Wow! The end of May and June flew by, so I thought I'd try to jam in a post before July gets here. Spring was awesome, and it's so great to have warm weather and relatively snow free mountains to play in. Allison started PT school at the end of May, so we jammed in a few activities before her life got crazy. We flew into Chicago, and I met her family and friends the weekend before Memorial Day weekend. It was so much fun meeting them and being in the Midwest again. We ran 5 miles one morning! I've never done anything like that. The best part was that we ran that in like 42 minutes. I'm no super athlete, but you really notice the abundance of oxygen:)
The weekend after that, I flew to Maryland and got to visit my sister's family and my parents. It was a great weekend, and it went by really fast. The kids are growing up so fast, and it's so hard to say goodbye to them.
After returning to Denver, Allison and I spent the first weekend in June hiking around Mt. Evans and having fun.
The second weekend, Brett and I climbed Mt. Sherman. The first successful summit of a 14er since my knee surgery. I've got some pictures I'll put at the bottom of this post.
The third weekend, we climbed Mt. Quandary for summit number 8. These were both great 14ers and the camping before hand was also loads of fun. My absolute favorite part though was getting to glissade. A glissade is when you slide down the snow using your ice axe as a rudder. It's a heck of a lot easier than hiking:) The glissade on Mt. Sherman was fairly short, but the Quandary glissade was probably closer to 2,000 feet of elevation loss, which means big fun.
The following weekend, I went hiking with my friend Andrew and his friend Libby. We went to the Mt. Evans area and hiked to a place called Hell's Hole. It was a good hike, which I followed up with some swimming at the pool. The next day, I rode my bike to downtown Denver and took the train home, which turned out to be a good workout. I then continued a new ritual for Andrew and I: Sunday tennis. I'm just loving being active again, and I'm doing as much as I can to make up for the time I lost.
Last Wednesday was Allison's birthday, which was loads of fun. We went to Stampede for ladies' night with a bunch of her fellow PT school students. It was a blast, but it was shorter for me because I had to work the next day. We had our celebration Friday night, which went so well. I grilled her red snapper and veggie kebabs, we drank Asti, and then we had homemade strawberry sherbet for dessert. She also opened her gift, and we just had a great time. Saturday, we checked out garage sales because she still needs a bike for school, she made me my favorite cookies, and we helped shovel dirt for her uncle. It was such a good weekend!
Life is good!
Ryan
Pictures and videos:
Mt. Sherman - http://flickr.com/photos/brett_burch/sets/72157605495965263, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqampnYyu5w
Mt. Quandary - http://flickr.com/photos/brett_burch/sets/72157605620751055
