After four or five hours of sleep, we woke up on Monday to prepare for the Bolder Boulder. We got to meet Rocko, Katie and Jordan's new puppy. He was pretty cute, and very social. He got a little social with my arm a few times, but luckily there was no permanent psychological scars for either one of us.



We rounded up everyone, and headed to the office where we got into costume. Then we had the two mile walk to the start line. We had eight in our group this year (Kristen, myself, Nate, Katie, Jordan, Morrissey, Tracy, and Matt), and managed to get everyone in the same wave. Five of us dressed up in fairly typical garb.



We made it to our wave, and muscled our way to the front for the traditional sprint off of the start line. I tried recording the run on the camera, it's a bit jerky, but you can get the idea. Over 50,000 people ran the race this year, which is a new record.



After the first two miles we ran into Mary and one of her friends. Mary had decided to walk the race this year with her and Nate's daughter, Karissa.



We ran into a couple of guys that Morrissey knew who happened to have a few Coors they were willing to part with. We saw the typical attractions, and partook of a few we hadn't before. One house was frying up bacon, another had a Slip-N-Slide, one group had cupcakes, and several were serving beer. We took it all in, and had a blast.



Before we knew it the run was over. I was stopped by a security guy who kindly asked me to put out my cigarette. Another guy tried bumming a cig off of me, so the fake cigarettes were apparently convincing.



We were interviewed by two of the local papers. They put a nice large picture in the Rocky Mountain News, and the Daily Camera put us up on their web site. Neither paper managed to get us all in one shot, unfortunately.



We then wandered down to the Pearl Street Mall for some food and some more beer. Afterwards we crammed the eight of us into Tracy's Cherokee, which was a tight fit.




Afterwards we headed home, and saw Katie and Jordan off. Kristen and I crashed hard for a few hours, then took the rest of the day easy. It was a great Bolder Boulder, one that will be difficult to top in the following years.

Kristen and I headed to the farm on Thursday. We both took part of the day off from work, and managed to make a timely arrival to the Louisville airport around midnight. Ma, Pa, and Lena were there to pick us up.



After checking in on the treehouse, we headed to the cabin, and quickly fell asleep. The next morning we headed down to the raft for breakfast. Dad cooked up some tasty eggs and bacon. Becky & Jason showed up shortly afterwards.



I spent a most of the day working on the treehouse. By the end of the day we had the platform fairly level. I was reacquainted with how easy it is to sweat in Indiana. Kristen took a good long nap, as did Mom. Dad helped with some of the party preparations at Andy's. Jason cooked up some Orbs for dinner, which seemed extra tasty this time around.



Kristen and I spent a good bit of time fishing on Saturday morning. We caught 10 to 15 small bass, throwing them all back. The bluegill proved more elusive, we never hooked one. We hoofed it up to the house to enjoy a waffle breakfast ma had cooked. Afterwards Dad loaded up the stove and took it over to Andy's.



In the afternoon Kristen, Ma, Lena and I walked the length of the creek investigating the various life forms. We saw a lot of minnows and crawdads, a pollywog, and a strange eel looking thing. We also spotted a bra strapped onto a tree, which was a bit odd.



We actually coaxed Kristen into the lake for a quick bath afterwards. Although there was some initial excitement, she calmed down and seemed to almost enjoy it after a minute or two.



Freshly clean, we headed to Andy's 60th birthday party. Andy had a jug band that included several of Dad's cronies from high school. We all enjoyed the party, and had consumed quite a bit of beer by the end of it. It was good talking to a bunch of the Hoosier friends, Tommy, Pat, Luther, Randy, Ronnie, Jim Reynolds, and many others. We pulled mom out of the drinking games in time, and everyone managed to make it home safe.



Sunday morning was another breakfast at the raft. The four baby birds that were on a nest in the roof of the raft flew off during a photo-op, which gave Dad the opening he needed to move the raft. He fired off a rapid set of instructions, and his crack crew of rafters jumped to do his bidding. Before too long we were puttering around the lake on the raft, doing a bit of fishing here and there.



Afterwards Kristen and I headed back to the cabin to pack up for the trip home. By the time we got to the house there were a few Sunday guests that we'd met at the party the night before. I got a bit of help from Jason getting the tarp back on the treehouse platform, then we headed off to Pat Larr's place to see her 41 (43 when we got there) baby goats. Pat also gave us a tour of the house, and the geo-thermal cooling/heating system she'd installed.



