The Weekend

Well I got home from Grand Junction on Tuesday night after a long and sometimes scary drive. Zach and I went to Grand Junction on Sunday for his State 3A Marching competition. The drive over was uneventful though a bit slow following the bus. We got to the hotel and the kids had a chance to relax and hang out. The next morning we got up to pouring rain. Not good for new uniforms and instruments. We later found out that the event was postponed for 2 hours and the semi finals and the finals would become just the finals. We did not have to compete till the afternoon so we took the kids to a local mall and let them eat and look around a bit. Then we took them to the stadium to watch some of the other band perform before getting ready to perform themselves. All the while I am worried about my daughter, Amanda, as she and her college band, CSU Pueblo, are traveling in to be the exhibition band for this event. They were coming over highway 50 over Monarch Pass, which had snow the night before. I find out later that the bus began to slide off the road a couple of times and had to stop and put chains on. Finally they make to Grand Junction to perform. I got see a few of the 3A bands perform and watched as one of them got snowed on as the were on the field. I watched our band perform and then had to go and get a couple of our kids changed to perform with the CSUP band. Some of our high school kids also perform with the college band. They even get college credit for it. Well anyway we ended up get 8th place this year but that is not bad. This was the first time in about 7 years that we have even gone to the state competition.I did not get any still pictures of them because of the rain but I did get a video of them. After finishing up on Monday we returned to the hotel to watch the weather for the next day to see which way we will go. It is almost winter you know and we are in the mountains at that time. We find out that we are supposed to get 10 to 12 inches of snow overnight on Vail Pass. We think that it will be alright to go that way since it will be better maintained than over Monarch Pass. Wrong!! The storm did not move out as fast as we thought and did not do as much damage over Monarch. The kids left the hotel about 30 to 40 minutes before I did and me in my infinite wisdom thought that I would catch up to them. Wrong again!! This is what I was driving though as I approached Vail Pass.

Not even close to what I will be driving through in about 40 minutes time. I finally get to Vail Pass and find that it is CLOSED!! I am thinking what do I do now. So I make some calls and let a few people know what is going on and find a Mc Donalds and sit and wait. Luckily the bus made it through before it was closed but several other bus loads of kids were not so lucky. After about an hour and a half I give it another try and the road is back open so I continue on. I make it up the west side of the pass with no problems but as I go down the east side things get worse. It is snow packed and slick. I spend the next hour going about 15 to 20 miles an hour and playing dodge the cars and trucks in the middle of the road that have stopped and started sliding backwards. All the while hoping that if I do have to stop completely that I can get moving again. Well I finally made it through the storm and the rest of the way home. Believe me I do not want to do that again any time soon. Keep safe this winter and stay close to home if you can.

Were has the time gone??

I just looked at the date of my last post and I can not believe where the time has gone. I keep telling myself that I will get to it but I guess that I have not gotten to it so here it is. A brief recap. Last weekend we went to the cabin to try to get finished up with the last of the finish work on the cabin. We got most of it done but ran out of time. We also helped the neighbors to catch their escaped horses. One little mare got her hoof stuck in the cattle guard at the neighbors place. They had to call out a vet to sedate her and then the welder could cut through the steel pipe that they used for the guard. While my husband was helping with that I helped chase down the rest of the horses. We managed to catch 7 of them before we had to leave. The others caught the rest of them with saddled horses. It was an event, and got to met some of the neighbors. We have snow on the tops of the Mountians now and the weather was in the 30's in the mornings while we were there.
We have been going to football games and watching our kids in the marching bands. Zach, the youngest, just found out a couple of days ago that they made it to the State Marching Competition and he is jazzed. This is the first time it has happened for his school. So it looks like I will be in Grand Junction next weekend. Will post pictures of that later. Ivan, the St Bernard, had to go to the vet on Wednesday. We made the decision to have him neutered. We thought about using for stud but decided that it would be easier all around not to so he got to go to the doctor and have the snip snip. Both of the boys are now neutered and I like it that way. They are just family pets not show dogs and it is healthier for them. I have a wedding to go to this weekdend. My best friend in high school is getting married. Looking forward to see her and her family again. We don't get to see each other very often. Wel I guess that is all for now. Keep checking to see what is going on and I will try to write a little more often. Till next time stay warm.