Vacation In the Pacific Northwest

Eric, Ariel and I enjoyed a nice vacation in Oregon this past weekend. Eric's cousin, Cheryl was married to a great guy and we flew out to attend the wedding. Ariel did great on the plane (thank the heavens) and overall, the flight was quiet and uneventful.

Well you can't just go out of state and sit around, so we embarked on an adventure or two.

We rented a Saturn Vue and Eric and I had some serious car envy, as our cars are costing more money than they're worth (in repairs). It was a much needed expense, however, since we have Ariel. Anywho, We visited a Catholic sanctuary, called The Grotto. A beautiful altar is carved into the side of the mountain. The upper level featured this peaceful garden that is perfect for reflection and meditation. It was worth the trip.

We next visited the International Rose Test Garden. It began in like 1920 and features between 7,000 and 10,000 different types of roses. We've been trying to introduce different scents to Ariel, so she got to sniff quite a few flowers. This inevitably backfired and all we did was overwhelm her (whoops), but we got some nice pics before the meltdown.

David and the Team went to Hood River where we visited a couple vineyards. Our favorite was the Naked Winery, which had some very provocative names for their wines and even more scandalous descriptions for them. We loved the ambiance and the wine was pretty good too! We also stopped by Multnomah Falls which were beautiful and very crowded. We didn't stay long, but got a nice shot of the fam.

Saturday, we ventured downtown to Waterfront Park, which was right next to the Columbia River. They also had a food festival and a farmer's market. We skipped these events and just took some time to relax.

The trip back home was uneventful and we're happy to be home and back on a regular schedule.

Here's the wind up and the pitch

Last Saturday, I went to my first writer's conference in Castle Rock. There were tons of people there, mostly from the Denver metro area. I could go on and on about the sessions I attended and the keynote speaker, but that would be boring to "normal" people. What I really want to tell you about is my meeting with a literary agent.

Now I signed up to meet with this agent out of New York. To prepare for this meeting, I first had to have a "pitch" and not one with a baseball. This is the opportunity to sell your baby to a complete stranger. A little nerve wracking. I had a good hook, so I just winged the rest of the presentation. Then I had to prepare a one page synopsis of the novel. I don't think Houdini could have pulled this off. I was sick all week, so I wasn't motivated to work on the thing during the week, so Friday night I'm pulling a college-all nighter. By the time I had reached the third chapter, the page was already half full. Uh-oh. I still had 20 chapters to go. So instead of killing myself, I just wrote until I was done. It was a mess. Thankfully the agent didn't want it. He wouldn't have been impressed.

What did impress him though, was my story. He seemed very excited about my approach to gaming and video games and asked me to send a formal submission to his office. Woo hoo! It was a good interview and I managed to make him laugh (always a good sign). Now I have to get off my butt and knock the socks off this guy.

*btw this picture is of Olympic softball player Jennie Finch. Its a pretty cool pic.

Eric, you are an Ironman!

So, I'm just getting around to posting our trip to Couer d'Alene, Idaho for Eric's first ever Ironman triathlon. We drove through Wyoming and Montana. I just fell in love with Montana! It was so green and it seemed that if you just reached out, you could touch the mountains. It is more "wild" country than Colorado, which is why I gravitated towards this state.

Anyway, after two days of driving, we arrived in Idaho and barely had time to unpack the car, before we were off again.

Eric is part of a triathlon blogger community so we met up with like 30 people in an already crowded brew-pub. His crazy online friends were super nice and I must say, super sadistic. The highlight of the evening was when an anonymous benefactor paid the bill for the entire group! What a way to support Ironman athletes.

If you ever have the opportunity to be part of a Ironman athlete's "support crew", bring a chair, a cowbell, plenty of drinks and snacks, and good cheering voice. Race day, I got to hang out the the Bloggers' mass support crew. We spent the day searching, cheering, and photographing our athletes. They were an awesome bunch.


Eric finished in a time of 11 hours and 38 minutes, which is a great finish for a first-timer. He was very pleased with his performance, but after he crossed the finish line, Eric said, "This is my first and last Ironman." I seriously doubt that. Maybe in a couple of years. The Tri Bloggers had a post Ironman bbq on Monday and a good time was had by all.

One the way home, we decided to sight see through southern Idaho and northern Utah. While it was very pretty and scenic, it added 3 hours to our total drive time. Yikes! We'll plan better next time. Despite my grumpy, irritated days on this excursion, it was fun to be around so many goal driven individuals and their totally rocking support crew!

PS. If you want to see more pictures and view the video of Eric crossing the finish, visit Eric's blog at ironeric.blogspot.com or click on the link under "blogs we like."

Zipedee-Zoo-Da

Today I went to the Denver Zoo with my goddaughter, Ysabella, and her mom (my best friend) Stephanie. The weather couldn't make up it's mind. Do I want to be cool? Do I want to be hot? So we got an uneven mixture of both. We would have had the most perfect day, but all the school districts seemed to feel that this was a great day to go on an end-of-the-school-year field trip. The zoo was swarmed with hundreds of ill mannered, rambunctious, little delinquents. They were very draining.

Overall, we had a wonderful outing and I really enjoyed seeing some of my favorite animals. However, it must be mating season for some of these animals. We ran into Steph's sister-in-law and her son and she told us about an embarrassing situation were her son pointed out that the hippos were "hugging" each other. There was also a rhino trying to tear down the door to get to his female. Someone get that guy a cold shower.
Ysabella seemed to like the monkeys and the tropical fish exhibit.

The Tale of Eric in the Capital

I've been slacking. I forgot to mention, that Eric went to Washington, DC for a business trip, at the end of April. He was there for a library conference. Since the boy is still training for his IronMan event, he did some serious training, which included some serious sight seeing.

Eric's hotel was off Connecticut Ave and he ran all the way to Arlington National Cemetery and the Iwo Jima Memorial. That's a 10 mile run-one way. He also paid a visit to the zoo, tomb of the unknown soldier, and to the memorials of Lincoln, World War II, and Roosevelt. And you can't go to DC without seeing the White House or the Washington monument, overlooking the Reflecting pool.

One day, Eric rented a bike and huffed it all the way to Mt. Vernon-a one way trip that will cost you 15 miles.

He had a lot of fun and really enjoyed his self tour of our nation's capital.