Pam & Trav's Adventures

We Are Moving

2009-08-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

Not houses or locations but our blog. :) Got yah! So in light of getting married, not living in San Francisco anymore and well running out of time to blog, I am starting fresh, with a new blog. So visit: tppower.wordpress.com for our new blog. Oh and sometime soon I am going to migrate from the .wordpress.com to just tppower.com :)

So thanks for you patience everyone as we switch!

My friends new business...

2009-05-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

Visit Report Card (above)

Price Guide (above)

Business Card (above)

Car Lettering (above)

So my girlfriend through the Weim rescue has decided to start her own Dog walking, pet sitting business. I have been having a great time helping her design business cards, price guides, misc collateral, next will be her website, her car lettering and anything else she needs. Just because I think it is so fun I wanted to share it:

Let's Play A Game....

2009-05-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Let's guess what plants Pam & Trav have in their yard. Since we moved in at the end of the summer we have no idea what plants we have in our yard. So we would love to some help identifying our foliage. Thanks!

Pictures from the weekend

2009-04-27T19:35:00.000-07:00

So I decided to take a break from folding the laundry while watching Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives to update everyone on what Trav and I have been up to. So two weeks ago we had a get together here at the house, sort of a house warming, wedding party, house party. We themed it "Rubik's Cube" so everyone had to come dressed in one article of clothing of each color on the cube. The goal was to become one solid color by trading pieces of clothing with people. It was a blast and well there are some stories that we just need to explain in person.

Then just this past weekend it was filled with more socializing. Friday was low key, which I always enjoy. Saturday was a Weim day. Kaiser and I had yet to go to an event since we have been back since we just seem to not have time. So we headed out to the dog park to see everyone, which was perfect because he was WIRED!! Later that evening we had a cocktail and app party at one of volunteers homes, just in a suburb away from us, however she lives in a HUGE house in an amazing gated community. It was a beautiful home but really just not my style. I just can't handle paying for a lot that is all home and now yard, especially with the pooch. :) We did have a great time though.

Sunday morning I met up with my girlfriend Shannon for an Indoor Triathlon up north of Denver. The tri consisted of doing laps for 10 minutes, riding on a spin bike for 30 minutes and then running on a treadmill for 20 minutes. Shannon rocked it as she got 4th place overall and somehow I managed 11th overall, though my swimming was definitely not my high point. After the tri we headed out to Mimi's Cafe for brunch where we wolfed down our food like we hadn't eaten in days. It was great though, I love spending time with her and just never seems to happen enough. Later that day Trav came home from his workout and errands and brough home a new BBQ!!! We both had been saying we really needed one so after some research on Trav's end he found the perfect starter grill. So he grilled us up some delicious steaks, potatoes and beans. It was perfect!!!!

I am so glad we had such a beautiful weekend, which ended in rain and we welcomed about 6-8 inches of snow this morning. Oh and we finalized where we are going for Memorial Day, South Dakota! So excited for this trip. We are packing the dog up and going to do a road trip and visit the Black Hills, Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore and more. It will be great. :)

Snow!

2009-04-17T16:10:00.000-07:00

Again here we are posting about snow! Yes I know we live in Denver and this is what it does. However, we have a party we have planned for tomorrow, we have ordered beer and that we cannot return. So of course right now we currently have about six inches of snow, and it is still coming down HARD! My guess is by the end of this blizzard, the second this month, we should have around a foot or more.

So we are off to build a fire for the last time this year, eat bunless burgers and watch a movie.

So think good thoughts that our party is still on for tomorrow!

PDCA - business principles with real life application!

2009-04-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

Ok guys, I've been getting some flak for not posting much recently from a person that I can't reveal identity wise (Mother-in-law). I informed her that I had been helping produce content in the form of pictures and video but apparently that wasn't enough for her. I recently exchanged somewhat philosophical emails with my Mom and thought I would share something discovered as a result of spending thousands of dollars taking graduate level courses.

PDCA stands for Plan-Do-Check-Act. It is a cycle originally created by Walter Shewhart in 1930's, but it wasn't popularized until Deming began using it to model continuous quality improvement processes in business. An overview of the cycle can be seen here: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ogehome/CQI/PDCA.html What does it mean?

Plan - Based on data recieved from marketing and other efforts to understand a particular "thing", decide what it is you want to accomplish and devise a plan to make it happen. I say thing, because you could be analyzing a customer base for areas of improvement or you could be analyzing a process for improvement. Really this "thing" is anything that can be measured that you may want improved.

Do - Once you figure out what it is you want to accomplish (a goal), and how you're going to go about accomplishing it, you DO! Implement your plan, be disciplined about following it.

Check - Some people also refer to this step as study. The point is to step back and reflect on the results of your doing. Use the data presented to evaluate the progress, if any.

Act - If the results were good, adopt the change into your process so that there will be no backslide of progress. The purpose of this cycle is continuous improvement and if the cycle did not produce positive results, then it would make senes to abandon the plan and try another avenue for improvement.

The backbone of the PDCA cycle is DATA. Data needs to support the decision making and the goal needs to be measurable. Without data, you are just shooting into the dark. Data will help you prioritize policies. A business can look at the data and say, "well if I do this I'll see a 50% reduction in production cycle time. If I do this other thing I will see a 35% reduction in production cycle time. I guess I'll do the first idea rather than the latter".

There is a large amount of things that come into play around this cycle but I'll just leave it at what it is, a model for continuous quality improvement.

As I reflected on this, I noticed that I had been doing this in my personal life already. I had been acting out the PDCA cycle in my weight training for the past year. First I had set goals and devised a plan to meet those goals. Then I executed the plan. After a number of weeks executing the plan, I would step back and see if things were really working. Was I executing the plan correctly? Was I eating correctly? Was I losing good form as a tradeoff to increasing weight lifted? I would ask myself many questions to evaluate whether or not the plan was working. In the end, based on my results (I had been tracking weight lifting, calories, weight loss, reps, sets, volume, and mood...things like this) I would determine if I would continue the plan or adopt a new one.

Being an analytical person, this makes perfect sense to me. It is something that my Mom does very well, take chaos and devise a plan and process about doing things so that there is no wasted time in it. To be honest, you can go to the gym and workout 5 days a week and never see much of a result from your efforts. I see people do this all the time. Thats fine, if you're just looking to maintain your current level of fitness. When you start viewing life as a process of continual improvement in self though, its difficult to see this time spent as valued.

I am often reminded by the simplest things. Things that you hear once but strangely they stick with you. I do not know who told me this verse from the Bible, or where or even when but it rings through my head like a huge bell declaring triumphantly the time, "Whatever you do, do it for the Lord". What it means to me is, whatever it is that you are doing, you can glorify they Lord by doing it to the best of your ability, by giving 100% every time. As I approach my limit on a task and beging to feel discouraged I may not succeed at it, I am reminded that God doesn't call me to be the best at everything, but he does ask that I give whatever I am doing my best effort.

This is a very difficult thing to do 100% of the time. Sometimes life bears down on you and you may not feel like you have the energy to do this or that. You've got so much on your plate, you don't know how to fit it all in so you decide to cut corners on one thing so that you can do another. You know what though, nobody sets out to do something just mediocre. I have not heard someone say, you know what, I think I want to play basketball good enough to ride the pine in the NBA, I don't really want to be a starter, or a star. Or...I don't really want to beat this video game, I just want to play it. What I think happens though is that at some point, you fall under adversity and decide to settle because you don't have either the knowledge or the strength to proceed further. In other words, you're no longer giving it your best effort.

PDCA then becomes a tool where, adversity falls to the wayside as you systematically creep closer and closer to your bigger goals. The Japanese call it Kaizen. In my example it doesn't matter if you increase the weight lifted 2.5lbs a week or 10lbs a week. The idea is to keep increasing the lbs lifted each week and not decrease or stay the same. Move forward slightly numerous times and eventually, you will look back and see that you will have moved very far.

The Japanese think long term. I would encourage us as Americans to adopt this belief. To often we run before we walk because we want results yesterday. This only helps exacerbate our own lack of a disciplined nature. Results don't come quick, we get annoyed, we give up before making any progress. Another verse is Phillipians 4:13, "I can do all things through He who gives me strength". The key to this verse is on who's timeframe are we speaking of here. To often we are thinking of this in terms of our own timeframe which is too fast!

I'll wrap this up...I hope you've seen how an analytical person in one aspect views life. I am encouraged by the fact that apparently, "I can do all things through He who gives me strength". The PDCA cycle provides a framework for personal continuous improvement and a road to accomplishing the aforementioned "all things". I will continue to improve my disciplined nature through Collossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly as though you were doing it for the Lord and not merely for people". Failure will not sting, because I will have given it my best. I understand that failure is a result of the PDCA cycle, a cycle that is not absolute when determining potential and because of this, failure is temporary. By being able to understand this concept I can step back, revise my plan and continue the PDCA cycle again in search of success.

Snow Storm

2009-03-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was an interesting day. We had been having some great spring weather, 60-70 degree days, tons of sun and it was awesome! I thought winter was over. However, Mr. Winter had a different idea. Wednesday night it started getting really windy, the temperature started to significantly drop and you could tell something was coming. Then around 6-7am, the clouds were here, at 8am the snow started. It started coming down in HUGE flakes and just thick. Around noon the wind kicked up again and the roads were covered, as the day went on, business closed, Trav came home around 1pm, and I was still in the house working. It snowed all night and is still spitting a bit this morning, but now the roads are completely frozen over, flights were canceled and just starting back up and my guess is we have somewhere around 10-11 inches based on deep the dog sunk in, though it could be more. Here are some pictures for you all to enjoy.

Grouting...

2009-03-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

So the grouting is done! I am officially exhausted, long day at work, hard workout and then three hours of grouting, I am thinking folding the laundry can wait till tomorrow...

However enjoy the new pictures of the grouted floor.

And then came tile...

2009-03-22T21:09:00.001-07:00

So we have the tile all laid down now!!! I am personally so excited to say our tile is down, all we have left to do is grout and put in the door and we will have an office. Enjoy the new pictures...

Some updates on the office

2009-03-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

So about three months ago Trav and I started renovating our fourth bedroom/office in the basement. It was covered in woodpaneling, hideous and just not useful. Here are pictures that show the progression of the progress. To date all we have left to do is tile, we will do this over this weekend, put in the door and put up the moulding. Woo HOOOOOOOOOOOO

Pam

Kaiser running around with one of his toys from Sandi

2009-03-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

This is Kaiser's goober/happy run. He klogs around like a happy go lucky dog, just him and his toy. The toy has a slinshot type cord attached to it and Kaiser loves running around flipping it to himself in the air, and flinging it all around hitting himself in the face. Always makes me happy seeing him at the end of the day playing.

Updates...

2009-03-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

So I know I am totally behind in my posts, but since being home a week Trav and I have been SUPER busy. Quick update....

1. The wedding was amazing!!!! See pictures below that Lindsay Foster-Drago, one of my bridesmaids, & Caris Power, Trav's sister, took. :)

2. Honeymoon, been to Costa Rica & back. Here are some pictures for everyone to enjoy.

3. Continued with the office renovation on a mad and furious pace, pictures to come soon.

4. Pam started her new job at BusinessGenetics, crazy busy but great!

5. Trav and school, hence the mad and furious pace to finish the office.

So more to come about the honeymoon when we have some down time this weekend.

Pam & Trav Power :)

One Week To Go

2009-02-14T12:48:00.000-08:00

So we are officially one week out from the wedding and well I had my first major, tears included, freak out moment. It wasn't really a bridezilla moment but more of a Pam is trying to do too much and without enough time, no priorities moment. As most people know I have quit my job at 3t and will start a new job when we return from our Honeymoon on March 9. So last week I didn't work, which was amazing! I didn't really sleep in, but I did sleep till 7am, which was AMAZING! However somehow the week filled up with errands, dog walks, vet appointments, laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc. Now it is Saturday and I officially went nutso about my list I had of things to do. Here is the list...

1. Instructions for Julia (she is watching our house while we are gone) - was supposed to do this Friday but ran out of time.
2. Contact info and dates gone for the neighbors
3. Instructions for the dog - could probably do in Oregon
4. Schedule and tasks for Ali
5. Print out and organize vendor stuff
6. Print out schedule of week
7. Go to the Dump
8. Organize the garage
9. Library
10. Finish Sanding
11. Schedule one last fitting
12. Laundry
12. Boarding Pass
13. Pack Kaiser toys and some food
14. File and organize papers
15. Pack!

So as you can see some of this stuff isn't really pertinent to leaving and that is what I freaked out about. Trav and I have still been working on the office we started over Chirstmas. We finally got the drywall up a couple weeks ago and did the step of joint compounding the sems, on two walls and the whole ceiling. So this week I figured sweet I can finish sanding and we can be that much closer. So I totally underestimated how long it would take to sand, because I sanded both walls of drywall, the two walls that the original owner had plastered over and textured, YUCK, and the ceiling. So finally today we are done sanding BUT with it came me crying, frustrated and now freaking out about getting everything else done before I leave. Not my best decision but it is what I thought I should do. So I am trying to calm down, stop stressing and focus on the things that need to be completed or me to leave. Not the things I would like to be done before I leave. So this eliminates well not a whole lot but it makes me feel better :)

So one week to go and I am back to my list!

Dogs..............................................

2009-02-12T23:55:00.001-08:00

So today has NOT been the best day for me. It started out great. I took the dog for a run, hit the gym, worked on crate training Kaiser and all in all I was happy. Then 2pm happened..............

At 2pm I left to go pick up a rescue dog who had been in boarding in LoDo Denver, which is downtown. In the car Kaiser was being a BRAT, wouldn't stay in the back, whining, etc. Just totally annoying me to the fullest. Then we get to the boarding place way late, pick her up and she is HYPER. I know I made a big mistake bringing Kaiser now, but I was thinking oh good Kaiser can hang with me, get in a good play time at the dog park and it will be all good. So we get to the dog park and we drop off the dog and get her adopted and life is good. Then we get home and somehow either the dog we got from boarding has puked OR my dog has puked and either way is eating it in the mack of our Magnum, exciting times start now.

Knowing we are leaving on Sunday for Oregon I call the vet immediately and we now have Kaiser on deworming medication, I call the owner of the other dog and they are getting dewormed. Now as I sit here at 1am I wonder if Kaiser was the one with worms or the other dog, either way, someone had worms, one puked and they both could have it now. UGHHHHHHHHH

So I run by the house, drop the dog off, go to the vet and now I have to go pick up a surrendered Weim that we are letting stay at our house until tomorrow at 10am before she goes into boarding. She is very calm which is a nice change, but very very very overweight. She comes into the house, only one minor squabble as we dish out dinner, otherwise it is a smooth introduction. Then around 9pm, the surrundered weim throws up in the kitchen, at least there, what appears to be a very large 6" long, 2" thick portion of a TOWEL!!!! I am annoyed even more now and just decide to sit on the couch because well all I want to do is watch Grey's which I only get to watch the first hour, not the second, he Blazers are on.........

So now here it is 1am and yes I was up till 2:30am yesterday, and I am blogging when I should be sleeping. So I am woken up about twenty minutes ago as Kaiser is now puking in his crate in our bedroom! I know he has worms now so I immediately jump out of bed, drag him out of the crate, bring him and the crate to the kitchen, and the other dog now, and am now washing the blanket he puked in, cleaned out the inside of the crate and took him out to the bathroom, which is not fun at 1am, when it is snowing, I have to follow Kaiser around to pick up his poop in my pajamas, because well he has worms and I can't leave it there for him to eat in the morning, and I have a dog who is weirded out by the snow and barking at it, AT 1AM!!!

So I am tired, but yet not sleepy so hey I will get to watch the end of grey's I missed, hopefully sleep a little because I start a very very very busy day tomorrow trying to wrap everything up because I leave for Oregon on Sunday.

16 More days!

2009-02-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

So just a quick note to say hello and just say 16 more days till the wedding! See you all there :)

I have the BEST Friends!!!!

2009-01-19T18:35:00.000-08:00

Let me start out this post by saying I have the BEST girlfriends!!! This weekend was amazing!

For those that didn't know what was going to happen, my bridesmaids/best girl friends, flew out to Denver this past weekend to surprise me with Bachelorette weekend. It was a whole story of how Ahna and Travis schemed, planned and tricked me into having NO idea what was going on. Trav had me convinced that his buddy Jim was coming out for the weekend, they were going to do a Bachelor weekend and well I was on my own for plans. I was looking forward to a weekend of relaxation but yet sort of annoyed that I had no idea really what to do. AND I was even more annoyed, though I offered to go pick him up, because I really just wanted to go to the gym and go home. Hahaha

So needless to say I was uber surprised when Ahna of all people is standing outside the airport, especially since she was JUST HERE! She is AMAZING! Ao Ahna, Lindsay and Jacinda flew out, kidnapped me for the weekend and Jim still came out and did guy things with Travis. The girls and I stayed at this super fun hotel, The Curtis, on the 15th floor which was themed Music. Friday night was supposed to be a night in, however after opening my new presents (I finally got some wonderful new little items...) and a few shots, well that plan got changed and out we went! Lets just say that many, many, many shots later we had been to three bars, and closed the last one down.

Saturday I hurt...I don't really remember how much I had to drink, all I know is that food did not make it into my stomach until around 3pm. We did some shopping, enjoyed the fantastic weather and relaxed a bit. Then I was hit with ANOTHER surprise! As we are sitting at the hotel bar, The Corner Office, I was surprised with all my Denver girlfriends coming in to surprise me! We had a fantastic dinner, went to a Champagne bar, and three other bars. This evening was a bit more tame for me, but the other ladies definitely had a ball! Sunday was the most relaxing of all days, we met back up with the boys and said a farewell.

