The Ranch Again- Yes again, it's really fun

The Ranch is so beautiful. Here is the little broken down house that is there. It looks more broken up close.

Another view looking down the canyon towards I-70.

We were lucky enough to have some friends meet us there. Steve and Robby, Patrick's friends from high school, drove down with Steve's wife, Laura, and their adorable little girl, Alice. I don't have any good pictures of her.


This time we were a little earlier getting to the ranch so we could "shoot some guns". I think my favorite is the 9mm hand gun. But we had much bigger guns than usual this time. Kevin had borrowed some type of assault rifle (I'm sure the boys are rolling their eyes that I don't know what it's called) and Steve brought his deer hunting rifle. I love how nonchalantly they are holding the big guns.

Here Chase and I show how tough we are with big guns.

You can see in the background that Kevin never wastes a trip to the ranch. He has the excavator up there to...excavate.

The deer rifle was by far the most powerful gun I had ever shot, even more so than the assault rifle. Even snugged right up to your shoulder it hurt a little.



Chase and Ole Rue, the 22 hand gun, make quite a picture. He looks like the warden from Cool Hand Luke.

This is what we brought with us to shoot, red cream soda. That made for a couple graphic hits. You can see how totally destroyed the cans were with one hit from the assault rifle.
Kevin also took some time to spread seed while we were there. What a hard worker.

Steve also brought is 12 guage shot gun so we could shoot some skeet. That was really fun. It's easier than I thought it would be.


Chase had a little different technique than the rest of us were used to, more like an old codger, especially with that coat. He beat us all except Steve by hitting I think 8 in a row. I only got to 5. Patrick got 1 or 2. I have to make sure everyone knows I beat him.

We drove up the side canyon again and this time we got much further since most of us were in cars instead of freezing on ATVs. The view was incredible. I had no idea what we were missing last time. I think these are the La Sal mountains in the background. Either that or the Henrys.

Patrick and his highschool buddies.

What a great picture to end with.

Hummer Tour

When Patrick came to Moab with his Marketing class they went on a hummer tour. He said it was pretty cool so I wanted to do it too. It was a cold morning, threatening rain, but we braved the weather for the open top hummer tour. There are a couple of random kids in the back seat next to Daniel so don't spend too much time trying to figure out who they are.

This picture doesn't really do it justice. It was really amazingly steep. It was a route called Hell's Revenge near the very famous Lions Back that you may have seen on Youtube videos. You can see how well traveled it is from the black trail on the rock.

Our driver/guide was extra nice to us and took us out way further than the tours usually go. We were all the way to the Colorado River overlook. It was so beautiful. Across the river is all Arches National Park

This is not our best pose but we were under a lot of pressure with the guide and the other tourists watching us. I really felt the pressure to perform well.

On the way back we switched spots and Chase and I go to be in the back. It was even more fun! I especially liked making fun of the girl sitting next to me who was in pain with needing to use the bathroom but refused to use a bush.


When we got back on the road it was pretty cold because we were moving a lot faster. This was how Chase kept warm.

Around the Thanksgiving House

Jared and Matisse are just the cutest couple ever. They are so photogenic. It makes me jealous.
We technically had Thanksgiving dinner the Sunday before because Jared and Matisse had to leave early. We, well the girls, got dressed up for dinner so we thought we should take some pictures. Apparently most of them were on Melody's camers since this is all I have. Still cute though.

Here is Chase with everyone's favorite quadruped.

This is Sunday morning in the kitchen. We each had a job to do to get ready for dinner. I had finished mine already. Don't I look proud?

First day in Utah - The Ranch

We went to Utah for Thanksgiving this year. Patrick was able to get the whole week off so we were there for 8 days. We flew into Grand Junction, CO and Kevin and Chase picked us up in the big pick-up with 5 ATVs on the trailer behind. Then we went straight to the place we like to call "The Ranch". Its up one of the canyons just north and a bit east of the I-70 turn off for Moab. Jared, Matisse, and Daniel all met us there and the fun began. You can see the trailer and one of the canyon walls in this photo.


