Heart Attacks and Avoiding Homework

Whew! What a week. Not only was I finishing up work for the year, while taking two grad school classes and rehearsing for a play, but then we had some major family health issues that added lots of fear and stress!

I'll start with the big and scary news. Early Thursday morning, Matt's dad woke up with chest pain and pressure. After a trip to the doctor, an ambulance ride to Wichita, and some tests, it was determined that he had had a mild heart attack. In fact, he'd been having a multiple mild heart attacks over the last few weeks. After more tests, they decided that bypass surgery would be necessary. Needless to say, Matt and I got in the car on Friday to join the rest of the family in Wichita.

The great news is that the surgery went really well. It was a double bypass that left Rex feeling pretty crummy. But the recovery has already begun! He got to go home today! Matt's already got his plane tickets to head back out to Kansas this weekend. Unfortunately, I won't be able to join him, but I'm really glad he'll get to spend some time with his dad.

There was quite a crowd there to see Rex into surgery.

In the hospital courtyard, thinking calm thoughts.

Very sad to be leaving family behind, but it was time to head home.

Prior to all the excitement, I had been going crazy trying to get all my homework done. It was becoming so stressful for me, that I decided I needed a break. I took all of last Sunday and played hookie. I didn't do any homework all day!

I went to lunch with my family and played with the youngest nieces. Since my sister never updates her blog, I feel the need to post some pictures of these adorable children of hers.

Evie, eating her spoon. Yum.

Coloring.

Silly!

We rounded out my day of playing hookie with a rousing game of Blokus:

Games are fun!

and buying new patio furniture:

Of course, after a whole day of avoiding homework, I was crazy for the rest of the week trying to get all my homework done and finish at work for the year. But now I can finally be excited that I'm on summer break!

Because the Rocky Mountain Way is better than the way we had...

I don't know what way we had before, but I'm pretty sure the Rocky Mountain Way is better.

A couple of weekends ago, we got our Eagles rock on again by listening to The Long Run, Colorado's Tribute to the Eagles (also known as "my dad's band"). They were playing at a really cool venue called the Soiled Dove Underground here in Denver.

Rockin' out to some Eagles music.

I love seeing live music.

More recently (last weekend), we headed out to experience the real Rocky Mountain Way by going on another hike. This time, my dad came, too! We went up to Eldorado Canyon, which was beautiful, even though we're still waiting for some more green to come in.

Looking through the canyon.

Me. Hiking.

Matt, checking the book. He does this a lot on some hikes.

Cool trail.

We had a pretty good climb up the mountainside.

Up so high, looking down the canyon.

Beautiful snow-capped mountains.

Me and Dad.

Tree growing in the middle of the trail.

The Eldorado Canyon area is also a popular climbing spot. We saw quite a few climbing the Bastille.

The Bastille (or a big rock wall).

Me. This is pretty much as close as I'll get to climbing the Bastille. The heights thing just doesn't work for me.

On the road, walking back to the car.

I absolutely love enjoying our beautiful Rocky Mountains. And no offense, other places, but the Rocky Mountain Way is totally awesome.

I'm awesome... and modest, too!

Tonight, I got this:


So... that's cool.

It's Hiking Season!

I've had this post sitting half-finished for a week! Things have just been completely crazy! I've been finishing one class, starting two more, traveling to multiple schools in my district, and rehearsing for a play. In fact, I only have a few minutes now, so I'm just gonna zoom through this. I hope to spend a little more time updating you all this weekend... We'll see how that goes...

Anyway, a couple of weekends ago, we set out for another Spring hike. We're sticking with familiar and pretty easy trails for now. Green Mountain was a hike we enjoyed a couple of years ago, so we decided to go back.

Things are still pretty cold and dead up in the mountains. But there are pretty things to be found, if you just go look for them. We went looking and saw lots of deer!

At the start of our hike. It was lunch time for some deer.

Deer.

We came across quite a bit of snow on the trail - not enough for snowshoes, but enough to make it a little slippery.

Me, on the snowy trail.

Matt.

The last time we were on Green Mountain, I dubbed it my "fairy forest hike" because every thing was so green that I felt like I was in some sort of enchanted forest. Well, I guess the fairies are still hibernating, because enchanted forests look a lot different in the Spring.

Summer 2008 and early Spring 2010. So different.

Lots of snow. No fairies.

But we were able to get some good views. The distant mountains certainly look prettier with some snow on them.

At the top of the mountain.

And the good news is that I'm in much better shape than I was last time we took this hike. A couple of years ago, I didn't make it all the way to the summit, but I did this time!

Me.

Matt. He's too tall. But you can still see the pretty mountains through his legs!

Us. Yay!

I guess it's that time of year when my blog starts filling up with hiking posts and hiking pictures! I'm so ready! Are you?