There are so many more details that it would take me all night to write about them, I wish I could post some pictures, but I don't have any yet. Either way all I can say is that my friends are the best. I miss my friends in Portland/the Northwest to pieces, but really know that I have made some fantastic friends here in Denver. Thank you everyone for caring so much about me to do this for me. I love you all..............

Too Much Together Time...

2009-01-13T19:39:00.000-08:00

So I have to say something that I don't ever recommend is planning a wedding, doing home remodels and working. This is what Trav and I have decided to tackle. Somehow we have yet to kill each other, but we have only put up the ceiling...

For those that don't know, Trav starts his Masters program this week, he is getting his Masters in Engineering Management. We were hoping to have our new office done in time for the start but I think we both under estimated the amount of time it was going to take. I do feel like the hardest part is done, dry walling the ceiling, and both of our backs feel it.

Next we are dry walling the walls, tape and plaster the ceiling and walls, then we will sand down the plaster on the foundation, mount the door, paint it all and then paint the desk, add shelving, book cases and viola. I didn't think it would take this long but I am super excited for it to be done.

Ahna and Kyle were just here last weekend and Kaiser has decided the chair is his favorite spot to bond with people.

From Visitors

I am so glad Kyle and Ahna were able to make it, though the reason they came, the Pittsburgh Penguins, they lost to the Avalanche made it a sad day, we still had a ball! We ate a ton, had great conversation, explored Boulder, they even saw Mountain goats. I really think that they are becoming great friends with Trav and I and I can't wait to vacation with them more.

So now we are five weeks out from the wedding, I am becoming pretty much stressed out consistently. I am making an effort to work out 5-6 days a week to help keep the stress down, and well keep me sane.

So now it is off to bed to try and catch up on some sleep and TGIW!

A New Year

2008-12-30T13:50:00.000-08:00

So as we head into 2009, scary, there are a few changes and exciting things on the horizon.

1) Our wedding - February 21, 2009!

2) Pam's new job - It is official I signed the offer letter today. :)

3) Travis starts school for his Masters.

4) More house projects!

Seems that every year passes faster than the last but I guess that means we are having fun.

We wish everyone a fantastic New Years and look forward to more impressive blogging, more friends visiting and the first year of being Mr. & Mrs. :)

We Wish You...

2008-12-24T14:07:00.000-08:00

A Very Merry Christmas

Bust a Bucket!

2008-12-22T12:53:00.000-08:00

So as most people know Travis is definitely the sports fan, well Blazer fan, of the household. However I seem to be the one who always runs into or meets someone and has no idea who the heck I am talking to. I think last June Trav and I were in the Nike employee store and I started talking to a nice guy, knew he had to be famous but had no idea. He introduced himself as Jerome, still nothing. LOL Trav then comes rushing over to "show me something" and introduced himself and pretty much was ecstatic. It was Jerome Kersey! Duh!!!!

The today I went over to a gym across the street from where I work, which happens to be connected to the Rotz Carlton, and as I walk into the weight room, a very tall man and a short man are walking out. I look up and immediately recognize LaMarcus Aldridge! I was so flabbergasted all I could say was hi and then he was gone. I wanted to wish him luck, say I love the team now that the thugs are gone and blah blah blah. But no! Didn't even have time to grab a pic on the camera phone!!! Sad...

But I can now tell everyone I met LaMarcus, though I wish Trav could have been there to meet him. Hmmmm, maybe some day he can meet him. And like I told Caris, if I could only meet Brandon Roy now :) He is my favorite.....

Here is LaMarcus for those that don't know. Trav and I both agree he is definitely the best looking Blazer of the bunch :)

Tiesto!

2008-12-22T08:14:00.000-08:00

So I am super pumped because this weekend was an awesome weekend. With Christmas coming up, somethings waiting to settle and be revealed (sorry I don't want to jinx it) LOL and work calming down, Trav and I got to spend some quality time together. Friday we watched an awful movie, it had Christian Bale so I had high hopes but was thoroughly disappointed. I do not recommend the movie Harsh Times.

SATURDAY was a fantastic day. I finished almost all of my Christmas shopping, hit the gym and Trav and I went and saw Tiesto at a club downtown called Beta!!!! So for those that don't remember, Trav and I have a major love of clubbing and Techno/Trance music. Tiesto is my favorite DJ and when we saw he was coming to Denver, we bought tickets immediately! This video is from his In Search of Sunrise Tour, which we saw, though not from Beta but from our favorite club in San Fran, Ruby Sky. Which we both decided we miss that club very much. Might have to do a first anniversary trip back there :)

I am hoping to find some pictures from Saturday night, but they are not posted yet so stayed tuned. The club was ok, good for a Denver club, but still not the same as SF. The last time we saw Tiesto, we were in San Fran, with about 10,000 people, and packed! This time there were 200 people, it was 18 & over, not a fan! The sound system was great, the show was ok, though too short IMO. Trav and I did get in a good solid four hours of dancing, love it! I love that we have sort of settled down but I still love going out and getting all dressed up, going out and dancing till 2am. :)

So hopefully I can find pictures soon!

Updates

2008-12-16T08:18:00.001-08:00

So I apologize for the lack of posting, lets just put it this way, it has been a bit crazy lately. So since the last posting Trav and I have bought a chainsaw, have gone and gotten firewood with the chainsaw and have now used our fireplace. We took the dog up with us to the mountains, while it was dumping, while we were gathering and cutting wood, and he loved it!!! He may be a weinie when it comes to going out in the rain in our backyard but put him up in the mountains and he will run around like a kid in a candy store. He sniffed every tree, ate tons of snow and even left a little yellow snow :)

Also Trav and I have been working quite a bit, went to my company holiday party and well are babysitting another dog, though she leaves on Sunday. Yeah!!! We are currently getting ready for our trip back to oregon for Christmas, but yes we still have a tree up and decorations, a MUST! We also just finalized our honeymoon reservations, doing pre-marital counseling, trying not to kill each other and just spend some time together.

There is something else breing that I am keeping secret until it is finalized but it is pretty exciting!

We are two months out from our wedding and we are excited, well at least I am. :)

And the Winner is...

2008-12-02T11:26:00.000-08:00

So for all our friends and family who may be offended or hurt by the following post I apologize, kind of, sort of, well not really.

However......................................................

Ducks win the Civil War game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go Ducks!!!!!!!!!!

A New Toy...

2008-11-28T12:55:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, Trav and I sure did. We went over to our friend Karmel & Seth's house to hang out the four of us, eat and watch some football. We ended up spending about 9 hours over at their house, had dinner and watch some football. It was a great day and so wonderful to spend the day with friends. (I did get a few good naps in on the couch)

Today we slept in, till 8am! We then got up and had some left over food and some eggs for breakfast then headed out to the HUGE off-leash dog park down the road from us. This one is amazing and is part of the State Park and has 2 ponds, tons of trails and so much room for Kaiser to run around, smell things and chase those crazy squirrels. (FYI good Christmas present :) a state park pass)

The best part of the day, for Trav and I, we went and bought him a CHAINSAW! Trav picked out a Stihl MS 310 that will be providing us firewood for the next 30 years hopefully. I am super excited about it because we had gotten some permits to get fuel wood in the national forest a few weeks ago, so now we get to go get wood and use our wood burning fireplaces. This will be great for the whole mood with winter coming and to help with the cost of heating the house. So we are super excited.

Here is a picture of Trav's new toy:

Kaiser continue to learn stuff.

2008-11-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm back from Tampa I've been spending some time training Kaiser on more useful stuff. Here are some videos I took. Sorry they are all sideways.

Training spot was kinda hard for him to grasp but once he realized that all he had to do was go to his bed and he would get food he started responding very quickly. Its funny because he would do a little jump onto it, spin around and lay down without me even asking him to. After a while the force of him jumping on would slide the bed and it was pretty funny watch his excitement.

Another thing I've been trying to teach him is the leave it command. He does it pretty well. I change the pitch of my voice to sort of forceful command so that he more easily recognizes it as a bad thing. Don't you dare take that! I want to get him to the level where I can tell him to leave it and whatever he is focusing on he will stop and go away. Right now we're just at the stage where I put food on the ground and tell him to leave it and he will turn his head and look away.

This is a great time to teach take it but he doesn't get that yet, lol.

This last vid shows him sitting, waiting, and coming to me while leaving a pile of food untouched. I hope that in the future he will understand that leave it isn't so bad because here you can tell by his body language when he comes that he thinks he's in trouble or something, lol.

First Snow...

2008-11-19T20:29:00.000-08:00

So a quick update, Reiner has been adopted! Woo Hoo! As much as I loved the dog he was definitely a puppy, with the energy and a bark that could pierce your ears. He is in a great family who loves puppies and understands he needs work.

However here are some great pictures of the dogs enjoying the first snow of the season.

A Good Visit

2008-11-11T07:58:00.001-08:00

So just an update as to what the Proctor/Power clan has been up to. Trav was lucky enough to have one of his best buddies, Jason, come and visit. They seemed to have a great time. They went into the mountains and hiked, with the dogs, they toured Golden/Coors, built a dog house and got in some quality Wii time. :)

I am really glad was able to come out and visit and Trav was able to have some fun guy bonding time. :) Me I was able to find some great wedding ideas, sleep, workout and just get over this cough I have had for about three weeks now. Yeah for visits! Chris now it is your turn!

Must Be That Time of Year...Again...

2008-11-05T18:45:00.000-08:00

So for those that haven't known me long enough it now has become tradition that once a year I get bronchitis. Well normally it comes around mid-winter but due to long hours and stress at work, combined with poor diet and lack of exercise, it came early this year. I just came back from the doctor and I have my antibiotics, my Robitussin with codeine and of course we have company coming this weekend.

The last time I had bronchitis, my parents were in town and the time before that I was training to run a marathon. I have the worst luck. So Jason I promise to be better and non-contagious when you are here...

Oh and PS we are supposed to get our first snow tonight. Happy Winter!!!

We Are Crazy

2008-10-31T20:33:00.000-07:00

So instead of posting about Caris' visit we have some news. No we are not having children right away, but we are fostering another dog. I know we said we weren't going to do it again for a while but this was a special situation that we could not say no to. Our new foster has the Lok, but we have decided to name him Reiner.

So his story is so sad and it makes me very angry. Lok, aka Reiner, is an eight month old Weim that has been removed from his owners house TWICE by the courts for animal abuse. The first time he was removed and placed in the Boulder Humane Society where he was adopted by a supposed loving family. It turns out the loving family was a front and they were friends of the abusive family who just gave the dog back to them.

The dog has been thrown out of second story window, dragged down the street until his paws bled, starved, kicked and punched in the head and who knows what else. So now in our home, he is wonderful a ball of puppy energy and definitely tests Kaiser's last nerve. I am hoping to get some pictures of him so I will keep everyone posted. We have started feeding him the good dog food we feed Kaiser to help his stomach and coat, we make sure to give him limits and tell him good job.

So keep your fingers crossed and think good thoughts for a quick adoption.

Pam

Whats new? (CAUTION: Word Wall)

2008-10-21T14:01:00.000-07:00

Well Louie got adopted over the weekend! He went to a nice family of 4, (two adults, two kids). The Mom runs and is looking forward to taking Louie along. They also have another dog but she is a bit bigger, not as athletic and I think around 8 years old. Anyways, the Dad is a nice guy, very soft spoken but also had a good presence about him and so I think Louie is going to be a great fit with their family!

Kaiser went through a down day, which also was caused by the crappy dog food the vet gave us. We took Kaiser to the vet because he's got digestive problems. Its been two weeks and he still has been struggleing to put out solid #2 on a consistent basis. She did a test and said he's got a lot of bacteria in his system, probably from being kenneled so long. She gave us this special food to feed him, some stuff to clean his ears out, and some pills to give him to help clear everything up.

Well the food is expensive low grade crap. The main ingredient is corn and the protein comes from chicken by products, 4th on the list. Basically Weims are prone to bloat and especially with food high in corn! So Kaiser had been on the food 3 days and no change in his stool, plus he was bloated!

Yesterday I noticed that she had actually given us pills to give him, that are supposed to help attack the bacteria in his system. I had forgotten all about them so we started him on that yesterday. I also switched him back to his previous dog food (which is approved for people consumption so its pretty high grade stuff). Immediately we noticed a difference in his behavior. I took him out back on lunch and he was sprinting around in circles like usual!

School

Most of you probably know that I got accepted into the Engineering Management graduate program at Colorado University Boulder. I had met the department chair during the application process and she seemed very smart but also very down to earth and genuinely nice. I really appreciated her.

This weekend I met one of the professors which congratulated me on my admission and mentioned that it is a very tough program to get into. That made me feel good! She also was very excited to learn about me, what I was interested in, and what career paths I would be interested in taking so that I could sign up for the classes. It just so happens that this woman works with Pam and knows a lot of people in the industry. She thought I would benefit from some informational interviews and so I have to think about this and down the road hopefully set some up with people like, VP's of Engineering, R&D, Operation Managers, Product Managers, etc. Basically a bunch of career paths, ask them questions and figure out which would be the most interesting to me.

So now I'm really pumped for school to start again and to be getting my learn on! I just have to get registered, and figure out how I'm going to be paying for this all lol!

Summit 08

Friday night was Pam's summit. The event was held at the Ritz Carlton downtown. The night before the event John Elway was present at the bar at the Ritz and so we were all on Elway watch while we were there. At least I was! When I left I saw a rolls royce head off...wonder who's that was!

The event was a great success for Pam and her boss Shannon. While I was there it seemed to go off smoothly. Reviews from everyone there were great and I was excited to see Pam's long hours turn out so well.

The meal we had was incredible. The servings were small enough to enjoy each course and the service was impecable. After each course the servers would come around and move your remaining silverware into position. I got a kick about that. I mean does it really matter than during the course of eating my steak I moved one spoon to my right side and before I get my dessert that spoon must be moved back above my place setting and placed parallel to my body lol?

Oh, and for some reason I got lucky and was served dessert twice. :)

Pam spent the night at the Ritz but I sped home to take care of the dogs. The weekend was like this post, packed full of stuff! I only mentioned some of it, and in no particular order.

Oh yeah, Pam also ran in the Denver Marathon. She was part of 4 person team and did 7 miles. She got to run the final leg which was cool to be the one to finish the race. She also managed to get the individual type medal for the marathon instead of the tiny ones given to the team members. Funny how that worked out. :)

More Doggie Pictures

2008-10-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

So these are some adorable pictures from over the weekend. We definitely did not take them with a great camera but it just shows how well our two buddies have bonded though it has been a week. We love our boys. Oh and this past weekend we suddenly realized it is almost winter here. Saturday we had a meet and greet for potential adoptees with the available dogs and it was about 40 degrees and raining, it was awful!

However we think we may have found Louie a fantastic home with an amazing fmaily. Keep your fingers crossed!

Pam and Her Dogs

2008-10-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

So a quick update on how I am getting along with the two dogs and the one Ginormous dog. They are great! it is definitely crazy when I have the two on the leash when we go to the dog park of go from house to car, but I manage. I just can't do it in heels LOL

Trav took this picture and I think it pretty much sums up these bundles of love.

So we are now going to enjoy a relaxing evening and put up some sheers and just relax.

Dogs, dogs, dogs.

2008-10-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

Last week the weimaraner rescue took in like 6 new dogs. They had almost 11 needing foster homes by the end of the week. We took Kaiser over to the meet and greet, and made ourselves available for fostering a dog if there was a need not met. I think the main lady has like, 6 or 7 dogs at her place right now! At the meet and greet, everyone kept telling us how lucky we were to have such a great dog in Kaiser. Of course we agree. :)

Kaiser is doing very well. By the end of the week he was able to hang out in the basement without any accidents during the day. So now, we're comfortable knowing that we can leave him for 4 hours at a time without him tearing the walls up, or going potty all over the place. He responds the best to "sit". With treats he also knows "lay down", and "wait". When we feed him he will sit and wait for you to put the food down and won't start eating until you tell him ok. Oops did I say eating? I mean, won't start hoovering the food down until you tell him ok. We also use wait at doorways so he doesn't sprint out or in. I've been teaching him "stand" in conjunction with the other position commands and he will do it but he doesn't really understand it yet. He's starting to come better too.

All in all, considering he's been around for only a week, he's doing tremendously well. We're very pleased with his progress!

Back to the rescue situation...we picked up another dog as a "foster". The lady that was fostering him was literally strapped for cash, barely making ends meet, and also needed to get him into a new foster home because one of her other dogs was nearing the end of its life. The lady was working two jobs to try and make ends meet and this led to not being available on weekends to get the dog to the meet and greets, which is typically where people can see the dog and choose to take him home for a trial period.

So the new member of our pack is named Louie! He's a beastly weim and makes Kaiser look like a normal sized dog. Louie is very tall, thick and weighs about 90 lbs. He was wound up when we got him and so I decided it would be best to take him for a walk to try and burn off some of his energy and allow us some time to get him under control. When we got him home Denver was in the middle of a rain storm. We got both dogs ready to go and put our coats on and off we went. The rain was rivaling some Portland storms, puddles everywhere and water flowing into drains like small versions of niagara falls. To make matters a bit more aggrivating Louie's previous owners had not taken the time to teach him how to walk on a leash without pulling.

From Dogs

Kaiser on left, doing sit-stay really well and still, lol. Louie is on the left. Both of them are around 1.5 years old.

Needless to say, going around the block turned into a very arduous task. We were tired, worn out from the weekend and also starving for some food of our own, wet and patience very thin for this dog.

After the walk the dogs met for the first time off leash in our garage. They played quite a bit, a little too hard in some cases and required me stepping and keeping them in check. After the garage we moved into the basement. More playing ensued as well as one case of Louie marking his territory. I scolded him pretty hard for that and gave him a stiff poke. Kaiser had managed to not go #1 for 5 hours, including for some reason the walk, and so he decided to relieve himself during a break in playing...on the basement floor. Good thing the floor is tile and we (I) can just mop it up!

