Wolf Creek Ski Area

So Colonel Green gave us all a two day pass for last week, so I didn't have to go into work on Thursday of Friday. Since I had nothing else to do, I took the chance to head up to Wolf Creek Ski area for 3 days of skiing. Wolf Creek gets more snow than any other resort in colorado. Last year they received over 450" of snow. So far this year they have gotten 203". I got up there Tuesday night and ended up being the only person at the condo. Wednesday morning I headed up to the ski area for my first round of skiing since the 2002/2003 ski season. I took one easy run down the hill to try and get my legs back and found that it came back to me like riding a bike. For the rest of the day I played in the black diamonds in the Alberta area of the ski resort. The Alberta side of the resort is made up of mostly black diamond runs. All of the runs are completely covered in large pines which makes route finding interesting. On Tuesday night we got around 8-12 inches of fresh power, so I was in heaven all day Wednesdays. On Thursday my buddy Matt came up to the condo, and then another 8 people showed up for skiing on Friday. I headed home Friday night to relax for the weekend and let my body recover as well as to beat the newest bout of snow out of town.

Christmas!

So tonight I just got back from Christmas back in Michigan with the Soos clan, and as always, it was a blast. This is the second year in a row that the entire family was there for Christmas, which was great. I don't often get to see everyone in one place and it really makes the holidays special to all be together.

Christmas happened in typical Soos fashion. It started out at the local Golf club for lunch, proceeded to Grandma and Grandpa's house for presents, and then enough finger food to feed an army. I probably gained 12 pounds over the course of two days and I'm really feeling like I need to get out and run now.

I also got my first real expose to the Nintendo Wii which was sweet. I dominated in bowling but then proceeded to get my ass kicked by Sarah in boxing.

On Sunday we spent the morning at Grandma's house, and then the rest of the evening I got to just relax with my immediate family. We ended up going out to eat at Phil's Pizzeria in M-ville which was fantastic and brings back lots of memories of when I lived back home.

Now I'm back in the Crackie, having to spend Christmas away from my wife, which really sucks. Hopefully next year I'll be living with her in Denver and we won't be 1000 miles apart on this holiday.

Here are the pics on Flickr.

The offer was accepted!

So the offer that we made on our house was accepted by the buyer, but unfortunately that is only the first step. Since this is a short sale, and the lady has to sell the house for less than she owes, we still have to get permission from the bank for the transaction to go through. We offered her $18k less than her asking price, which is $45k less than she bought the house for in February. Hopefully the bank is willing to take the hit instead of going to foreclosure on this lady. That would make this house a real steal. So the house itself is 2,200 sq ft above ground, and 1,000 sq ft of unfinished basement. It has a 2-car garage and sits on a .25 acre plot. Right now it's 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths, but there is lots of room for another bedroom and a full bath in the basement, plus room for a game room. The house is located in a new neighborhood and is located just a few blocks from a grocery store, two parks, open space, and the community pool. We will also only be 1.2 miles from the local middle and high school and are 3 blocks from the elementary school. The bank has until the 31st to decide to accept or counter our offer, so hopefully I'll have more good news soon. The pictures are located here

We bought a house!

Well, not really, but we did put in an offer. And the one pictured above is not it. This one was about $2.3M more than we could afford...

So Sarah and I spent the last few days bumming around Denver with our Realtor, Lori. We were doing our long awaited house hunting trip (all expenses paid by RES America which was freakin' sweet) so that we have somewhere for Sarah to move in February. We look at around 20 houses over two days and realized that it's hard to find one house that has everything that we're looking for. We eventually found one that we really like. It was purchased new in February 2007 but the lady couldn't make the payments so now the bank is trying to foreclose on her. We low-balled her by like $45k so we hope to get a sweet deal.

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying each other company. On Saturday Sarah bought us tickets to see the Nutcracker at the Denver Opera House. It's probably been 15 years since I've seen it and we had a great time.

Sunday night we were able to meet up with Greg, Christina, Erik, and Kara and had dinner and ice cream down in Cherry Creek.

Once we find out if the buyer accepts our offer, I'll post some of the pics we took.

I'm a married man!

