Category: Family

The Wonderful Wedding (18 June 2011)

Posted by Brittany – June 24, 2011

Some girls grow up dreaming and planning their wedding day. I didn’t. When Frank proposed to me the previous May, I had very little idea of what our wedding should look like. But, maybe that’s the best way. Through the course of a year, Frank and I developed our wedding- with our own style, our own importance, and our own hands. And when it came time for the actual wedding day, things took their own course. And there Frank and I suddenly found ourselves, characters in our own fairy tale wedding.

We are still waiting on pictures from our photographer, Tom Stillo. But, I wanted to do a blog on our wedding before we leave for our honeymoon in just a few days. Thus, I am thankful for the photos contributed by friends and family that you will see here.

Our wedding was at the Club at Crested Butte. Yes, the “Club” is a golf course. But, the venue is perfect for a wedding like ours. We wanted a outdoor wedding followed by a largely indoor reception. With stunning views on all sides and a rustic yet classy interior, the Club suited our needs to a tee.

The Wedding Ceremony

Guests arriving.
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Hennie played music as our guests began to arrive, and played for our procession as well. Our procession song was All I Want Is You by Barry Louis Polisar.
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Photo courtesy of Kim Ross

Frank waiting with his best man, Ben, and our officiant, Lou Dawson.
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Photo courtesy of Amy Bosak

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Family visits the Butte

Posted by Brittany – July 3, 2010

My folks came to visit us in Crested Butte last week. Not the normal Ohio kind, they kept things quite active. I wasn’t able to join them on everything, but here’s what we did do.

1) Rode our bikes down to Almont and back.
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TR: Daisy Pass Hike (26 June 2010)

Posted by Brittany – June 29, 2010

My folks are in town visiting and after a few days of riding our bikes, we decided it was time to do something different. How about a hike? Now, keep in mind that Frank and I don’t really just hike. We hike to do something- to ski, to ride a bike back down. That’s just what we do. In fact, I mentioned to Frank that very morning, “We’ve never actually just gone hiking together.” “Yes we did. We went hiking along the tow paths along the Cuyohoga River when we visited your family in Ohio in October.” “That wasn’t a hike, that was a walk.” Daisy Pass was going to be a hike!

We parked at the Oh-Be-Joyful campground and began the hike with a bang- Nothing like a nice scary log crossing over a raging river to start off your day.
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From there, we continued along the trail through a dry wooded area near Schuykill Ridge. Susan, Frank and I.
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Frank, and I.
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Mom visits Colorado, Oct. 2-6

Posted by Brittany – October 11, 2008

My mom came to visit just in time to see the end of our fall peak here in the mountains of Colorado.

We started her visit by visiting the beautiful town of Ouray. From there, we headed back to Crested Butte. Unfortunately, the weather was not very cooperative. Everyone in the town of Crested Butte was excited for and expecting their first real snowstorm of the season. But what came from the winter storm warning was mostly a bunch of rain.

When the sun did manage to come out on Sunday afternoon, however, we could see that we were surrounded by mountains covered in a blanket of snow.
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And the fall leaves were looking particularly magnificent in the crisp light.
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We took a little drive over Ohio pass were we enjoyed stunning the scenery.
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Wish the weather had cooperated a bit more, but it was great to have my mom here for a long weekend!

Greenville, South Carolina

Posted by Brittany – July 8, 2008

Originally posted on my Thrillhead Blog

Greenville

Greenville is a small city in South Carolina that has been wonderfully revitalized. Today, the city has been transformed to a “walking town”. Paths and gardens are everywhere, and if it weren’t for the dang summer heat, the walking here would be fantastic.

Mainstreet is full of shops and restaurants.

Read about the history of Greenville here:
http://www.greatergreenville.com/neighborhoods/historic_greenville.asp

Falls Park

The highlight of Greenville is Falls Park.

Falls Park is known for these falls which lie on the Reedy River. The Reedy is named as such because- well, it had a lot of reeds growning around it back in the day. Of course, these reeds have gone the way of the Cherokee that once inhabited the area- they are all gone!

The gardens at Falls park are spectacular. The land was purchased in 1967 for public use. However, the gardens didn’t start becoming realized until 1990.

Read more about Falls Park here:
http://www.fallspark.com/history.asp

Table Rock

Lots of interesting sights surround the Greenville area. One of them is the Table Rock State Park, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians. We didn’t visit the park, but we passed by it. The rock that bears the parks name dominates the sky.

Read more:
http://www.southcarolinaparks.com/park-finder/state-park/350.aspx


Twin Falls

Twin Falls is also known as Reedy Cove Falls, Rock Falls, or Eastatoe Falls. There is about a 15 minute hike to get there through lush South Carolina forest.

Despite what it seems in the picture, the falls drop down over granite for more than 70 feet!

That concludes my South Carolina portion of my trip. Next, we headed up to North Carolina to visit the Cherokee Reservation, the Biltmore and Asheville.
More to come!

South Carolina- Family

Posted by Brittany – July 6, 2008

Originally posted on my Thrillhead Blog

So, I’m in South Carolina for a family wedding, remember? Yeah, my cousin is getting married. So, I thought I’d post some pics of some of my family at this event.

Okay, so lets back up first. Some speculated whether my cousin would actually have the wedding or not. No, it wasn’t a matter of cold feet. My cousin got so sick with an intestinal virus that instead of going to the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding, she went to the hospital. Yeah. Okay, fast forward. She made it through the wedding. And here she is, still at the church, with her father, sister, and stepsister (bridesmaids) behind her.

She still looks pretty good even when dancing. No sign of her breaking down and puking all over the floor. This is a good thing :)

Me and my cousins- the bride and her sister.

