portaledge

After visiting the American Mountaineering Museum today in Golden, Colorado. I decided what I wanted to make my permanent home. For people exploring the big wall climbing experience, these trips can take many days to weeks of climbing. In this case sleep in necessary. There is this neat contraption called a portaledge. This is something similar to a tent which you hook into the rock with a caribbeaner. Here you can have the opportunity to get a good nights sleep while strapped in to your harness, the tent, and the wall. The idea of sleeping thousands of feet off the ground hanging by a fierce piece of metal inspires me.

leprosy

i have a bad sunburn. it doesnt hurt so much anymore but it looks pretty gross. on saturday i went rock climbing in the hot sun for six hours while none of us brought sun screen. of course i burned the most thanks to my fair alaskan skin. i learned my lesson though. and it will never happen again. my friend gabe sunburned his face too while camping that same day. here is a picture of our disaster. although this does not capture how it really looks.

another sunny day in colorado-ay

Ahhhh life.

My best friend Laura left a couple of days ago but it was amazing to have her here. After just doing YWAM (youth with a mission) in Australia and Indonesia, she finally made it back to America where she traveled from California, to Arizona (with some car trouble), to New Mexico (with some bus trouble), and finally to the fine state of Colorado. Having her here was the biggest joy in my life. Officially the longest we have ever been apart (a whopping 8 months!)it was amazing to see her.

The first time I ever came to Colorado I was with her. It was twice in one summer, the first for a wedding and the second on a road trip tom petty concert with her, her mom, and her sister. Therefore, we have many memories in this great state and it was so nice to relive them.

She was able to stay in my apartment. We had the opportunity to do some fun stuff; meet my friends, travel Lakewood, the Whole Foods experience, go to church, and the best day by far was Boulder.

The day in Boulder started off with us eating breakfast at Burnt Toast, my favorite restaurant in the entire world. The first time I actually found out about it was with her family when her mom pulled the car over and asked some biker where a good place to eat breakfast was. After that we went to Pearl Street where we walked around, we did more admiring of people than actually shopping. It was a beautiful day (beautiful enough to get sunburned) and the live music was exquisite. By far our favorite was this comical older man playing classic rock songs on the piano. After that we drove up near the flat irons and over the mountain for a beautiful view of the grand rocky mountains and the boulder valley. A few days later she left me, but it was really so amazing to have her here. So if any of you get the chance to come this way, I am a great tour guide and can get you to all the hot spots :)

As for everything else. There is only three weeks of school left. My life will be filled by trying to write last minute papers, a power point project, three finals, packing up my room, and squeezing in as much rock climbing possible before I have to take a break from the sport for a full 27 days. I leave for Romania in 22 days. I posted a clock on my blog so that once I finally leave you will be able to assume what I'm doing at the current time, as there is a 9 hour time difference. I finally got my schedule for the trip and it seems as if every minute of every day is planned. I learned that we will not just be working at one orphanage but 5 different ones all run by the same organization. Our team has also split into two teams so that we can spend more time at the different locations. I'm getting nervous and excited. Although many of you wont here from me during that month, I will be keeping a journal over there and will be sure to post some of my entries on here when I return.

Th-th-th-th-th-th-thats all folks.

life as of april 7, 2008

after wednesday i am home free. i will turn in my 15 page research paper and hopefully get the best grade that is possible for me. i dont know exactly what that grade will be, but at least this paper that i have put like 100 hours into will be complete. wednesday at noon will be the best day of my life. well one of many.

i got some climbing gear which i am soooooo excited about and can not wait to try out tonight. of course the weather yesterday was hot sunny bright and 80 degrees and today it was 30 and snowy and rainy and dark so i cant climb outside but hopefully on wednesday.

i also found out that i can live on campus this summer!!! they have housing and i am very excited about it. my plans are slightly changing. i get back from romania june seventh and then i think i will just stay living in colorado at school until the middle of august. then i will be able to get a job for a couple months (hopefully at a coffee shop) and i will still be able to hang out with my friends, do outdoorsy things, and enjoy the hot hot colorado sun. and then in august i will go back to alaska for about a week around the 8th. then i will go to seattle where i will meet up with laura and her family where we will then see tom petty in concert and then a week later jack johnson and then a day or two later i will start school!!!!!!!!!!!! great sounding summer huh?

