Banana Recipe for week of 2/1 - Warm Bananas with Brown Sugar and Bay Leaf

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/michael-chiarello/warm-bananas-with-brown-sugar-and-bay-leaf-recipe/index.html
Ingredients
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup fresh orange juice
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons brandy
Pinch salt
6 ripe bananas, peeled and cut on the bias into 1/3-inch slices (about 1 quart)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon fresh coarsely ground black pepper
Store bought chocolate cake or ice cream, for serving
Directions
In large skillet over high heat, melt the butter and cook until it browns, about 3 minutes. Add the bay leaves and stand back (it may pop). Add the lemon juice, orange juice, brown sugar, brandy, and a pinch of salt. Bring the mixture up to a boil. Stir and cook until the liquid has reduced by half and it has reached a syrupy consistency, about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the bananas and pepper. Stir to coat the bananas evenly. Serve immediately spooned over cake or ice cream.
Cooking Notes: You can make the sauce hours ahead of time. Just add the fruit after you bring the sauce back to a simmer. The fruit should be a little cool inside. Serve it with a good, store bought chocolate cake or spoon it over your favorite ice cream.

The Peak

Not Pikes Peak, the Boulder Peak. I signed up for my second 'A' race of the season - the Boulder Peak triathlon. I've done the sprint distance and half-ironman distance races in the 5430 series, so now it is time for me to tackle the olympic distance. The challenge of this race is the hill you have to climb. Here's an elevation profile of the course - looks like 1200ft in about 7 miles.

http://www.5430sports.com/profiles/peak_elevation.jpg

The course description:
http://www.5430sports.com/peak/course.htm
"The 42 kilometer bike leg is a course that has a little of everything as it winds through north Boulder County. About 6 miles into the clockwise loop will ascend 15% Old Stage Hill (600' vertical climb in 2/3 of a mile). On the summit will be the first fluid replacement station. From Old Stage it is a beautiful descent down Left Hand Canyon and out onto the Buffalo covered plains. Now, in its third year, a 35mph speed limit will be strictly enforced on the major descent on the backside of Old Stage Road. We will have police officers and course marshals monitoring this."

I'm happy about the speed limit, as that is about the top speed I am comfortable descending! Though my max speed at Loveland last year was about 42mph!

Today's Ride
Today I did about 25 miles over lunch. It was a must to get out today as we had temps around 60 degrees! In January! If this is global warming, I don't mind. ;-) But it is supposed to snow tomorrow - that's Colorado for ya! I was proud of myself on the first half of the ride - I was feeling strong, easily cruising about 20mph. But then I remembered it was a gradual loss of elevation (~1% grade) and realized after I turned around that the wind was strong. By the time I got back, some of the flags were really whipping. So my return speed was nowhere near 20mph! Oh well - it'll make me stronger, right?

Time to hit the bowling alley for a friend's birthday party! woohoo!

Catch-up Post - it's a long one!

It's been a while since I've posted, so here's an update of what is going on.

Jan 13-15th I was at USA Triathlon coaching certification clinic. I have to take a written test and submit it within six weeks. I'd like to submit it as soon as possible so I've been working on it a lot. Should finally wrap it up this weekend! Once I get my certification I will work more on marketing my new coaching company, NEO Endurance Sports and Fitness.

I'm starting to train for Ironman 70.3 Kansas. They give out special prizes if you do the race in a Wizard of Oz costume, but I think I'll skip that this year. I'm enjoying getting back to a structured training program, and with what I learned at the USAT clinic, I'm hoping to have a good race season. Trying to get in 3 swims, 3 bike rides, at least 2 runs and 2-3 strength training sessions per week adds up with time, especially working full time.

Wednesday night I went to Carmichael Training Systems athlete appreciation event. Chris Carmichael (Lance Armstrong's coach) spoke about Lance's comeback effort and spoke on how to create your own comeback - really goal setting skills using Lance as an example. He's a pretty good motivational speaker. Then some guy, a finiancial coach, talked about market stuff. Really a sales pitch for his company's methods. While he was somewhat of an engaging speaker, we were running late so he had to rush through slides, and I think most people there were really more interested in the 60 minute spinning class that Chris Carmichael was about to do for us. They had the event at the Antler's Hilton due to the big response and the CTS coaches were "bike valets." Went pretty smoothly. Anyway, the spin workout rocked - it kicked most of our butts since it was about 45 minutes of various power intervals. I haven't pushed myself on the bike that hard in a while - it was great!