Back to the house for some quick tractor lessons. We picked up the remaining treehouse hardware, and the luggage from the dock. Back at the house we had a big lunch of Jambalaya, and a "surprise" birthday party for Jason. Then it was off to the airport for the flight home. The flight was delayed for a few hours, but we did eventually make it home safe.

This weekend I attempted to be the laziest man in the world. I may have succeeded. My excuse is that I need the rest for the upcoming crazy weekend. We'll be leaving for the farm on Thursday, getting back late Sunday, just in time for the Bolder Boulder.

Zack got his yearly grooming out of the way last week. He's been prancing around the house, showing off his new look. Ada didn't care for it the first day or so, but she's gotten used to it now.



Ada had some excitement as well, a neighbor cat has decided that he'd like to get to know her better, and has been hanging out on the porch a lot. She's not so keen on that, and keeps practicing her martial arts on the window. You can see the scratch marks on the ledge she's defending. The other cat probably outweighs her by 3x, so it's good we have the safety glass protecting her.



Kristen and I did manage to go to a few open houses this weekend. Unfortunately the house we were keen on a few weeks ago sold. We saw the full range of houses on Sunday, from serious fixer uppers to pristine 4,000 foot palaces. We plan to keep looking once this upcoming weekend is over.

It was a beautiful weekend, with the weather staying in the 80's for most of it. On Saturday Kristen's mother Joni came down to Boulder to celebrate Mother's Day a bit early. We ate lunch at the Med, and wandered the Pearl Street Mall for a bit. We came back to the condo and worked on the garden.



I built a quick frame for our zucchini and cucumbers to grow on, Joni and Kristen planted a few tomatoes, peppers, and marigolds.

Saturday evening Matt, Nate and myself headed into Louisville to grab a bite to eat and have a few beers. Matt's wife and kids were out of town, so we stayed up late talking about guy stuff in the garage.

Sunday morning I checked in with Ma, to make sure she was still kicking on Mother's Day. It sounded like they had a full day of packing ahead of them, and then possibly a trip up the South Fork. A little later I met up with Mike, Nate, Mary, and Karissa to fly planes. Unfortunately during a high speed series of flips, I folded one of my wings, and had an exciting crash from about 300' up. I ruined a battery, but I'm hoping the rest of the juicy bits held up OK.



The cats had sponsored a Mother's Day lunch for Kristen, so I took her (on their behalf) to a local cafe and had a wonderful brunch. We decided to stay away from the "All you can drink mimosas". A little later we went on a run around the reservoir. The Bolder Boulder is coming up quick, so we've been pretty good about getting our runs in.

For dinner I made a salad from the garden (and a bit of help from the grocery store). I also tried a grilled asparagus recipe from this months Fine Cooking, which turned out great.



Kristen and I have found a house that looks promising on the web. We're hoping to go take a real-life look at it in the next few days. It's outside of Boulder by a few miles, but is on a 3 acre lot, and is up in the hills a bit. It's the most promising one we've found so far, so we're a bit excited.

Ah, the hectic pace of spring, when everyone's excited to be outside, and the traditional events come in rapid succession.

Wednesday night we had a going away party for our collective boss at work. Matt smoked up some of his famous barbeque, and we ate and drank ourselves silly. It was a lot of fun, and it thankfully never devolved into dancing on the picnic tables.


Friday night my friend Brent came down from Casper for the Kinteics weekend. Kristen's sister Katie was also in town, so we had a full house. Nate, Brent, myself and Morrissey headed out for a night on the town.

The next morning came awfully quickly, and we were all signed up for the Kinetics race at the reservoir. We dragged ourselves to the race, feeling pretty rough from the night before. Morrissey suggested that we sprint off the start line, and see how long we could stay in front of the real runners. That lasted for a good 100 yards or so, and had the crowd laughing pretty hard. We struggled along for the rest of the race, and were hurting pretty badly by the end.


The weather was better than expected for the Kinetics festival, but the crowds were still pretty small due to the weather.



Nate's team took first place for the 5th year in a row or so. They've really gotten it down to an art, although they were being pressured by the second place finisher, which was a guy on a mountain bike with inflatable pontoons.



We had another crazy night Saturday night. Luckily Sunday was laid back, and we were able to re-coop a bit before the work week started.

I put a new faucet in the kitchen, since the old one was getting harder and harder to turn off. It was one of those deals where it seemed silly to pay someone to do it. It seemed that way at least until I was halfway through the project, cursing the busted knuckles, the water soaked cabinets, the wrong fittings, etc. Luckily it all turned out OK in the end.