ALSO: i got all of the money for my trip to ROMANIA. i am even 75 over. how exciting is this. i was also the first person on our team completed with all of our moeny. im working away trying to come up with some fun crafts for the orphans because thats surprisingly what im in charge of- thanks mom for my great crafting ability-not! that didnt come from you, im not that good.

i <3 colorado

i love colorado. but i dont love the people.

i dont really know how else to put it, but ill leave it at that for now.

clear water creek- the water that fuels the nearby coors factory...

yesterday i went rock climbing for my first time ever outside and it was the most amazing thing i have ever done in my life. my friend aaron and i went to clear water creek where we hiked up a little bit. the first route he lead belayed where he climbed up and hooked in carabiners and put the rope through them to make a top rope. i attempted to climb this one when he got back but it was a little difficult for my first beginner time so i came back down. we walked up to a little area and the top of the pitch. here there was not very much room to stand so we locked ourselves into the things on the rock. here we did the same thing again where i belayed him while he hooked in the things. this route was much easier and so much fun. when i got to the top just looking so far down and seeing the road and the river it was so cool. so we both climbed to the top of that pitch and came to an extremely hard route which i belayed aaron on. it was seriously the coolest thing ever. from there we went back down. first he lowered himself and then i got to lower myself which was so amazing. im seriously still on an adrenaline rush from yesterday. i wish i had some pictures to show how cool it was but maybe next time. mom and dad dont freak out, it sounds scary but its not that bad and it is really safe if you do everything right, which i am. we take all of the precautions and do everything in the safest way possible. it is really the most amazing thing ever, and i think you should all give it a try.

spring break alright

it has been quite the week... i dont even know what to say but it feels like it is officially the longest week ever. it started two wednesdays ago where after class i went to the rock gym and was able to go top lining (rock climbing with ropes) for one of my first times. i have been bouldering (climbing with no ropes) the last couple weeks so this was a nice change. i was able to learn a lot from my friend and also get belaying certified, which i was pretty excited about. on thursday i skipped the last day or school before break to go for a nice day of snowboarding. this trip was the most eventful by far because due to traffic and stops i had the ability with a friend to have a dance party (yes a dance party) in the middle of I-70 with some random people from alabama. it was the most amazing experience of my life. it wasnt dirty dancing, dont get me wrong family, but just a little harmless dance moves to some techno coldplay. this event was seen by many cars around us and even by soem guy videoing us on his iphone- that was a little creepy.

friday i left for good old seattle where i would spend the next few days with me mama and my cousin katie. this trip was pretty fun but also had a lot of downtime which was good. we got to eat at a number of delicious restaurants, which i am now thanking myself for at the gym. we also did some fun shopping. my mom and i went to the goodwill outlet (who knew they had them!) here all of the clothes were in giant bins that you had to dig through and was a complete madhouse of people. but the first item i did grab was a polar fleece pink northface jacket, that was in perfect condition. this jacket, normally at 150 dollars, i paid for by the pound which ended up costing me about 88 cents im guessing. the best bargain of my entire life. my other favorite shopping was at rei where i got a sweet sleeping bag (charlotte) which im taking to romania, and also a nice mountaineering backpack, which they molded to my body, also for my trip. and thanks to my new membership and tax exempt, i saved quite a bit of money.

on the trip i also got to see my cousin jason and his two daughters. we drove a hour to get the beautiful town of olympia which was filled with enormous trees and lots of greenery. we went out and had a nice lunch. the girls were so cute and funny it and it was so nice to see them since it has been a number of years.

after the trip i returned back to colorado where i had a nice time. i was alone in my apartment so i got to work on some homework, do some cleaning, get in some nice runs to the park, and also just some down time to watch my new favorite tv show GREEK. it is amazing really. there were some other people im my stairwell so i wasnt completely alone but it was still so refreshing to be back in colorado.

saturday morning, i made the four hour trek west to grand junction to surprise nick for his twentieth birthday. we had a lot of fun and it was so good to see him after a week. the weather was nice the first day so we spent some time outside and with his family. sunday was his birthday so we went out to breakfast with his family and some relatives and then went to his grandmas house to have cake and presents. that night there was an a storm with the most amazingly huge lightening strikes. we were able to watch it from his living room because it has a view of the valley and it was terrifying but beautiful.

this afternoon (monday afternoon) we left to drive back through the pass to denver. after about two hours of driving there were cops lined up blocking of the road. we overheard them saying to someone that there was a bad snow storm and fatal accidents so they had closed off the pass. we called home to see if there was an alternate route but, of course, there was an accident on that road too. so we turned around and drove two hours back to grand junction where we got to at about 7 tonight. we are going to leave around 7 tomorrow morning and hopefully it will be a much easier, and safer, trip.

tonights pretty thrilling though... nick has been writing a paper the last few hours so i have been able to take a nap, watch tv, and get a few other boring tasks out of the way. hahaha..amazing. but despite all of this, it was worth it to come see him. so that was my spring break, and it was extended a few days (which i dont mind) but im still ready to get back home now!