My aunt was just diagnosed with a form of lymphoma called lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma (aka Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia). So I will definitely keep up coaching for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program. The season starts in a couple weeks - we're recruiting now. I hope the economy doesn't affect participation this year.

Thursday I went to a memorial service for a friend's husband. She was one of the triathletes on last summer's TNT tri team. I met her husband when he helped out at the TNT fundraiser we had at our house last year since Krista had to work and couldn't be there. I remember him as a really nice guy. Her husband was in the army and had been to Iraq a couple times. Something went terribly wrong and he took his own life. I can't imagine the mental torment and distress he must have gone through to do that. I'm glad Krista wasn't hurt that night and hope she can find peace and heal. It's hard to find words to describe what she must be going through right now.

Tonight I helped another friend record some songs for her brother, who is also serving in the army. She sang some patriotic songs and I will get them on a CD so she can send it to him for his birthday.

Let's see...in tradition of posting my training, here was my workout today;
Core work before the swim - planks, side planks, bridges, lower back extensions.
Also did some strengthening for my back and shoulders.

Swim workout:
300yd warm up easy swim
3x100yds (broken into 25s) stroke drills
4x50yd kicking
2x25yd fast
1x800yd (broken) I pause slightly at each wall, maybe 5s to let my muscles relax just a little. did this in 17:30. while that's not a great time, it matches my fastest 800 time, and I probably had 2-2.5 minutes of pausing at the walls. Take that out and and I'm 15:00 - 15:30. About where I want to be for race pace and I wasn't trying to swim it hard, just steady and maintain my form!
4x50 stroke drills
200yd cool down mixed stroke
Total yards: 2050

Winter weather is back (we had a few 60-70 degree days earlier in the week) but the sun was shining so I went out for a 50 minute run. Only did 4.5miles - taking it nice and easy getting back into training, and my neighborhood has some long hills. Felt yesterday's strength session in my hamstrings!

That's it for now - time to get back to explaining strength and flexibility training for triathletes!

This Week's Banana Recipes

In order to make up for all the weeks (months) I didn't post any recipes, here is a great site with a few recipes such as a traditional banana bread and red snapper with pecan-banana butter.
Banana Recipes
yeah, the site is banana.com! Woohoo!

My Main Race is 22 Weeks Out
So today I joined a couple friends and we went on a 22+ mile bike ride. So it was only 30ish degrees out and a little windy coming out of the south. Other than frozen fingers, toes, and nose, I was just fine! It was nice to get out on the roads and I'm thankful that all the snow had melted and there wasn't too much gravel out there. It took us a little longer than usual to do the route, but that's probably because of the cold wind. I was able to get into my new aero position for a little bit, and can tell it's going to take some practice getting used to it!

Banana Shortage!

I think I'm going into withdrawal! I forgot (not sure how!) to buy bananas last week at the grocery store and never made it back to get some. So I've been an entire week without eating a banana! Oh my! I will be sure to get some tomorrow when I go shopping. That's a good thing since I'm 22 weeks out from my goal half ironman so the structured training will begin!

Today I went for a 45 minute run in the neighborhood. There was a little snow left on the sidewalks for me to leave a lot of footprints. I can tell I am not in running shape since I've run maybe once a week, sometimes less in the last few months. Just got to remember to start back up slowly! Tomorrow I will brave the chilly weather on my bike and try out my aerobars. I got them fit a little better today - need to get a new seatpost to make even better adjustments to my position, but that will be next month!

Lance Armstrong's Lactate Threshold Test

One day I will be on a bike and have someone prick my finger. :-)
Lance is getting into race shape faster than his coaches thought he would...
http://www.trainright.com/articles.asp?uid=4109

First Banana Recipe of 2009!

New year, new training schedule, new need for yummy breakfast so here is a link to some Banana-Orange Crepes on epicurious.com.

Now it's time to mentally prepare to return to work tomorrow!

Aerobars!

