The Goodrums

Our blog has seen some serious neglect over the past few months (err half a year). The pace of life has not slowed much, as we had hoped for 2009. Yet we've had some great experiences - from visitors to travel to life changes. I'll be attempting to update it a bit here.

A couple highlights:

At the end of February, a bunch of friends descended on Denver (yay!). We got to hang out a bit with Kim and Fleetwood (and meet their daughter, Logan) while they were in town for their friend Neil's wedding. That same weekend, Michael's coworker, Beka, along with family and friends came up for a ski weekend in Vail. We got to join them for a day. While the company was great, the skiing left something to be desired...

In early March, we trekked out to Boulder to attend the A&M v. CU basketball game - one of the final games of the season. The Ags prevailed in what was a testy game and went on to March madness.

We also got to attend a regular season Nuggets game at the end of March - and ended up right in the middle of madness between the Nugget's mascot, Rocky, and a Knicks fan. We were three rows in front of all the stands action the entire game. Now the Nuggets are battling out for a spot in the NBA finals. Go Nuggets!

We took trips to OKC to hang out with the Brashares Family in both March and April. There was the road trip in March to celebrate dad's birthday (#60 - though you'd hardly guess). It was a quick trip but it's been great to be able to spend time with family. Plus, it had been almost a year since we were last in OKC so we finally got to see Mom and Dad's new furniture (and painting job). Feeling slightly out of the loop there... We were able to go back for a little longer weekend in April - for the Poor Uncle Billy Fun Run. Documentation of that event at the Brashares Family Blog.

We balanced out our family time with a visit from the Goodrums over Easter. Michael and his dad worked hard on the Jeep. Once Hank has a multi-point fuel injection system, hopefully he will pass the Colorado emissions tests and be back on the road again (after almost 2 years out of commission - and in a cool place at that). As always with vehicles, the jeep project has morphed and now includes rewiring the entire vehicle. Most spare moments of late (even still) find Michael in the garage with the jeep. We also spent a good part of May in D.C. (and surrounding high areas) with the Goodrums.

We've also been through some life transitions with a major decision about graduate school for Michael. Michael attended visit days at both CU Boulder and MIT through March and April and shared the 5-year plan in April on the blog. In the meantime, I've been adjusting to a new job. Although the jobs are very similar, it's been interesting to note the contrasts. I'm appreciating the many blessings of my new role.

Our weather has been wild through the spring and summer. After an uneventful winter with almost no precipitation, April gave us two Saturdays with two and a half feet of snow each (almost 5 feet in total). Really? May, June and July has been rain, rain, rain - with a couple funnel clouds thrown in for good measure.

Thankfully, Memorial Day weekend was one of relative calm. A chance to spend a few days at home and regroup around the house with all the busyness of late. Of course, we couldn't just sit around - we had to run the BolderBoulder for good measure.

In early June, we traveled to Amarillo for Michael's high school reunion. Although I was a bit apprehensive about the event (hanging out with a bunch of people who all know each other but don't know you), we both had a really good time.

The Amarillo trip was followed quickly by a work trip to Vail for me. Michael made it up for the final day and we did a little hiking before heading back to Denver.

Michael spent most of May and June in Hawaii for work. I got to join him during the latter part of his final trip - and we took a little vacation time while we both were there. I actually relaxed during the first part of the week while Michael worked and then we traveled to the Big Island, where we did crazy things like attempt to hike Mauna Kea (but had a good time nonetheless).

We've actually been home for most of July, including the July 4 weekend. Michael has continued to work on the jeep which is oh-so-close to being complete. We're also launching into building a deck - with a goal to complete it before Michael starts school next month (call us crazy!). The Goodrums will be coming in to help us finish out these two big projects - and we'll also have several other fun visitors in the next few weeks.

The fall should be 'relatively' calm - we hope - with Michael transitioning back into school mode. Maybe I'll actually be better about updating the blog when that happens!

If we still have any readers out there, thank for bearing with us through the silence of life chaos lately. Hope you are all doing well!