At about 8:30 the dogs hit the backyard, where louie marked the same tree about 5 times. Pretty soon he was just lifting his leg, going through the motions and nothing coming out. Meanwhile, Kaiser was pumped up to have another dog around and was spending his outdoor potty time running around the yard in circles at full speed! He managed about 25 laps before Louie decided it would be fun to chase him. Louie isn't quite as agile though as Kaiser and he couldn't keep up on the high speed corners. Plus how can you really keep up when you've got to stop at random trees to mark them. :)

9:00 rolled around and we had popcorn ready to go and hopefully we would get some relaxing time in before bed. We sat in front of the TV and discovered that Louie also was allowed up on the couch and would resist forcefully to being pulled off! It provided a great way to show our dominance and set guidelines for where he can and can't be in the home. Pam and I were concerned he was going to walk off and mark stuff so we kept calling him back to the living room. I got quite annoyed of Pam constantly calling his name as he did laps around through the living room, dining, kitchen and back through.

I moved to the floor where I was able get Kaiser to lie down on my right side and Louie on my left. They calmed down and we were able to watch an episode of the dog whisperer. Pam hand fed me popcorn and we had a great time winding down for bed.

We moved both crates into the bedroom. We had been teaching kaiser another usefull command, "crate", where he will go to into his crate and lay down. We're still in the beginning stages of that command. At first Kaiser didn't really enjoy his crate but now he sleeps in it without any problems. We've even closed the door once and he didn't mind too much. We had been told Louie sleeps in his crate too so we were hoping it would just all work out once we got the lights turned out. Of course Louie felt that the bed would be a better place for him to sleep...After shoving him off a couple time we settled into place.

Well for being the less dominated dog, Kaiser had no problem going into Louies crate and making himself feel like home. The only problem with this is that Kaiser's crate is smaller and Louie can't fit comfortably into it! To solve this I pulled the bed in, which would provide Louie with a place to sleep if Kaiser decided to move into his crate. In the end though the dogs figured it all out by themselves without any altercations. Louie settled into his crate after about half an hour and Kaiser was long on his way to sawing logs by this time.

...and that concluded our first night as a pack of four, and as foster parents.

Needless to say, after having Louie for 12 hours, Pam has decided that one dog is enough for us! I've assured her, that after working with Louie and having him feel more settled as the time passes, we will be able to turn him into a much better behaved dog. This will help us find an adoption family for him in no time! Unfortunately right now it feels like we've got 2 hyperactive 5 year olds running around the house and with me leaving for the week, it ain't going to be pretty! Go Pam, you can do it!

PS Here are some YouTube Videos of our dog.

First week in home!

2008-10-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

So its been about a week and a half now since moving in. We dropped by the apartment one last time this weekend and I felt very relieved to have that chapter in my life over with, at least for now. Apartment living is cheap, manageable, and easy. If something breaks, you just call the front desk and people come fix it. Trash day? Just throw it out front and someone will come by and pick it up.

Apartment living does have many downfalls though. First, knowing that each month your rent money is just flying out the window. The first 10 years of a mortgage is much the same, pissing away the money in interest payments, but at least you know that slowly and surely you're catching up and one day (10,950 days later) you'll own the home outright.

You also have more space, more privacy, more pride, more responsibility, less noise, more of a burden, more joy as opposed to apartment living. Nick the apartment wall and you say, "Oh well might not get my full deposit back". Nick the wall in your house and you're thinking, "Dangit! Minus to the home value"!

So anyways, we've got the main areas up to snuff, and habitable right now. Slowly we're completing the other areas, waiting for more funds, etc and taking our time. Right now we're in the middle of the outdoor dog kennel build, which got halted by a massive rain storm last night! Unfortunately, I have to leave town and we won't likely finish that project until two weeks from now.

The house is great though now, and we're thoroughly enjoying it.

So some input from Pam (finally) LOL So as Trav said we have been in our house for over a week, as of tomorrow, two weeks, and honestly we could not be happier. This is finally our space, our home and some place where we can grow our little clan, to now be four. Trav is currently out of town, he left 10/7/08 Wednesday, and so it is a little unnerving for me to be alone. Thank goodness for the two dogs I have as my protectors, otherwise i am pretty sure I would not be sleeping very well at all right now.

I have a few goals while Trav is gone for work. One is to finish putting the drapes up in the dining room and guest bedroom. Two is to mop the floor and three is to get a filing cabinet to organize our mail and items we have received. I love having a dedicated office, a true guest bedroom, a basement for the dogs to play in and a HUGE kitchen. I can't wait to get more furniture, organize everything and just slowly make it feel like home.

A Special Saturday

2008-09-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

So as some people know Travis and I spent a great day yesterday with our new addition, officially named Kaiser Maximilian Power. We picked him up from the kennel and treated him to an outing at PetSmart. He was a very well behaved dog, and he got some special treats and a new bone to chew on. As you can see from the pictures he is about maxed out size wise for the car but loves to stick his head out the windows, going back and forth and then coming up and sticking his head between Trav and I. It was adorable.

After PetSmart we headed over to another meet and greet to meet some other Weim owners and group members and see some of the other dogs up for adoption. Kaiser (Joey) is such a well behaved guy. His only real downfall is that when he gets too excited he is a major jumper, and he can jump high and then at the same time try and give you a hug. It is cute but hilarious and not good. So that is number one on our list of things to change.

There was a nice little park by the meet and greet that we explored with Kaiser to see how he does on leash and with people around and other dogs. To our joy, he did great. He already heels really well, doesn't bark and is all about being with us. After the meet and greet we went to the dog park we were at last weekend and ran into another gal who fosters Weims. We let him play and it is interesting, he went and ran around once, but he didn't ever really leave us, he pretty much stayed close to us the entire time.

Sadly around 2:15pm we took him back to the kennel and he DID NOT want to go back there. He stayed with us until finally we had to walk back behind the gate so the people could grab him and take him back. He is such a great dog we can not wait till Friday to pick him up!

The rest of the day we went to downtown Denver, to explore Oktoberfest, it was bad and then went to the Rockies game. We had amazing seats, 13 rows behind home plate and this game was really fun! Lots of hits, foul balls and some fans unfortunately got hit when a stray bat flew out of a Diamondback's hands and landed in the crowd. Luckily no one got injured. We got rained on a bit but all in the game was fun.

Now we are off to pack and get ready to close on our house Thursday! Woo Hoo hope this week flies by!

Travis' 27th Birthday

2008-09-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, I had a birthday! This first set of pics is from over the weekend when we went to the Janz's house for a BBQ. Seth, Sean and myself all had birthdays within a week of each other and so we decided to get together and celebrate them all. Karmel hand pressed and formed burgers for us and Seth grilled them up. Pam made a cake and we brought that over a long with presents for Seth and Sean. Pics courtesy of Karmel.

Once Sean arrived we got to open the presents. We had gotten them nerf guns, with deflector shields and protective eyeware. They were pretty fun to play with. You know how it is...give some men a chance to compete against each other and we're good to go for a few hours. Suprisingly enough, nobody ever took a shot at the dog. :)

Yesterday was my actual birthday, day. If you dont' know me, I like to keep a low profile and not do anything big for my birthday. Because of this, nobody at work knew it was my birthday and I simply just went about my business like it was any other day. I got a few funny e-cards from friends and that was good enough for me. :)

After work we had our first pre-marital counseling session and it turns out we're a better couple than we thought. Pam and I had a good time joking around about our differences a bit, and Jon gave us a few things to work on these next two weeks as homework.

With the session over we then headed out to Shanghai Gardens for dinner! Nothing fancy about this place, just good inexpensive Chinese food. I can't remember the last time I had Chinese food. It doesn't really fit into our diets recently and so thats why I picked it for my birthday dinner! I got mongolian beef, and it was really good. Unfortunately, Pam and I just can't eat that much anymore, and we brought half of what we ordered home!

Back at home it was present time. Thank you everyone for sending me presents! As much as I don't really show my excitement, I always look forward to getting cards and presents. I think I'm sort of a hard person to buy for, and I like seeing what people can come up with. :) I got some good ole cash from the Proctors, a gift card to home depot from Dad that looks like I need to hang on to and return to him at Christmas, a picture of the Family minus me (great clear pic by the way what kind of camera did you use? :p) and 9 Seasons of "King of Queens" show from Caris, a few doggie things and a gift card to PetSmart from Pam, and the dog of course which we'll get next week, and another gift card and a nice leather journal from Mom. All in all a pretty good mix!

We finished the night watching a few episodes from the first season of King of Queens that I'd actually never seen. I also had a big BIG piece of cake and some ice cream. :) Thank you all very much for everything! Now I'm in the tweener stage where I'm definitely not a young mid-twenties person but the oldness of 30 is still a few years away.

Dog Names

2008-09-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

So...the picture doesn't do Joey justice. The dog is very well built, and seems to be very happy. He was a little ADD at the dog park but I think it was because he's been in boarding and is still young. So he had some steam to burn off. I think he only ran around a few times while we were there, but most of his time was spent being the group socialite.

He has learned that typically if he touches his nose to a persons hand they will respond by petting him. Basically he passed the time going from person to person and asking for pets! He also wanted to make sure to sniff and greet every new dog and person that came into the dog park through the gate.

Anyways, his name is Joey right now but we're interested in changing it. Say his name and when he turns to look at you, give a treat. I don't think it will be that hard to get him used to a new name. I like picking somewhat unique and meaningful names. The dog is German, and was bred for a king name Weimar, or Weimer...something like that. He was bred for the nobles who were in need of a hunting dog and nobody outside of that class distinction was allowed to own one of the dogs. Thats how superb they used to be held. So Pam and I have narrowed our search down to three names. Let us know by completing the poll what you think and help us pick!

Kaiser - German for King/Emporer ie: Kaiser Wilhelm, King William

Johann - Interesting is that traditionally the first name of a German refers to a Saint and the second name (which we call the middle name) is actually what the person typically goes by. So Johann Sebastian Bach was known by his friends and family as Sebastian, not Johann. If a family had 3 boys the first name was likely to all be Johann because of naming after the saint, but the boys would all go by their second "secular" name. Additionally, you've got the famous intellectual, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, but naming the dog Johann wouldn't really be naming it after this guy either, since Johann is not necessarily what Wolfgang Goethe goes by.

In any case, Johann has Hebrew meaning of "God is Gracious" or "God's gracious gift". Thats good enough for me. :)

Maximus/Maximilian - Max for short
We all know Maximus from the great move "Gladiator". It is a powerful name which means "Greatest". Its German counterpart is Maximilian, which certainly doesn't roll off the tounge as easy as Maximus. Either way though, we'd probably call the dog by the name Max, short and sweet. The name was popular among the royal house of Bavaria. Plus there is the added coolness factor that our name tag could read Max Power. :)

So vote, and let us know!

Our new addition

2008-09-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

So this last weekend, besides watching pretty much every sport that is in season right now, Trav and I have decided to adopt, adopt a dog! On Saturday morning we headed to a dog park out west of downtown Denver to go check out some Weimaraners that were in need of adopting. We met about six dogs who were all wonderful and each one individually pulled out our heart strings. We fell in love with two great dogs, Max and Joey. Max is about three years old and is currently living in a great foster home and putting weight on, he is a very thin guy due to stress issues from being in a kennel too long. Joey, is a year and a half old and just getting beyond the puppy energy. He is a beautiful dog, needs a family and will be a great running buddy. When we left we told the people we would be in touch, however we forgot to get a phone number!

Once home, we searched for emails or number and finally contact someone who then put us in touch with the correct gal. We spoke on the phone and we decided it would be best for us and the dog if we brought the dog home next week, after we move into our new home. :) So as of September 26, we will have a new addition, Joey. :)

So meet Joey:

Campin

2008-09-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

We went campin this weekend and these were the few pics we managed to take. They are mostly taken at about 12,500 ft. The air was thin, and after a while up there I started to feel like I was getting a slight headache. Driving up the small two lane road was a bit tight in spots, and although the views were absolutely amazing, I'm not sure you would have made it Sandi! We also discovered that Pam is getting to be more and more scared of the dark!

We drove up Ute Creek road outside of Idaho springs. There were tons of mining claims up in that area and Idaho Springs is supposedly where it all started. The area was also around Mt Evans, where a few of the pics are from. We didn't get any pics from 14,000 ft because the battery went dead too quick!!

We camped just up a dirt road. We found out that it was actually a private mining claim and the arapahoe national forest was mixed in with all this private land. Lucky for us though (because we had the camp all setup already) the land had been reposessed. So from then on we decided to just pretend like we just purchased the land.

The people we went with were pretty cool. Seth and karmel were one couple and we've spent a lot of time with them already. The other couple we just met. They are Randy and Linsey. They were older than us, but nice and fun also. Linsey is from Eugene, OR so that was cool to meet someone from our old stomping grounds...or at least close enough to know what we are saying when we're talking about Oregon rain!

Up on Mt Evans, we saw a herd of either elk or antelope. Some mountain sheep, and a Doe and its Bambi. When we were hiking a day earlier we also saw a deer and it let us get pretty close up before darting off! The mountain sheep were cool though because we've never seen one before. They are very furry!

And The Update Is...

2008-08-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

So since I just realized last week that our last blog post was now a month ago, I figured since I have a few spare minutes I thought I would update everyone on what Trav and I have been up to. So since our engagement, my mom and Ahna have come out to visit, Trav's parents have come out to visit, I have been back to Oregon and we have put an offer in on a house! Oh yes I did say that, we put an offer in and we are now under contract for a house!!!!

So on the wedding front, we have picked a date, booked the church, the reception location, the photographer, the DJ and the baker. I bought my dress and have decided the style I want for the invites and save the dates. I need to finished the save the dates this weekend and hopefully in the next two weeks the florist will be chosen. Otherwise I feel really good about everything. :)

We started searching for houses about a week ago and this was actually the fourth house we saw. The first three houses we toured were well not what we were looking for. I think one would have worked by none of them just struck as this is the one. However when we went to this house on Thursday, we knew this was it. The lady selling the home is the original owner, lived there for almost 50 years and the house is in exquisite condition. It needs the obvious updating, like new linoleum or tile, getting rid of the 1950's pink bathroom and wood paneling, otherwise everything is perfect and works and is very well taken care. The lot is 13,000 SF or .3 acres, the house main level is 1780 SF and another 1200 SF in the basement, which is 85% finished. It is 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and have a HUGE 2 car garage.

I hate to cut this short but I need to get ready to head over to our friends house for an evening of dinner, drinks and games. :)

Here are some pictures for you all to see.

Engaged!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-07-19T06:26:00.000-07:00

So obviously everyone knows that Trav and I are engaged. I am super excited, still squealing a bit with joy and well plain ready to start planning and want to buy a house). So I wanted to let everyone know how Trav did it and post some pictures.

So our little story: Trav emailed me during the day Friday at work to ask if I wanted to go for a hike Friday after work because we had his company picnic the next day and he wanted to just relax after oh and he wanted to do a picnic dinner as well. So I left the office, picked up our hiking shoes and a blanket, and the camera and headed over to Trav's office. We headed over to this open space that we had never been to and noticed some nasty looking clouds that were essentially right where we were heading.

The cool thing about this area is that clouds and rain will blow over in about 20-30 minutes and then the sun is back out. Because we didn't want to get electrocuted by the lightening we waited till the majority of the rain and clouds had passed before we finally headed out into the sprinkles. About 10 minutes into waking, the sprinkles were gone, the sun was shining and we were off for our picnic. The hike took us thorugh this open space called South Valley Park, which bordered Lockheed Martin and these amazing homes tucked back in this canyon/gulch area.

We found this great little area where we set up our picnic. Trav pulled out Sushi, my favorite!!, a salad and some crackers. It was delicious and with some yummy water. After we finished dinner, Trav said he had a treat for me. So I had to close my eyes, made me take my sunglasses off so I wouldn't cheat, and put a big box on my lap, wrapped in his gym towel. I opened the towel and the box and inside was a bible with Pamela J Power inscribed on it. At this point all I could do was look at him and just didn't know what to say...

He then had me turn to s spot he had marked, and there was the ring tied to the ribbon. He then read a passage he had marked, Corinthians and just looked at me and explained that he wants out relationship to be built on trust, God and that he got some advice from all his friends and family. So I hugged him and said yes. Which he never even really asked. HAHA So now we are engaged and so excited!!!!!

Good news we will get married back in Portland, we already know who will be in the wedding and just need to find a date. :)

Little Engagement Vid

2008-07-18T21:12:00.001-07:00

The Colorado Trail Adventure

2008-07-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

So for those that don't know, Trav and I spent last weekend up in the Rocky Mountains, specifically the Pike National Forest, camping, hiking and biking. We had a great weekend, kicked our butts biking and then hiked till we were jello. Here are pictures from the weekend for thsoe that have yet to see them. We can't wait for people to come out and visit us so we can take you out into the mountains as well...

Oh and we have a busy next few weekends. This weekend is Trav's company picnic, then I am going to an all day concert with a girlfriend Sunday. Next weekend my mom and Ahna are in town, then the next weekend is my Relay for Life event for the American Cancer Society as well as Trav's fmaily visiting. Then we are hoping to get out of town again the second weekend in August for some more camping and biking, we are going for all 12miles of the Colorado Trail!

No They Have Not Disappeared

2008-06-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

So I have been a bit quiet on the personal blog front since I have been spending the majority of my time working on my business blog. However, later today I will have two logos for you guys to help me decide which one to use, for at least the time being. I have gotten my first quote out, well besides for Impact Sign Co. and I am just waiting to hear something. :)

So otherwise, not much has been going on this week, since most people know that Travis I were just in oregon visiting family and friends. It was good to see everyone!!!