I did it. I finally bought aerobars for my bike. Ideally I would get a triathlon specific bike, but dropping another $2-3k (at least) is not in the cards this year. Instead I'm doing what a lot of amateurs do - add aerobars to the road bike. According to this report, time/energy saved is very cost effective. They are being installed at Bicycle Village (thanks Joyce and Keith for the gift card!) today. The bike was due for its tune-up anyway. I also got a skull cap and a warmer jacket to help me on those cold days of riding. I'm thinking I will use the bike to commute more often to squeeze in some extra bike training, so I need to stay warm. And with my big race scheduled in June, I'll have more chilly and cool days of training than with an August race!

This morning I did a brief benchmark training test on the bike on my trainer. Here's what I did: 20 minute warm up easy with a few 30s fast spins in there.
Then I started in a moderate but easy gear and increased the gear every minute. I was going for 12 sets, but only managed 9. My heart rated started in the low 130s and made it up to 180. I had a few more gears left on the bike, but at 9 was all the power I could generate. (I would love to have a power meter for more data, but for about $1000, not sure it is worth the investment right now!)
15 minute cool down after all that.

Would have been nice to get outside and ride since it was 60 degrees today, but I did manage to take Juno out for a nice walk.

Hey Hey Hey - Happy 2009!

It's almost time to retire to the couch to watch the 2nd half of the Orange Bowl, but I thought I'd make a quick post.

I hope everyone is excited for the new year! Tim and I had a low-key New Year's Eve, as he came down with some sort of bug. We were going to have a few friends come over to watch movies and such, but since he was running a fever and had a little GI discomfort, we opted to cancel. So instead we watched LSU pound Georgia Tech and went to bed well before midnight. Tim is feeling a lot better today. phew.

My new year is off to a nice start. Today, despite being defined as a lazy day and a training rest day, has actually been somewhat productive. My goals for the new year include creating an endurance sport coaching business, so I've been working on that. I've got solid drafts of my coaching philosophy, basic training packages, and my bio page. I've also put together a draft training/nutrition log. I know there are quite a few resources online for training logs, but I'm creating my own with the information I want to record and with the information I want from my future clients.

The obligatory "resolutions" and goals:

• Start my coaching company (NEO Endurance Sports)
• Resume blogging with weekly banana recipes!
• Save $$ for a new house
• Become even more efficient managing my time (a must with a day job, training and coaching!)
• Finish Iroman 70.3 Kansas in under 6 hrs.
• Fishish the Denver Marathon (ideally sub 3:40 to qualify for Boston, but just finishing will be fine with me!)
• Be a strong contributor in my day job as a photolithography engineer

There you have 'em. Here's to a healthy, happy, and amazingly fun 2009!

Winter trip to South Dakota

A quick trip report on our quick trip to Rapid City to visit my sister-in-law and her kids...

We left Friday morning and followed Tim's parents since they knew the way. Several hours on I-25 and then even more hours on two-lane, in the middle of nowhere roads, almost running out of gas! We didn't realize we'd be on that many nowhere roads or we'd have gotten gas each time we passed a station! About 10 miles after the "empty" light went on we found a gas station - with the out of service plastic bags on the pumps! But the guy inside thought we could get a few gallons out of one of the pumps. We got about 12, which was plenty for the rest of the trip, thank goodness, as we'd probably not have made it to the next gas station, which was I think 30 or more miles away. Probably 8 1/2 or so hours after we started the trip we made it to Traci's house and then opened Christmas presents with her family. I think the gifts went over well with Amanda and Tori.

Saturday was a lazy morning, except I went for a 3-mile run. A bit chilly at 25 degrees, but the sun was out so I warmed up after about 10 minutes. The afternoon was a trip to Boston's to watch FSU play Wisconsin in the Champ's Sports Bowl (his sister doesn't have cable or satelitte TV). A pounding victory by FSU was enjoyed, along with too much food and some beer.

Sunday was Amanda's 15th birtday. She has some friends coming over (to play this awesome game called Guitar Hero!) so Tim and I went with his folks up to Mt. Rushmore. It was a bit chilly, but again sunny and not too crowded at all. I can check this national monument off my list!

When we returned, I went for another run (gotta burn off all the holiday treats!) and we passed the evening with a trip to Storybook Island for the lights and then TGI Friday's for Amanda's birthday dinner.

This is Amanda as typically seen with her cell phone texting friends.

This morning Tim and I hopped in the car and headed back to Colorado. We took a different route (still rural in-the-middle-of-nowhere roads) but knew to keep the tank full of gas! We're back home hanging out with Juno for the evening!

