My Christmas Tree!

I finally put up the tree today!  Since my parents were coming out to Denver this year I thought I would splurge and get a tree.  I never thought finding the perfect tree was going to be so difficult.  I spent what seemed like hours standing in front of the wrapping paper display at Walmart until this color jumped out at me.  It was perfect!  Everything I had hoped and dreamed the perfect Christmas Tree would look like!  I hope it brings you as much joy as it does me!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Quest for the Series!

It's an exciting time for the people of Colorado right now.  Why?  The Rockies are in the playoffs!  Thanks to a friend of mine I was able to get a couple of tickets for the Division Series on October 6th and my dad was able to come out and go to the game with me! 

Here are a few pictures of the deciding win that allowed the Rockies to go to the National League Championship Series!

We went early and watched batting practice.  If you  look close you can see the mountains on the left side.

Here is the beautiful field before the game.

Me and Dad before the game.  Thanks for coming!

This is during the National Anthem "and the rockets red glare"

The Rockies take the field for the first time!

ROCKTOBER!  My favorite month!

In the middle of the game the stadium lights went out for 14 minutes.  Everyone wanted to take pictures in the dark.

8th inning excitment!  The Rockies were up to bat with the game tied at 1 and our MVP candidate Matt Holliday on second base.  Holliday eventually scored the go ahead run and brooms were all over as the Rockies were about to sweep the series three games to none.

This was the top of the 9th with Ryan Howard up to bat.  He was the National League MVP last year...for this at bat he struck out!

Here's the final out!  The Rockies are going to the National League Championship Series!

VICTORY!

On the video screen you can see the players celebrating in the locker room!

This was the first playoff game of any kind I have been to and the atmosphere was amazing!  People were chanting throughout the game and waving their Rockies towels.  What an incredible experience!  For all of my Kansas City friends don't give up on the Royals!  This could happen to you someday!

Right now the Rockies are up three games to none against the Diamondbacks in the NLCS and only one win away from going to the World Series!  They are also 20-1 in their last 21 games!

GO ROCKIES!

Katrina Part II

Here are some random pictures of New Orleans.

You see these signs all over the place.  People are advertising to gut out your house.  You can also see a huge tree falling over.

There is stuff spray painted on all the houses.  I forget what it all meant but it had the date that the house was checked and if there were any dead people or dead animals inside.

You can see some FEMA trailers down the street.  There weren't very many trailers compared to the number of houses.

Many of the houses had notices on the door.  It was mostly general info in case the owners returned.

This was a house that had the windows partially knocked out so I stuck my camera in the window.  We were there four months later and most of the houses weren't even touched.

This used to be a garage before it collapsed on itself.  We took the roof apart and everything that was inside it to the street.

Here is the garage in a big pile in front of the house.

Notice the two refrigerators that are taped up.  It only took one time of opening up a fridge for everyone to understand that it's not a good idea to do that.  Let's just say four month old milk and seafood isn't the greatest of smells!

They had to gut out the church like everyone else.

We had a lot of prayer those few days!

Break time!  You could hardly breath in the homes from the mildew and mold so getting some fresh air was always welcome.

Here is a video of the kitchen and living room of a house we worked on.  All the furniture was trashed and all over the place.  You can see the water line on the wall.

This is after we gutted the house and took out all the drywall and cabinets.  I walk through the same kitchen and living room  They still had their car in the garage when the flood came.

Finally, a spooky walk down the street of an abandoned neighborhood.

People would go to the church and sign up to have their homes gutted.  It was a pretty humbling experience going into the homes of these people.  You walk/break into these homes and take all of their personal belongings and throw it in a big trash pile in the front yard by the street.  You basically take their life and throw it away.  Chairs, tables, TV's, blankets, plates, spices, wedding pictures, photo albums, birthday cards all gone.  Everything that makes a house a home is tossed away.  I haven't reached the point in my life where I have a lot of stuff and I'm not sure I ever want to get there.  I guess the longer you have stuff, the more important stuff becomes, and the less likely you are to get rid of your stuff.  Walking through these neighborhoods really amazed me how much stuff people had.  Through this whole experience of throwing people's lives away I kept remembering the saying "Home is where the heart is" and then I would add "not where your stuff is".  These people lost a lot of things but at least they still had their family.  It's a lot easier to replace the family photo album than it is to replace the family.

Hurricane Katrina 2005

Two years have passed since Katrina ripped through New Orleans so I thought I would share my experience of going down there in December '05 and helping with the relief effort.  There were about 25-30 people from three churches here in Colorado that took a long road trip (24 hour drive) to the Tammany Oaks Church of Christ in Mandeville, LA.  They turned their church into a volunteer relief station so that people from all over the country could stay at their church and help with the relief effort.

One of our first assignments was to work on Katie's house.  She just bought her first home and was ready to move in the same weekend the storm hit.  With the help of her brothers she stained the hardwood floors that ran throughout the house.  She still had tape around the windows from a fresh coat of paint.

This is Katie

This is her three bedroom house.  You can see the water line half way up the windows.

This is the living room.  All of the wood floors were warped beyond repair so we had to rip them all up.

This is the kitchen.  We took out all the cabinets, drywall, and insulation throughout the house because everything was covered in mold.

One of the bedrooms.  No that's not a fancy paint job, it's mold.  New windows were still wrapped up waiting to be installed.

This was after we gutted the house.

Everything in the house turns into huge piles outside.  The city would eventually pick it up.

More to come later, here is a teaser...

Vail Pass Bike Ride

A few of us from church decided to take a trip to the mountains and go for a bike ride this weekend.  The weather was perfect with nothing but blue skies and made for a beautiful ride.  We started at Vail Pass which is a few miles past Copper Mountain and finished 13 miles later in Frisco. 

Riding through the valley.

We rode through Copper Mountain ski resort.  Ski in the winter, golf in the summer!

Looking back at Copper.

I wanted to ride up this mountain but no one else was interested.