A Year of Change

Sorry we’re late, we have no internet in Denver where we were last night. Anyhow we made it down around 2pm and all were at Tommy’s for dinner at 5. Jag stayed in Vail to go to a Bah Mitzvah. Ty had Vinny come over around 6:30 and then spent the night at his house. Lori’s back is out and now after unloading the truck, mine is too.

Jag just went to Vail to hang with some friends and Lori is cleaning around the house. I just paid some bills and now am going to get a bit to eat. More later, again, sorry but I just forgot.

My Mom, Tasha, Aviak and the baby Anika all look great as does her husband Derrick. The baby is a pistol, fun for my Mom! Thanks much to Tom and Ali for hosting.

Take care, God Bless

We have a soccer game this morning at 8:30 and then will leave for Denver around 10:30 or 11 am. I think we’re coming back up tomorrow or Monday, not sure as we have a lot to do in Denver and even more up here.

I made it to Craig and back by 1:30 and unloaded our elk into the freezer. Next up was some computer work and another 2 hours on the phone with a guy we’re trying to hopefully recruit. Then it was time to get the boys. Jag asked if he could go to Ethan’s so Ty and I headed off to the store to get him some new soccer shorts for the game today. I picked Jag up around 9 pm in a driving rain storm.

Tasha and her husband and the kids arrived last night, I think. I guess they missed their first flight and were due to arrive around 9 or 10 pm. We’ll see them today but I also need to get Jag to Nordstroms for a sport coat. He can almost wear my dad’s I’ll bet, it won’t be long.

Time to run, hope all’s well, God Bless.

This morning I’m headed back up near to where I was hunting to pick up our meat from the processor. It’s pretty neat that they can turn it around in 48 hours. Actually they can do it in 24 hours but I couldn’t make it back up there until today so I told them 48 hours was fine.

I was in Denver yesterday getting Ty a new trombone, Jagger a new amp, picking up and delivering some wine, doing some banking and having a meeting at the distributor.

Tomorrow we have a soccer game at 8:30 am and then we’ll head for Denver as Tasha, Aviak and the new baby arrive tonight. Our friend Peggy from Aspen is riding down with us as her car was stolen and totaled by a kid who drove it to Ferguson Missouri and crashed it into a cop car, so she needs to buy a new one. I called my buddy who is the sales manager at the Chevy dealer who will hook her up. She’ll have to drive her 1959 Jaguar over here and then we’ll need to figure out how to get that back to Aspen. Lori also needs to buy some new clothes for work this weekend. As I said before, it never ever stops. She had a meeting with the clinic CEO yesterday and even though she wouldn’t tell you, she could do his job, probably better than him. She’s making some real changes around there, not just for her doc but for the entire clinic. They all don’t know just how lucky they are to have her! I do but don’t tell her, we don’t want her little head to swell.

The boys had soccer practice so I picked them up around 4:30 and then came home to do some laundry and continue sifting through the mail or should I say, bills. We still need to unpack and clean up the mess around here as well, it’s a mess.

That’s about it, a little weather is coming in. Glad I hunted last week even though the really big bulls will get a little more active in the coming weeks. I’ll go later next year. Hope all’s well, God Bless.

This morning I’m bombing to the city and then tomorrow to Craig and then Saturday, back to Denver. Lots to do around here but I have tons of calls to make so windshield time is ok for that. The boys look great as does the wife. Thanks to her for holding down the fort. We need to leave in about 55 minutes so no time to dally.

I slept in until 6:30 which is two hours later than any day in the past week. It’s the first time in 6 days I didn’t see the sunrise. Can’t get any elk sleeping in like that!

I’ll stop and see my Mom today and get our mail. Lori still needs to change a bunch of addresses on her credit cards. Hope all’s well with everyone, time to run, God Bless.

Last night around 7:40 pm I finally bagged a beautiful 600 pound plus elk. For 5 days I had hunted and passed up many animals looking for a larger bull. We were due to leave for home today though could have stayed until tomorrow morning. Knowing this I decided to treat last night as if it was my last hunt. What this means is if you see an animal you say to yourself, “if it was the last day, would I shoot this animal”. So after about 30 miles of hiking up and down steep, and I mean steep, mountains, I shot a great bull that will feed us for close to a year.

