Another month has past. Not much news came about through July. Big events include Jennifer teaching preschool again and finding a piece of property.
Jennifer got a job at a local childcare facility. She is teaching preschool and so far enjoys what she is doing. I give her credit, I could not do that job.
We found a piece of property in Hoodsport, WA. It is 5 acres and over looks Hood

Canal. We are expecting to make an offer later this week, keep your fingers crossed. We are planning to build a small house on it in the next 8 years and use it mainly as a get away. The property is situated 15 minutes from Hood Canal and 10 minutes away from Lake Cushman. We will keep you posted on what happens.
One of my best friends, Tad Snide, came out to visit in hte beginning of August. He was out for 6 days. While out here we took a trip down to the OMSI. At the OMSI, we watched "Superman" the new movie on the 72' dome IMAX screen. It was pretty cool. We
then caught a concert in Salem, Rob Zombie and Anthrax. Tad knows the bad Anthrax on a first name basis. We arrived early and hung out with them on the tour bus, and even got to take Scott Ian to Best Buy. It was pretty sweet. Tad hooked me up with a
full access photo pass for the concert. While they were on stage, I could go anywhere and shoot them. I mainly stayed down in front between the crowd and the

stage, it was amazing. Check the photos out on Anthraxband.blogspot.com.
Over the weekend we went downtown Portland and then out to the waterfalls along the Coulmbia Gorge. Once again, they were amazing.

We were looking for a “non-crowded” camping trip this time around. We loved the coast so much in May, we decided to look there again. We had been looking at a visit
to Shi Shi Beach/Point of Arches area. It is a long haul to this spot, taking almost 7 hours. We put it on the back burners until the perfect weekend. We spoke to the rangers last time we went camping, and they told us to try Toleak Point and then Shi Shi Beach. We took their advice and scheduled Shi Shi Beach for the July 4th weekend. To our surprise, the latest backpacker magazine came out featuring our July 4th destination on the front cover. We thought we were going to be among a sea of tents, but we were wrong. There were less people than there were at Toleak Point. To see the whole trip and read about the most amazing beer story ever, click on “Shi Shi Beach” to the right.

What a month it has been. It started off perfect with an incredible camping trip to Toleak Point, and will end with another one. Unfortunately the destination of choice coming up is featured on the front page of this month’s issue of Backpacker Magazine. We expect a lot of people to be present.

Quentin got a little pet. We got him a hamster and he named it “dash”. A fitting name because the thing will not stop running on its wheel. That seems like the only activity it likes to do.

For Fathers Day the family and I went to the Portland International Speedway to watch the Portland Grand Prix. We got free tickets from a vendor at work which had

incredible seats, right across from the Pits. What not a better time to bring the Canon 20D and the 300mm lenses which allowed for the close up action.

Last weekend I had the great idea (at the time) to build Quentin a clubhouse. Every kid needs a clubhouse some time in his life and Q was overdue. With most of the kids in the neighborhood hanging out at our house anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to keep them outside in there own play place. At work, we are about to demo a building. I went in and removed a couple walls, doors, shelves, etc. Everything that was used in this clubhouse was 100% recycled and cost $0.

This weekend Jennifer, Quentin and I decided to go for a hike. We learned that there was a hidden waterfall which required water hiking. We set out for the short trip which led us to the base of a pretty large waterfall where you could swim in the

bottom. It was incredible and beautiful. The hike is was exciting, reaching depths of mid torso deep, it kept it interesting.

What a weekend. Quentin, Jennifer and I all went camping at the Coast in Olympic National Park (Check Map Below). To read and see the entire trip, click on "Toleak Point Trip" on the right.

