Ditching Routine Life for a Day... A Wonderful Idea!

HAPPY THURSDAY 6.19.08

If you played hooky for a day, what would you do?

To keep the day full of "low expectations" (this to ensure maximum fun), we started the morning with our "bi-annual" visit to the dentist and it had really been over 2 years for one of us...

The day could only get better from there. We went to DC to ride the paddle boats in the Tidal Basin and visit the Natural History Museum. We had dessert from The Cheesecake Factory (delicious), perused the REI store, and ended with a movie.

**Please note I LOVE the matching hair color, as only a hair designer would I'm sure!

The weather was ideal and it was a really GREAT day!

Short Video Clip of Rick's Driving Control Issues!

HAPPY THURSDAY TO EVERYONE!

The Hike is On

We decided to take a few pics from our last hike and post them, since we are such good bloggers. Not so much. But, we did see a mother black bear and her cub in a tree nearby. In the video below, you can see the cub playing in the tree. We were lucky to be down wind from them so they didn't know we were there. It was a great "windy" hike. The pics were taken at the summit(3300 ft. elevation). This hike has roughly 2500 feet elevation gain and it's all in the beginning. We've got a couple backpacking trips planned and really look forward to adding some blog entries.

New Years Trip to AZ

This entry has been a long time coming. At last, the "Supporter's of Spandex (s.o.s.)" are caught on camera and proudly pose for a few fans. Actually, the deal was that Katherine, Jenny, and ReBes pick a goal weight to be at by the New Year and the lucky loser(s) would have to wear a full-body, bright red spandex outfit in front of the camera on New Years Day. Jenny ran up and down her neighborhood street and even visited a friend while dressed up.

Katherine, being a good sport, went out with the family to see a movie, and she even bought popcorn. Take a look at the pics here.

We also did other fun things like visit the O.K. Coral where we saw the Earp brothers take on the cowboys in a fake gunfight and the kids got a chance to practice roping each other. It was a long 3 hour drive to and from the Coral, so we did not spend a lot of time hanging out in the saloons.

ReBes and I loved spending so much time with the kids and everyone else, too. Jumping on the tramp, playing the Wii, short soccer sessions in the back yard, shooting hoops on the new basketball backboard game, ice cream competitions, hide and seek, and a little golf with the boys were just a few other things we accomplished.

New Years was lots of fun, even if we did go to bed early. We were able to see Amy, Elizah, and Sarah who also live in the Phoenix area. Grandpa Vance and Grandma Kristine were there, too. It was good to see Christian, Bethany, Taygen and Aylin. And, it's never really a party without Katherine. Wow, visiting family always makes us wish we lived SO much closer to everyone. There were a few tears shed when it came time to say goodbye. Sniff...flick...ting. We will really miss everyone in AZ.

Hiking in the Cold and Rain

Not the best conditions, but the hike was great! I ran right up on an 8 point buck. Fog is great for surprising animals, but not so fun for trying to see a slippery, leaf covered trail. The weather has been very uncooperative lately - rainy, cold (not the "Oh good, it's going to snow" kind of cold, just the barely above freezing, wet and slippery kind of cold), foggy, and sometimes very windy.

The Overall Run Falls were barely visible through the fog (hence, no pic), but I would love to come back when the weather clears up. The water had frozen into giant over-laying icicles that almost looked climbable with ice axes and crampons.

While hiking, I attempted to do a Ghost Hunters audition clip, since the setting seemed right.

Our Lucky Thanksgiving

We had much to be thankful for this last Thanksgiving. My older brother, "The Doctor(The Burbs reference)," was kind enough to drive nearly 6 hours from their current home in Connecticut to our place in little'ol Virginia. He brought his lovely family, including his wonderful wife, Lisa, and the two kids. They arrived safely Thursday evening just after I returned from cooking our turkey at our friends home. I know, your thinking, "why cook the bird at a friends place?" Well, the answer is simple. We were blessed with a total power outage when the turkey was about 30 minutes from being cooked. We called up our SUPER NICE friends, Jeff and Carrie, and asked if we could use their oven. They just happened to be frying their bird this year. Wow, we were saved. The power went on just as I was driving home from our friends.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing fun things with the kids and spending some quality time with my bro. The pics are here. We went downtown and visited the Museum of Natural History where we saw dinosaurs, the "Hope Diamond," and lots of sparkly rocks. We did not have enough time to see even half of the museum, so we agreed there will need to be another visit to D.C.

My hat goes off to my brother and sister-in-law for being such patient and truly loving parents. We hope to be able to visit them at their place in the near future.

Learning the Hard Way

ReBes was not feeling so hot on Veteran's Day, so I set out to do a 12 mile hike on my own. It was a great day and everything started off as it usually does; hurry to get all the stuff together, get out the door, race traffic, then finally figure out exactly where the trail head is located. This time I was going to see how fast I could do it. After all, it seemed like a fairly straight-forward and non-technical ascent to the top of the ridge, then back down again (foreshadowing intended). To shorten things up a bit, I missed my turn and ended up going the opposite direction of my intended route. After about 7 miles into it, I figured something was wrong, but I could not put my finger on it. Nearly 12 miles out, I knew I had no other choice than to turn around and backtrack to my last known point of origin on the map. I turned around, reluctantly, and retraced my steps back up to the top of the mountain where I was able to get cell reception and called ReBecca to let her know I would be home late. You can imagine the phone call - not only do I feel bad about not being with ReBes on my day off, but I wasn't even enjoying the time I was spending outdoors. Ranger Rick was in a pickle. I can say that I am super glad I "over pack" for most outdoor trips. This morning, when I had a chance to review the map, I realized that I should have turned on a barely visible (LOTS of leaves on the ground) section of the trail.

Lesson Learned: If ever a doubt, check it out.

Post River Trip Post

I did some serious chopping in Adobe Premiere Elements and ended up with the clip you see here of our September Gauley River rafting trip. It is a bit long at about 15 minutes or so. We had a blast and intend on returning next year for round 2. Luckily, we did not have one person go overboard from our boat. A big heart-felt "THANKS!" to our friends for having us along.