Well here we are with the holidays all gone by and what a crazy bunch of holidays they were. The festivities kicked off the week before thanksgiving with Lou getting laid off. This may seem like a bad thing but let me tell you what he was more relieved than anything. This allowed for plenty of time to thoroughly enjoy a thanksgiving week in Las Vegas and Boulder. We set off to meet up with Keith, Jake, Graham, Pete, and Garret. Good times ensued fueled by 5 gallons of hard apple cider, great climbing at red rocks, gambling, and vegas shows.

Lou, throwing a sick dino to finish off a climb.
Jaz showing off her awesome arms.

Graham looking oh so aesthetic for the camera.

Somehow we never managed to get a group picture but this was such an awesome weekend. We had people coming in from 4 different states to hang out and climb. I will surely be trying to organize trips like this in the future.

Next we loaded up our little jetta with 4 people and all of there gear and headed for the mountains. Somehow we managed to get it all actually in the car without strapping anything on the top. That left precious little room inside but jake and keith did great job of folding themselves up to about half of there size to make it work. The drive ended with meeting up with a whole new group of people in Boulder, Alison, Melanie, Josh, Ashley, and Bro. Dinner was hot and ready when we got there which was awesome and the evening rapidly progressed through eating, drinking, dancing, and game playing. Just one more late night. The next day thanksgiving was upon us and everyone did there part to prepare a wonderful feast.

Josh and Ashley deep frying the turkey. Jaz and I had never had a deep fried turkey and it was great. I will certainly be doing this more in the future. It also takes way less time than baking one. The rest of the weekend got rounded out with a little more climbing, chasing after elk in RMNP (which is probably a big no no but we did have a bonified biologist with us, i.e. jazzi), and the ususal friends, games, and good eats.

Lou on lead in Mesa Verde canyon outside of Boulder. Running after elk in the snow. This was super fun. I almost botched up the whole thing from the start by basically running right at them. I had lots to learn about the capabilities of elk. They are no dumb animals that is for sure.


Jaz and Mel in Rocky Mountain National Park.

It was back to the reality of school for jaz once we returned to california and back to job hunting for lou. After about a week of solid looking I determined that no jobs were going to be landed until after the new years. Well I got antzy pretty quick so the decision was pretty easy to start the Christmas vestivaties early. I bought a ticket and headed to Homer, AK for the next three weeks. Aside from general relaxing in the hot tube, eating ice-cream, skiing, and watching movies I was rather productive. I made about 1000 gallons of wine and helped my brother and sister in laws frame in there portch for there new house. That is right they are building a house in alaska in the winter. Not such a big deal if you are working on the inside but we weren't.


Lou dressed for home building in the winter cold of Alaska.
A posotively breathtaking january skyline in Homer, AK.