My step cousin and my “baby” cousin, brothers of the bride. My baby cousin is not so baby anymore! Just home from the Army, having been stationed in Korea for over a year, he is happy to be back.

My cousin’s daughter is the cutest one in the family though!

She loves the camera! If I hold up the camera, she smiles and says “cheese!” Future model perhaps? If she’s like her mom, she has the genes!

4th of July in South Carolina

Posted by Brittany – July 4, 2008

Originally posted on my Thrillhead Blog

So, my cousin is getting married. She now lives in Greenville, South Carolina. What this means? I’m spending the 4th of July with a family reunion of sorts in the South.

I began by flying to Ohio, where my mom lives. She and I drove down to South Carolina yesterday. It was a longer drive than we expected, but it was likely due to the fact that we took a slight detour to visit Cumberland Gap.

Cumberland Gap is a bit of a ways off the Interstates. But, it sounded like a fun thing to see (it involved Daniel Boone, and who doesn’t love Daniel Boone?)- so we went to see it! So, what the heck is Cumberland Gap you ask? Well, see it’s this valley that goes through the Appalachian mountains. What makes this valley particularly important, is that it breaks a stretch of the mountains that spans about miles and miles as a ridge without a gap in between, except for this one.

What does Daniel Boone have to do with Cumberland Gap? Well, he made it famous. Some people say that he discovered Cumberland Gap, but that’s incorrect. Cumberland Gap was discovered in 1750 by Dr. Thomas Walker, a Virginia physician who became an explorer. But, in reality, that is also a lie. Dr. Walker would never have found Cumberland Gap had the Cherokee and other tribes not had a trail running right through it already. They’d probably known about it for centuries.

Okay, now, back to the Daniel Boone part. Daniel Boone was famous for being an explorer. He explored Kentucky- one of the first areas to be explored beyond the original 13 colonies. His name is pretty much synonymous with the state. Boone helped bring settlers to Kentucky by making the territory more known and by leading a group through Cumberland Gap in 1775.

Anyway, this is what the Cumberland Gap looks like today.

Sometime in the 1930′s or something the white man got all egotistical and decided to build a road to what is today called the Pinnacle Overlook. This overlook provides spectacular views (duh!) over the Appalachia of 3 states- Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. I suppose this road is all well and good in the long run as it lead to the area becoming preserved as a National Historic Park. Today you can still drive that road and also enjoy the amazing views. Oh, and you can hike something like 50 miles of trails if you want to as well.

From the parking lot to the overlook you cross over the state line between Kentucky and Virginia.

And then the wonderful views.

Me with Tennessee behind me.

Anyway, that ends today’s history lesson folks! I hope you all learned a little something new :) In case you didn’t, here’s some reading material for ya.

Cumberland Gap
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/cuga/luckett/index.htm
http://www.nps.gov/cuga/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Gap

Daniel Boone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Boone
http://www.earlyamerica.com/lives/boone/

Stay tuned for more Southern adventures. Upcoming: Greenville, the wedding (yeah, remember, that’s why I’m here!), Asheville, the Biltmore, and hopefully the Smoky Mountains!

Enjoying Winter Park on a lovely sunny day!

Posted by Brittany – January 22, 2008

Previously posted on my Thrillhead Blog

Winter Park
Sunday Jan 20, 2008

My dad and his wife Susan came to visit me in Colorado from Ohio for the holiday weekend. Sunday was a perfect ski day. Sunny, not too cold but not too warm, practically windless, and just one of those days you’d be silly to not enjoy.

I often ski at Winter Park, but rarely do I bother to bring a camera with me. I couldn’t resist bringing it with me on Sunday though, as I knew it was going to be one of those great days.

I knew it was going to be a great day when I got to the top of the Super Gauge chair that the chutes were open. I made sure to hit them for my first run of the day:

Hole-in-the-Wall is always my favorite. So, of course I headed there. Looking down the chute from part-way.

Looking back up the chute

Looking across the chute (pillows beckoning for someone!)

It was fantastic snow in Hole-in-the-Wall. Very few rocks were showing. It really doesn’t get much better than that!

We then headed to the Panoramic Express chair, the new 6-pack that takes you to the top of Parsenn’s Bowl. This chair replaces the old Timberline chair, which is now gone. Thoughts were that a 6-pack would eliminate the always-long-line of the dinky-double that was Timberline, but this is simply not the case. Everyone wanted to try the new chair and the line was at least a half an hour long! We didn’t want to deal with that line again so we headed over to the Eagle Wind chair. From the runs off Eagle Wind you can get a good view of the Cirque.

The side you can view is typically not open, but when it is, there’s some great lines.

While we were skiing the Eagle Wind, we could hear the ski patrollers bombing the Cirque. I was hoping it would open. I got lucky because while I was waiting for my dad at the bottom of the Eagle Wind, a ski patroller came out of the Cirque and announced it was open. To the Cirque we went.

I like the Cirque. I like it because it’s a nice pitch and because the snow is usually pretty good. Part of reason it stays good is due to the fact that the Cirque is hard to get to, and requires a 20 minute hike or skate-ski. Doing one lap requires AT LEAST two chair lift rides. This makes it difficult for people to do multiple laps.

You have to access the Cirque from the top of the new Panoramic Express. With views like this, it’s no wonder why the chair bears its name.

Couple of shots of me skiing the Cirque.

I wish I had remembered to buckle my boots before I actually skied it! Oh well, such is life :)

Susan

Dad on the way out of the Cirque.

Winter Park is a whole different ski area on a day like this day. It was a good day and I’m glad I brought my camera :)