Robot Massage

Amy experienced something new getting a massage by a robot.

She said it was okay but couldn't replicate the feel of actual hands.

Empty Nester Dinner

Chris and I are part of an Empty Nester group that meets monthly for dinner. We hosted the dinner at our home on Monday.

I was hoping that it would be warm enough for people to sit outside. Unfortunately it was windy and a little too chilly even with the outdoor fire pit burning.

We supplied the hamburgers and others brought salads, veggies, fruit, hamburger toppings and dessert.

We are grateful for a way to meet others as still are trying to make friends in our ward.

Happenings at Pivot Door Co.

Every so often Chris texts us with some of the interesting things happening at Pivot Door Company. 

This is a pic of lots of people coming together to crate and then lift a 17-foot door onto a moving truck. They also sent a temporary door of the same size to install during the build process so the new door wouldn't be damaged.

A little while later, Chris sent us this picture.

One of the shop workers had a momentary lapse of attention and accidentally nailed his hand rather than a piece of wood. At least he was fortunate enough to miss the bone.

There's always something happening there.

Mountain Biking at Monarch Crest

Chris and I hiked the Monarch ski area last year. We started on a trail that was also frequented by mountain bikers. He thought it would be an amazing hike to do with some friends.

Fast forward to September 2026, Chris planned a weekend of mountain biking with two friends from the Firestone area—Blaine Allen and Jarom Paice. They met in Salida on Thursday morning and had scheduled hikes for that afternoon, then the big Monarch Crest trail for all day on Friday and one more hike on Saturday morning before coming home.

They rented a home in Poncha Springs just outside Salida.

Blaine and Jarom both have a medical background, so it is a little more peace of mind for me when he goes with them.

Chris arrived on Saturday afternoon. Good thing he has done so much hiking and biking this summer. He wasn't all that sore even after the crazy long ride on Monarch Crest.

Smoke Alarm Scare

It wasn't a scare so much as a shock to my ears on Saturday night right before bed. One of the alarms went off, which means that all of the alarms went off. The offending alarm was in my office.

I had to get a tall ladder from the garage, find the one 9 volt battery left in the house, and climb the ladder to switch out the battery.

That didn't solve the problem as the alarm went off again after about 20 minutes. Good thing I left the ladder where it was. This time I twisted the smoke alarm so that it detached from its plate on the ceiling and unplugged it. Then I took a picture of the back of the alarm and put the info into Claude AI.

From Claude:

The alarm can keep an error stored in memory even with a fresh battery.

• Turn off the breaker for the alarms.
• Twist the alarm off the ceiling and unplug the wire connector from the back.
• Take out the battery.
• Hold the Test button for 15–20 seconds to drain leftover charge.
• Put the battery back in, plug the wire back in, remount it and turn the breaker back on.

I did all of that. Then I check every smoke alarm in the house, at 11:30 pm mind you, to make sure there wasn't another one that was blinking red.

I stayed awake for a while longer hoping that the hard reset was the fix. I finally fell asleep after midnight and woke up in the morning with no more blaring interruptions.

And it just had to happen when Chris wasn't home. Seems to always do that.

Card Game Group

There is a couple in our ward boundaries who wanted to start a card game group. They aren't interested in joining us for Sunday meetings, but it is good way to fellowship them. It is also a great way for Chris and I to meet more people in our ward outside of our Sunday meetings.

We play a game called "Hand and Foot". It was new to most of us in the group, so learning and remembering the rules has been a process.

The game is played with tables of four. A minimum of four tables of four is best. So 8 couples are needed, but you can add more if you have at least two more couples attending.

Each table plays with 4 decks of cards. The rules are here.

BYU Dance Performance - Kristen

Kristen attended a dance performance at the Marriott Center. It was required for one of her classes. She got an awesome seat 4 rows from the front.

Kristen's Bad Day

Kristen texted a picture to the family chat about her "worst day ever." Her snack got stuck in the vending machine and she wasn't able to get it out.

Misha Hiking in Chautauqua Park, Boulder

Misha went on a hike and captured some beautiful pictures as well. She hiked a different area around Chautauqua than we have done in the past, but it looked pretty cool.

Boulder FlatIrons

She hiked 1,500 in elevation over 3 miles and found Royal Arch.

Kristen's Roommates

Kristen is enjoying her new apartment and her roommates.

Pictured left to right: Lydia, Alexis, Malia, Kristen, Brook, and Mary

Not pictured: Sadie and Alison

Amy Nashville Trip

Amy traveled to Nashville for a work conference. Some of her friends happened to be there at the same exact time. They were even staying at the same hotel that Amy had booked. 

She flew out early a few days early to spend some time with her friends exploring the famous Broadway Street. They visited many the famous spots; they had the most fun at Morgan Wallen's "This Bar." It had the best live music.

After a fun weekend, Amy spent a few more days at a work conference.

Busy Weekend - Hiking, Costco & a Comedy Club

We had a busy weekend. Some of it just spontaneous, some with Chris' planning.

On Friday evening, we went out for dinner. Chris has been craving Thai food and there is a new restaurant in Monument. The restaurant was a couple doors down from our favorite Chinese massage place. We decided on a whim to see if they had any openings at 7 pm. 

Unfortunately, they were already booked, but at 6:20 we decided to book a 40-minute side by side session and then go for dinner at 7 pm.

The one thing I didn't enjoy is that they seem to have a set routine and if you choose a 40-minute session, they tried to speed up their one hour routine into those 40 minutes. Still it was spontaneity and a massage.

Elephant Thai, the new restaurant, was pretty good. We would definitely try them again.

We planned to hike in the morning, so once we arrived home, we got all of our food ready for the morning. We wanted to be out of the house by 8 am.

