Happy New Year!

Well it is the new year and I thought I would take a few moments to jot down a few things. Lisa and I are doing well. We are both real busy with life and work (neither of us consider work apart of our "lives"). I am travelling more for the company. I will be in D.C., New England, and New Mexico a lot in the coming year. Our company has won a number of contracts and is growing very rapidly. While that is good for us it is also hard on us. Lisa is still working at Memorial Hospital North in the ER and is doing more of her Stampin' Up classes at the house. She has taken over most of the downstairs area for "Craft World". Hey it keeps her busy and out of the bars!
We had a very nice holiday season this year. Lisa's brother Bob and his daughters were in town for a visit. Lisa had to work Christmas Eve this year but we had Christmas dinner at our house. I cooked 14 pounds of Prime Rib on my Treager for dinner. We had a house full for dinner with Bob and the girls, plus Mike and his family. It was a great night.
We have a lot coming up in the new year. This year we are going to Bermuda for a week of scuba diving on a live aboard dive boat. I hope to get in some turkey hunting this year and spend as much time in the field bird hunting as I can. We also are going to try to get together with our friend a little more this coming year. Hopefully there will be more snacks and cocktails on the deck this summer.

Our Vacation.....

Lisa and I got back from a much deserved vacation this last weekend. We flew out Thanksgiving Day for Fort Lauderdale to relax in the sun for a few days before our cruise.

I set up a dive in Florida before I left so I could get some “saltwater” time. I wanted to get an open ocean dive in so I could get comfortable with being in the ocean. I am waiting for pictures of the area we dove. I was supposed to get pictures of me diving but the camera flooded when the dive-master jumped in. He told me he would send me the “Best Of” the area we dove. It was pretty cool dive. I saw an 8 foot green moray eel and 2 turtles. I also saw hundreds of puffer fish. They have the coolest eyes you have ever seen. They are like deep blue jewels. The dive was shallow (only around 25 feet in depth) and we had a good time.

Lisa spent the day by the pool while I was diving. Our friends showed up later that day and we all just hung out by the pool the next day before getting on the boat on Sunday.
The cruise was nice. We spent the first day in Key West, we just walked around. I was stationed there years ago so we went to all the places I used to go to (well not all the places). We bought some great hot sauces, had a great sea food lunch (oysters, conch fritter, shrimp, and spiny lobster) and are looking forward to trying those soon.

The weather in Cayman sucked so I couldn’t dive. The waves and the currents were so bad that half of us on the trip didn’t dive, it was above our ability. The cruise ships by passed Cayman the day before (bad weather) so I think they were pushing it to get money that day. The dive shop said they have had a rough winter so far. Oh well I will go back eventually and will try again. Safety is the number 1 rule in diving so I spent the day on the boat and enjoyed the sun.

In Jamaica we went to the dolphin encounter and we got to pet the dolphins. It was a lot of fun. We then went to Dunn’s River Falls and climbed/hiked up the falls. It was a lot of fun. The only thing I didn’t like was the constant attempts to sell you cheap crap every two steps. In order to get out of the park where the falls are you had to wind your way through all the vendors shops. I understand that Jamaica is a poor nation and they need to the tourists to help them get by but man it got to be too much and they got way too pushy. Next time we go back we are looking at an all inclusive near Kingston. Also I plan on doing some diving in Jamaica.

The entire trip was nice, Lisa was disappointed with Cayman (she said it has gone commercial). The food in the main dining hall wasn’t anything to write home about but the last night on the ship we ate at the Sun King restaurant. It costs an extra $30 for each person but it was worth it!

We got home just in time for the snow and I got to use my snow blower this morning before coming in to work.

A very stressful time

It has been a stressful few weeks for Lisa and I. The week before last Lisa’s Dad went in for a doctor’s visit and they discovered a spot on his lung. After some kind of scan (Lisa is the medical professional not me) the doctor was pretty sure Chuck had lung cancer. They had to run some more tests and then we would know the details (what stage, has it metastasized, and what type of cancer), needless it was a very stressful week in our house. Lisa went with her parents to the doctors to hear the results of the tests. They confirmed Chuck has lung cancer. The good news is that it is a large cell cancer which means it is treatable and it has not spread. He is a good candidate for surgery and I’m sure there is chemo to follow. Chances are he is going to loose a large piece of his lung, maybe all of it but we are going to have him for a lot longer and that is the most important thing.
On the same day we learned of Chuck’s news we learned that our friend Lucca committed suicide. We met Lucca through our friend Elizabeth. Lucca was originally from Rome, Italy and lived in Denver. We saw him a few months ago when he and Elizabeth came down for dinner and stayed over because we drank several bottles of wine. We will probably never know why Lucca made his decision but we will miss him.
On a more positive note Chuck turned 65 on Sunday and Lisa’s birthday is this Wednesday. This last weekend Lisa and I went to Denver for a play and dinner at the Capitol Grill. We had a very nice time and this coming weekend we will be having a dual birthday dinner with the family to celebrate Chuck and Lisa’s birthdays.
In the words of Ferris Bueller, “Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