My Fav new logo:

Pam

PJP Marketing Solutions Blog Up and Running

2008-06-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

So it is official, PJP Marketing Solutions Blog is up and running. http://www.pjpmarketing.wordpress.com/ It is still in it's infancy but I am finally getting moving on creating my own destiny. Please pass it on and if you know anyone who may need marketing assistance let them know about me. My Web site is currently in the works thorugh a great friend of mine, Casey Feves and his company Sigma Solutions Group, http://www.sigmasolutionsgroup.com/ and should hopefully be up in the next few weeks.

I am very excited and am working on finishing up the site map for Impact Sign Co's new website. I have some great ideas and had a meeting with a great guy last week to become part of a small business services group. The goal of the group is to be a strategic alliance of professionals that would assist every part of the business life cycle. I am also working on creating collateral and a website for the CFP who has spearheaded this group. Woo HOO!

Oh and I have a new email for the business, pam@pjpmarketing.com

Happy Monday!

Travis AFK, whatever happened to this guy?

2008-05-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

So, its been a while since I've posted. Here's an update.

Work: I had been in Cali, near Sacramento working on the irrigation district there. We (the commissioning team) upgraded their existing systems to Wonderware 10.0 and ArchestrA. Basically this upgrade will enable them to do cool things, save time in implementing changes, and create a need for more training for their SCADA techs. :) We commissioned 8 sites in 3 weeks. I worked, worked out and went to bed...for 3 weeks. It had been a while since I had worked 60+ hour weeks and it was good to get home and relax a bit. Now I have so much time on my hands I'm getting antsy again, lol.

Upon returning I got an offer on paper. It was very generous and now I can wipe that from the back of my mind and relax a bit. I'm buckleing down now and continueing to push forward and learn as much as I can. I purchased a PLC off Ebay and am going to create a small test setup at home so that I can continue to learn PLC, Wonderware, Archestra, as well as setting everything all up!

Workin out: For those of you that keep up with my workout journal, or at least whats posted here, when I was in Cali I decided to go on a shake diet. I was literally drinking my calories most of the time, with occasional meals on weekends. I used "Nature's Best Isopure, Low Carb, Meal Replacement" packs for my shakes. At first it was very hard to get by. As I progressed through the days however, it became easier. When I got back Pam thought I looked more lean than I've ever been! I still want to lose 4 more lbs, but am satisfied with my progress so far. I think for a final weight and physique, that I want to bulk up a bit more, then just work on maintaining a low body fat. I've had a lot of fun learning about bodybuilding, nutrition, exercise, and most of all, developing a strong work ethic to continue down this road.

A link showing my cut results in a forum on bodybuilding.com (If you don't want to see my in undies, don't click! Speedo pics are much worse though :))

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=107832531

Other stuff I've been doin. Well I don't think I've posted on Grad school yet. I'm applying to UC Boulder. My reccomendations have almost all come in and then I just have to complete a written assessment as well as a letter of intent in order to finish up my application. I'm looking forward to this endeavor, and hope to be accepted so that I can start. In addition, to help boost my worth, I'm signing up for the FE exam in October. This is something that I should have done a long time ago when everything was fresh! I didn't realize how important this would be if I ever left Oregon, or wanted to pursue a PE license and am kicking myself a bit for passing it up.

I guess thats about it for now, looking forward to a three day weekend!

Congratulations Travis!!!

2008-05-16T12:51:00.001-07:00

So a big congrats to Travis as he just got his official offer for Full Time Employment, no more contract work. I am sure he will tell everyone about it, but I wanted to say congrats because I am so proud of him.

Name!

2008-05-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

So based on some feedback from a few of you, I have decided on a name, PJP Marketing Solutions. The great thing about this name is that just incase I ever happen have a change in last name :) The initial is the same. Happy Friday!

Marketing Solutions

2008-05-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

So I have been going back and forth about this for a while and I have started to take the initiative. I am currently working as the marketing person for my parents sign company, though back in Oregon, and hoping to begin doing work here in Colorado and perhaps for other small businesses in Oregon through referral. Through all my years of listening to and working with my parents I came to a conclusion. Small businesses and small business owners know how to run their company but are unaware of really how to run and promote their business. My hope is that I can take my experience working with them, helping them and truly understanding the mind of small business owners and what their hot buttons are.

The plan I have for my parents is going to be implemented in phases. Phase 1 will consist of a completely new website which will include information about the company, their services, their employees, their clients and the obvious of how to contact them. What I am doing as part of the content is instead of just listing clients, include case studies or solution studies for various clients and incorporating a blog to their site. The blog will be written by each of the employees on various aspects of the sign business. The designer will discuss design problems, solutions, new programs, tips, ideas, etc. They can review new products, new techniques, articles in trade publications, events, best practices. This will allow them to continue to have a presence, have a reason for people to visit their site and to build their reputation as a leader in Oregon and the Northwest as a sign solution provider. We will also post events on the website, switch out the studies and pictures on a consistent basis to keep the site active. I am also working with a friend of mine whose company will be providing an FTP site for graphics transfers and SEO (search engine optimization). The point of SEO is to optimize the site for search ability from the engines such as google, yahoo, msn, etc. SEO ensures that the website has key words included in the pages that are searched for such as signs, Portland, banners, etc. There are many others ways to be optimized that is just an example.

Phase 2 I am planning on having them choose their PMS colors for branding purposes, to ensure consistency across their collateral, such as business cards, letterset, email signatures, portfolios, etc. They are also working on creating a portfolio to be finished during this phase that anyone can take on sales calls, use as a visual for customers. Each sign will have a description of what the sign was made for, the purpose, the products used, the client, etc. A story. I will also send out an email blast to all of my parents customers announcing the new site and the features, giving them a reason to visit the site. In Phase 2 I would also begin designing a newsletter for them, they can discuss new projects, new products, client success story, charities, organizations they work with and other interesting facts and tips. The newsletter would be a quarterly feature and would be added to the website as well.

Phase 3 would be creating a plan of attack for leveraging their current clients. This would involve reports from their client database to see what industries they are in and what associations they belong to. From this information we could determine who else the clients know, who they can introduce us to and grow the business based on associations and networking.

I have other ideas that keep coming to me, but this is what I can think of right now for them. I would also at some point create email blasts to clients on new products, new ideas, news and announcements to continue to keep the company in the front of their clients mind.

So here is what I need from you guys, I need some opinions on names for the company I am going to make. I have come up with one idea but Travis has said it is a bit too girly of a name, Chic Marketing. The other idea was PJP Solutions, something simple.

Let me know what you all think, I would love the input.

Pam

Hiking Today

2008-05-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

So I went for a hike today after church by myself, was a little weird to hike by myself in a place I didn't know but about 10 minutes in I was good to go. Enjoy some pictures from my killer hike,. Started at about 8000' and ended at about 9200' and was about 2 hours and got in about 5 miles.

Pam

So May = Winter

2008-05-01T08:26:00.001-07:00

So I woke up this morning after finally sleeping through a full night, haven't been able to since Travis left. Another shocker.......it is freaking dumping snow!!! I easily have one inch behind our house, and it is starting to come down harded. I know it beautiful and we live in the mountains essentially, but I am so ready for summer!!!!

Here are some pictures I took out our back door.

Great Band

2008-04-30T08:32:00.001-07:00

Not sure if any of you have heard of this band before but I ran acorss them based on some Itunes preferences I had and I am in love with them. They are Christian Rock and I am loving listening to them as well as a band called the David Corwder Band. Check out their music.

California

2008-04-29T08:21:00.001-07:00

I am not sure many people know but right now Travis is out of town for three weeks for work. They have finished designing a system for a waste water plant and are now commissioning it, which is a big word for implementing, testing and fixing the program on-site. I was lucky enough to be able to go out last weekend, his company flew me out, and spend the weekend in California. Friday night we spent at his hotel in historic Placervill, California, an old gold mining town that is as my friend says, the last bathroom break before South Lake Tahoe.

The weather was great in California, however, I think I have been in a dry climate long enough that it actually felt muggy to me out there. Crazy! Starting on Saturday we did the social eating rounds. We met up with our friends Lisa & Ryan in downtown Sacramento for a late breakfast as they were headed to Tahoe and we were heading towards San Francisco. Then it was on to Martinez, about an hour from Sac on the way to San Fran, to visit with our friends Kristy & Ben. By 4pm we decided we had to head into the city (San Francisco) to check into our hotel and try and relax before going to dinner and out for the night.

We ended up staying at the Hilton in Union Square which is great and central to everything we wanted to do. My friend Kat and her hunband line down by AT & T Park and since I had not seen her in about 2 years, we all met up for dinner at this new place called Absinthe. It was amazing!! We sat and talked for over 3 hours just catching up and it was great for Travis to meet another one of my good friends. We ended our night by dancing at Ruby Skye, a favorite club of ours. Sunday was brunch again with some other friends of ours and walking along the Embarcadero to the Ferry Building and stopping for some Gelato since it was about 85 degrees, in the city!!!

Being away from SF has made me realize how much I truely love that city and how amazing and diverse it is in everything you can do in it and around it. Too bad we don't make more money. Now I am back in Denver, working away, getting ready for a short 4 mile run on lunch and then a relaxing evening of movies and sitting.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!!!

Todays Run

2008-04-24T12:36:00.000-07:00

Find more Runs in , Colorado So with running so many hills my right calf has been bothering me quite a bit. So I probably should have takent oday off but because of traveling to California to visit Travis this weekend I am trying to run everyday or do the elliptical this week. So I took it easy today and found a run a gal I work with has been telling me about. This was awesome, full of people, ran by the largest REI in the US, found some phenomenal restaurants to try and I really would loe to explore this area more. Might have to talk Travis into coming to the city more often.

Happy Thursday everyone!!!

Beautiful

2008-04-23T18:49:00.000-07:00

So Trav is out of town right now for approximately three weeks for work. They have finished the project he has been working on and now are implementing, testing and fixing problems. He is in Placerville, which is about 45 minutes to as hour outside of Sacramento on the way to South Lake Tahoe. He left on Sunday and I have to say it has not been easy having him gone because our apartment is on the ground so I just don't sleep very sound.

Spring has finally arrived in Denver and I LOVE it!! I have finally started running outside on a consistent basis of at least three days a week, about 1-2 days on the treadmill and then the elliptical at least one day a week so I am doing cardio about 5-6 days a week. Sometimes we hike and go for walks so I am happy. I am hoping to strip off about 3-5 pounds of muscle because running right now just feels a bit clumsy and heavy so I will be lifting like one day a week and do full body with high reps to keep some muscle but slimming down a bit.

I have attached the run I did tonight and you can see it is just rolling hills and normally this run feels very good but today was a bit brutal. So I am ready for a good night sleep and hit to ground running tomorrow. :)

Pam

Florida

2008-04-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

As many of you know Travis and I just got back from a three day weekend trip to visit his Aunt and Uncle, Leticia and Mark, in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Pembroke Pines is located right in the middle of Fort Lauderdale and Miami. His Uncle Mark is his mother's brother and his wife Leticia is a Major in the US Army. They are some of the nicest people you will ever meet and they have five of the greatest kids, Alex, 18 and on a full ride scholarship in North Carolina for swimming and academics, Cynthia, 13, Johnny, 9, Rose, 7 and Sarah, 6.

For rpice reasons we had the red eye flight, left at 1am on Thursday/Friday morning and got in at 6:45am Eastern time. LONGGGGGGGGGGG flight let me tell you. Luckily for $5 Trav and I shared a TV and tried to get some sleep on the completely full flight. When we got in his aunt arrived to pick us up and immediately we were greeted with hugs, happy conversation and it never ended the entire weekend. Leticia for those that don't know is actually from Mexico. To me she is a shining example of what hard work, dedication and perseverance can do for someone. She came to the US through a work Visa without knowing any English and with no education. She now has two Bachelors degrees, a Masters and is working towards her Doctorate, and I believe most are in the field of engineering. She has been to Kuwait, Iraq, speaks three languages and still finds time to be an amazing mom and connected very closely to her family.

Back to our trip. Friday was pretty fun. After we dropped off our gear, Leticia cooked us a great breakfast we headed out with her to Miami as she had to participate in the closing ceremonies of a conference she had been in charge of. From there we decided to take a tour down to an area called Homestead to an Air Force reserve base so we could see it, but also because she needed to get some short sleeve uniforms. The commisary (grocery store) on base is supposedly 30% cheaper than going to safeway or albertson's and we got three shopping carts full of food, supposedly a week, maybe two worht of food for her family, wow!!!

The rest of the day was sent playing in the pool, both at their home and in the amaznig community recreation center. By the time 9pm rolled around we were exhausted. we spent the evening relaxing, eating dinner, and then sleeping very very hard. Saturday we took a boat tour of Biscayne Bay, which there are some huge homes down in Miami. We saw South Beach, downtown Miami, the ghetto of Miami, we got lost, and the HUGE crusie ships. Now I am itching to go on a cruise. :) For dinner we went to their favorite restaurant which Leticia says is the best Mexican food she has found since moving to Florida, and it was great! We then spent some family time watching Enchanted and again early to bed.

Sunday was great, we spent the entire day at the Fort Lauderdale Beach. I got a great tan, Travis was the kids jungle gym and poor guy got a bit fried and salt water burn from being rubbed raw from lots ofpiggy back rides and shoulder rides. :) All in all, the trip was great. We have some great stories that I don't want to put up here, but honestly I can not wait to spend more time with them.

No on Sunday I have to take Trav to the airport again as he is headed off to California for three weeks for work :(

Here are pictures from our trip.

Crackberry, I mean Blackberry

2008-03-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

So a quick update to the job situation and now my addiction to email and communication. My new boss, who is my age and rocks and pretty much said do whatever you want, and I put together a list of all outstanding marketing related projects that were in the old marketing group's cue, including just verbal assignments we had been given by various other people. The list when we finished yesterday afternoon is now 71 items long and at least half of them are needing to be complete. YIKES!!! So on a day I should be working, am I? NOPE! Well maybe later, but not right now. :)

However, at 2am last night my newly updated blackberry went off. I had forgotten to put it on silent and still was on loud from driving. Did I just turn it off? Nope of course I check ed them email, and it was an email from our newly appointed, one of the original founders, CSO emailing to cancel a meeting and say we would verbally touch base later. It is official, I am hooked. I feel a bit of remorse saying that, but it is nice to see what is coming and if I realy do need to repond immediately..........but most people are looking for an immediate response. My hopes this week is to slowly wittle our list down, step away from the Blackberry (probably won't happen) and enjoy the fruits of my labor when finally appear.

Happy Weekend Everyone!

Wow been a while

2008-03-27T15:01:00.001-07:00

So, sorry it has been a while since our last post, but between Trav and I we are not really around a whole lot. So to sum things up, we have been working a lot. I now have survived a 30 person layoff /corporate reorganization at my new company. It stinks because my friend who got me in here was laid off, but it is great because I get to decide how far and how fast I want to grow. I am now part of a two person marketing team, versus a 5 person team and because slowly I have learned that people who were let go were a very negative cog in a very quickly moving wheel. Yeah it is good thing to be positive in ones life. :) So wish me luck and lets hope I can go as fast as we need to be going. I am very very excited for what is to come.

Pam

Our new diet!

2008-03-11T07:23:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone...

So as you probably know, Pam and I really try to stay healthy by eating well and exercising regularly. We've been able to maintain a pretty good lifestyle and body type/size for the past year or so and even though we've been able to eat mostly all the good stuff we enjoy. I've learned quite a bit about how the body processes different types of foods, when to eat, how often, and how much. We even got a scale to measure out serving sizes from time to time, to get a feel for how much we're actually shoving down that hole!

Bodybuilding.com has been a great source for all types of information. Whether it be workout routines, nutrition information, exercise techniques or just plain being inspired by what others are doing and have done, BB.com has been instrumental in helping us live this lifestyle.

Unfortunately, we're also the types of people that like to push the envelope. There are a lot of people on BB.com that have also pushed the envelope and seen great results. I'm not talking full on bodybuilders, just those that have trained hard, and then achieved a low body fat so that their hard work really shows through. For me, its an achievement that I just can't keep myself from trying to pursue, a low body fat.

In the past 7-8 weeks I've been trying to gain weight in muscle. As a result from lifting hard, and eating tons, I've gained 8 lbs. So I start my cut at 196 lbs. Based on body fat estimates I think that I am probably around 13-15%BF. I want to get to around 9%. If I can get this low, I think that my abs will show 100% of the time without flexing, which I think will be pretty sweet. Therefore, I need to cut 4-6% of my bodyweight, which equals roughly 12 lbs on the high end. This equals a final body weight of 184lbs.

Now, the whole idea is to lose that weight in fat, and NOT muscle! Apparently this is really hard to do. I found a diet through BB.com that talks about maintaining muscle during a cut. See the problem is, when people cut their calories, they are not longer feeding their muscles and body like they used to. If the calorie deficit is too extreme (as often is the case) the body will compensate by doing a few things. First it will slow down its metabolism, thus burning fewer calories in a day. Second, it may begin to convert muscle to usable energy (instead of fat!). This of course, is not good!

The idea behind "The Cut Diet" is supercharging the metabolism, while cycleing carbohydrates so that the body does not think its running out of energy and needs to start slowing down, or worse, breaking down muscle. I think this idea is pretty clever and involves more behind the scenes than the average person would know. Basically what you end up with eating is this:

6-7 small meals a day
2:30 between each meal
First 17-20 meals no starchy carbs
18th or 21st meal is a carb up meal where you eat only carbs/fat

The first thing this does is spread your meals out better. Most of us know that the old formula for losing weight is calories in, compared to calories out. There is more to this. For instance, if you eat a huge breakfast and get all your calories for the day there, you're not going to be happy. The problem is, as the body converts that breakfast to usable energy, there is too much energy to use at that moment. The body is smart, and knows this...suddenly, instead of just flushing this energy out of your system, it will store it as fat for later use. By spreading your meals out over the day, the body is fueled with a steady stream of glycogen and is less likely to be in excess, thus converting to fat.