Man, what a weekend... Sarah and I both flew into town on Thursday knowing we had a big day ahead of us. Friday morning at 8am we had to take engagement pictures with the photographer. It was like -20 degrees outside with hurricane force winds and I was just in a sweater and Sarah was walking around in this tiny dress like a true Alaskan girl. After an hour of that, we headed off to Hastings to get a marriage licence. We then headed to the hotel an met her mother and father there. The rest of Friday was swallowed up by rehearsals and rehearsal dinners.

On Saturday, everything went off without a hitch. Doug's service was perfect, the setting was beautiful, and the company was wonderful. Sarah looked absolutely beautiful and I had to struggle to maintain my composure every time I looked at her.

Sunday was a relaxing day hanging out with the family at my parents place. Eventually all good things come to an end however, and we had to fly home. Luckily the weather sucked and we got to say another night together in Middleville and took the early flight to Chicago on Monday.

All in all the weekend was perfect. I couldn't have asked for a better wedding and I'm so excited for Sarah and I to start our lives together.

Hopefully I'll have photo's to share soon.

Thanksgiving in Kentucky

So for Thanksgiving I flew into Louisville, KY for Thanksgiving with all of the Reese's. This was my first chance to meet all of Sarah's family and considering the wedding is the next weekend, the pressure was on. Luckily for me she has an awesome family. They are all really laid back, cool people who are easy to get along with. Sarah and I both flew in late Wednesday night and stayed through Sunday. On Thursday morning, the Reese family has a tradition that everyone runs a 2.5 miles Turkey Trot around their block. I put in the old college effort and came is a distance second place to Sarah's sister Caitlin. Next year I may have to actually train and I MIGHT be able to close the gap a little.

For dinner Michelle Reese maid like 8 turkeys (smoked, cajun, regular...) and had a spread of food that could feed an army. By the end of the weekend I probably gained 5 pounds.

Saturday night Sarah and I took off by ourselves and went down town Louisville for "Light up Louisville" which is an event where they light the town Christmas tree and have a bunch of bands playing holiday music. It was cold as crap but really cool to see all the lights.

Penitente Peak

So this weekend Sarah flew into Albuquerque, and since we hadn't gone hiking together in a while, we decided to throw together a trip to a local peak. Since three of us hiked in the Sandias the weekend before, I suggested we head up toward Santa Fe to do one of those peaks. Sarah and I have previously done Santa Fe Baldy, so we decided to hike Penitente Peak near the Santa Fe Ski Resort. We end up departing the trial head around 9:30am and start our 14 mile trek, with our dogs, Bella and Taboo in tow.

The trail starts out in a pine forest, but as you quickly gain altitude, the pines give way to aspen forests. Eventually we make it to the saddle between Santa Fe Baldy and Penitente Peak. After a short break we turn onto trail 251 and start the climb. The views from the top were incredible. There is a clear view of Lake peak to the south, Santa Fe Baldy to the North West, and far to the north you can see the Truchas Peaks and Pecos Baldy.

The trip down the mountain goes quickly and me make it back to the car at 4pm. All in all we did around 14 miles and 2500 ft of elevation gain. What was most impressive about this hike though was the energy level of Bella. Even carrying her backpack, she was constantly running ahead of us and then back again. She easily did well over 20 miles, all while carrying 2 liters of water. Pretty impressive for a 35 pound dog.

Here are the pics of Flickr.

A weekend in Abq

So I was left all alone this last weekend, since neither Sarah or I were traveling, so I was forced to entertain myself, which can often be disastrous. Luckily, Joe and Courtney stepped up and called me at the butt crack of dawn and asked if I wanted to do a short hike in the Sandias. They trail they picked travels through a clearing the runs north-south across North Sandia Mountain. Apparently they wanted to build a road from the peak to the town of Placitas, but the protesters got the better of the city and they cancelled the plans before the construction could start. The clearing has since started to fill in with Aspen, which thrive in the sunlight provided by the openness. The hike ended up being about 6 miles round trip, which was just perfect on a crisp autumn day.

On Sunday I had my last outdoor soccer game of the fall. We played a team that is at the top of the table, but we only had 10 people and they had like 15, so we spent most of the game on the defensive. Then in the second half Joe broke his ribs, again, and BJ broke his nose. If you're good with the math you'll notice that we are now down by 3 people, against the top team in our league. Luckily we have a stellar defense and we still held them to a 1-0 final score. Considering they usually win 3-0 against full teams, I was happy with my defenders.