We got on the ATVs and took a little tour of the place. This canyon used to contain a coal mine so some of the miners used to live here. This house was a bit past repair the the stones still looked brand new.
After checking out the sites on the 100 acres of the ranch itself, we headed up a side canyon. There were some more old miner buildings up there to climb on. Matisse tried to hard to get there for the picture. She made it on the next try but her hair looks so lovely flowing behind her that I put this picture in instead.


I thought we were supposed to pose for this picture. No one else did.

Another 15-20 very cold minutes later we came to an overlook that was beautiful. My fingers were so cold that it made taking pictures interesting. My fingers were numb actually so that I couldn't tell how hard or even if I was pushing the button. You can see that Matisse was taking drastic measures to try to stay warm.


My light colored hood blends in teh with sky making my head look tiny!

It was very dusty with us all following each other on ATVs. Patrick looked the funniest. On Daniel the dust had settled subtly in this invisible wrikles and he just looked like he had aged 10 years. It was eerie. I wish I had a picture of that.

I think this might be the only pictuer of just Jared and I from the whole vacation. So even though I look a little funny here it is. I love my brother!

Then we had to get all the way back down and it was very dark and cold. We all survived, though. What an exciting first day!

I'm walking along, minding my own business...

So I was out hiking the other day. I usually don't see many people out on the trail. This day however, I passed this guy with this really cute little dog. I don't know what kind is was but it looked sort of like this dog here.

It was a pretty cute little dog. As I walked passed his owner the dog jumped up on my leg, you know, just saying hello. Then it felt like the dog had stabbed me with 4 or 5 hypodermic needles. I know that sounds odd. I was quite surprised myself. I just kept walking so I didn't make a scene in front of the owner. After I was out of sight I stopped and rubbed my leg and let out a good, "OWWW!". The picture of the mark that was left doesn't really show it very well. It looked like a couple puncture wounds on the sides with a weird rash in the middle. I can only assume the dog bit me, or injected me with the flu vaccine. The mark is gone now which really makes the story less exciting, but oh well. It seemed like a strange incident to me.

Kids from Work

A couple weeks ago I went on a hike with some of the kids I work with. It was really fun. I really love the kids I work with, they are so cute.


This is Tina. For Halloween this year (I didn't bring my camera, curses!) she was Cinderella with a big, black, curly wig. It was hysterical.
From Left to right: Josh, Jabril, Guy, Anna and Caitlyn.

In this picture you can see Josh changing into a dry shirt. He fell in the water a couple of times. Acutally, all of the kids had wet pants but Josh's whole body was soaked, twice.

Left to right: Guy, Jabril, Caitlyn, Anna.

Here is everyone on the bridge as we were leaving.

Fall Colors and Activities

This post is mostly for my Mom who really wanted to be out here in Connecticut for the leaves to change. The irony is my parents never, ever, read my blog. Ever. Oh well.

Though I grew up in Wisconsin I have been away from real fall colors for about 10 years. I realize now that I really didn't appreciate it when I was younger. I find the changing trees so incredible. There are so many really spectacular trees. I feel like there is a rainbow around every corner. There are times I just want to cry because of the beauty. That being said, these pictures don't really look much like the real thing. It's depressing but true. The trees in real life with the sun gleaming off of them look like they are glowing. I think I've gone on long enough about the pretty trees.

Patrick and I found this resevoir while hiking one day and last Sunday decided to see if we could drive out to it. We brought a blanket and played guitar. It was great because there was no one there and it was beautiful.

Here are a couple of particularly beautiful trees that are around Danbury.

While we were biking we also found this amazing fungus on one of the downed trees. It, too, looks even better in real life.

While we were biking Patrick was somehow attacked by his bike. I decided to refrain from the close up, gorey picture. I won't go into detail about the wound as some people have already had to hear the grusome tale, but the teeth on the crank dug into his leg and let's just say it took out a chunk and was disgusting.
Then this weekend we went to Hartford. The drive there was amazing in and of itself. But we also hiked up to the much frequented Tower.

Another of our activities was reading this funny website which inspired this funny skit. Here is the link to the article it was done after http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/11/87-outdoor-performance-clothes/ . It has nothing to do with fall colors but we thought we were pretty funny.

I am excited because there are still quite a few trees that are still green so I hope there will be a couple more weeks of great leaves.