Secondly, fibrous carbs come in the form of things like string beans, brussel sprouts, peas, broccoli, etc. All of these are essentially known as green vegetables. The great thing about these foods is that they take a lot of energy to break down, and in some cases, maybe more to digest that is used. This is good...these foods will make you feel full but not really supply the body with an instant stream of usable energy. Longer digestion means the body will stay fuller longer, and be supplying energy to the body more steadily than faster digested foods.

The other great thing about these fibrous carbs is that they reduce the bulge or size of entry through the digestive system. The book describes it as "bolus". What I got from it is by eating these first they sort of pave the way for everything behind it and a smaller bolus means, less chance of fat storage because the food moves through quicker and more efficiently...I'll have to read that section again.

Thirdly, the book suggests never mixing complex carbs with protein. For some reason this can create problems for your body and end up storing more fat. I have to revisit this section again to be able to explain why. I tend to speed forward to the main point and forget why. Anyways, so these meals are designed to be either protein/fat or carbs/fat. What is actually turns out to be is protein+fat+fibrous carbs or carbs+ fat.

Lastly, is the carb up meal. As the diet works out, for 3 days you're only feeding the body 50 or so grams of carbs a day. This really isn't that much at all. So at the end of 3 days the body really is going to be hurting for energy. In order to convince it that all is good and that it doesn't need to break down its muscles, you need to carb up, and restore your glycogen levels. This is done through a high carb meal right before bed. The carb up meal gives me 150 grams of carbs...which is a lot for one meal! You might be sitting there thinking...wait a sec, isn't all that going to just be converted to fat since you're sleeping?

The answer is no. After three days your body is hurting for carbs! Remember its energy stores are down and its beginning to think it needs to start eating itself for fuel! The carb up meal is metabolised fast, and quickly works at restoring energy. Its like skipping a meal...you're really hungry so what happens when you finally eat? You engulf everything down fast, and probably end up over eating! Point being, the body will burn through these carbs like its nothing and there is no thought of ever converting it to fat, it already knows it needs to send this energy out to the body for immediate use.

Often people who are carb cycleing experience their body heat rising directly after the carb meal because the body is engulfing these carbs. The carb up meals serves a purpose of replenishing stores so it doesn't get weak, but it also serves to kick start again and again the metabolism and get it burning hotter!

So that is basically what we're doing right now with our meals. If you'd like to follow my progress I have a thread going on BB.com showing what I eat and do and I think I will try and post progress pics there also. In addition, if you're ever looking for advice or insight in regards to anything exercise related, BB.com is a great resource. There is a wealth of knowledge on there and everyone from certified personal trainers, to MD, fitness competitors, etc.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=106321411 my cut progress.

www.thecutdiet.com Free E-book!

Catch you all later,

Travis

Nothing Exciting

2008-03-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

Today is Monday, the first Monday after we have sprung forward and lost an hour of sleep. Trust me I think Trav and I really felt it. Our week hasn't been too exciting, just working a lot, both of us, I am getting ready to head to Dallas on Saturday for four nights. I will be missing St. Patrick's Day and all the festivities, which sounds like Travis is heading out with a mutual friend of ours, since her boyfriend will be in Chicago. Other than that, we have just been working out and we have really been working on getting our eating in check, too much fun food for a bit we noticed. :) Oh and we head to Miami to visit Travis' Aunt and Uncle and cousins. That will be a blast.

Back to work, :)

Pam

One Old Couple

2008-03-02T19:40:00.000-08:00

Happy March everyone! It has been a crazy past week, with my new job, Travis has been working late nights and well errands and having friends over, we are beat. Some good news though, I was oked to wear contacts, new ones that he refitted me for. However, hence the title of the post, I am officially old, as is Travis. When I was at the eye doctor on Saturday, he noticed that I squint a lot when I read things when I have my contacts in. After a few tests, boom you need reading glasses. YIKES!!! When did I turn old!!!!

To make me feel better though, Travis noticed he has got his first grey hair, well three to be exact. And we have pictures of them!!! So now Travis is wise and I am blind, sweet! Happy March from the old couple in Colorado. :)

Kings

2008-02-26T20:17:00.000-08:00

So as a continuation to my previous post about the book I finished reading last night, the final stage a man enters is a King. However there is a transition time between the Late Prince and the King, called the Tunnel.

The Tunnel is a time in a man's life when he achieved the success he has strived through his his building years as a Prince. In a building sense, the castle is complete and his kingdom has been realized. The Tunnel is in essence a time for self questioning, realization and internal reflection on who one really is as a man. Thus is the time most woman have coined the mid-life crisis, with the car and all. The car though is not a product of the the tunnel but usually what has happened is a man as a late prince who as a Page and Knight dreamed about a certain, car, truck, thing, can now afford that automobile. Unfortunately it has been considered a product of the mid-life crisis/tunnel. When a man is in the Tunnel, nothing his wife or girlfriend does or says will help him or answer any of the questions he has, and when trying to get answer or commitments, they rarely are able to give what is asked of them, because they see it as just more of something they can not offer.

On a good side, this only usually last from a few months to max a few years. It may be rough, but as a woman you are able to back off, allow him to talk to you without interruption, give him the love and support you always give, the man will come out the other side a King. He is essentially King of his Kingdom and now his wife is his Queen. The man fully knows who he is, what he believes, what he likes, dislikes and essentially has a I Am what I Am tough luck attitude. This is when men usually spend more time with their wives, their families and love to give opinions, love to help and share their wisdom, knowledge and skills. They also very rarely compromise as this is giving in on who they are and what they believe. They say what they mean and if they offer help or an opinion, are very hurt if they are rejected as it is seen as rejecting a gift they are giving their, wife, child, etc. As my dad always says when proud of an accomplishment, "Who's the King????" LOL Don't forget the belly slap and hands up making a crown on his head. HAHAHA

There is so much more I really can not put it solely here on the blog, but the book is a must read in my opinion. I have read Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands and other relationship books, but in term of understanding men and why they act as they do and trying to understand that when Travis says he will come to a decision in his own time, he truly means it, not in a negative way, but in a let me be who I am, make my own decisions because I am the man and let me act that way, kind of way. There are many things I would love to spout off about and voice my opinion over and push him to make decisions on, but I have learned doing that will only make him take longer to decide, which is counter productive.

So enough of my babbling, but I am sure I will have more to talk about as I have already started a new book. I need to head to bed as my new job definitely does not keep me bored, and I already am heading off on a business trip next month. I need to get up at 5am to go for a run. :) Keep your fingers crossed I am able to get up.

Pam

Good Reads

2008-02-25T07:09:00.000-08:00

So I am finally back into my habit of inhaling books as my mom will vouch for me, I used to do when I was younger. It seems that ever since college it has taken me until now to really find the desire I used to have for reading. I am sure all of you college graduates can commiserate with me on this point, no matter what your major was. I know that the forced reading of books in weeks, sometimes days, will really kill a passion when it is turned into work. However on a good note, I have found my passion again, though I may fall asleep in the middle of it. :)

I have almost finished a book that I has turned on a light bulb for me, created that "ah ha moment". It is called Keys to the Kingdom. A friend of mine, Jim, recommended that I buy this book almost five years ago now, maybe even six years ago. He said it was life changing and from a guys perspective totally true. Well it has taken me these past 5-6 years to even open the book, and I can not believe I waited this long, it is amazing and really every woman should read it. I will try to explain the book and men you can totally pipe and explain yes or no, or say wow woman you should have known this!

The book is written in story form about this older woman, Claudia, who is essentially an anthropologist of men through trade and formal training, and her entire family was as well, and a younger woman, Karen. Karen and Claudia meet through a yoga class and when Karen chooses Claudia to spill her soul to about her frustration with her marriage, her lack of ability to communicate to her husband and feelings of inadequacy as a woman. The story helps in regards to explanation, readability and fluid description of the stages of a man and how to relate, communicate and respect them in each of these stages. The story follows Karen as she takes these lessons and guidelines and applies them and explains to her husband and the following reactions and changes their relationship goes through, only for the better.

The first stage, that I found really interesting and makes total sense, is a man is in what the woman calls Pages. Pages are from birth till just before Puberty. Pages are what the woman call wannabee knights. Their whole goal in life is adventure and fun and pretending to be like their older counterparts, Knights. These adventures and fun come in small stages, like burping and farting, climbing to the highest point on the monkey bars, running, being outside, pine cone fights, everything that drives mothers crazy. However, Claudia explains that because these little pages are trying to be little men, what they want is to be treated like men. So ask them for help, don't scold but say I know and respect what you are doing but please this is not the place, save it till we leave or till a later time. Respect them, listen to them, ask them for help and do not hold them back from discovering the little men they are trying to be.

Around Puberty men enter the next stage, Knights. Knights are what women consider to be full of themselves, irresponsible, and lack commitment. However as Claudia explains to Karen, Knights are full of themselves because they who they are and want to be as men. Their entire goal during this stage is having fun, living life, having adventure after adventure after adventure. During this time men will date but most are not looking for their life partner, however if they do find their partner who will share in their adventures, not hold them back, they are fulfilled.

Around the mid 20's, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, men develop into Princes, who have three phases. The first, an Early Prince, is trying to set up where he will build his kingdom and what it will consist of. Some Princes if they have found their partner will marry at this point and build their kingdom around and with this woman and some men want to build their kingdom prior to marriage so they are able to provide in the ability they deem as necessary in marriage. Once a Prince has decided his career and where he wants to build his kingdom. This is called the Middle Prince Phase. During this phase and all of the Prince phases, Princes have one single focus, build build build, which for women seems that all they want to do is work, think about work, how they can get farther and more successful in work. When they are free from thinking about these things, that is when women normally spend time criticizing them saying, they don't get enough attention and they have screwed up in these ways. Which Claudia says, women should be respecting them for their hard work and taking advantage of the time men are giving them and spend it being appreciative, happy to see them and communicating any needs they may have and what they may need help on, in a positive way so I a man can respond and help in the way he knows how, which is not wrong, it is the man's way. The very last Prince Phase, Claudia tells Karen is very quick, while the others take years, this is the stage where the man has reached his goals in his career, he has attained the level he has been striving for. All together the Prince Stage Lasts from approximately 10-15 years.

The last Stage Kings, is where I am at in the book. It is almost done and I am very excited. These explanations and almost real life examples gives me a great reference for how I can incorporate this in to how I understand Travis and other men in my life. It also makes me realize that many things I have previously thought and did, were quite wrong and that I need to work on some things, which I am OK with saying. :) As I finish the book tonight I will let everyone know how the last stage goes, which for most of us my age, this is where our father's are in their lives.

Oh and on a side note, at church yesterday we found out our pastor just had his first book published. Here is a picture of the cover and a link to find more about it. I am going to be purchasing it next weekend, as the line was quite long.

Happy Monday everyone!

Exsisto Castrensis!

2008-02-22T06:23:00.000-08:00

Not much has been going on around here...Pam started her new job which will be a big change in schedule because she has to ride the light rail into the city. Hopefully that adjustment will be alright for her.

We've turned the TV off for lent, as well as a few other things and its getting to the point now where its not fresh anymore, it just plain sucks! Continueing on in our committments is tougher and tougher. But as my Dad used to say, "Builds Character Son".

I've been contemplating getting a tattoo for about 8 years now and I think I may be getting close. "Builds character son", runs through my head often. Building character...acting in a way that properly represents the God that I worship and love. Acting in a way that is different from others, because the vast majority don't know what the heck they are doing! Building a good character...

I wanted to get either a symbol or phrase that meant something to myself and each time I saw it I would be remembered of my commitment to it. Originally I was thinking something like "brotherhood" that would remind me of the great friendships I've had since childhood, however, that would only be a strong thing for me if they were to join in the ritual, lol. I also like the saying by lance armstrong, "Live strong". Unfortunately, Lance came up with it first!

In highschool, "Get Saved" was fun for a while. I think I remember having a good laugh with jason many a time. We'd be talking about a news story or friend who was doing crazy things, or had done crazy things. Not like crazy cool, but crazy huh? "Dude did you hear about that NBA player that got caught doing 100mph down I-5 while smoking a joint? ...Get saved!" It became an expression for us. Instead of saying, "thats wack" we would say get saved. Of course the whole point was to get saved, invite Jesus into your heart, and let him change your life...I decided that just wasn't going to fly for my tat.

I would get it in Latin, so that if people would want to know what it meant they could ask me...I think that would be cooler than just having some Old English tat that looks like gang crap, and you have to get close enough to smell the person in order to be able to read it. In addition, others would actually have to ask me about it, which would give me a great opportunity to take the conversation wherever I felt like it.

Anyways, I was thinking about living a disciplined life and how important and central discipline is in my life. Every day I struggle to do right, struggle to love others, struggle to work hard, and maintain my goals. It seems like such a constant thing and important thing to have these days that I might just put it on my body, to remind myself of my commitement to myself, and to others...to lead a disciplined life.

Dictionary.com
Discipline:

1.) Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.
2.) Controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training; self-control.

The phrase would be "Be Disciplined" and off the cuff online translator to latin says, "Exsisto Castrensis". Its very easy to go through life and lose who you are. Slowly, for us I feel like TV has come into our lives and taken away something very valuable of ours, time. Our free time is our avenue to creating a life for ourselves and lately, we've been spending the majority of it in front of the TV. Since having the TV off for lent, we've been exposing ourselves to all the other things we could be doing with our time. Listening to talk radio, music, reading books, building RC trucks, going to bed earlier so that we're more refreshed and awake during the days, studying for an exam or learning something new.

For me, being disciplined means two things. First of all it means having goals. Without goals, a person simply doesn't have anything to be disciplined about. In addition, I think that by not having any goals in life a person becomes stagnant in their development towards being a better person.

The second portion of being disciplined involves taking action to meet your goals. Anybody can sit on the couch and say, "hmm, yup, I want to lose 10 lbs", "I want to be an executive", "I want to learn how to fly a plane". Without taking action though, nothing will ever happen. Often times I fail to take action for a number of reasons; fear of failure, simply not knowing how, laziness. However, hopefully by practicing this, "being disciplined", I'll be able to transform myself into someone who is able to take action, and make things happen!

So we'll see. I mean it might take another 8 years to get me in that chair. Might never get it but despite the tattoo I've still been thinking a lot about tweaking who I am a little bit, and moving towards being more disciplined, do what I say I will do, live strong.

Exsisto Castrensis my friends!

-Travis

WOO HOO

2008-02-20T16:29:00.001-08:00

So I officially finished my last day of work!!! Yeah!!! So now on to the new job!

Oh and Happy Wednesday!!!!

2008 Election

2008-02-19T06:30:00.000-08:00

So I am usually not one to preach politics and voting, but the more I have been learning, reading, listening, and just absorbing all the information I can about the upcoming election and candidates, I feel very strongly to request people to do the same. I am given a hard time at work because I listen to talk radio over music, I read the Wall Street Journal Online, I love Foxnews, and I read the blogs as much as I can to know truely what we are in for in terms of November of this year.

Here are some links I highly recommend reading:

www.realclearpolitics.com
www.pragerradio.com
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog
www.wsjonline.com
www.foxnews.com/youchoose2008

I feel very strongly that my money is my money, that I can choose how to spend it, how I wish to contribute to society in terms of volunteering, community service, monetary donations and in how I wish to provide healthcare to myself. Without telling you how to vote or how to choose, morally/conciously, please just read and really look beyond just the headlines and the rhetoric to what a condidate believes. Are you for a $16 an hour immediate hke in minimum wage? Required wage garnishment for universal healthcare, a program that would cost upwards of $1 billion dollars, giving amnesty and citizenship to people who came here illegally, while others who are trying to come in legally are blocked and wait listed because people are cheating and breaking our laws.

So please please please read, I love to talk politics, but usually wait to hear others opinions first. We still have time to really get to know a condidate before making your opinion.

pam

My last Three Days

2008-02-18T05:49:00.000-08:00

It is finally Monday of the last week of my job with Ware Malcomb. This has been a great job for the last two years but I am very excited to be moving on. These next three days are going to be brutal and super long I have a feeling. Hopefully I can stay busy so the days will fly by.

Our week last week was fairly uneventful. Valentine's Day was very low key and included my making dinner and us watching a movie, a great movie, but just watching a movie. For dinner I tested out a new recipe, Chicken Cacciatore with steamed brocolli and couscous. Dessert was homemade breadpudding, which I remember I do not like because of the brandy in the sauce your pour over the top. Travis and I exchanged cards, very simple gifts and then watched We Own the Night. This is the new movie with Mark Whalberg and Jaoquin Phoenix, based in the 80's in New York. I highly recommend it.

Friday night we went bowling with some people I work with that we are slowly becoming friends with. One couple just became engaged on Thursday and they were very excited to be telling everyone about the proposal and like every girl should, showing off the beautiful ring. I have to say it is one of the most beautiful rings I have seen. It is white gold about 1.5 total carat weight, a princess cut center stone with diamonds running up both sides meeting at the center stone. The sides of the ring have an amazing beveling that just adds a very simple elegance that you usually see on more antique and older looking rings. I definitely prefer this over the huge single center stone.

Saturday I went for a nice five mile run, and it was so great to finally be able to run without feeling either winded or cut short due to coughing attacks. I also had another eye doctor appointment. Well good news on the eye front, the Ulcer is gone but now he found I have inflamation in both eyes that is bad enough in my left eye that I was seeing double. Which now I am on round two of treatmeant for my eyes, a steroid antibiotic to help eleviate the inflamation so I can finally, FINALLY, get back into contacts.

After the eye doctor we headed out to test out a new trail Travis had heard about from a co-worker out in the southern foothills. It was a twelve mile round trip hike up to a damn, which for mountain biking is about when the single track supposedly starts. It ended up being a beautiful day, it was supposed to snow, about 40-45 with some mild wind. We saw some Big Horn Sheep, some pretty cool ice, and just really enjoyed the time together to talk and get outside. When we did get home, we were a bit sore but felt so great having been outside.