Here are the flickr pics.

Autin, TX

This weekend I had the pleasure of flying into Austin, TX to visit Sarah for the weekend. It was really nice to visit her for a change since she's the one that's been doing all of the flying (because I coach soccer and don't want to miss too many games). I didn't get into Austin until late on Friday, so we just enjoyed some wine and each others company. On Saturday her friend Dawn from Auburn drove over from Houston. We then headed down town to a UT tailgate that Dawn's roommate's father was putting on (are you still following?) This man apparently sells these really expensive smoker/grill things, and he brough like 4 of them along. By the time we got there around 1pm, the food had been on the grill for about 8 hours, and he must have made about 100 pounds worth. They had an equally impressive spread of side dishes too and enough drinks to keep the crowd happy.

After the game we went back to Sarahs place to nap and then headed back downtown to catch dinner and party it up. We ended up at some Tapas/Wine joint which was amazing, and spent the rest of the evening at an outdoor bar that had a great live band playing. Not only did they play great 80's covers, but they even played Outcast and Justin Timberlake which is impressive considering they were all in their late 40's.

The Wedding Page

Once we started planning our wedding we started having troubles picking a date that worked. Sarah's family was unavailable January through June (plus between June 1st and July 15th I'm in two weddings and am attending two others...) and neither of us wanted a summer wedding so we decided on December 1st. Since it's last minute we can't ask people to travel to Colorado for a wedding, so we're holding it in Middleville, MI (so most of her family can drive). In additon, there isn't sufficient time to plan a large wedding for all friends and family (since it's like 4 weeks away!) so we've decided to make it very small and intimate. We have to keep it to 25 people or less so we've only invited parents, siblings, and grandparents. Since we are flying back to Michigan two weeks later for Christmas, we aren't going to throw a party for family and friends until later in the spring, once we've moved into our new house in Denver. We're planning a huge shin-dig, reception, housewarming, welcome to our new home, hey everybody check out Denver kind of thing.

So in summary, we would have loved to accomadate all of our family and friends, but it just didn't work out. We appreciate you love and support and we can't wait to see you all.

A weekend with Sarah

So this weekend Sarah flew into town again, and always, it was fantastic to see her. We spent most of the weekend hanging out together and just relaxing. We did a little more wedding stuff, but for the most part we're done, which is nice. Aside from seeing Sarah, the highlight of the weekend was seeing the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team play an international friendly against Mexico at UNM Stadium. The game was fun to watch with the U.S. coming from behind to draw the game with 20 minutes left. We were joined at the game by Eric, Robing, Joe and Courtney.

A week with the folks

On October 5th, my house was once again blessed by the presents of my parents. They drove non-stop from Michigan (because they are frickin' troopers) and visited some friends in Colorado before coming down to see me. On Sunday we got up early and headed up to the balloon fiesta. We got there plenty early to see the dawn patrol, but because of the high winds, less than half of the balloons actually launched. Two days later we suprised my mother with a balloon ride from a guy that I work with. We all headed up to Albuquerque early and met Tom at the field. It was a windy day so everyone had to launch from off the field so we ended up launching from some guys lawn. It was interesting crewing for a balloon. I thik it would be really fun to be a balloon pilot but you definetly need dedicated friends to crew for you. Her flight went off without a hitch and despite 5 other crashes that day, she landed safely.

Later in the week we headed out to the White Sands National Monument. If you've watched the movie transformers, you've seen it. They call it Qatar. White Sands is in southern New Mexico, which like Qatar is very hot and filled with people who don't speak english. The whole experience is very weird. It's hot, there is sand blowing, yet it looks like miles and miles of snow.

Since my dad had never been up Sandia Peak, we took a drive up the back side of the mountain. We hiked about 3 miles along the ridge trail which took about 8 hours because all of us brought our cameras and just HAD to take pictures. Needless to say I have at least 150 pictures of that 3 miles, and I'm not even counting the ones my parents took.

I had a great week with my folks and I'm glad they were able to come out to New Mexico one last time. Hopefully this time next year I'll be in Denver and we can have some new adventures up there.

I AM ENGAGED!

