) did really well. It took him a few times down the floor to remember what he needed to do, but out of their 34 points he scored at least 12 of them and he handled the ball really well too. His team won their game.

Olivia (4) did really well also, considering she has never played before. I did not get to go to her game because it started at 5:30, but Heather took some pictures there also. Olivias team won their game also.




We skied today at Ski Cooper. It snowed about 8" yesterday and was snowing today also, so the snow was really good. Boyd has gotten over some of his fears from earlier, so it made for a really good day on the mountain. Isaac is skiing really well and has picked it up a notch the last couple times out. I would expect within a couple years he'll be waiting on me. He can actually smoke Heather right now. Olivia is doing well and with a lesson or two could be close to Isaac. The only difficulty we had today was Olivia started feeling bad so we left and got her some antibiotics called in. We should have expected it since the other two have been sick the last few days.

Turkey season around the corner

It's not too far off to be planning now. Hopefully Isaac will pass his hunter's ed. class and we'll make a trip over to Nebraska for his first turkey. Eric's son is taking the class also, so they may come along too. Of course the whole trip will have to be centered around the two boys getting their first turkey. I'll have to make a covert scouting trip w/ bow in hand the week before we go. Their archery season opens early and I want to try and wack one with my bow.

Of course the entire trip could be out of the question if Uncle Sam doesn't feel we've paid in enough this year. I normally get a big refund, but I've restructured my witholdings so I'm a little concerned I'm gonna owe money this year. I'll set up a tax/ turkey hunt relief fund that each of you can donate to before April.

It has snowed a couple three inches each of the last couple days/nights. Not sure if we are going to try and ice fish this weekend of get out and ski. May try both. I'll try and get some good photos of either and post them here. Isaac and I skied last Saturday and it was a really nice sunshine day that would have made for some great photos of the Sawatch Range in the background but I forgot the camera.

Recent Photos

Here are several recent photos taken around Leadville. We haven't had any big snows up here lately, but none of the snow we've had is going anywhere for a while. The first picture is during a very short ice fishing trip with Heather and the kids just south of town (same pond Joe and Dad both fished while they were here). It was colder than I thought and the trip lasted long enough for me to manually auger everyone a hole to fish over and the kids to cry they were cold and ready to go home. I'll be buying an ice fishing shelter soon.


This is Mount Elbert from Leadville. Elbert is the highest peak in Colorado and is part of the Sawatch Range. There are quite a few 14,000 ft plus mountains in Colorado, but this is the highest of those. It seems like it is always snowing in that range. I think in this photo it is mostly clouds and blowing snow. While this photo is not from our house, we can see this mountain from our house.

This is Notch Mountain. It's in the 13,000 ft plus range. I drive by this everyday on my way to work.
Here are photos I took of our new puppy. I took these while Bow and myself were on one of our walks. This is the closed road around Turquoise Lake just north of town. We were walking in powder, so if you look close you can see tracks from my snow shoes. These were taken at 13 wks of age. He is now 14 weeks old.



This is a herd of cow elk that Eric and myself were trying to get a shot at. Actually, I was working my way to them with the purpose of Eric getting the shot as they moved away from me. They are on the wrong side of the Town/NF boundary for me to shoot at this point. When they crossed over they were too far for me to shoot. This is only a portion of the elk. There ended up being around 27 cows and two spikes. When Eric was done shooting there was one less cow in the herd (see last photo). This is Eric's first animal of any kind, so needless to say we were very happy.

Since Eric didn't know anything about quartering an animal, I quartered the elk while he helped. Then two guys we know showed up and helped us pack it out in one trip. The pack was't very far, maybe half a mile, but it was straight down then straight back up. We were wearing snow shoes in about four feet of snow. Eric shot the elk at about 10:30 am and we had it packed out by 5:30 pm. We had already agreed to split whatever elk we killed. I took the elk to my garage and hung the quarters then butcherd it through the week. I bought a grinder and we made a lot of burger mixed w/ beef fat and made a lot of breakfast sausage mixed w/ pork.

Christmas Photos

These are some of the photos I took on Christmas morning. Several of the photos are blurry. I just bought a new, more complicated, camera and have not figured everything out yet. Mainly that I have to open the flash up for it to work. I'll get it right eventually.