Sunday was our pretty normal Sunday, Church in the morning, grocery store, gym then popcorn and a movie. Love it! We did watch Elizabeth, The Golden Age. It was really a great movie, I don't know a whole lot about the Elizabethan era but it was really interesting to me to see how this movie chose to depict such a famous person in history. After all she was just a woman, but a woman who started a reigion, ran a country and gave Spain their greatest defeat of all time. :) One kick butt woman. Oh and I am finally about 3/4 of the way done with the final book in the Left Behind Series. YEAH! With no TV tonight I should be able to easily finish the book.

Well, enough of my recap, I should probably throw on some make-up, brsh my teeth, grit my teeth and finish out my last three days of the work.

WHOO HOO!!!

It is official

2008-02-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

I have a corneal ulcer! I have antibiotic drops I have to take every 2 hours for the next 4 days and then go back to the doctor on Wednesday. I am not to wear contacts for at least a week and well this sucks! But I am glad I went to the doctor. :)

Update

2008-02-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

Well this has been one interesting week to say the least. I have a new job, found out I have bronchitis YUCK!!, now I have to go to the eye doctor. The one thing about Colorado if you don't know, it is really dry!! So since moving here I have been having a heck of a time dealing with my contacts and my eyes, especially my left eye, which I have been told is notoriously dry. So about 3 days ago I woke up with my eye completely red, swollen, and just a slow burning feeling. By the end of the day it was so irritqated I could not have any lights on or near me, it gave me a migraine and left Travis wondering if it was time to trade me in for a new model. LOL

I have given it a few days, haven't had my contacts in since about 5pm yesterday and it is still very irritated and sensitive to light. So I called our local Costco and made an emergency appointment with the Optometrist. I have a feeling they are going to say no more contacts for a while, which let me tell you it it not fun to run in glasses. I hope they are able to give me an answer though as I really can't handle the pain that I am in by the end of the day.

We will keep you posted on the dog situation as we have our appointment in an hour to an hour and a half. Oh and the whole no TV, not that bad, except my eyes has been so painful I can't read, the whole no sugar or sugar substitute sucks!!!! I love my Diet Dr Pepper and a yummy Non-fat, sugar free vanilla latte. Well amoung other things we have given up, this is going to be a rough 40 days. :( Oh well, we will get through and make us better people in the end. :)

Love you guys!

New Job

2008-02-06T18:44:00.000-08:00

So it is official, I have a new job as of the 21st of February. It was a really hard decision for me to make, though I am so excited and know that this is a great opportunity. Half of my bosses, I have like 10 I swear, well 4 actually, were disappointed and the other half were excited for me. My official title is Sales and Proposal Marketing Manager. I get a little bit of an increase in base pay and I get an annual bonus of 15% that is paid out quarterly. I also will be riding the light rail in to work everyday and was able to get reimbursement for that included into my offer letter. There are the standard medical, dental, vision, 401K with matching contributions, tuition assistance, 3 weeks paid time off and other items. The thing I am most excited about is working with people again, no answering the phones and having a mentor in the office. So now I officially have short timers and can not wait to start the new job. :)

On another note, Travis and I are observing lent. He asked me yesterday if I would be open to the idea, and of course I said yes. So I have given up sugar, sugar substitutes such as spenda, butter and butter substitutes. We also are no longer watching TV, except for Blazer Games since we bought the League Pass. I am reading the Bible 30 minutes a day and Travis has given up a few more things. This will be good for us and be a definite growing time.

Oh and on Saturday we have our interview with the Vizsla rescue people to adopt a dog. This will be interesting since I will be getting my new job, but if we can make it for a few months before we are able to get a house, I think we would both love it.

Snow, Lighting and Hail, Oh My

2008-02-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

I have now officially seen the weirdest weather ever. My parents are in town for the weekend and my dad had gone outside to get some fresh air and he started babbling about seeing lightning. My mom and thought he was crazy or just kidding around. It had started to snow and we both were thinking, no way lighting and snow. BUT about 5-10 minutes later, boom lightning again! Then as we got in the car to take them back to their hotel, we realize it is hailing, while snowing and lightning! How bizarre!

The TRUCK!

2008-01-31T20:47:00.000-08:00

Man can I tell you how much I like driving trucks. For those that don't know I used to drive around in a F250 Super Duty 4x4. It had a winch and some sweet pink and purple stripping on the sides that just rocked. lol. Anyways, Pam and I have been living with only 1 car for about 6 months now and we decided it was about time to get a second one. Based on our lifestyle we decided to get a truck.

With a truck we can go camping once again, and not just the paved style I'm talking up in the boony's Jason style camping. We can also do a little 4wheelin. We'll have a bed for hauling our bikes too, and next year ski's and snowboards for heading up to the mountains. Um...we can haul wood or whatever so down the road when we actually might have a house we'll have a good vehicle for transportin repair stuff. Anyways, those are some of the reasons why we decided to get a truck.

Based on what I had read and researched I picked out the Titan for its looks, cost, and Nissan reliability. I had only read 2 bad things about these trucks and so I knew what to look for.

Saturday we went looking for trucks to test drive and possibly buy. I knew Pams' budget and we had picked out 3 to look at. The first place we arrived and found out we were actually 3rd in line to test drive the truck. It looked sweet and exactly what we wanted! The lady there told us we might as well head out, because she was pretty sure this first guy was going to buy it. She gave us a tip about this place in boulder offering the same truck for a cheaper price so we cruised out there.

Well this was a dealership, which didn't bother us because we wanted to purchase some sort of warranty if we could but that also meant high prices. THe price we were told from the previous lady wasn't right. These trucks were all 04's and over 20,000 bucks! The salesman didn't even try and move one on us either, he looked like a rookie basically. What we learned though was the crew cab (which we weren't really looking at) but the back seat had more leg room than my magnum. BIG! We also learned that the Frontier was too small (saw an 04 there priced way too much too).

So we left that joint shaking our heads at the prices. 4 year old trucks for over 20,000 bucks? You've got to be kidding me, especially since we've seen these go for 14-16,000!

The next stealership was up in longmont. It was an 04, King Cab, XE. XE is the base model for those of you that don't know the Titans. When we got there again, someone was out with the truck. I used the can, Pam BS'd and we were about out the door to test drive an 08, since they are pretty much the same feel wise, when the guy came back with that truck. So we went over there and took the XE for a spin. We had heard the guy wanted it that drove it before us but we still took it out. I made a comment getting in like, hope that guy doesn't mind we're going to go drive his truck, lol.

The truck was a little more stripped down than we had liked. It didn't have power windows and I'm not sure if I've ever driven a car without them! Was the old yellow diesel mercedes the last vehicle we had with those? :P It did however have the off road package, no matter how much they told me it didn't. Rancho shocks, skid plates, sittin a little higher, and the badging. Anyways, I can tell this is getting freakin long so I'll try and nip it up here.

The deal was the guy in front of us wanted it but his credit sucked. We said we'd buy it but we weren't going to pay the full asking price. I put down we'd pay 16500...which I think I could have gone lower but considering the situation I didn't think we would have gotten it for much lower. Anyways, the kid helping us did his, well I guess its worth a try, take it to the back room and come back in 10 minutes thing. He came back and said they would go 17750. I said, ok well we're offering you 16500. He went back and forth again and said we were good to go.

All this while we're sitting there watching this guy with struggleing credit make calls, tell them no he hadn't even filed bankruptcy, etc. It was just weird knowing we were stealing a truck from this dude!

Finally after another 15 minutes of this another person comes over, who I figured was the guy making all the final deals and he says that they were going to honor the other guys offer since he was in fact here first. Let me tell you...this helped us so much! He asked if we wanted to see any other vehicles. Well we didn't, there were no more used titans and thats what we came for. He asked if we wanted to look at a new one and we said it was out of our price range. He's like, well lets just look at one and we'll blow it up for you.

Pam and I didn't know if that was good or what at the time. We walked out and it was already starting to get dark. They had an 08 Pro-4x, black, loaded that they wanted to show us. I knew from my research that the pro-4x was the off road specific model and black was the original color I wanted. I began to salivate and got a little on my shirt. While waiting for the keys we did a walk around and well...I began to get excited. The new card syndrome was beginning to seep into my eyes. I took note of the options, tow package, lower gears, backup sensors, 4x4 model, pro-4x trim (high trim level), 18" allow wheels, 33 inch tires, fog lights, heated side mirrors, extendable side mirrors, skid plates, utilitrac bed system, spray in bed liner, yes more more, must have! Dude finally returned with the keys and tries to pull it out from the row on the lot.

Dang thing doesn't start, its got a dead battery! Humorous to say the least. Flipped it into neutral and pulled it out while waiting for a jump. I got to look inside. 6 disc cd player, mp3 jack, premium speakers, adjustable pedals, electric rear locker, electric 4 wheel drive, special pro-4x seats, cargo net cubbies under the rear seats, auto dimming rear mirror, all power, tire pressure monitoring, trip computer with tons of info that you're never going to use, temp monitor, homelink system, compass, everything but DVD and Navigation! This baby is plush loaded and I wanted it!

We took it for a spin, without a salesman on board. Pam drove. I told her to stop and do a 0-60 to feel the power! A grin crept across my face as the 5.6L V8 stormed to life and roared down the road. I'm not sure how fast it actually was but I in the time from 0-60 I grew 4 new chest hairs. Thats how manly this truck felt!

Well to make a long story short, which obviously this isn't short but whatever, we bought it. The sticker price was like 36,000. WAY out of our budget. We got the truck for dealer invoice and then another 5000 rebate on it. Basically took around 10 grand off the sticker and made it ours. The salesman says he made 100 bucks on it and the finance guy said he thought the dealership lost money on the deal but whatever. You never know...all we do know though is that we were looking for 04's and we ended up getting a killer 08 for roughly only 2-4 grand more than that stealership in Boulder.

So when the sales guy comes out and says, lets go look at a new 08 Pro-4x and we're just going to blow it up for you! The appropriate reply would be: "Yes indeed, lets blow the crap out of it"!

If the 5,000 dollar rebate ends we should just go sell ours and make some money off it, lol. NAAAHHH once you drive around in it you won't be able to depart from its sexiness! Its sick...and I want to go sit in it right now, just cuz. :)

My new shoes and my dinner

2008-01-30T05:41:00.000-08:00

Tooting Trav's Horn

2008-01-29T16:51:00.000-08:00

So I need to toot Travis' horn a little bit. So as I have mentioned my 26th birthday is tomorrow and my parents are coming into town on Friday. Last Monday I got the cutest evite invitation from "My Man" inviting me to our home on Friday 1.25.08 for a gourmet meal of my choice, a bottle of wine and then an evening out at a surprise location. Last week was a rough week so it was so great to have something to look forward to.

When I got home Friday, I even left work 5 minutes early, Travis had taken over the kitchen and the smell was amazing. He had gotten a bone in lamb roast, some whole wheat cous cous and broccoli. The lamb was in the oven, the broccoli was steaming and the cous cous was getting ready to go it. After changing into some nice black pants and blue shirt, I grabbed a seat at our bar to chat with my chef and enjoy a nice glass of Pinot Noir, my favorite wine.

Dinner was ready by 5:30pm and though the meat was still a bit rare, we cut off the fully cooked pieces and put the lamb in to finish cooking. Dinner was fantastic, somehow Travis became a phenomenal chef. After dinner it was present time. :)

Though he claims it is nearly impossible to get away from me, he somehow managed get me some brand new Keen Hiking Shoes. I love them!!!! He has been making fun of me and my worn out Nike's that I have been hiking in for the past year or so, because well they are beat up and if I don't wash them regularly they don't exactly smell the best. Hahaha The new shoes are water proof and so comfortable I could wear them all the time. Can't wait till hiking season to break them in.

After presents and dinner we headed out to my surprise, the Symphony!!! A famous violinist was playing with the Colorado Symphony and she was truly mind blowing to watch. Her intensity, her speed and just how she moved as she played was nothing like I had seen. Instead of going out afterwards, Travis and I decided to head home to get a good night sleep.

Thanks Travis for a great birthday!!!!

PS He is making me cupcakes right now for my birthday tomorrow. :)

A Crazy Weekend

2008-01-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

Well this has been a crazy crazy week. Work has been nuts, my big boss was out from Irvine and we had a great chat. It is always nice to see her or my Manager as I only seem them about 6 times a year. I do have my 2 year review coming up in three weeks and well it was nice to get a bit of feedback now so I know what I can work on and put down on my goal setting forms that is realistic.

On a fun topic, Travis and I are now the proud owner of a 2008 black Nissan Titan Pro-FourX. I will let Travis explain more about it, but it is pretty much the coolest truck that we both love driving and are excited to take it out. I have added pictures of our new baby. :)

Another Grandparent movin on to a better place...

2008-01-18T21:33:00.000-08:00

Last week my Grandad died in the early morning. He was my Mom's Dad and the last of that generation of relatives for me. I think he was around 80 years old.

Its very difficult to characterize our relationship. Yes he was my Grandad (which he preferred to be called over Grandpa) however, I can only remember seeing him in person a few times. I think that a little bit of history which probably shouldn't find its way onto this blog would help serve well into good reasoning behind this, but I am choosing to leave it be.

All the memories of him were awesome, so much fun and laughter. In addition, everything I've heard from other people about him, the stories are all wonderful. It makes me wish that I had known him better.

Its interesting though, to me how things go. Since reaching adulthood I feel like I'm getting to know my parents all over again. They aren't parents anymore really, more like friends. I still can look up to them for guidance, but its more at my pace rather than forced upon me. I can start to get to know their personalities more and understand them as a person, rather than just Dad and Mom.

Its this same relationship that I find myself wishing I had with Grandad. I've known he simply as my Grandad and since I've grown up and have heard all these great stories about him, I'm left wondering what it would have been like to really know him as a person, and not just as what I knew him to be in my childhood.

Nevertheless the time has passed too quickly and I was never given a good chance at this. I can safely say though, based on my beliefs, that he is now up in heaven enjoying peace and I'm sure lots of laughter with Jesus Christ.

-Travis

New Years Resolutions/Goals & Birthday

2008-01-13T20:09:00.000-08:00

Travis isn't a fan of New Years Resolutions and has helped me to see that my resolutions need to be more of a lifelong goal, not a short term habit or change. I have been thinking the past week or so about this and things that I would like to work on, change and improve in myself. I think I have come up with a good list.

1. Sometime in the last year I have become a gossip. I was never a gossiper in high school, I was too busy to be. LOL However at my current company the environment is so high school esque that I have found that I have become one that talks a lot, unconsciously about things I hear or see and lately I am not happy with that. I want to be someone that others can come to, can confide in, talk with, be silly or stupid and not worry about that getting out to others. So my goal is to talkative but to leave others out of my conversations unless it is pertinent and necessary.

2. Positive outlook. Another thing I have noticed with all that has happened in the last year is that I have a hard time seeing the positive and looking at how great things are versus what I wish and what has gone wrong. I have a wonderful life, a best friend/boyfriend who would do anything for me as I would do for him, a good job that pays well (though not my dream job), a good home, an amazing family that as I get older I find out is even better than I imagined, and am grateful for the friends I have and are still there for me. I find I get up in the fact that so many people I know are getting married or are married and I am not, compare my home to others, compare myself to others and my success to others success. It may be the competitor in me, but there are things in life that are not a competition and I need to always remember that.

3. Confidence. I know I come across as someone who is very confident in myself, at least I have been told I do at times, but I am very critical of myself. I need to work on being confident in who I am and what I stand for. I need to be confident in my intelligence, my morals, my values, my external appearance and internal value. We all have our days when we feel like we would rather stay in bed than get up and get dressed and that is ok. :) I just think that due to some factors which are in the process of changing, and that will be explained later, I have lost a bit of confidence in my intelligence and competence. I know I am smart, I know I have amazing potential and I am working on finding someone to push me instead of question and make me back down.

I think these are good starting points and will lead to many positive changes in my attitude and life. I also hope it inspires others to make positive changes in their lives and their decisions on how to view the world.

Oh and on another note, my birthday is in 17 days!!! I am so excited and I can not wait. I get to say good bye to my early 20's!!!! I was cleaning today and happened to look through some pictures, letters and my yearbooks from high school. It amazes me to think how much I have changed and grown into myself. I feel I am still me and the me I was at 15 but it is a more mature, relaxed, polished and oriented self. I wish I could write myself a letter, and maybe someday I will, to teach myself the things I have learned along the very very bumpy road. Ask my parents, I was definitely not an easy child to raise. I have never learned well without experiencing some hurt or negaqtive consequence from an action. So to be able to write myself a letter and tell my younger self to not sweat about things so much, to not care what people thought so much and to slow down and enjoy life, I am not too sure it would work. LOL

26 years old, I am excited. I am excited for what this next year will hold. I know my brother will be getting married soon to a wonderful woman who fits into our family so fantastically. I am hoping to own a house, to get a new car, well "we" will get a truck :), hopefully a pet or two, take my GMAT and to just continue to learn about this awesome place we live. What is really interesting to me as well as I go through each year is how my priorities change. Instead of spending every weekend going out and going to the new bars or clubs, I am ok with hanging out at home and watching a movie or with friends. I like having a picked up home, cooking dinner, and being settled. I do still have a drive to push myself in my career and skills, but to also know that I have a great person and place to come home to, all that together makes me smile.

Now after a long rambling post, I am going to go crawl into bed with a good book, listen to some music and get ready for a another week. :) Happy 2008 everyone!!

Music & Lyrics

2008-01-13T09:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I posted a playlist of songs. It may seem a bit random in the choices and styles of music but each sing has a memory and meaning to me, and some for Trav and I. Music to me is a way of remembering people, places, and times in my life. Take the Lifehouse sing, First Time. The first weekend in October Travis and I were driving from San Francisco to Denver moving. This happened to be a song playing while we were driving across the plains of Wyoming and now will forever be what reminds both of us of our move. Scotland the Brave is what will always remind of my grandpa who passed away in October. Plus it has a funny little memory of my dad in a kilt. :) Love man in a skirt.