My Holiday Mix

I suppose these winter holidays are a time of reflection for many people. For some it is a religous and spiritual season. For others it is a time to appreciate family, friends and to give back to the community.

I was raised as a secular Jew. I learned enough to appreciate the traditions and heritage of the Jewish people. I married a "catholic school drop-out." Let's just say by the 6th grade he was asking too many questions and the answers he got didn't make sense to his analytical style of thinking. So it wasn't hard for us to make our holiday mix as we combine tradition, not religion.

The menorahs come out every year at Hanukkah and he's learned to recite the blessing. I have a few dreidels and will make latkes. We put up a Christmas tree (a fake 6-footer we bought at Wal-Mart years back). The christmas holiday decorations are kept pretty secular, with snowmen and such. Next year I think I will decorate the tree with dreidels. Then maybe it will truly be a Hanukkah bush!

When we lived in Illinois, we would make the drive to Iowa to spend Christmas with his parents. Now they usually make the drive out here. His parent's enjoy the giving spirit of the season so we always have way too many gifts for the two of us under that tree.

Tonight is christmas eve, and it is also the 4th night of Hanukkah. My brother and his wife and son came over for dinner with us and the in-laws. It was nice to light the menorahs with family around. They left early as Joey was looking ready for bed and about to start fussy time. Then we took Tim's folks and played some Wii together - Sonic and Mario go to the Olympics - and burn off some of the chocolate creme pie we ate. We are looking forward to christmas morning and opening all those presents. (really, who wouldn't!) Just like waiting for the last night of Hanukkah as a kid when we could open up what was left of the gifts. Even though I'm "old" that excitement doesn't get old, though it's probably a little more muted.

I am thankful this holiday for time with friends and family to share tradition. Enjoy it, appreciate it, and try to learn something from everyone.

Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel...

What's Hanukkah without the dreidel? Here's a great story I heard on my way home from work today:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98610612

Happy Hanukkah to all!

Nice weekend to a rough week

I suppose the week could have been a lot worse, had I been one of the people getting laid off on Monday at my place of employment. I feel for all the people (about 250) who were let go at our site this week. Losing your job this close to the holidays has got to be rough. It is the economy that put the company in the position to lay people off. When you make microchips for stuff (cars, GPS, video games, cell phones, etc) and people aren't buying, we aren't making. I just hope that those laid off are able to find work soon, but in this economy the job market isn't looking the greatest. Since Intel left town, there really isn't much in the way of semiconductor manufacturing in town, either.
The situation at work made for a few distractions during the week. Last night all the photo engineers got together and went for our annual late lunch and "crawl" downtown. I think all of us needed the break from work stress to just relax, hang out, and partake in adult beverages. I left around 10pm - I think others were out much, much later! I had my last scheduled swim lesson today so I didn't want to drown. :-)
It was a cold week weather-wise, and only about 20 degrees today. Driving to Denver for the lesson I was hoping the water would be warm, as swimming isn't something that usually comes to mind when it is that cold out! The water was great and I had a good lesson. I still have quite a few things to work on (a lot of the same things from the other lessons) but I am getting better - that is evident on the video.
Later this afternoon Tim's parents arrived. They will hang out with us until Christmas, then I think we are all driving to South Dakota to visit Traci, Amanda and Tori. We've not visited them in Rapid City so it is time to head up there. Amanda's birthday is a few days after Christmas so we should finally be able to celebrate with her this year.

Valet Parking at a Mall?

With all the horror stories of the economy, you wouldn't guess it was all that bad looking at the mall parking lots today. I drove up to Denver for my last drum lesson (more on that in a bit) and on my way home thought I would stop at the Park Meadows Mall in south Denver to do some shopping. I'm not super familiar with the area, but it is right of the interstate and C-470 so finding it isn't hard. I made my way into the mega shopping complex (and I mean MEGA) and needed a place to park. I don't mind a bit of a walk, but I didn't expect to see valet parking! Why would a mall need that? $7 a car. Then I saw that the parking area was completely full. That's why they need valet parking. I was not interested in that kind of crowd so I decided to skip the mall and get back on the interstate. It took me at least 20 minutes in thick traffic to figure out how to leave the parking lot and go the 1/4 mile to the interstate on-ramp. Everyone must have been out and about today! If they are buying, so much for poor retail sales! Don't know who would want to fight that kind of traffic mess if they weren't getting anything!

