Life: Happy New Year!

Ok, so this isn't the normal New Year's blog.  This is the long over due blog.  The, I haven't blogged since before Thanksgiving, which means I have a lot to update blog. So, I think the fastest and easiest way to provide you with a proper update is through pictures.  Since I have last updated....

We finished the kitchen....

My family came to visit. So we went skiing...

And visited Pike's Peak and had dinner at P.F. Changs....

Then I hosted Thanksgiving dinner...

I sliced open my finger trying to julien carrots (whoops!)...

I had my wisdom teeth pulled (with no swelling woo hoo!)...

I got glasses...

A pipe burst in our crawl space...

We saw a play starring a friend (bet you can't guess what it was)...

We went skiing with friends (and my husband was not happy about stopping to take a picture)...

I got a hair cut...

We traveled to Illinois...

...where I got to see my friend Sam and her family...

...and meet my sweet niece for the first time which was my favorite Christmas present this year...

...and Kevin and I took our puppies for a two mile run and wore them out...

...and played killer bunnies (twice)...

...and then we drove home, and Hoeffer couldn't get comfortable...

...where we picked up a friend's dogs while she is out of town with her husband who is on R&R...

... and I got to plant my aero garden (countertop, self-sustaining herb garden) that I am really excited about.

Also, without pictures, I set up my Christmas tree and Kevin has started working on building a server in our house.  Our media server is up and running and now he is working on our NAS.  I have also mostly packed for Mexico (we leave in a couple of days).  And my stocks are doing great (I passed a 75% gain on my initial investing today!).  I have no New Year's resolutions, but I am excited to start the year.  Once we get back from Mexico, we plan on trying 30 days of Paleo eating, so you all can expect that our favorite recipes will definitely be shared).  I am also looking forward to a slower pace that allows for more workouts and blogging. But this year is also bringing a new job in a new unit and I have to say, I am excited about the change.  

Health & Exercise: Climbing Pikes Peak

So, we finally did it! We hiked Pike's Peak.  And it was... it just was.  It was awesome and difficult and long and crazy and so much more.
Let me explain, Pike's Peak is one of many Colorado 14-ers (A mountain over 14,000 ft).  The difficulty with Pikes Peak is that it is the greatest altitude change in Colorado.  It gains ~7,300 ft in elevation from the start of Barr Trail and is almost 13 miles up.  The average person takes around 8 hours to complete it.

It is broken down by most hikers into fourths.  The first fourth is the second most difficult which sucks since that is the start of your hike. We started at 5:50 a.m.  (before the sun was up) and made it a point to stop and take breaks even though we had energy.  We didn't want to burn out.

The second third is like just walking through woods, super easy and it comes out at the halfway point, called Barr Camp.  This was where we did our fastest miles was really enjoyable.  We spent much of our time enjoying the beautiful White Aspens and their brightly colored leaves.  It was a perfect first day of fall.

The third fourth is the third most difficult.  It doesn't involve much climbing over rocks, but it was a steady grade up the whole time.  By that point, all you want is to hit the tree line and feel like you are close to the top, since you know you are only halfway.  The White Aspens started becoming more scarce, but we could look down the valleys at them.

 

The fourth part of the journey was just terrible.  We
still had over 2,000 ft in elevation to gain and it was all climbing over rocks and staring down gorges.

But once we got to the top, we decided that are joints wouldn't handle the decent well, plus it would take hours more.  Doing a marathon length hike sounded awful and we were already tired. So we decided to take the Cog Railway down to the bottom.

  

Ultimately, we hiked 13 miles up in 7 hours 23 minutes and burned somewhere over 3,000 calories.