1st Annual Buddy 5K

The 1st Annual Buddy 5k & Pancake Breakfast was a raging success!



The official finishing times are as follows:

The run was followed by a very official awards ceremony.

There was dancing:

And bacon:

The ecstasy of accomplishment:

And the entertainment of an elf:

And a medal for the youngest finisher:

There was a t-shirt raffle:

A shout-out to the support crew:

Afterwards, there was some swimming:

See you next year, buddy.

An Important Announcement

Oatmeal vs. Squash

Why My Husband Is Cooler Than Your Husband - Installment #1

For some background info on this new blog series go here: http://mikeandkaty.blogspot.com/2009/06/precursor-to-my-new-blog-series.html

My husband is cool because he climbed Denali (a.k.a. Mt. McKinley) last year, but he's cooler than your husband because in preparation for the trip (mostly because he was so excited about his new mountain climbing marshmallow suit) he took these self portraits in our basement:









Who does this? Aren't these the best self portraits ever!! Well, actually they're not, because he has some even better ones coming up in future installments of this series, but I thought these were some good ones to get you all warmed up for what's to come!

I do think it's pretty amazing that he climbed this mountain though. At 20,320 feet, it's the highest mountain in North America. It took his group 14 days to get to the top, which is really fast because the fastest the guided groups will allow you to do it is 13 days.

He said that overall the trip was beautiful, but mostly miserable. The highlights included terrible food, catching a cold on day 2 of the trip, waking up in the night not being able to breathe due to the high altitude, and 12 guys pooping in the same coffee can the entire trip. Sounds awesome huh!

I couldn't let Mike take a trip to Alaska without me, so I flew out with him for the first week, and we hung out to see the beautiful mountains before he headed up to start his trip. Denali National Park is incredible, and I highly recommend it to anyone going to Alaska. We saw lots of Grizzly Bears, and so much other wildlife that it was like a safari! Here are some pics from the trip:




This is Mike's climbing partner, Todd.

Here we are looking awesome!

This is a lynx! The driver said he only sees one or two of these a year, so we were really lucky!

This bear actually touched our bus!

2009 Blommer 4th of July Backpacking Trip

As always, this year's Blommer 4th of July Backpacking Trip was a blast!! We had a record turn out 19 people and 3 dogs!

We had 7 kids with us this year, so we decided to make the trip easy. We hiked one mile to Wall Lake in the Uintas, and despite the short distance from civilization, it was BEAUTIFUL!! We had great weather, and the activities included fishing, rock climbing, hiking around the lake, cooking, and hanging out around the fire.

Thanks everyone for coming and making it such a great trip!

P.S. Wheeler's, it was so great to have you there, but unfortunately we didn't end up with any pictures of you to post. Sorry about that! We'll make up for it next year!



Whitmers getting ready for the long hike in! Jeff carried in a 12 man circus tent, and a kid!

This is Sam in his third generation sleeping bag. It was first used by his Grandpa Eric when he was a baby!

Dave carried in so much gear that he looked like this! He even took two trips! We were all grateful though because he made some delicious dutch and backpacker oven meals for everyone! I'm not kidding, the food was incredible. He made BBQ chicken, peach cobbler, crepes (pictured below), pizza, and more!

You can see Mike's sister Amy in the background here. She had a blast! She did the most rock climbing of the group, and she caught the biggest fish!

Here's Aaron getting ready to do some scenic fishing!

What a great trip! Remember everyone is invited for next year too!