I won’t go into all the details to gross you non-hunters out, but after driving a 4 wheel drive Ranger up 4 miles or so into the mountains, I hiked another 3 to a spot by what you’d call a pond but was more of a watering hole. I set up in some Aspen trees in a rain storm and proceeded to kill a couple hours until dusk. Finally around 7:15 a smaller elk came out of the woods down one of their many trails towards the water. You see they never come out until dusk at night and in the morning go bed down soon after sunrise. Jeremy, my guide from Montrose, saw him first and told me to freeze. After about 5 minutes of motionless standing, something spooked it and off it went. It didn’t take long f0r me to spot the bear at the water which made the elk run off. Soon the bear meandered down the hill and about 7:30, 30 minutes from sunset, a larger bull came out of the forest right above me. I saw this guy first and froze. I was hoping a group would follow so I scanned the trails coming out of the forest looking for his buddy’s. For the next 10 minutes this thing walked right towards me not seeing me at all. The problem was he was coming straight on at me so I had no shot. Finally he turned away from me and that was it. I’m a pretty good shot, (not bragging, just fact, I won a bet hitting a Gatorade bottle at 419 yards earlier in the day with one shot) and with today being the last day, didn’t want to take any chances that I wouldn’t get another shot at a good animal. Then the fun begins, again I won’t gross you out but for the next hour and a half we had to quarter him up and prepare to pack him out in the pitch black dark. All the guides carry radios so Jeremy radioed the other guys who drove the Rangers (4 wheel drive vehicles) as close as they could to us. We wore head lamps and used flashlights to get the elk loaded up.

It was a great time with great guys and an experience of a lifetime. I think I’ll be going back next year. On Friday I’ll be driving to Craig, about 110 miles to pick up my meat. I left the hide and antlers as Lori doesn’t like them hanging in the house anyhow. I did take the ivories which are the back two teeth that are real ivory just like and elephant tusk. These are the two teeth that elk use to bugle and for centuries been known as an homage to the animal. The Indians use to make necklaces from these and decorate their shirts with them. You might have seen these on Indian shirts.  So that was it, a great time, lots more stories but too many to write. I made it home by 1pm today and did all my laundry there before I left. It’s good to be home, the boys grew a lot in 5 days and are doing well. That’s it, lots going on, God Bless.

I’m writing the post tonight because I have to get up at 4:30 a.m. to make it to the hospital in time for a 6:00a.m. medical training session on new billing and coding procedures. Ugh!!!

Ty was missing his friends and he had himself all worked up last night over a test in band. I emailed his homebase teacher to let him know that Ty was struggling with the emotional part of leaving his friends in Denver. To my surprise Mr, Hustad sent the email to the other teachers to investigate friendships they have noticed and kids that would be positive assets in cultivating relationships in a new environment. Mr. Hustad stated that he felt Ty was fitting in quite well especially since Ty volunteered to stand in the front of the class and recite the numbers one through ten in Mandarin. I’ll I can say is, “How awesome is that?”

Ty came home with his trumpet and played part of the theme to Star Wars by ear. I’m really impressed…biassed as I may be. He also scored 5th out of the entire 6th and 7th grade on a Mandarin test. Hurray!!!

Jagger asked to play the bass guitar in band this year because he is a bit burned out on the bass clarinet. The band teacher agreed and so far Jagger has taught himself the scales,  and a few riffs from a band from my era. Both boys came home and hit the homework hard, ate a lot of food and showed one another what they learned during school today.

The school has different age kiddos in groups similar to the groups at Hogwarts(Harry Potter). Both boys are in the group named, Dragon Tooth. The group is already 20 points ahead of the other groups due to the compliments Jagger received on his rafting/camp trip. I’m super proud of what amazing parents Doug and I are. Ha, ha,ha…just kidding. I’m actually really proud of what amazing young men the boys are becoming. I’m also very thankful the boys are in the same group so they may work together to do the best they may do to excel together.

I have to hit the hay…it’s already 9:30 and 4:30 is going to be here all too soon.

Love to all.

Brrr, boy does it feel like a Fall morning this morning. I set my alarm for 5:30, but that seemed a little too early so I hit my snooze button for an extra 10  minutes. I’m so tired.

There is such a chill in the air that I could swear Thanksgiving is just around the corner. The rain fell slowly most of the night and the youngest was awake most of the night. He chose the trumpet as his instrument for band this year. Since he forgot the mouth piece at school on Friday he is quite freaked  out because he has a test tomorrow. I’m sure it is an assessment test, but a test is a test and Ty really works himself up over tests. I’ll email his homeless teacher this morning.