Once back on the interstate, I headed 10 miles south to the Outlet Mall in Castle Rock. Although it was full as well, it is a much smaller mall and I could handle these crowds. I found a kids clothing store with cute things to buy for Joey's first birthday. Spent a little too much (thank goodness for the items on sale!), stood in line for maybe 10 minutes and was on my way out. While in line, one register was ringing up a couple who had about eight big bags full of clothes. Lord help them if they have that many kids! I can only wonder what they were shopping for.

Back to my drum lesson. It was my last of the free lessons I won in the silent auction, so David filled my notebook with some classics. My Sharona and Brick House are a couple just to name a few. It should keep me busy for a while. If anyone in the Denver area needs drum lessons, I do recommend David at Littleton Drum Studios.

First real snow

wow. it snowed all day. Nothing too heavy, probably 8-10 inches total. But it just kept falling. We did go out to get groceries and check out the Linens-n-Things close-out sale. They are closing the store here so we found a few things to get at a good price. will keep checking back for even better deals. I had a lot of inside time for a spin on the bike, laundry, dishes, played my drums, restrung my bass guitar and goofed with my recording software.
a little ditty
Also took care of a background check for USA Triathlon coaching certification and did some online holiday shopping. even shoveled the drive. guess it was a moderately productive day! but I do hope the sun comes out tomorrow since it is time to head back to work!

Goodbye Mars!

We put Mars down tonight and he will be missed terribly. His mobility was degraded such that it didn't seem fair to him. He was still a happy dog with a great Rottweiler appetite, but his quality of life just didn't seem to be there. I like to think he's in a better place now, able to run in the fields, play in the streams and chase as many little dogs as he desires.

Here's his story....

We got Mars in April of 2000 from the Champaign County Rottweiler Rescue. He was 10 weeks old and had been born into a shelter. We were told his birthday was 2/14. (I believe that since he was the biggest sweetie ever!) We took him home to meet Juno, the rottie we rescued at 10 months the previous April. He didn't seem fazed to be in new surroundings with a lot of people (Tim's family was visiting). He and Juno had a blast running around the back yard and the playing in the bushes.

In 2003 we were thinking about leaving Illinois for Colorado. One evening, I asked the dogs if they would like to go to Colorado. Mars immediately ran for the garage door, where he would run when were were about to go for a car ride. That sealed the deal - we were going to move!

Mars enjoyed the winter weather out here, especially the snow. One favorite game would be catching (and then eating) snowballs!

I remember taking him to the dog park and he would love to engage his herding instinct with smaller dogs. One visit the chosen herd was chihuahuas. I'm pretty sure the little chihuahuas were yelling "ooooooh shit!" as they ran from Mars. Too funny!

He had a very laid-back personality and loved to give kisses. When he was younger and my dad was visiting, Mars would sneak up behind my dad sitting on the couch and lick the top of his head. He was also known to my dad and family as 'Big Giant Head."

I took the day off from work today and hung out with him. We went outside to the front yard so he could sniff and enjoy the cool, sunny day.

I could go on and on about how Mars was the perfect dog with a great personality and temperment. We loved him very much and will miss him a lot. But I thank him for all the wonderful memories over the last 8+ years. Goodbye Mars! We love you!

Mars Drummer

2/14/00 - 11/21/08

The Lesson of the Day

Actually, today I had several lessons! The good kind. After a morning of a 45 min spin on the trainer, cleaning (getting ready for next weekend's halloween party) and a little college football, I headed up to Denver, well, really Highlands Ranch if you want to be picky. First was my swim lesson at SwimLabs. This place uses endless pools (the equivalent of a treadmill for swimming) and mirrors and cameras so you can see yourself from all angles. The coach/instructor then gives you feedback on your stroke and you can watch what you just did. They also have "stock footage" of ideal swimming so you can see what you are supposed to look like. Yeah. I have a ways to go. But they did give me something to work on. I actually signed up for a 4-pak so I have 3 more lessons - I'll go every 2 weeks. I figure that is enough time for me to work on the drills and improve, but not too long in case I'm not doing something quite right.