Music to me is a great motivator when I am running, at work, or just putting around the house. I love almost every type of music and each kind I listen to for a different reason. I think today will be a mix of country and top 40, need to write an article and do some cleaning around the house. I am trying to make sure that when Travis returns from California, things are picked up, cleaned and better than when he left.

Well happy Sunday and hope everyone is having a great weekend. :)

Music

2008-01-12T15:47:00.001-08:00

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Back problems.

2008-01-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

Boo hoo. So while on break you guys probably know I sort of tweaked/threw my back out, slipped a disc whatever you want to call it. Three days later I was happy with being pretty much back to normal. Once I had gotten off the plane I felt much better and the next day I even went back to the gym. (Doing exercises that didn't involve a lot of weight on my back of course)

So on wednesday I woke up with a sore back for some reason. Kinda tight. I little bit of pain but still not a big deal. Once I made it to work and was sitting in my chair it seemed to get a little worse. I tried to remain with good posture and all, just didn't seem to be helping. Then I sneezed and bam, that hurt. A few hours later I sneezed again and hurt my lower back more.

I took today off from work to lay low. Lay on the ground with my back straight. I went to the gym and did the hot tub for a while, as well as steam room and just tried to loosen up my entire back. I think it helped quite a bit. The pain is less today and hopefully by tommorow I can go back to work and then continue to a full recovery over the weekend.

The weird thing to me is that I feel like it just got tired, and more tired, and tight and eventually just led to a blow out. I'm not really sure if its the way I'm sleeping, or lounging on the couch, or sitting at the computer. Its not like I was squatting 300lbs and hurt it that way. My workout that day was dips, and curls. Not exactly taxing on the back.

Combined with the fact that I had been pretty sore from the leg work out earlier this week, I've just been in a world of hurt recently!

If you're the praying type, say a few words for my back please. I would appreciate all the support I can get.

-Travis

Happy New Years

2008-01-02T06:00:00.001-08:00

Hi5, Xanga, Tagged, Blogger Comments @ 123glitter.com

Long Time No Post

2007-12-26T21:26:00.000-08:00

So it has been a crazy couple weeks and time has just flown by. We are currently back in Oregon for Christmas spending time with our family. It has been great and filled with fun, food and lots of activities. We have seen Travis' folks new remodel, Ahna and Kyle's newly painted and wonderful condo, and my parents and their ever changing home.

As someone pointed out, we have a blog named Bay Area, which I thought is pretty funny too. However when we started this blog who knew we were going to be moving. So maybe in the next few weeks, I will start a new blog and we will link this one to the new one. :)

Christmas was good to Travis and I and we are very happy with how are lives are turning out. We both have great families, and Pam's is getting larger as Kyle just proposed to his girlfriend of three years, Ahna. This was also the first Christmas with out Pam's grandpa Denny.

Who knows what the next year will hold, but as of now, things are pointing in a great direction. :) Merry Christmas everyone and we wish you all a great New Years.

Travis has a Job

2007-12-05T06:27:00.001-08:00

So here is some quick news really fast, but TRAV HAS A JOB!!! He is really excited about it and so am I. :) It is even better is it is only about 15 minutes away and in a great area where we have looked and thought about getting a house sometime in the next year. YEAH!!

Thanksgiving 2007

2007-11-22T19:45:00.000-08:00

So for Thanksgiving this year Travis and I decided it would be best for us to stay in Colorado. We have just been traveling and gone so much that to be home for a good month straight and to save our money and tickets for Christmas would be best. As I sure most people have heard it finally snowed here 2 days ago, yeah!!! And for the past 3 days now the temperature has been hovering in the 20's. Life has been good :) Cold but good :)

Today was a packed day and let me say I am definitely beat. Full and tired. I got up this morning at 7am as the just retired President of Ware Malcomb, where I work, asked and asked if I wanted to do a Turkey Trot this morning. It was just 4 miles and a nice way to start off Thanksgiving Day, with a nice 400 calorie burn :) I got the Turkey all ready, seasoned and stuffed and left instructions for Travis to put it in the oven at 11:30 so we could be ready to eat at 3pm. Our meal consisted of a 12.5 pound turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, the special Power Pretzel Crust Salad, green beans, stuffing and of course Gravy.

The Turkey Trot started at 10am so I got up and was out the door about 8:50am to get picked up by my ride. I think the temperature when I walked out the door was about 23 degrees, so it was definitely going to be a brisk run. :) I don't have any running tights or winter running pants so I improvised and wore my favorite capris with a pair of my soccer socks pulled up over my knees so I didn't have skin showing. The day actually turned out to be beautiful, it was cold, but clear skies and hardly any wind. I thought maybe 500-1,000 people would show up, but there were over 5,000 out there to run.

Myself, Jim (the ex-president) and his daughter were all bundled up to stay warm, even for the run. However, I can say people here are die hard and crazy. We saw easily a few hundred people in shorts, some people in just shorts and a tank top or T-shirt. CRAZY! I really understand now that people in Colorado love to run. The run itself was great, we finished in about 34 minutes, which I think we figured out we ran about a 10 minute mile for the first mile and then about 8-8:30 for the next three. Thee were so many people we definitely were people dodging for half the run.

By the time I got back to the house, it was only noon. Trav had just gotten the Turkey in the oven and the house definitely was starting to smell like Thanksgiving. I was able to get all cleaned up before I had to start the full time cooking. I was hoping to squeeze in a nap but there was so much food to prepare and it was by hand, we have no food processor or potatoe peeler, so it took a long time to peel all the potatoes, carrots, apples. YUCK! By the time the Turkey was done and carved, we had a yummy feast. The funny thing is for the 4 hours of cooking and shopping and preperation, Trav and I ate all we could, and that only took 15 minutes!

It was a great day and lots of fun to really get my hands dirty and cook, I hardly seem to have time to do that lately. It would have been great to spend the day with friends and family, but I was happy to have it be just Trav and I.

Running.............

2007-11-11T19:06:00.000-08:00

Running is one of the best sports and exercises that exist in the world right now in my opinion. As my mom would say, it is my threapy and my sanity. Not only does one burn over 100 calories per mile moved (on a flat surface, so there is my love/hate relationship to hills) but it allows you to be inside your head and really clarify, evaluate, answer, argue, question, figure out, sing, scream all to yourself over the course of your run. No matter where you run there is always something new to see, a new route to explore and usually at least one person to say hello to.

With winter now approaching running outside is becoming more and more of a luxury because I am not a morning runner, no matter how much I try my body does not comply. Getting off work at 5pm in the dark, treadmills M-F are going to be my best friend. So my long weekend run is definitely a priority to me. Treadmills are great and keep my stamina in check, it just does not give me the same sense of mind clearing euphoria.

I went on one of my long weekend runs today and well I have been sore in my hamstrings going on 5 days now, so I knew this was going to be a rough run. (The area we live in is a deceptively hilly area. They are not the steep hills of the Bay Area, but rolling slight inclines and declines that go for miles and you don't really notice untill you are huffing and puffing and wondering what the heck is wrong with you.) Earlier today I decided to go test out a new trail that shoots off a road about a mile and a half from our house that looked like it looped back to the main road and would be total about 7 miles. So at 3:30 I told Trav if I am not back in an hour and a half, come find me. LOL

When I run it takes me about 1-2 miles to really loosen up and get into my stride, and well today it took about, well never. HAHAHA What is great about our little suburb of Greenwood Village/Centennial is that on the weekends, I swear there is no one here. The roads are so quiet, the air is so clear and the trail system is extensive and amazes me. Where the trail started is right next the most expensive homes probably in the Denver area, at least in our little town. Though I was starting to hurt and I was only 2 miles in, I definitely had some great eye candy with these estate style homes that are worth over $1 million. Honestly these homes are beautiful and eye catching, but not my style. And what is odd, these homes feel really out of place, as the rest of the homes in the area and on the majority of the trail I ran, are ranch style, normal sized, family homes.

As I wound my way down the path, my eyes finally wandered away from the homes and more towards the whole scenery. The path actually splits the monster homes, The Preserve, from a wetland area filled with Cattails, trees, and a cute (non smelling) creek. The path is all dirt and rock and for being sundown in November, packed with people. I love how exercise really brings people to their happy place and literally every person I passed or passed me smiled at least, and most waved and said hello. There were older couples out for their evening walk, people fighting their way through a obviously painful run (like me), families biking, and children out walking with their elderly parents. I got passed by a couple on their horses, ran by a man at least 75 years old jogging (my hero), and even a man who was juggling while running, really I swear!!!!

I was awestruck on this run by the shear beauty of the area I now call home. It is the middle of November and I was running in shorts and a tank top, and I was warm!! The area, homes and land, I saw were beautiful and really made me feel like I was running in a small town in the countryside. The majority of homes are built ranch style and many have acres of land. These homes have a very warm and inviting feel and the people in the area are very warm and friendly as well. To make the views even better, I watched the sun behind the rockies. Hopefully next weekend I can take the camera and show you really how beautiful the area is.

When I am out there and happy and sweaty and taking everything in, I realize how wonderful and clear life really is. I came to a realization about things, that well once we get through the holidays, I have a great plan that I hope to start on. I feel very fortunate to be able to call this place home and hopefully in the next few years, buy a home here. (wink wink)

To sum my ramblings up and focus on what I am trying to say, lets just say that running may be great for the body, but it is like chicken soup for the soul. It not only allows me to clear my head of all the garbage that I throw and pile in there, but it allows me to eat ( because I love love love love to eat, just ask Travis) and not worry. For those who don't run, just try and walk, find a neighborhood that is pretty, a path you haven't gone on, or drive to a favorite spot you used to go to. Nothing like fresh air can really put things into perspective and give you the motivation to keep on walking or running again and again.

My Job Search

2007-11-09T13:45:00.000-08:00

I suppose a few of you have probably been wondering how much longer I am going to be mooching off of pam and whether or not I will be getting back into the wonderful world of work.

I have decided to switch up career tracks and pursue a career in financial planning. This is something that I've been thinking about for a long time. I even signed up and began an online program to gain a CFP certificate so that I may skip past the fact that I don't have a degree in finance and sit for the Certified Financial Planner Exam.

Recently I have been trying to become employed with a financial firm close by our apartment. Its actually closer than where Pam works! Its been pretty tough though jumping through their hoops. So far I've been through 3 interview type sessions, completed a business and personal expense worksheet, submitted a business plan and submitted a list of 200 contacts that could possibly be leads. With our traveling its kept me quite busy keeping up with this. I've also launched a website to assist in this endeavor.

For those of you that don't know about this type of work, basically its like starting and running your own business. You sell services and financial products to people and make comission of of them. The firm is there to back you up, provide technical support, as well as specialists when needed. They also provide a roof, and personal support and instruction when needed. The first two months I would be payed a minimal amount until I pass 4 exams. Then I would start out with a base pay which would deteriorate over the next months until finally I would be 100% commission based.

So next Friday I will be meeting with some principles of the firm and go over my business plan, and answer any further questions. The retention rate for them is 2 out of 3 so I can see why they really want to spend their time figureing out if this is something I could do or not. I really want to work with them and make this change so hook up a little prayer for me if you will.

Travis

Clarification

2007-11-08T11:35:00.000-08:00

So in reponse to my post last night I want to let everyone know that all in all I really happy with my life. I have a great family, a wonderful boyfriend and supporter, a good job, a great new home and really a good life. So at times one feels stressed, worn out, frustrated but that does not override the absolute fact that yes I am, and we are happy. :)

Thoughts and Ramblings

2007-11-07T20:52:00.000-08:00

So I know I have not actually written more than a few sentences in the past month or so. Lets just say thing have been a bit strained/draining to say the least. As most people know my grandfather, Denny Proctor, died the week after Travis and I moved to Colorado, Travis has not been working, we just went to Cancun and work well it is work. My brain has been all over the place, one day I am fine and loving every minute of life and the next, well, every little thing seems to send me over the edge. I just don't get it and try my hardest to maintain a sense of normalcy.

I have been thinking about things and I know a lot of it has to do with the stress of knowing that my income is the sole and steady income that is holding the pieces together and for those who have been in a one income situation knows that it can be a very tough thing. Add traveling on top of that back to Oregon, to Mexico and now Christmas is coming and well stress, stress, stress......Thank goodness for the gym and food.

Let me say that the move to Colorado for me and Travis has been nothing but wonderful for us both mentally and for our relationship. We no longer pick at each, argue like we did, or just feel constantly on edge. We no longer feel like we are scraping the bottom of the barrel and that we are moving along in our goals in life. We have already made a few good friends and with hopefully being here for the next month we can really start to become involved in a church, maybe a soccer team for Travis and well I am looking at taking a part time job to allow us some extra money in our budgeting.

Cancun was great as you can see from the pictures and it was a great stress reliever and break that Travis and I needed. Honestly when I say I have been difficult to deal with, I am not exegerating. I feel like I am doing it all sometimes and that I take that out on Travis and that is not fair to him. It is just so hard sometimes to look at the good things you have in life when it seems that so much is falling apart or rough no matter how hard you try. Well luckily I have a wonderful man who always helps me try to see the best in life, and he is really helping me through one of the toughest times I have been through lately.

So now I need to finally fall asleep and get ready for another day at the office.

Cancun Trip November 2007

2007-11-06T06:29:00.001-08:00

Weekend

2007-10-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

Well after a two day work week for Pam we headed into the weekend. Pam has developed a nice little cough that gets worse in the evenings. She hasn't been feeling sick, just coughing and hacking so Friday night, we decided to play the sims, chill at home and get a decent sleep in. Unfortunately, my brain was going crazy trying to figure out how I'm going to come up with 200 contacts for this third round interview I've got at a financial firm.

Saturday morning we got up early by weekend standards and pounded a few buckwheat pancakes and got ready for paintball. Aaron, a guy Pam works with set up this unofficially Waremalcomb paintball excursion. I hadn't been paint balling since high school and so I didn't quite know what to think but it turned out to be a blast.

There were 17 of us, which was large enough to have all the games with just our group. That made it more fun since we were all on the same basic skill level (Beginner) and we all had the same gear. In other words, there wasn't a high and mighty hick with a cranked nitrogen canister shooting 30 rounds a second at you while you try and scream hit hit!

The fields were had trees and barriers to duck and hide from. There were objectives also like raise a flag, capture the flag, or the last map was just to point this gun thing at the other side. We mixed the teams but and I think everyone got to win at least once. No big injuries except I got a mild sprain to my left wrist which kept me out of the gym today. :( I was storming this camping spot where I knew a guy was and had been trying to shoot me. Well I came around the corner and stumbled sideways which made it look like I was diving. At the same time I popped off a few rounds to get the kill. I had to put my hand down at some point and thats where I tweaked it. So I got the kill but when I had gotten to my feet again I got capped in the side of the head. So my dash for glory didn't turn out as well as I had planned.

Pam had gun problems the first few games but then someone took her gun by mistake and she was fine after that. We got on the same team for the last 4 games and she started having more fun. She managed to go through twice as many paintballs as me though and on the last map she rain out of compressed gas which basically rendered her useless. A bit trigger happy thats for sure...

I think the ref got a few action shots of us and we had some group shots that we will share after they are shared to us. :) It was a lot of fun, and even made us pretty sore today!

In Progress

2007-10-13T21:27:00.000-07:00

So our apartment is definitely in progress, but we finally have furniture in place, things are slowly getting on the walls, and well my clothes are finally off the floor. Can't wait to have our first visitors :)

Camping day 2.

2007-10-11T14:22:00.001-07:00

So we moved...and for those of you who have been on the edge of their seats waiting for me to write about the second day of my camping adventure with Jason, well I'm not sorry. Its kinda like when you watch a Macgyver episode that gets the "to be continued". You know its going to happen...you're looking at your watch thinking, hmm this isn't going to be wrapped up at all. Then bam!! You have to wait another week to see what happens next! Anyways, prepare yourself for another long post because I can't seem to keep these short, and I'm sorry.

Day two...hmm. Well yeah we woke, a bit cold, but both excited to be alive. We cruised over to our food sling and found that despite everything we had heard that night that it was in fact, still intact, and without any sorts of animal tracks. I actually thought I saw one odd looking footprint but it turned out to just be Jasons shoe smeared a bit. The morning brought an awesome sunrise to us and the pics don't do it justice. We thought we were in the perfect spot for some killer pics but the sun managed to fool our instincts and come up to the right of the mountains.

Breakfast was quick and easy. Bran muffins, yum yum. I love them, and ate two to Jasons one. Next we proceeded to pack up our campsite, without speaking more than 10 words the entire time. Jason and I worked like clockwork. It was as if our ESP powers were screaming loud and clear. I don't know how long it took, because I don't wear a watch when camping (who does, really...) but I swear we were packed up and ready to go before that bear behind the bush was finished taking a dookie! JK, no bear sightings yet.

We cruised up to this place called "Lovers Trail" as I mentioned before. Most popular trail in the area. I found this to be pretty funny because when Jason and I were painting houses together our boss used to call us the "gay duo". So here we were the gay duo heading up to hike lovers trail, hoohhaww.

The weather had taken a turn. I was pleased that it was cooler because I sweat and warm up pretty easily, however, it was really starting to threaten rain. I didn't have nifty rain gear like jason and his water PROOF titanium columbia jacket, but then again what are we, little fruity wimps that even need rain proof jackets? :) JK Jason. After memorizing the map, which was horrible by the way, we headed out onto the trail which we thought would be either 7 miles round trip or 7 miles one way to this cabin up in the hills. Either way, we were going to go for a few hours and then turn back because the last thing we wanted to do was find and setup camp in the dark.

