Family Trip to Calfornia for Aaron's Wedding

Early in the morning of May 6th Jane, Molly, Seth and I left Colorado for a car roadtrip to California to visit friends and attend my nephew Aaron's wedding. Enroute we first stopped in Provo, Utah to see an exhibit of paintings by Carl Bloch. Many of the works on display were alter pieces depicting notable scenes from the life of Jesus, but there were some non-religious paintings as well. While the paintings themselves were amazing, equally impressive were the written explanations that were posted near the painting that gave insight into what is happening.

From Provo we had a long drive to St. George, UT and spent the evening and night with Jane's parents. The next morning we left bright and early for California. Our first stop in California was at the Migdat's where we left Seth off to spend a few days with his old church friends. We drove past a couple of the houses where we used to live only to discover that the yards aren't nearly as nice as we kept them. Next we stopped at our friends the Edwards to change into church clothes, and then drove to the Los Angeles Temple where we did a session and then gave ourselves a self-guided tour and showed Molly the Sealing room where Jane and I were married, and then the nursery, cafeteria, and baptistry. (note: that nursery sure had been improved since the time I had to wait HOURS when my parents were sealed).

After the temple we stopped at "El Taco Nazo" (which has been renamed "Senior Baja's") for fish tacos; a place near where we used to live in Claremont. We then drove to Jason's house in Corona where we stayed for the next couple of days.

Aaron's wedding was very nice, and it was great seeing all my siblings. On Sunday, we attended church with Jason and Leslie, and I got to see Steve Brown, who now lives in Jason's ward. Sunday night was Mother's Day and all my family gathered at Jason's house to celebrate. The highlight of the evening was a reenactment of a Sacrament Meeting performance from when Leah, Holly, Jason and I sang "Mother" (a barbershop quartet number) in Sacrament Meeting (see video below).

The drive home from California on Monday was LONG; we drove straight through for 15 hours to get home. We encountered wind, rain and snow but arrived safely and very much not wanting to get the car again for a while.

"Mother" from randy guthrie on Vimeo.

Skiing with Papa - Family Day Out at Arapaho Basin

So in case you ever wonder how to impress a grandparent, have your grand child do what Bryson did last Monday. Jarom and Melissa tried to take Bryson skiing but he hid and cried because "Papa" wasn't going to go. So they delayed until I could go on Thursday. We made it a family day and Grandma Jane came along and took pictures; many of which turned out amazingly good. She also make "eggie sandwiches" and brought hot chocolate making it an almost perfect family day. A-Basin had a foot of spring powder, making it hard for Bryson to ski, but he still cried when Jarom had to leave for work and begged for "one more run". Jarom and Melissa had bought a kid ski harness with a handle on the back which really helped getting Bryson on and off the lift. When Bryson gets a little better they can use it to follow Bryson and control his downhill speed. Melissa enjoyed having more room to practice and did a lot of laps on the beginner hill; she is now a pro at getting on and off the lift without falling. During lunch Jarom and I took the big chair up to the top, only to find it completely "whited out" with fog and snow. We were basically skiing blind down the top half of the mountain. Amazingly neither of us wiped out. A-Basin still has five feet of snow, which just got refreshed the day before we were there. Hopefully we'll get a couple more days of skiing in this season.

A Little Trip to San Francisco

This past week I travelled to San Francisco for a work planning/synch-up offsite attended by all the people in my group that work in the West Region (about 60 people). Our hotel/resort was in a little cove off of the bay right near one end of the Golden Gate Bridge. One of our fun activities was a team GPS treasure hunt in nearby Sausalito. My team came in third out of twelve teams. Yesterday after the formal event was over, a group of us went to Japan Town, and had sushi for lunch. The sushi was made fresh and the chef put servings on little colored plates and put the plates on little floating boats that go in a circle around the counter. You pay between $2 - $5 for each plate and the server counts the plates and notes their color and that is how you are charged. All of the sushi was really tasty; my favorite was the crab salad rolls and this sweet raw shrimp sushi, but I tried some of the other weird-looking stuff too; like this spicy octopus roll.