It has been awhile since our last update. We have been so busy with jobs and life. We have had little time on the weekends to do much of anything, except to relax and get ready for the next week. We finally got a break when Bob and Claudia (Jennifer’s parents) decided to visit. Our first stop was the waterfalls along the Columbia River. This trip was better than the last trip, not so cold and miserable. We took the entire tour of the falls finishing at the Vista House.This last weekend we made the decision to go to the Oregon Coast. We drove the hourand half to Seaside. Seaside is a small town suited for tourist right on the coast, with a large board walk and many shops to explore. Jennifer finally got to see theocean which made her very happy. From Seaside, we made our way South to Cannon Beach. While in Cannon Beach we drove into the local park which sent you to a very picturesque over look of the cliffs and ocean. While on our departure from the park we got our taste of wildlife. Elk are not a big deal for us due to the fact we got to see them on a daily basis in Colorado, but it was interesting seeing them in a different environment, so green and lush. After departing Cannon Beach, we drove Highway 101 along the coast to Tillamook. Tillamook is famous for cheese and dairy products. We were not that impressed with the town and left fairly
early. From Tillamook, we drove back to Portland and called it a day.
Our next weekend trip planned is to visit the Ape Caves out side of Mt. St. Helens. We will keep you posted.

We are all moved in. The house is put together, and we can even park a car in the garage now. We now have a guest bedroom and our door is always open.

Jennifer is staying busy finishing the final touches, working a part time job, and taking care of the family. We are both looking forward to December for our 22 day trip to East Africa. We are going for our ten year anniversary, can you believe it is almost ten years.

Quentin is loving his new school. He has lots of new friends and is being challenged with the new curriculum. The schools here are much tougher than the Colorado school he came from, they rank 2nd in the Country. This will be very good for him.

As for myself, I am busy with work. I have been putting in some long hours to try to get the job up and running. Little time for anything else. This will be one of the most interesting jobs I have ever been on. We are building a sewer overflow tunnel under Portland. It is 80'-165' deep and 22' diameter tunnel that stretched for 6 miles. It is going to be pretty cool. The Tunnel Boring Machine is having the final preparations done at the Herrenknecht plant in Germany before it is shipped to us.

Last weekend we finally got to get away for a little bit, we made it to the waterfalls along the Columbia River. They were really cool even in the winter time. We are looking forward to them in the summer.
We have attended a Winterhawks hockey game up here, it was fun, especially since the tickets were free. We invited our new neighbors to go with us, they are pretty nice, and again, they have a daughter Quentin's age. We do miss the Avalanche though.
This weekend, the fire department burnt down a house about 3 blocks over, Quentin and I went and watched, it was interesting to watch and made me miss doing that on the Fire Department in Evergreen.

All is well and we hope to hear from all of you soon.

We are moved in and the house is getting unpacked slowly. To see the fun we had on the road trip, click the link to the right that says "The Move 2006"

Got the house this last weekend. Everything is set. We went to Q's new school and that sold us on the house. The movers will be at our house the 24th of January and we will do the long road trip route and be at the new house the 30th of January. Here is a picture of our new house we are moving into....

WE ARE MOVING

Kenn just found out he will be transfered to Portland, OR at the end of Januay. We are going to be in our new place by Jan 30th. We are not changing our cell phone numbers so you will still be able to reach us without having to go through the big hassle of remebering another number.
We are looking to move on the Vancouver, WA side of the river and Kenn will drive across each day.

Another month has almost past and no new news. Jennifer, Quentin and myself are all doing fine.
Jennifer and I attended the Boston vs Colorado Hockey game last night. Of course I was cheering for Boston(even though they traded Thorton - boneheads) and Jennifer
for Colorado. Just like most of their season, the Bruins looked horrible and lost 4-1. The seats were great at least, we sat in VIP club level (one of the vendors I work with gave us the tickets).

Click to see our latest adventure on the right. Jennifer, myself, and a couple guys I work with went to Blue John Canyon November 11-13, 2005.

Another month has passed.

Fall is finally here. These are some pictures taken last weekend of Jennifer and Quentin playing in the leaves. The last of Quentin’s soccer pictures have been added also.

October was a fairly good month. Quentin finished up soccer on the 30th. He finished with quite a few goals this season. Now that soccer is over we are going to really concentrate on skating. I have put him on inline skates and he is improving. I would like him to start playing hockey this spring. He should be ready by then. School is going good for him and his parent/teacher conference went really well.

Jennifer is doing equally as good. She is still teaching preschool at Parker Landing in Aurora. This takes up the majority of her time and enjoys the weekends off at least. She has made it to every soccer game and practice, making her the ultimate soccer mom. We are going on a Canyoneering trip November 11,12, and 13th to Blue John Canyon in Eastern Utah. This is the same canyon where Aron Ralston had to amputate his own arm to survive. We are looking forward to this trip and will post pictures when we get back.

