starting small

Ethan completed his first 25K trail race this weekend (March 2011) ! Yep, he completed the whole 15.5 miles. The family went out to Rocksprings, Texas with some friends of ours to camp for a night and run the trail race. I did the 25K with Ethan. William also completed his first 10K trail race (and did quite well). Here we are wearing our medals. To top the weekend off, Ethan had his first soccer game on Sunday - and even on tired legs, Ethan played an awesome game. The team won!!

This year (February 2011) Ethan participated in the Texas Destination Imagination Regional Competition. His team from Cox Elementary chose to design and build a sculpture made only of wood, glue, and aluminum foil. The structure could weigh no more than 27 grams and the goal was to see how much weight the structure could hold. The team built a structure that weighed 23 grams and held 270 pounds!!


The team also wrote a play about McDonalds vs. the State of California (played by Ethan). The story was about McDonalds only being allowed to put toys in Happy Meals that have 600 calories or less. Ethan sang the verse from the Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in the play. This is a song that his grandmother Sharon sometimes sings to Ethan when he does not get what he wants. The team did a great job and got 6th place out of 21 other teams!

Here is a picture of the team!

Here is Ethan at the structure weigh in discussing how the team made the structure with the judges.

23 grams!
The team went bowling between sessions!

The whole family attended a New Year's Eve party at a friend's house this year. Ethan took these pictures of fireworks at the party with a new camera that he got for Christmas!

Pictured below are scenes from the exhibit ICE! at the Gaylord Texan in Grapvine, Texas. This exhibit is made entirely of ice (2 million pounds of ice). The artists come from Harbin China to make these sculptures. This year the exhibit diaplayed scenes from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Even though it looks like wax it is really ice. The room was about 14 degrees.

Our summer 2010 vacation was a backpacking/hiking trip through the Weminuche Wilderness in Southwestern Colorado. We took our two week vacation last week of June - first week of July. As usual, we drove the distance from Austin, Texas to Durango, Colorado (17 hours) in one day leaving Austin at 3 am and getting into Durango in time for dinner. We always stay at the Doubletree in Durango. A nice hotel with balconies overlooking the Animas river. Then we head to the Cypress Cafe for an excellent dinner. The next morning we headed to the Durango mountain resort for some Alpine sliding and to watch the last US match of the World Cup (unfortunately we lost!). That night we made our way to Montrose, Colorado where we did some last minute grocery shopping for the hike and settled in for the evening. The next morning we were up at 6:00 am and headed to our trail head between Montrose and Gunnison Colorado - the trail head was the East Fork of the Cimarron River. We parked our car at the trail head and then started on the hike which did involve walking for 1 mile on a mountain road. Here are the guys at the start!

Some jagged peaks looming in the distance on day 1.

Ethan crosses the stream at Porphyry Basin on day 1.

Camp site for day 1 - Wm and Eth make marshmallows.

Waterfall near our campsite - William purifies water.

View of the area where we camped the first night.

Moonrise outside of the tent -

DAY 2

This is Ethan inside of our tent on our stop on the second night - we are playing cards.

Here is Ethan a bit tired on Day 2 after a long strenuous hike.

This is the view out the door of our tent on the second night.

Here is the tent.

Me and Ethan are hiking towards Coxcomb peak.

Coxcomb peak in background -

Coxcomb peak - the long spiny one.

Wm and Eth crossing a snow bank heading towards the saddle of the peak - which we must cross. This was probably the most difficult day - I slipped several times on the snow, lost a shoe in a pool of mud (which I did get back), and it started snowing on us on top of the peak.

Wm and Eth at a trail marker - Coxcomb peak trail.

More snow banks - William would cross first making tracks in the snow for Ethan and me to follow in.

DAY 3

At one point during day 3, me and Ethan were sure we were lost. Our trail was obscured by a snow bank. William was sure that he was directing us the correct way (and to his credit - we were never lost - William was leading us correctly the whole time). Anyhow, me and Ethan sat on the trail in frustruation and all of the sudden in the distance - Ethan sees horses! This is a big deal as we were on day three of the hike and so far had only seen 2 other people the entire time. William chatted with one of the men on the horses who happened to be the President of the local trail club - he confirmed that we were going in the right direction and offered to give us a short ride. Ethan hopped on one of the horses and was happy as a clam.

Ethan on the horse (me and William walked).

Day 4

Middle Canyon Trail - hands down this was our favorite trail of the entire hike - absolutely beautiful - sunrise over middle canyon trail.

I am carrying Ethan's pack up the hill - it was day 4 after all.

Another view of Middle Canyon trail.

The mornings on this hike were colder than we expected. It was a real chore to get freezing cold river water and boil it for coffee at the crack of dawn. By day 4 we wised up and decided to get going and make coffee on the trail after the sun warmed things up. Here is Ethan with his morning hot chocolate.

William boils water for coffee -

This was our camp site on our last night - William and Ethan are working on dinner - which for Ethan was Chicken and rice and for us lentils and rice.

Ethan at the tent goofing off -

Ethan adds a rock to a cairn (trail marking)

There were several river crossings on this hike - here Ethan attempts to jump across quite successfully. Wide river crossings involve removing hiking shoes and socks - crossing the river (sometimes rolling up your pants as well) and then putting shoes back on. It is quite a process.

Snack break on our last day.

Trail Sign!! We are near Matterhorn Peak - getting on the Ridge Stock Driveway trail.

Almost finished - we came across some other people and asked them to snap a photo of us.

We hiked 14 miles the last day (Ethan wanted to do this rather than camping another night). Here we are back at the car.

That evening after the hike, we headed to Gunnison, Colorado where we checked into the Holiday Inn Express and had a wonderful dinner at Garlic Mike's on the river where a local jazz band was playing - it was a treat! The next morning we started our 3 hour drive to Leadville, Colorado (where I was going to run the marathon)! On the way we stopped at Monarch Mountain Pass on the Continental Divide and rode the Gondola to the top. This was a real blast from the past for me and William. We had done this exact same thing about 17 years earlier before we were married (funny - nothing had changed).

We also stopped at Mt. Princeton hot springs resort in Nathrop, Colorado - where we spent the
afternoon swimming in the 75 degree pool that is connected to a 300 ft water slide (pictured below). There is also a 100 degree soaking pool.

Leadville, Colorado

Here we are in Leadville, Colorado - a scene from the town (very nice town!).

Ethan stops for a rest on a bench made of skis.


Inside our Leadville condo.

Picture of the building where our condo was located (a short walk to the marathon start).

Me and Ethan at the start of the marathon!!

We stayed in Leadville for the 4th of July - here are scenes from local parade.

We watched the 4th of July fireworks at the local high school.

On our way home we stopped at Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo.

Ethan made a smiley face on one of the cars - yes you are supposed to do this as it is a living work of art.

We had an amazing time and are already planning our hike for next summer!!!