First Ski Trip!

Kelley and I went skiing for the first time yesterday.

All I can say is that it was an awesome experience. We went to a place called “Sol Vista Basin”. It is an off the beaten path ski resort that is about a 100 mile drive from Boulder. The funny thing is that the resort is only 30 miles from Boulder as the crow flies, but you can’t just drive through the mountains. My dad had a good idea to shorten the trip…he recommended getting a helicopter.

We almost didn’t go due to the road conditions. The news was saying that the area was to get between 12-24” inches of show the night before we were going to drive. We decided to give it a try and we didn’t really have any trouble…although, Kelley said she had her eyes closed for about 30 minutes, but maybe that kept us from having any trouble?

Some classmates of mine loaned us ski coats, pants, goggles, hats, gloves, etc. We got skis and poles at the resort. We even had a private ski instructor show us the ropes. We both loved it more than we imagined and stayed on the slopes from 9AM – 3PM.

An interesting thing was that almost all the workers were foreign…mostly from South America, Chile and Argentina. Our instructor, Uwe, was actually from Germany. He is a retired pasty chef and he used to own several pastry shops in California. Now he teaches skiing in the winter and is a tour guide for hikers in the summer. His father was killed as a German solder in WW2. Uwe learned to be a pastry chef because there weren’t any other jobs he could get after the war in Germany.

Not sure how often we’ll do this, but it was a great experience to have. Now all of my classmates won’t make fun of me when I tell them I have never skied.

Michigan

Kelley and I headed home for Christmas. We spent a week at home. It was really nice and we got to see nearly all of the most important people in our lives. This photo is of the Fannin extended family at the end of our overnight trip to East Lansing.

We are heading to Florida later this week to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa Shirkey. It’ll be Kelley’s first time to visit them there. We should see Aunt Marianne also.

Kelley and Grandma Rowlson on Christmas afternoon.

My sister, Marilyn, and I goofing off.

Nicaragua Trip

Kelley and I were in Nicaragua last week. We had a super time and learned a lot. One thing we didn't realize is that Nicaragua is the 2nd poorest country in the western hemisphere (only Haiti is poorer).

We spent the first 2 days in a city called Granada which was the first Latin American city established by the Spanish Conquistadors in the 1500's. We spent a few hours sitting at this table near the main plaza while Kelley painted the yellow Cathedral in the background.

We took a fun boat ride through some small islands on a grand lake near Granada. We wished our nephews could have been with us as we had a visitor during our boat trip. He was very interested in the bananas we brought along.

During the drive from Granada to San Juan del Sur (our primary destination) we made a few short stops. One stop was at an active Volcano in a town called Masaya. (Yes, that is smoke rising out of the volcano...pretty crazy). Masaya was where we had lunch and did some shopping for Nicaraguan crafts.

We then visited a town called Catarina where we took in the beautiful views of the the lake and surround areas. You can see Granada off in the distance.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon to San Juan del Sur and had the chance to catch the sunset.

We started our morning Spanish lessons on Monday morning. Below is a photo of Kelley and here instructor, Christian. Not a bad location to study Spanish...maybe 50 yards from the Pacific Ocean!

Wednesday morning we got up early to hike up to the top of one of the cliffs surrounding San Juan del Sur and we saw that a cruise ship had arrived. Here you can see the cruise ship in the background...behind our friend Jose Rodulfo.

This is the view from the end of our hike. You can see all of San Juan del Sur.

Our last event before departing was to take a horseback ride. We saw some more monkeys during this activity.

This is the family we stayed with in San Juan del Sur. We stayed in a room on the 2nd floor of their home. Our room consisted of a bed and a fan. We took cold showers in a bathroom without a light, we washed our hands and brushed our teeth in the utility sink where they washed clothes. Every afternoon the power would go out for between 3-6 hours as the country does not have adequate power generation capacity. We really enjoyed getting to know the family and just about all of their neighbors.

High Tea at the Dushanbe Tea House

My friend Juliet and I shared wonderful outing to the Dushanbe Tea House. This amazing building was donated by Boulder's sister city in Tajikistan. The outside walls are covered with beautiful hand made tile.

The inside is also very ornate, with hand carved columns and ceiling. The lovely building was the perfect setting for such a fun event. We each had our own tea pot to in which to brew our tea. That was complemented with a tower of fresh pastries, fruit, deserts and creations from the farmer's market.Anyone planning to come and visit, mark this on your list of special Boulder activities.

Halloween Fun

Some of my foreign classmates got together to carve jack-o-lanterns a few weeks ago. I was the official instructor.

In this photo are: Lulu (Kuwait), Trent (USA), Craig (Taiwan), May (Thailand), Pui (Thailand) and Tim (Taiwan).

Our Final Game of the Season

Kelley is sad to say goodbye to her CU football games until next year. She has really enjoyed going. The Buff's had a tough game today. We are going to miss the final home game against Nebraska because we will be out of time.

Big win for UM today. I think I'm going to watch the UM vs Wisconsin game next week with some of my classmates from Michigan and Wisconsin.

Tony Stewart is my nephew.......

This is a Halloween photo of our nephew, Colin. He is crazy for Nascar and thus got suited up as Tony Stewart for the big day!

Trip Home and New Look

We headed home this past weekend. It was great. We visited some old friends, I went to Orbitform for a little while, we celebrated Thanksgiving with a huge party and even did some hayrides.

Kelley got to ride a horse her mom is watching.

My cousin Andrew, his wife Sara, and their children joined us for Thanksgiving!

It was a good time to be with my siblings.

Kelley encouraged me to go with a new style after we returned to Boulder. What do you think?

Fall Colors in Colorado

Hi all. Here is a photo of my lovely wife with one of her Colorado Buffaloes sweaters.

This creek is named Boulder Creek and it runs behind our apartment. It is basically the divider between downtown Boulder and the University. There is a path that follows the creek for miles and it is always being used by joggers, bikers, skateboarders, etc to travel east/west through town.

I'm getting ready for a rough mountain winter...hence the new beard action! The mountains about 10 miles out of Boulder already have snow on the tops. They are totally covered and it looks really pretty to see them.

Final Exams then we Come home

I have one final exam on each day Monday-Wednesday next week then Kelley and I hop on plane first thing Thursday morning. We are vey excited about heading home.