So the big news in my life, that I've kind of been sitting on for a few days, is that I am officially engaged to a Ms. Sarah Reese. To you friends that live near us an see us together, this probably isn't much of a shocker, maybe even predicted, but I'm sure those of you who are more geographically removed may be surprised. The topic has come up over that last few weeks and we've both decided that we are ready to move to the next phase in our relationship. I asked, and obviously by the title of this post, she said yes. Both of us couldn't be more excited and Sarah looks forward to seeing you all and showing off her BLING! As my friend Robin pointed out, as soon as you tell anyone you are engaged, they ask when the wedding will be, even if you've only been engaged for 30 minutes, but even after 5 days, we still have no idea. Once we figure something out, I'll post and update.

Fort Den-va!

As it turns out, Sarah works for the coolest company ever. Because they are moving their corporate headquarters to Denver, they are paying for their employees to fly there for a "Get to Know Denver" trip, all expenses paid. On Wednesday, Sarah and I both flew into KDEN, and headed to our hotel in Louisville. For most of the day on Thursday, we drove around to the different neighborhoods that she and I had decided we might want to move to. At first we drove around the area east of Pena Blvd. The houses were really nice and in our price range, but they neighborhood was in the middle of no-where, which was a drawback. We then headed over to Stapleton, which is the new housing community that is being built on the old airport. These homes ranged in price from "an arm and a leg" up to "your first born child." They were more expensive and half the size of my current house, plus they are only 5 years into the 20 year construction cycle there. We decided that it didn't make sense to purchase there for that much money and just have to compete with a builder for the next 15 years if we want to sell.

Finally we headed back to the north west side of Denver and drove through the communities of Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, and Superior. The last two were great places but were on the high side of our price range. We found a lot of great houses on the US-36 corridor in Westminster that would allow me to commute to Buckley quickly, while still being close to Sarah's work.

Friday we took off to Fort Collins to meet up with Doug, Liz, Christina, and Greg. We chilled at Doug's house, grilled some cow, and played card games. The next day we got up and enjoyed the culinary skills of Mr. Blocksma, and eventually headed out to some state park just west of town. I was hoping to try a little rock climbing but there was a competition going on so we just sat around and enjoyed the views.

Of course, all that sitting around made us thirsty, so after departing the park we straight away went to New Belgium Brewing Company for a free tasting. If you are ever in the area, this place is a must stop. The atmosphere is great and the beer is even better. The La Folie sour is fantastic and I wish I could drink more of it.

Like all good things, it eventually came to an end on Sunday and Sarah and I had to part ways again for the next two weeks. I flew home to my soccer game and unfortunately they tied it up at the end of the game off some bogus penalty.

That night the Bishop/Klaiber household headed over to Chris' house for a going away dinner for James as he heads back to New York after 6 months here in ABQ. As always with this crew, good times were had.

Here are the Denver pics. Here are the ABQ pics.

MEGA POST!

So I've been traveling all over the place for the last month, and lo and behold my blog has fallen behind. I'm not sure if either of you noticed, but that's besides the point. I'm throwing the last 30 days into one MEGA POST!!!! and I hope your head doesn't explode from the excitement.
Denver/Golden

The month started off with a trip to Denver for Erik Anderson bachelor party as well as a long overdue get together with all the friends. Sarah and I began our adventure on Friday and drove up to stay with Christina and Greg in Aurora (no, it's not the same Aurora as Wayne's World). Because it was so long ago and I have no idea what we did on Friday night, I'm going to embellish a little bit.

The evening started off with a little bit of sky diving followed up by some jello wresting. After single handily saving the town a Denver from a band of drunken, rabid monkeys, I was crowned the King of the World. Then we all decided we should turn in for the night as we had big plans for Saturday (pictures coming soon...)

On Saturday the four of us (Sarah, Christina, Greg and I for those of you not following along) headed up to Golden to do a short day-hike. We were suppose to meet Doug and Liz, but it turns out they are horrible people and didn't show up, but the hike was great none the less. It was around 2 miles with only a few hundred feet of elevation gain through a bunch of pine trees. If you're ever the in Golden area, the State Park looks like a wonderful place to camp.
 