I am staying busy with work, hockey and weekend photography. The job is going well and we forecast our departure sometime in spring. We are hoping to make it in Denver until Quentin is out of school. When we do eventually make it back to the West Coast, we are going to do a road trip and swing by to see everyone in Southern California. We will let you know the details when we have them.
I have started a new hockey team on Sunday nights and we are doing very well so far. The photography business is taking off and the weekend schedule is starting to book up quickly. I have taken several studio portraits, a couple of weddings, and family location portraits for different families and friends. Finally the money is starting to come in to offset some of the equipment that has recently been purchased.

This is our non-exciting month in review.

Practice makes perfect


Quentin did an incredible job playing soccer again. He scored the first goal of the game for the Bulls. He was almost at half field charging to the goal when he became swarmed by the other team. He gave the ball a huge kick and it got nothing but net. If you look at the pictures under “Quentin’s soccer pictures” you will see the 3 pictures of his goal and congratulations from other teammates.

After the soccer game Jennifer and I wanted to freshen up our repelling skills for our trip in November. We are going to attempt (with 2 other people) Blue John Canyon. You may have heard of this canyon, this is where Aron Ralston got trapped and had to cut off his own arm to survive. The route we are going requires 4 repels with one of them being 65’.
Quentin, Jennifer and I piled into the car and drove to Evergreen and found the perfect wall to repel off of. Someone else had the same idea; they left 2 embedded anchors behind. After testing the anchors to make sure they would hold our weight, we were off.

Last weekend of the summer



Quentin is back in soccer. He is playing for the same team he was last spring, the Bulls. So far this year they have played two games and have dominated both of them, winning this past Saturday 8-6. Quentin is quite the ball handler and scores at least one goal every game. Jennifer and I get to go to every game and I, of course take pictures with the new Canon 20d with a 75-300 telephoto. If you look to the right you will see a tab for Quentin’s Soccer Pictures, click on it an you will see up to date pictures from his games. I will add pictures every week as I take them.

I wanted the summer road bike riding to go out with a bang, do something I have never done before, a long hill climb. I decided to ride Mt. Evans road, the highest paved road in North America. There are many options on where to start. You can either start in Idaho Springs (27 miles one way) or Evergreen (32 miles one way) for the common rides to the top, or you can opt for the Dave “Crusher” Strunk and start from Denver which makes it a 60-70 mile one way trip. I was under a time crunch and didn’t feel I was in that good of shape, so I started from Echo Lake, which makes it a 14.25 mile one way ride. One of my riding buddies, Jason UL and I set out from my house in Denver around 7 am and were at the lake around 8:30 or so. The lake sits at 10,600 ft above sea level and is the beginning of the Mt. Evans road off of Highway 103. The road is a well-maintained due to the fact you have to pay to use it. Jason and I started out at 9am slowly climbing the road towards the top. I stopped several times to document the trip with my camera. When we made it to summit lake (mile 9.5), we were please to find the road closed to cars beyond that. This was great news to us, we had the road all to ourselves. As we pushed on we got to the last grueling part, the final switchbacks. They were steep and the wind was blowing making it cold (I would guess in the 40* range). Finally, 2 hours after we started, we made it to the top of Mt Evans. It was by far the longest, most grueling hill climb I have ever done. With an average speed of 7 mph, I have GREAT respect for the men of the Tour De France who could of maintained an average speed of close to 20 mph cranking up that hill.
It took us 2 hours to climb, and around 25 minutes to descend, passing cars going along the way.

The last 3 day weekend of the summer....

Thursday we thought we would be in for just the normal 3 day weekend. Wow, were we wrong. It started out by hearing the great news that our super close friends the Schmidt's, TJ and Alexandra, were proud new parents. We got to go see them at the Hospital and it was really exciting. Congratulations to the Schmidt Family. You can read about their adventure at http://aschmidtlife.blogspot.com/

Earlier we had made the decision to go camping with Quentin and the dog, again, an adventure. Click on the " Q's first camping trip" to the right and read all about it.

