Colorado Trip

Mostly photos. I didn't take that many - sorry guys. Here's a few from our hike.

 Annie in action. Little Annie didn't make the trip, but her namesake represented.

 Johnny and Jake contemplate the meaning of it all.

 Mike and Carrie.

 Jacob crossed the creek and then got stuck, had to take his shoes off to come back.

 Pretty high at this point, around 11,000 feet plus.

 If Johnny looks tired, it's because the hike up was very tiring. We all looked that way by the time it was over.

Carrie summits!

 Our trip home-perfect travel weather.

Backyard Makeover

Here ya go mom and dad. A few pictures of the work we're doing in our backyard. We're wildlife-scaping it, making it friendly to birds and bees and deer. For those who don't know, we had the whole backyard torn up last year due to a problem with our septic system (we couldn't find it). So instead of resoding the whole yard, we decided to have some fun with it. Can you see the fawn in the first photo? That's right outside our back door.

Here's the initial framing, with pea gravel in place. Those are 4x6 pressure treated timbers, and they weigh about 50 pounds each. The pavers are 24x24 and weigh about 80 pounds each.

The patio is roughly 15x20 feet. We moved about 6 cubic yards of material into the patio (about 18 tons), and removed about the same in dirt. You can see the pile back there.

Here's the finished patio, trimmed out in redwood. That's a planter box with an aspen tree in it: we lost all the neighborhood aspen trees 2 years ago to some disease. I'm hoping the planter box will allow me to keep this one alive. You can see i've still got some work to do moving around the fill, which we are using to recontour the slope of the lawn so it drains away from the foundation. I hope to have everything done in time for college football season, when we start remodeling our basement.

Abilene Visit

The kids and I covered the 1,350 miles to Abilene this past week to visit the family. It was an exciting car ride, all 2 turns of it (right on I-25 and left on I-70). Carrie missed out because she's working through her master's program at the University, and also because she's smart: It was in the 100s the whole time we were in Kansas. Jacob couldn't handle it: I literally thought he would figuratively die. My parent's house had a window-unit AC downstairs and Jacob wrapped himself around it to sleep at night.

Anyway, here's some photos of the family, which was notoriously difficult to photograph, mostly because they're a bunch of goof-offs.

 Here's Jonah, doing that sunken-cheek face thing all the weirdos do in selfies.

 It was mom's birthday so we had a little cake.

 More family pics: Jayce wasn't having it (on Lizzie's lap)

 

Mom admiring Lizzie's deep concentration. 

 

Anyway, it was good to see the family and have all the kids get together. We'll have to do it again when the weather is more cooperative and the states are closer together.

Track Meet Photos

Jacob had his big city-wide track meet yesterday in the cold and the rain, and i managed to snap a few photos of the events and the family. Jacob made it in five events and took 3rd thru 1st place for them all, so he was pretty happy. 

The kids still have a month of school left. We go to school forever in Montana. We're heading home in mid-June to visit the parents in Abilene, which will be nice. Carrie won't make it tho as she's in her second and final year of her grad program at UMT. She'll be busy until the middle of July, so no break for her.

We start camping next weekend, so maybe i'll get some more photos uploaded. In the meantime i'm waiting for it to stop raining so i can finish the patio i've started in the backyard. It's always soooo easy to start these stupid projects. If a guy was smart he'd start a business called "I'll Finish your Stupid Projects for You, LLC" and make a lot of money.

Anyway, hope you enjoy these photos for now.

Thanksgiving Vaca -5 Degree Too Sunny Griz Game Day Throw-Back

The sun's 93 million miles away? It seems closer! - Jacob Sweatland

Merry Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas family and friends. We are having a great holiday. We woke up to new snow, which is always welcome here. Jacob and Annie both had plenty to be thankful for, thanks to the family! Even the cat got in on some of the action, with an assist from the Catnip.

 

Carrie and I got each other cross country skis, so that we can get out on those days we're not on the slopes. There's a couple of great cross country trail systems right in town, including the Rattlesnake trailhead about a mile and a half up the road from us. It's been a great winter and ski year so far. If we couldn't ski in the cold, overcast winter months of Missoula, we'd all go nuts.

It was just the Sweatland family for Christmas in Missoula. We did have family in town for Thanksgiving, which is always welcome. Annie came down from Bend, and Grandpa John flew in from New Hampshire.

 Here's a picture of a rock, just because I think it's neat.

Happy holidays to all, and here's hoping you all have a wonderful New Year!

More Photos

OK, having some issues with Blogger, so here's hopefully some photos that you can blow up and see, unlike the last post we did.

Ok, so far so good. Here's another of Jacob playing football.

In the photo above, Jacob is on the end, getting ready to tee off on somebody. He had a great season. By the last game i developed a defensive role for him that we called the "Hammer." We randomly assigned guys on the other side as "nails" and let Jacob ruin their day. We ended up 4-2 on the season, but lost the first round of playoffs. We did have a stretch where we destroyed people, winning 12-0, 14-0, 35-0 and 39-0 while barely giving up a first down. The 35-0 game we gave up 1 first down to the other team, and the 39-0 game, they never moved the sticks on us. Coaching was much more fun than i could have imagined, and Jacob is already talking about next year (but ski season first!).

Annie is doing super skippers again, but no photos of her in action yet. Those will come later.

Looking forward to seeing family for Thanksgiving!