After that I drove over to Littleton for my drum lesson with David from Littleton Drum Studio. It was actually in the back of a music store - they had tons of used stuff for sale. Wow. Anyway, I had a 60 minute lesson - we started at the beginning - the basics of drum set playing and went through some lessons. Even though I already know how to play, it didn't take too long before we found a "hole." So now I have more things to work on! I like how he incorporates actual music into the lesson. It's quite a bit different from when I had lessons back in high school! He had all the stuff on his computer so he just printed the lesson for my notebook. He also had a flat screen mounted to the wall and used iTunes to pick songs related to the particular lesson. I'll enjoy this. I'm hoping to find 30 minutes about 4 days a week to practice.

The drive is just a little over an hour, so it wasn't too bad. After dinner Tim and I carved our pumpkins. A devil face and a howling wolf. Hooray to the guy who invented carving templates!

40-miler

With a projected high of 75 degrees, sunny skies and not much wind, who could resist a bike ride today? I joined up with the Bicycle Village group ride - we met at the store and headed out at about 9:30am. Since the store is just a few miles from my house, I decided to ride there instead of drive. Then we headed out on what turned into a beautiful ride through town. For those of you who are familiar with Colorado Springs, we headed out from the store, winding our way to Vickers, then Flintridge to Dublin. Dublin west to pick up Woodmen near I-25, then up Woodmen to Rockrimmon to Vindicator. Then we chose to climb Flying W, which is a little hill of 200 feet elevation gain in just over half a mile. Fun! Well, it was beautiful on that side of town with the rocks, hills, rust and orange and yellow vegitation and the ride down the hill is a blast! Next we wound our way to Garden of the Gods and over to Balanced Rock. Then it was time to work our way back home, which we did through Old Colorado City and downtown Colorado Springs. Hooked up to Mark Dabling to get back north (woodmen and I-25) then back over to Dublin and I just headed back home on Vickers instead of stopping back to the store. My total ride was 2:53 and 40 miles. I was planning on a 25-30 miler with perhaps not so much climbing (3300ft). So what, my legs are a little tired now. But it was too good of a day to not be outside as much as possible! I wish I had a camera with me to capture some of the fantastic fall views. I'll try to remember next time!

Running with the pros

Tuesday night is Jack Quinn's Running Club and tonight we took a field trip to the Boulder Running Company for PowerBar night. We ran the typical distance (5k) and was joined by pro athletes Josh Cox and Amanda Stevens. Mark (a co-worker of mine) and I got to run the second half with Amanda so we chatted a little about triathlons. She'll be competing in next month's 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater. After the run they held a Q&A - normally I don't have questions, but since it seemed people were a little shy, I asked the first one - what is their favorite meal the night before a race. Pasta and stuff with carbs. Not a whole lot of protein. My personal favorite is chicken and rice. Whatever works! They had some great advice on training/race nutrition, stretching (of which I need to do more!) and such. It was nice to have a change of scenery from the typical downtown run and of course it's always great to be able to meet some pro athletes!

Weekend Report

Started the weekend off with a 23 mile bike ride on the east side of town. Pretty flat with less than 900 feet of elevation gain. Then some cleaning, a necessary evil. Florida State played Miami at 1:30 so I watched the first quarter before heading to Mimi's for lunch with some Taekwondo friends. Next was some shoe shopping (shoe carnival is right next to Mimi's) for shoes for Saturday night's event - a fundraiser gala for the Pink Ribbon Foundation. The local Porsche Club raised money for the foundation so the group had a table. It was at the Hyatt Regency in Denver (Tech Center). There was tons of stuff up for silent auction, including signed sports memorabilia, wine, paintings, spa treatment and all sorts of stuff you'd expect. There was also a month of drum lessons. I guess it wasn't the most popular item so the starting bid had been reduced when I saw it. I thought it might be fun so I bid and won! :-) So this week I'll see about scheduling those at Littleton Drum Studio.

Alpine Mountain PCA members, Jim McDonald, Dave Arnold, Tim and me, Chris & Kathleen Lennon.

Today (sunday) we slept in - I got up at 9am! Haven't slept that late in a long time. Typical Sunday of getting groceries, but then we headed up to the property with Mars and Juno to see the leaves. I forgot the camera, but here's one my brother took Saturday in the mountains. Our property is probably less than 20 miles from this photo - same terrain.

Ate a steak lunch with some friends up there at our "chateau." By the time we got back it was time to get ready for another week. This was certainly a weekend that went by too fast.