The trail was cool. At first, I was all eyes and ears making sure we didn't run into a bear and spook it into bear hugging us. As the miles wore down our bodies though, our focus became less and less for bear watching and more of just getting up that trail! Towards the end it got steep enough that stairs were made out of the rocks to help hikers. Also, the higher we got the colder and windier it got! I had three layers on and was fine but with the way things were going, I couldn't help imagine us getting stuck in a storm and ending up on an episode of, "I shouldn't be alive"!

Boy the trail was scenic though, almost taking away the pain of hiking. The forest was full of both deciduous and fir trees which created a beautiful yellow/orange/red and green array of colors. We couldn't hear a thing from the outside world, I mean this was wilderness baby! It was pretty cool.

Near the top we came to a meadow and an area with benches around a fire. It looked like a popular spot to hang out with hippies and smoke the reefer. Only when we found it, there was nobody there, not even an old marshmellow wrapped up in some dirt. This bothered us a bit...I mean, here we were, hiking just fine out into the wilderness on a nice weekend, and nobody else was here? Were we missing something? Was there supposed to be a blizzard coming through at 6000 feet that is going to put us on ice?

At this point we almost turned back. We had been hiking for roughly 2 hours and knew that pretty soon we would have to turn back to have enough time to scout out a new campsite and setup before dark. It also hard started to drizzle a bit. Not being ones to puss out when the going got tough, we decided to press on for at least 20 more minutes.

We were lucky, because after roughly another 200 yards we came to the cabin! The cabin was a bust though, all boarded up, worthless to us. However, the view was great. The marble mountain posed in front of us majestically as we took it in. We could see the trees thin towards the top of them and knew we were high. The wind started to pick up and snow began to fall. We stopped to eat cold meatloaf in tortillas and reveled in our accomplishments. But for Jason, it was not enough.

Jason has this weird thing that he explained to me as an urge to reach the highest point. For the most part, he wanted to do this in his truck, but now that we were at the cabin, he really wanted a few more hours to go explore up to the top of the marble mountains. Unfortunately, we couldn't...the rest and food had made us cold and the conditions were getting worse. I had three layers on but was beginning to shiver! We had to head down now...

The snow turned to rain as our elevation decreased and what used to be a nice little drizzle turned into quite the downpour. Rain began flowing down the path, eroding little streaks of water into the landscape and making it slippery to navigate some portions. The canopy was not thick enough in most places to stop it, and I began to get pretty dang wet. I had a wool button up shirt on the outside, cotton long sleeve as a middle layer, and a wick-away shirt under that. I was warm, just wet!

Soon enough, water was everywhere, running down my face, neck, nose. Spots on my pants got wet as they were continuously exposed to the rain while walking, and I could feel the water soaking into my outer layer pretty bad. No worries, though, I'm an oregonian right? :)

We reached the base of the trail in good time and tried to figure out where we had hiked and how far by looking at the map. Like I mentioned earlier, the map sucked and so we couldn't figure out either. Next on the agenda was finding a new campsite! Not that the old one wasn't good but Jason wanted to explore the other side of the mountain range we were on and I had to oblige. I'm not gonna hold a man back...it took a long time though, lol.

We wandered down the face of the mountain on back roads, then split off up into the hills on the other side. The problem we encountered though was that with the conditions of where the roads were, there weren't a lot of eligible campsites. We wanted cover from the elements, flat ground, and then perhaps another magnificent view. Most of the places on the sides of this road we were on, were steep, with wimpy pine trees. Plus the road went higher and higher, and that made it windier and colder!

Finally, our "view" dreams had to be compromised. The sun was setting behind the dark clouds and light from it began to dwindle. We had seen a spot down low on the mountain next to a creek that we though might provide us with at least 2 of our three reqs and so we headed down to check it out further and make our camp.

Well it turned out to be a perfect spot. Pat ourselves on the back for just being perfect campsite pick-er-outers! The tree cover was great, but the rain had permeated so thoroughly through that it was now throwing big droplets down onto us. Our first engineering task was to setup a tarp to keep our new found home dry. Under any other circumstances, I believe this would have proved difficult. However, with Jasons civil engineering background and my mechanical engineering skills, well this was just another day at the office.

As you can see from the pics, it turned out pretty good. The tarp spread over a sizable portion of ground space, in which we were able to place our tent and gear. The fire pit, which was bigger and better this time around, was on the fringe as to not choke us with smoke all night....or so we thought. Seemingly the only thing we hadn't thought of was wind direction. The wind ended up blowing away from our fringe fire, right into the rest of our covered area which meant our faces and tent! Eventually, after a few more adjustments to the rain tarp, we were able to sit comfortably apart from each other and watch the smoke go between us.

Actually jason was able to sit comfortably. My chair had gotten all wet and I was having a heck of a time getting it dry! I ended up mostly just using the cooler to rest my buns on. Jason made stroganoff for dinner, one of my old favorites from college, and I ate about twice as much as him once again.

The weird thing about the campsite was that with all the large droplets of water falling, it always seemed to sound like a bear or deer was coming up on us from behind, which would be the steep rocky grade going up to another road. I swear, it was like rocks were cascading down a hill all the time. We looked and looked and there was never anything there! Talk about screwing with your mind!

The evening wore on and we quickly became bored with the smoke, rain, and being damp. We decided to turn in for the night and retire to the warmth and comfort of a 15F sleeping bag and an air mattress. I pulled myself away from the wall of the tent so that I wouldn't get wet through the night and focused on not trying to let the sounds of the rain and night trick me into being frightened. I chose to suck it up that night, rather than freak out the night before and it worked well. Jason and I slept roughly 12 hours!

Jason really wanted to call in sick for Tuesday and stay another night out there with me. There was lots more exploring to be done, hiking, and fighting the elements. These are all the sorts of things that make you feel like a man and we liked that feeling. Plus, you couldn't beat the camaraderie and respect we had for each other. Oh...and not to mention the fluid way this "gay duo" just works.

Jason if you're readin this I love you man, and next up - the Rockies!

-Travis

Denver Apartment Pictures

2007-10-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

Camping with Jason

2007-10-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

I'll write more later about this adventure!

So this was the last weekend before we will have moved and I wanted to get some good hang out time with my main man Jason. For those of you who don't know, I have two really long time friends. On, Chris, whom I've known since like 1st grade or something, and the other is Jason, whom I've known since 7th grade. Really good guys, really good friends.

Jason and I met up in Yreka which I'm not sure how to pronounce because the founders of that city seemed to spell it wrong. Its interesting because a little more east is the other yreka (Eureka). Anyways, we met up there, got all my gear packed into Jasons truck and headed up into the wilderness.

The first idea was to go to some mountain and hike it. This was Jasons idea and I'm glad it did not come to fruitition because that peak was over 9,000 ft and I'm not entirely sure we would have made it! The problem we had was we had no map and couldn't find anybody or anyplace in town that was selling maps with the fireroads and service roads in the area. So we had no clue how to get anywhere. Even the dang ranger station was closed!

After driving around for about an hour and half we decided we didn't like the area so we changed up the plan and headed for the scott creek, salmon river area. We drove and drove and drove up high into the hills on dirt roads looking for a cool spot to camp. We wanted a view site, and weren't having very much luck until we cruised down an overgrown road off of another service road, off of another road. We had no clue where we were but we managed to find a sweet spot with a view of what we thought would be a sunrise in the morning. Despite the numerous cow pies, the site was perfect.

The one thing that the ranger station had lots of was bear brochures and warnings. We read them, and decided to put our engineering know how to good use! According to the wildlife professionals, our bear basket should be suspended 10 ft in the air, and at least 4 feet from either of the trees. The picture presented to us was a simple system. Throw a rope over a branch and pull the basket up. Well, the trees in the area didn't have any branches like shown! So the brochure was pretty much good for nothing. As you can see in the pics, we managed to string up a pretty good setup, which we placed our food in at night.

Bears were constantly on Jasons mind and he made both of us paranoid. With a campfire our viewing distance was like, 10ft if that. Pitch black and our ears began to trick is. We heard lots of sticks being broke and our minds got crazy on us. We decided to point the truck towards the road in case we had to have a quick getaway. We didn't have a gun or anything and hoped our bear basket thingy was good enough to keep them either away, or busy enough to let us get away! Did you know bears can climb trees and run up to 35 MPH?

The first night I slept very little. Jason snored the night away. Between his snoring, bear sounds, and my dreams I didn't sleep very well. When the morning came I was ready to go though! Today was hiking day.

A quick breakfast and packing up camp took us on our way to "Lovers Camp" which was a trailhead for one of the most used trails in the area. Don't know what it was but we went on it...remember we had no maps this entire time.

Power Family Trip

2007-09-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

The Power Family Trip

2007-09-29T17:20:00.000-07:00

There is so much that has been going on over the past few weeks that it is hard to post all the time. Right now Travis is out camping with Jason at Marble Mountain out past Yreka. I am so glad he was able to get away and hang out with Jason before we moved. We just celebrated our one year anniversary, though it was very basic it was great to get an evening together and be able to celebrate it with each other. I thought a long time about what I wanted to get Trav and with the move we don't need just thinga. I decided to bring the Blazers to Travis, with NBA League Pass and on every Blazer game night he gets free reign of the TV. So he is excited to be able to watch the Blazers. :) Trav got me a great new watch, as mine had finally bit the dust and well I just haven't wanted to spend the money to get myself a new one.

After our anniversary dinner the weekend was just beginning. Trav's whole family came into town to visit us. It was a busy and fun filled weekend. We did all the tourist things like the Cable Cars, Ghiradelli Square, the Cannery, Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge. Also in addition to the tourist things, Trav's gift from his parents was dinner and a night out doing anything he wanted. So Trav picked this fantastic restaurant called Ana Mandara in Ghirardelli Square. It was French Gourmet meets Vietnamese. It was wonderful and a great treat from Travis's family. The night out was a hillarious comedy show with Tammi Pascatelli from Last Comic Standing. See her if you ever can. LOL

It was so great to spend the weekend with Travis' family and luckily they planned it for right before we moved, so we announced it at dinner on Saturday night. LOL It went over well and they seem really excited which makes me happy and him happy which is even better. So now we are down to six days till we move and I can not be more excited and so happy. I really feel like this next move is the settle down place. The save for a down payment, get a dog and not move again for a long time place.

So as things develop and we move and I get new pictures I will post them. And so until then I will be enjoying my chick flicks, my runs, some work and probably packing. :)

Pictures from Colorado Trip

2007-09-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! So it has been a rough night tonight and because when someone (Grandpa) gets home from the hospital I wanted him to have some new pictures to look at from our Labor Trip to Colorado and the area we are moving to. So Dad and Mom I would love it if you could show him these. :) Thanks!!!

Workin out...

2007-09-13T13:11:00.001-07:00

I'm glad to see Pam posted...yeah its been a bit crazy lately, but I had started to think my writing had suddenly silenced everyone!

Anyways, a little bit about workin out.

About a year and a half ago I underwent surgery on my lower back. I had a herniated disc, disc bulge, disc contusion whatever the heck you want to call it. For about 6 months it was very painful. My disc had blown out into the nerve bundles that ran down the backs of my legs. The pressure put a constant pain down my left one when walking, and would just got worse as time went by. Eventually I was hopped up on vicodin for the last 3 months there, and it was still pretty painful.

My health had slowly been in decline over the past few years, though. By the time I was a junior in college I had ballooned to a husky 225 lbs, gaining 20 lbs over my first 6 month internship. Sitting behind a computer 8 hrs for work, and then at least another 4 afterwards playing games, or watching TV was doing a number on my waistline. The number 38 to be exact. So after graduating I had joined a gym and was determined to get back in shape, not just to look better but to feel better...and attract the chicks!

Unfortunately for me, my lower body fell apart. It wasn't any moment in particular, just prolonged bad posture, a lot of driving and slouching, and also I think the stress of working out. During those 6 months of inactivity I went from 200 lbs to 190lbs, losing 10 lbs of muscle. I let 3 months pass before heading back to the gym, this time being very, very careful what exercises I did to limit pressure on my spinal column. It was pretty depressing at first, only being able to lift like 60% of what I was doing previously!

Well here I am today, a "svelt" (as my aunt puts it) 187 lbs. Strangely enough, 187 is obese for my frame according to the worlds BMI standards. So for all you people out there that are using weight, waist size, etc...basically any standardized number to gauge your body against, DON'T! In addition, what you may think attractive is, probably isn't what others may think...so when you start thinking am I overweight, or whatever ask yourself how you feel and how you think you look. Try and achieve what you think is cool, rather than being stuck on numbers.

Whats worked for me...

Unlike Pam, who seems to be like a freaking die hard, gym rat, I don't like spending hours in the gym. I've got better things to do than to lift weights with a bunch of smelly, sweaty guys, who grunt and flex into mirrors. So I always try and limit my visit to the gym to around an hour. After about 35 minutes of lifting your body start to lose its gains anyways, so get in, get out, add some cardio at the end too.

I also picked a muscle group that I really wanted to develop and made that the primary focus of my workout. Why? Well, because that area that I wanted to build up, would see the most gains, and therefore excite me to keep going. I picked chest and starting doing a lot more bench, declined bench, dips, and flys. Now I've got a decent size pillow for Pam to lay her head on! Obviously you're not going to just to chest in the gym, as this would basically create an unproportional body and look funny...however, if I were to blast one area on the body, I would blast the chest...Now that I'm fairly happy about that, I'm trying to focus more on my delts and lats so that if frames my upper body better.

Set goals, but don't make them too big... You want a goal that is easy enough to attain in a short time, but not so easy that it doesn't make you try hard. Without goals though, you're just going to the gym. Set goals and make a plan to get there. Do some sets to find a max weight and then set a goal up a few pounds depending on what exercise. If its walking, maybe its going to the same distance but at a larger incline.

Mix it up. I've read some articles on the importance of mixing it up. The body is smart, and it will adjust eventually to anything and everything you do. If you constantly lift 8-12 reps you're gonna plateau. Mix it up...change the reps to 15-20 and do lighter weight, or 4-7 with lots of weight. Do different exercises like I discovered the freemotion cable machine that is pretty cool. If you're on a machine, you move to the same exercise but with free weights or a less assisted motion. The body starts to use more of the stabilizing muscles and you'll get a new burn.

I also tried to get into swimming...its a little hard here because most people at the pool do breast stroke, which basically takes up the entire lane and goes very slow. Also a popular thing is to bob up and down the pool which also takes up quite a bit of room in the lanes. Swimming has been really good though cardiovascularly (very challenging to say the least) as well as good at stretching and developing of the abdominal muscles.

Form when lifting is way more important than weight. Who cares if the muscle head next to you is trying to curl 60 lb dumbells. You could too if you thrust with your legs and back like he's doing.

Anyways, didn't mean for this to turn into a freaking how-to or motivational speech! All this to say that I've been taking this whey protein supplement to try and encourage muscle growth. I'm not interested in being so muscle bound I can't wipe my own you know what, but I'd like to see a bit more definition. Anyways, did some research and your muscles need like a gram of protein per lb of body weight. So I need 185 grams of protein a day? WHAT!

One scoop of this whey stuff is like 24 grams. I woke up this morning and decided that have a scoop with my oatmeal. I do not reccomend it, at all. I choked about 3/4 of it down and thats all I could handle. So nasty. Then I went hungry because I hadn't eaten enough breakfast...just a bad start to a day.

So to sum the last 1105 words up, go work out but don't put whey protein powder in with your oatmeal. Bet you wish I had put this at the top of the post, huh.

Moving Again

2007-09-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

So here is the latest news. I just got back from another work trip to Irvine, but this this time I had a second stop, Denver. I will officially now be transferring to our Denver office, in THREE WEEKS! SO I have lots of pictures to post for everyone to see and I will fill everyone in tonight. I got home late last night and they left my bag in Denver so I am a bit empty handed and need to get an early start for work. I love you all and miss everyone!!!!

Camping over yonder...

2007-08-21T10:43:00.001-07:00

Well I'm a little bit dissapointed with the font selection for the blogs...I just used all of them and I'm not satisfied with any of the choices. I think I'll pick courier because I used to watch Jim Courier play tennis when I was young...

The magnum was packed to the hilt. Pam had decided it would be best to carpool, and so we had two friend, Tim and Cathy, in the backseat joining us. They had a lot of stuff...I tried to shake off flashbacks of driving the U-Haul 600 miles down here 6 months ago while we headed down the street to the highway.

Slowly, and when I say slowly I mean, SLOWLY, we entered the mass of people heading towards Tracy on East 580. The time was 4:11. I began to wonder if all these people commute all the way into the city every single day. What a depressing thought, to have to sit in traffic and waste away precious hours out of the day. Hours that you could be spending with your wife, kids, dog, hampster, or just plain by yourself in a happy place, rather than in a car on a hot freeway. If only we had communicated better, I thought, we might have been able to get on this road 30 minutes ago and avoided some of the rush.

I manually shifted through the gears to ease the use of my brakes. The magnum almost felt a bit sluggish being settled with camping gear and 4 people but as a tradeoff it looked a little more sleek. The weight had dropped it about 7/16ths of an inch. I had hoped it would have dropped more so that I could see what some new sport springs would do to the stance but I hadn't been so lucky.

One by one we began to see cars on the side of the road. Some just seeming to be sitting there, broken down. Others had a few marks from accidents. Some people looked like they had just stopped on the side of the road because they were tired and wanted to switch drivers. Let me get one thing straight...if you're driving in California and your car is powering down the street on its own, you SHALL NOT at any time stop your car on any freeway, even if you are way over on the shoulder. People are stupid and no matter what, they will slow down, look, rubber neck, look back and slam on their brakes because they weren't paying attention. The ripple effect spreads back from that point and suddenly you've got thousands of people who just want to get out of town for a simple camping trip but are now STUCK in YOUR traffic!