Roomie is married!

My beautiful Roomie (aka Tracy Solis now) married Jeff— I mean Joe Solis — today. It's hard to imagine how far she's come from the days of being freshman roomies, to attending vet school and owning a house and raising chickens. She's always inspired me to be a better person, and to try to stay positive no matter what happens. She is never afraid to try new things, and has never heard of a comfort zone. She is, quite possibly, the most interesting woman in the world, and deserves to be in a Dos Equis commercial.

 I'm so happy for you Roomie. You and Joe are perfect for each other, and enjoy your honeymoon in Spain!

Here are some pictures from my trip. Tracy's niece June and nephew Jarek were definitely the stars of the visit.

Down the hill

Over the past two weeks, we've made a couple trips down the hill. Here are a few pictures of nieces. And I think everyone can identify with Mazie's enthusiasm for cookie dough.

Moses and Athena are starting to get along pretty well. She isn't intimidated by his size anymore.

Ty's Belated Birthday

I haven't been very good with keeping up with my posts, and in the process I missed Ty's birthday. Don't worry — I didn't forget when it actually WAS his birthday on June 23, but I failed to mention it in a blog post. So here is the belated braut celebration we had while camping. I think he might like beer-boiled brauts better than cake!

Surrounded

On Friday morning I woke up in our tent, and crawled out of my sleeping bag to go brew coffee. As I unzipped the door and squirmed out onto the campsite, I felt many sets of eyes looking at me.

I turned around and tried to rouse Tyler.

"Tyler, wake up," I said quietly. "We're surrounded by cows."

The day before we'd driven down to Durango at 6 a.m. I hadn't been there since high school, and Tyler said he'd never properly explored the area. By afternoon we had arrived and met up with Nate, one of Tyler's co-workers. Nate's buddy Chris lives in Durango, so he served as our tour guide for a little while, taking the boys cliff jumping in the Animas River, dinner at Cosmo where Chris worked, and then directing us to a cool campsite in La Plata Canyon — about 12 miles outside Durango.

Little did we know cattle roamed freely through this area of wilderness. I've been camping quite a bit, but I've never woken to find a a herd of cows grazing through camp before.

After I secured the dogs in the truck so they wouldn't disturb the cows, the morning was pleasant: coffee, my book, and the occasional moo. 

We packed up camp around late morning, then set off to Lake City via Silverton, but discovered a mudslide blocked the route we were planing to take. Instead, we drove up to Ridgeway and went out to the Silver Jack Reservoir. As we drove, we discovered something we hadn't seen in Colorado for a while: rain. Since we were camping, we weren't exactly thrilled with the weather, but happy to know our very dry state was getting the thirst quenching droplets it desperately needed. Because we travel with plenty of tarps, setting up a shelter wasn't too much trouble at all.

On Saturday, the rain followed us the whole way home — from Silver Jack, to Blue Mesa Reservoir, then Salida, and finally greeting us at our doorstep in Vail. I swear the rain stopped as soon as we unpacked and were officially home.