Later that evening, all of us guys rendezvoused at Erik's place for the start of the party. The first order of business was Go-carting. I'm not talking about Craig's Cruisers, 10 mph karts either. These things got up to 40 mph, and we were required to wear fire suits and helmets (but oddly enough there were no seatbelts...) The go carting was pretty much just like NASCAR, except without all of the speed, sponsors, hot chicks, and trashy fans. After I taught everyone how driving is really done, we headed out to Hooters to check out their owl conservancy. As you can see,


Erik found a pretty one to hold.

The night pretty much gets hazier and hazier from there. We went downtown, there was some pool involved, and we ended up somewhere else. Eventually the girls showed up to drive us back, and then starting on Sunday my memory recovers. When we all got up and showered in the morning, we headed over to a breakfast place called "The Egg and I" or something like that. If you ever are near one I highly recommend that you stop by. They have a lot of different, creative breakfasts. For instance, I had a Crab Cake Benedict. It was two crab cakes, two thick slices of tomato, two eggs, and hollandaise sauce. It was great. Not to mention that any place that serves good coffee and not Folgers gets a thumbs up in my book.


 


Michigan 

On September 26th, Sarah and I flew to Michigan to stay at the cottage, visit with my family, as well as attend the wedding of Erik and Kara. This trip to the cottage was just what I needed to unwind. All I did for a week way lie around, swim, and drink Mojitos. That is how the summer was meant to be spent. As a side note, I previously thought of the Mojito as a sugary girl drink, but when made from scratch, it's not as sweet as the mix crap and is amazing in hot weather.

On Friday Sarah and I headed to the wedding in Detroit. The wedding and reception were great and the company was even better. I got to see a bunch of college friends that I hadn't seen in quite a long time which was great. We don't all get together nearly often enough.

Following the wedding, it was back to the cottage and hanging with family. The only problem with the whole vacation was the lack of wind for sailing. I was able to get in one good day, but it was dead calm the rest of the week. What made up for that fact though is that I got to experience all 7 of this years sunny days in Michigan.


Maui 
So my old program manager hooked me up with this deal to go to Maui. There is a yearly Space Situational Awareness conference held there, and our contractor wrote a paper about my spacecraft. Luke was suppose to present the ANGELS overview, but he got transferred to the Air Force Academy, and since school is in session, he couldn't leave. Poor old me got tapped to presenting in his place. On two other occasions I was suppose to present at large technical conferences, but for various reasons I always had to cancel. This time I was actually able to present (in front of a two-star general no less) and it went without a hitch.

The conference was held at the Wailea Marriott on the south side of Maui. Unfortunately I didn't make reservations in time and was at the Maui Coast Hotel. If there is such thing as going to Maui, all expenses paid and still "getting the shaft," I did it because my hotel was not NEARLY as nice as the Marriott where everyone else was staying. Although, if you're in a tropical area and you spend any amount of time in your room, you're probably doing something wrong.

Most of the week (other than the times I was at the conference) I spend hanging out at the beach, the pool, and doing quite a bit of snorkeling. I drove or walked to quite a few of the good snorkeling spots up and down the South Maui Coast but the best by far was Ahihi. It is on the north side of a marine preserve at the very southern portion of the island. The coral reef there is huge, there are tons of fish, and I even got to see a sea turtle. After spending hours in the sea, looking at all of the beautiful, amazing looking fish, the only thing you want to do is run to the nearest restaraunt and eat a few of them. My last day there I visited the town of Lahaina. It was a cool area, but way too touristy for my tastes. A third of the stores sell over-priced t-shirts, another third sell overpriced jewelry, and the last third are all art galleries (which being original art, is way more expensive than I can afford). Sprinkle in there a bunch of restaraunts selling $7.50 Mai Tais, and you have the town of Lahaina. I'm told it has a really good bar seen for the younger folk, but it was an hour drive from Kihei so there was no point going there when we could just walk to one from our hotel and remove the car from the nightly equation. It was a good place to visit but if you want to relax, Kihei is the best place (they also have more snorkeling spots then Lahaina).



I also managed to stop by the only winery on Maui. I did the tasting and took the grand tour of their grounds. The winery is very small, only production about 30,000 cases a year, of which 20,000 are pineapple wine, and the rest from their own grapes. I tried their red and it was nothing to write home about. The pineapple wine on the other hand, was great. Pretty sweet with only a hint of pineapple and an almost citrus flavor to it. As usual you can pick these and more up at my Flickr page