Grand Junction Getaway

This week I visited Mesa State College in Grand Junction, CO. It's a four-hour drive from Denver on Interstate 70. I invited Jane to come with me for a little get away. We left on Thursday and had snow from the Eisenhower Tunnel until Vail. With ski season nearing it's end I just had to stop and get in a few runs at Vail while I let Jane shop in Vail Village. It snowed the entire time and was foggy up on highest peaks. It turned out that one of our favorite places to ski hadn't been groomed for a long time because it had had a bunch of snow, and with very poor visibilty I dropped into the bowl into about two feet of powder snow, which I have no experience skiing in and really struggled with. At one point I fell and ejected both skis, both of which disappeared into the snow. One was barely sticking out, and the other I found digging down about a foot. In the first picture, last time I rode this lift (the "Orient Express" for those of you who know the "China Bowl" the dips and bumps were about 2-3 feet deep; here they are all covered up in fresh powder. After about three hours I was wiped out and came down the mountain and we finished the remaining 2 hour drive to Grand Junction. Friday afternoon Jane and I went for a drive; it was about 80 degrees and a nice change to drive around with the windows down. We thought our community of Highlands Ranch had some challenges when it comes to naming streets, because they reuse the same name about 5 times and just change the type of street ie: drive, way, road, street, avenue, circle, etc. Well Grand Junction has it even worse; or maybe they are just into math. We also saw this amazing tree house that trumps anything I've ever seen. Saturday, we drove home and stopped at Vail again for one last try; this time with beautiful sun. I had some great runs and an amazing wipeout (think yard sale) that didn't hurt. Jane really got into the shopping spirit as you can see in the last photo. Vail veterans will recognize the sculpture at Vail Village.

Annual Family Ski Extravaganza

February 9-14 we had the pleasure of once again hosting Jason's family for what is becoming our annual (this was the third) ski extravaganza in Colorado. We have always been blessed with great weather and this time it was no exception. The first day at Breckenridge Ski Resort was very cold (how does -20 sound) and windy, but that only served to make our next two days at Vail seem even more amazing. Most of the documentation we have is video via Jason and Jarom's helmet cams, but I snagged these individual photos off of the resort "Sharpshooter" photographer's website. They sell these full size digital for $60 each (I don't think so....) but I snipped these smaller ones from my account gallery. Vail is about 2 hours away, but the drive goes by fast by fun conversation and great scenery. Leslie's altitude meds make her a little drowsy so she sleeps most of the way. Last season I was recovering from knee surgery but this season I'm much improved so we all kept together pretty well, even on the steeper stuff. I also tried my first "double black diamond" (expert) run and survived. Leslie upped her game this season with hot pink pants and plaid jacket, and this was Kevin's first trip to Colorado with us having just come home from his church mission in Poland and he did great. Both Jason and Leslie sported new boots and skis. We missed having Brandon (on a mission in Bolivia) and Seth (at BYU) with us this year. If you don't know our color schemes: Randy: torquois pants & white jacket, Jarom: yellow pants, Kevin: multi-color jacket, Leslie: pink pants & plaid jacket, Jason, camo jacket (we'll have to talk Jason into something flashier for next year).

Snow Day: Church Cancelled

The e-mail this morning read:

"Brothers and Sisters, We are all grateful for the moisture that has come today. We have some concerns about the side roads and parking lots that are not plowed and will make it difficult to be safe entering and leaving the church. Because of this we will not hold regular block meetings at the chapels today. Today is still the Sabbath and an opportunity to teach one another and have personal study and worship. Today is a good missionary opportunity to go out and meet our neighbors and to invite them to church and get to know them better while shoveling snow. Please give your leaders a report on who you meet today. We wish you joy and happiness in your efforts. Best regards, Highlands Ranch Stake Presidency".

I know this isn't much snow compared to what Staci has been dealing with, and that Levi and Chelsey sometimes have to cope with up at Tahoe, but its pretty hard to feel disappointed when church is cancelled. I wish they would have provided a bit more direction about what to do about Fast Sunday though. Like are we fasting next week? Is there too much snow to fast, like, do we need the calories to shovel the snow?

Molly and I did a bit of shoveling yesterday, but we received another six inches or so last night so we were out first thing clearing the driveway and sidewalks so the infrared coming throught the clouds could help with the melt. While Molly and I were shoveling Mom took some pictures. The funny part is that Allie's said they got about 1/8th of an inch, and they are just an hour north of us.