We ended the evening with a hot tub soak.

We still had some scrambling to do in the morning to get ready, but having the food ready to go made a big difference.

It took us an hour and 20 minutes to get to the trailhead at Newlin Creek. The last mile in was on a bumpy rutted road. Chris drove about 20 miles per hour to keep the Pilot safe.

Fortunately, the hike was mostly in the shade. We hiked 3 miles into the old Herrick Sawmill. Nathaniel Herrick had dreams of harvesting lumber in the area and selling to to local coal and silver camps. Herrick began by creating a road into the area and then hauling a huge steam boiler and flywheel to the site.

The boiler and flywheel remain today.

We saw a few glimpses of fall along the trail.

Later in the afternoon as we returned to Colorado Springs, we stopped at a few homes on the Parade of Homes circuit. It is always fun to get more decorating ideas.

Instead of going home, Chris had booked us tickets at Comedy Club. We made a quick stop at Costco for some cheese, grabbed dinner at Chick-fil-A and drove across town to Looney's. 

We got home around 9 pm after a very full day.

Kristen Fainted

Kristen has had issues with overheating and fainting since she was a little girl. She just didn't expect that it would happen at the gym.

She was just finishing a workout and went to get a drink. All of a sudden she awoke to people looking down at her asking if she was all right and the paramedics being called.

She was fine and rested and hydrated a bit before attempting to drive home. She called me to let us know what had happened.

She woke the next day with a really sore tailbone and the day after that with a really sore neck. You never know what you'll hurt when you collapse, but at least it wasn't worse. She will have to pay extra close attention to her body and learn to recognize the symptoms of an on-coming episode for the future.

But kudos to Kristen for being at the gym!

Spruce Mountain Open Space Trail

Chris and I completed a quick hike not too far from home. He had actually picked one an hour away, but I suggested we should just go closer to home. It was partially shaded but a little later in the morning, so it was fairly hot.

The hike took us up and around a small mountain and around again. We hiked 5.5 miles, in 1 hour 47 mintues with 685 feet of elevation gain. And it took us less than 15 minutes to drive home afterward.

Dolomite Hike Totals

These are the totals for our Dolomites hikes over the two weeks that we visited Italy.

Kristen - Fall Semester

Kristen took the obligatory first day of class picture.

Gotta love that it is from a campus restroom.

Cute Early Morning Visitors

Every couple of days, Chris or I check our cameras to see what interesting things have happened outside overnight. Usually it is deer or pesky raccoons. I think they snag veggies from my garden.

This was a fun surprise after we returned home from Italy.

Dolomites Trip - Day 15

Time to go home. I think we were both ready. 

Chris and I were up early and out of the hotel by 7:30 am. We dropped off our rental car at the airport and checked in for our flight. We had to go through Immigration again with EES documentation. 

EES Kiosks

We stopped at the lounge for an hour and half before our flight and had breakfast. 

Our flight left about an hour late as we were waiting for some transfers. And then 10 hours of flight time and lots of typing for me.

Dolomites Trip - Day 14

Our last day had us leaving the hotel around 9:00 am. We had planned to hike again in Innsbruck and take a few more gondolas, but we had been on plenty of gondolas and hiked a lot. We changed our minds and just did some sightseeing in Innsbruck’s Old Town. Chris also found Rattenberg, Austria (the smallest village in Austria) with a castle, an old town, and a tasty ice cream shop. The town was famous for glass blowing. 

We drove the rest of the way to Munich to our hotel in a town outside Munich— Freisling. It was supposed to be close to the airport, but was still about 15 minutes away. 

We had dinner in Freisling Old Town. It was good to get a little walking in today. Certainly not as much as the past two weeks though.

Dolomites Trip - Day 13

We took the Alpe di Siusi Aerial cableway back up to Alpe di Siusi on the other side of the mountain this time. We started on the end where we had stopped for a picnic lunch last week and chatted with our girls. 

We walked to the Panorama Chairlift and rode it further up the mountain. From there our hike began on the Alpe di Tires hike.

There were switchbacks up the side of the mountain. Aghghghghgh, more climbing. 

It took us 30 minutes to get from the base of the mountain up to the top. I was so glad to be done. We walked down the other side of the mountain and stopped for a snack. 

There was a long walk back through fields and up and down hills. 

We stopped at Rifugio Schutzhous and had one of the best snacks of the whole trip. They were called shredded pancakes and were so tasty. 

We walked back to the Panorama lift and from there back to the cableway. We could have skipped the Panorama chairlift, but at the end of the day we walked 9 miles and climbed almost 2,500 feet in elevation over 4.5 hours.

We were happy to relax by the pool again for the rest of the afternoon.

Dolomites Trip - Day 12

The bells went off starting at 5:30 am, 7 am and 8:24 am (those lasted for about five minutes). Like I said, we weren’t sleeping in. 

From our hotel room, we could see a couple of castle ruins on the mountain side. We chose to walk to them today. It was quite the ascent up to the first castle. There wasn’t much to see and the first castle wasn’t accessible for exploring. 

Chris must have found some stinging nettle because his leg started to burn. We walked to the other ruins along a family-friendly nature path. More up and downhill with great views of the valley and surrounding mountain ranges.

We ended up at Laghetto di Fie, a lake. 

The park was filled with people having picnics, laying out, and jumping into the water. We sat and rested on a park bench and then continued our walk down to a bus stop. We let the bus driver navigate for us back to the hotel. 

It was nice to spend the rest of the afternoon taking a dip in the pool, and relaxing in the sun. 

We even had massages at the hotel spa, but they were only so so. The masseuse certainly didn’t work out any of the soreness.