A very busy weekend

Well Lisa and I had a very busy weekend this weekend. Since I spend so much time up in Denver Lisa had a list a mile long for me to do around the house. On Saturday we had a bunch of errands to run before we got to play. I also had to load up software on Lisa's new laptop, I get to work all week on computers and then get to go home to work on anther computer! I had to buy a math book this last weekend also. I never went beyond college algebra in my degree. I need to learn trigonometry for my job, and then I will need to learn statistics after trig. So after getting my new math book Lisa and I headed home because I had to get some ribs on the smoker!
Our friend Jen had a ladies night at her house so I invited her guy David and my friend Roger (whose wife Betsy was at ladies night) over to the house for BBQ and some beers. We had a good time talking football, politics, work, and the merits of my new spice rub on the ribs. It was great to have the guys over. All of us boys are so busy we don't get to hang out as much as we would like.
On Sunday I had to reseal the granite counter tops and while that was curing I went to the "man cave" to build a bookshelf for our cookbooks. Lisa and I are serious 'foodies' and have a large collection of cookbooks. Plus Lisa bought a new one this weekend. We have a rule that says, "if one comes in, one must go out". We bought Jamie Oliver's new cookbook this weekend. It is an awesome cookbook.
Anyway so that was our weekend. Oh also Lisa started her very own blog site for her stamping up. I will be adding it to the list of blog sites on the main page.

Long time no post!

Wow it has been for ever since I have posted anything to this site. Lis and I have been really busy with just busy work around the house. Lisa has been really getting her to "Stampin Up!" and setting up a small business as a demonstrator. She really enjoys getting together with the ladies and making cards and all sorts of things. She is now teaching classes once a month at the house. The nice thing is if she does well in the business we get to go on a cruise paid by stampin up. This means Rik gets to go diving at the various islands we stop at. That is a good thing since I really don't want to sit around and listen to a bunch of women talk about making cards. Plus I will have a dive partner in Russ.
I am still working as a systems engineer and I'm getting ready to go back to school in the new year. I am going to get my masters degree in systems engineering. It is going to be a 2yr process of seriously hard work. I am also planning on getting back into flyfishing now that one of my fishing partners is back in Colorado. I think it will help me relax while working on my masters degree.
Overall life is pretty good and we are really enjoying life.

Christmas in July

We had a wicked hail storm last week! On Friday just after I got home from Denver a nice storm rolled in over the Lewis-Palmer Divide. At first it was just a bit of rain but then the hail came! We got over an inch of hail on the deck. Thank-fully we got the tomatoes under cover but Lisa's flowers got shredded. The wood on the deck looks like it has been bead blasted. The hail was a little bigger than a pea (some were the size of quarters) but they were perfectly round balls of ice, they looked like diamonds! The storm was so heavy that our neighbor up the hill had a waterfall coming out of his storm drain that run under his front stairs. That river comes right down into my storm drain that runs along the side of my shed. Well it is supposed to, this time it ran into the yard and under the shed because there was so much ice in the water that there were ice dams in the storm drain. I had to take a shovel and go break them up while it was pouring rain and hail. After the hail stopped a steady rain storm followed it up and we were thankful fort he rain but could have done without the hail.

A few weeks back we had our good friends Dave, Jen, and Lilly up for dinner. We had a prime rib that I had put in the smoker and made a special rub for. We had a great time and Lisa took this great picture of Lilly enjoying the prime rib. I know she makes her Daddy so proud! I was so proud that she liked my cooking! Lilly enjoys good BBQ and I'm glad she enjoyed mine.

This coming weekend is the annual Tiki Party here at "Camera nei Pini" and I have taken a few days off to get ready. I will be smoking about 6 pounds of pork on Friday and a 10 pound brisket on Saturday. Each takes about 10 - 12 hours to smoke. Since the party starts at 4pm on Saturday I will be up at 4am to get it going. I am so glad my smoker is electric and I will be able to go back to bed for a few hours after I put the brisket on to smoke. I'll have pictures in the next post for that. Ciao!

Much better this time

As you noticed from the last blog entry we didn't like Nixon in China but over the last 2 weeks we saw "Sweeny Todd" and "3 Mo' Divas". Sweeny Todd was a lot of fun because each of the actors played their own musical instruments. We thought that was really cool. The only downside was when Sweeny killed somebody they fired off a train whistle really really loud and we sit 13 rows in front of the speakers. Man that hurt the ears! The set was really cool and the actors were great.
Last weekend we saw 3 Mo' Divas. It is a celebration of voice. The ladies started by signing Puchini then travelled through Broadway and then onto Gospel and into the Blues. They took a detour through disco but hey no play is perfect! I'm kidding even the disco tunes were fun. Those three ladies were awesome and the piano player was amazing!
I am still doing the Denver thing but hope to get a month back in Colorado Springs at the home office. I need a break from staying up here all week. Plus I need to get some dive time in Jul/Aug so I can stay current with my scuba. Lisa is still working the north hospital and waiting for us to win the lottery so she can retire.