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….

The project. The reason we are in Denver right now is because of Kenn's work. He is currently an engineer on a 1.4 Billion Dollar Freeway Expansion Project. He is working in the drainage discipline trying to solve the freeway water problems. The project is starting to wrap up and we hope to be moving by the end of the year. Our next destination is currently unknown, but we know it should (99% chance) be on the West Coast somewhere. The top photo is looking East at the interchange of I-25 and I-225. The bottom photo is looking North up I-25 at the Yale Street overpass.