Doug is having a fun time. They eat, hunt, eat again, nap, eat, hunt and return from hunting to sleep again. Sounds like a good’ol boy time. He returns on Wednesday and I’m sure he’ll be wiped out from all the hiking. We miss him:-(

Time for me to run….god bless!

It’s 5:42a.m. and I am hanging out on the couch with Mr. Ty and Mojo (Mojo is not on the couch). The sun is coming up and shining through the clouds. The sky looks like it’s filled with cotton candy. I have the windows and the sliding glass door open so I can hear the river below and breathe in the crisp cool air. I guess if I have to be up this early I may as well take advantage of the mountain air and the spectacular scenery!

Jagger attended his first bar mitzvah yesterday. I dropped him at Max’s house at 4:40, so he could hitch a ride with Sue, Michael, Paige, and Max to the celebration. I’ve never been to a bar mitzvah and since I don’t know too much about them; I was excited to hear from Jagger when Ty and I picked him up at 11:00p.m.

Jagger said he’d like to have a bar mitzvah, as everyone brought loads of money to give to Ethan. Ethan had to study for the last 3 years in order to quote from the Torah(Jewish Bible) in hebrew. The ceremony lasted about 2 hours(Jagger said it was so interesting that the time went by quickly)and the celebration went on until 10:30ish. Hors d’oeuvres were passed around by a wait staff, beverages offered and served and then a sit down dinner followed by dancing. All the kids danced together (fantastic) and had a great time. We are truly blessed to be embraced by such lovely people!

Doug called a couple of times to update us on his hunting excursion. The men saw elk but no one had a shot(Whew). They have a cook much like Aunt Myrna…lucky boys! Doug hiked about 14 miles yesterday and his hunting partners rode around in a Polaris, as not one of them is under 300lbs! Super nice guys that love good food.

Jagger is still sleeping and I am hopeful that he will sleep in until 10 or so. Ty is hungry, so time to go.

God Bless:-)

Good afternoon…I’m sorry for the late post, but I just remembered it is my task for the next few days.

I picked up the boys from soccer practice at 4:15 and dropped them off at La Botega for an after school snack while I ran back to the office for an extra hour. The boss said,”Thank you. You’re doing a great job!” Wow, is that unexpectedly pleasant. The boys played more soccer in the streets of Vail with a couple of little boys that looked like they wanted to play. We have two kind, sweet, thoughtful young men. We are blessed for sure.

My former employer is running around the office screaming that anything going South is all my fault. I’m still helping the new Practice Manager out, as I feel loyalty to the staff and I would hate for anything to go wrong for them. I’m not missing her at all…the only bummer is that if I ever want a facelift, the Dr. is the only surgeon I would want to do it.

Doug is off to catch an Elk:-( I hope he has a great time, but I do not want to see the animal if he get’s one. He is out of cell range, so I’m not sure how much we’ll hear from him.  Not being in constant contact is a weird concept these days.

Jagger just ran down to the Minturn Market and came back with a root beer float…yummy! Ty is playing on the computer for 1 hour with Ben and then I think I’ll take them down to the river to play.

Jagger and I took Mojo on a walk…we’ll need to do that 3 or 4 more times today. It’s good of Mojo and good for us.

That’s it for now, as Jagger has a little more homework to finish.

Love to all….God Bless.

This morning around 10:30am I’ll be taking off for northern Colorado for the next four days. I have a headache and upset stomach right now and didn’t sleep too well. I think it was stuffy inside last night and I probably ate one too many Rice Krispie treats. It’s still damp outside but not raining like it was yesterday. I think it’s supposed to clear up tomorrow.

Lori will be writing the blog for the next few days as I’m not taking a computer with me which will be a first in many many years. The boys started soccer yesterday in the rain and after practice we had to go buy soccer shoes of course. As I said yesterday, it never stops. We have a showing today at the house at 11am so Uncle Tommy, if you’re reading this, it’d be great if you could run up and turn on some lights inside. We just don’t leave lights on all the time as it costs too much.

I should be back Tuesday afternoon. Lori will get the kids after soccer practice today at 4:15 and then probably go back to work for a bit while they run down the street for a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich at one of their favorite haunts. Tomorrow Jag is invited to a bar mitzvah which will be a first for any of us. We were driving down the road yesterday after soccer and he said he’s sure glad we moved up here! Ty said he is too but still misses Vinny, Ben and Jack. As my Mom said, it’ll get better with time. Time to run as I have a lot to do before taking off this morning. Hope all’s well, God Bless.