This last weekend Jennifer and I attended a Indy Car Race. I got some free tickets and we decided it would be an experience. One of my good friends sister in-law got a couple free also.
TJ, Michelle, Jennifer and I piled into the car and headed to Pikes Peak International Raceway (PPIR) which is located between Colorado Springs and Pueblo. We arrived at 1:15 pm and found our way to the correct tent where we would receive our tickets. We were shocked at how good the seats were, 6th row from the track. We made our way to the grand stand and were sitting just in time for the beginning of the race. Jennifer nor I have ever been to a car race of any type before, this would be our first. As the pace car dived off the track the cars screamed to 200 mph and it gives you goose bumps.
About half way through their was a wreck which happend right in front of us, other than that it was a pretty normal race and exciting to watch.
225 laps and 2 hours later, the race was over and the four of us were on our way back to Denver.

Well, it is that time of the year again, When kids get to go back to school. I don't miss that feeling of coming off of summer vacation and going back to school. Quentin does not care too much for the feeling either.
Jennifer started her new job back in May after Quentin was out of school. She works at "Parker Landing Child Dev Center " in Aurora. She is one of two teachers in the preschool. Quentin went to the 1st-5th grade class this summer and it was good for him to interact with the other kids.
Jennifer and I decided that for his last day of summer break, we would take him to Six Flags Elitch Gardens. I went to this amusement park many times when I was a teenager, in fact Ray (my brother) worked there for one of his very first jobs. It has changed over the years but Quentin had a blast. Quentin is fortunate, he is very tall for 7 years old (50.5"), so he was only turned away from 3 rides.
The morning started with the Light Rail Ride into the park. We got there at 10am just in time for the park to open. We started out with Quentin taking his first metal roller coaster ride. He was a little shocked at the speed and the loops but he eventually warmed up to them and went on everyone he could. Elitches has a lot of rides that have the Batman theme to them, so Quentin was in Heaven. We got to see the Batman stunt show and he even got to meet the characters afterwards.
After riding many "spin you around until you throw up" rides, Jennifer and I decided to call it quits right around 5pm.
Quentin said he had a great time and was looking forward to the next day, his first day of school.

Kiewit Family Day '05

Every year Kiewit puts on a family day. Family day is geared towards the kids so they can ride the heavy equipment safely. Kiewit puts seats on the equipment for the kids to sit in, and then operates the equipment so the kids can see exactly how it works and what it feels like.
This year Quentin, Jennifer and I attended. After eating a lot of BBQ and free snow cones, we headed out to let Quentin ride the equipment. Quentin is no stranger around heavy equipment. When he was 5, I took him out to a project and he got to run a backhoe (he sat on my lap and operated the controls) and he got to operate a Volvo L150 Loader.
At family day he road along on a excavator and water truck. He was super eager to get back for the face painting. Luckily, she was still there when we got back. She had a large board to choose different designs. Quentin passed up Spiderman and batman. Both Jennifer and I were amazed with want he wanted……Go Broncos

Extended Weekend - July 4th

The weekend started off a little rocky. Friday Quentin had to have a tooth pulled because of an odd blister/infection that had formed on Thursday afternoon. All went well though and he was a brave little guy. We got our new cell phones Friday, if you would like the number feel free to email me at Kennhallquist@yahoo.com , I will give you Jennifer's or mine. Friday night my Dad flew into town and so the family and I piled into the car on Saturday and drove to Evergreen. Quentin got the spoil treatment from the grandparents which included lots of sugar, and the super soaker water battle. After spending much of the day there we headed home.
Sunday night Jennifer and I attended the 80's hairband, Whitesnake. We had pretty good seats, 15 rows from the stage. Whitesnake was very popular when Jennifer and I were in High School, and we both listened to them quite a bit. The show was great, and the people who showed
up were almost as interesting. It made Jennifer and I realize one thing, we are getting old. The night of the 4th we went next door to our neighbors house where he had brought back some amazing fireworks from Missouri. We had a picnic type dinner and watched as fireworks were launched for hours.
That was our 4 day weekend to start July off, hopefully the month is just as fun….