Hiking Flattop Mountain

Every year, Nate's family takes a vacation to Rocky Mountain National Park. We have been going a few years now and usually there is one intense hike that we do. Three years ago, we got up to hike in the dark and then watch the sunrise from above tree line. This year, we didn't get up that early (only 4:30am), but did have an ALL day hike. This was the 8.6-mile round-trip hike to Flattop Mountain. This is a hard hike in general, but since this was early June, there was still a good deal of snow on the hike. For about a full mile to mile and a half in the middle of the hike (meaning up to 3 miles round trip) we attempted to hike through, around, and on top of snow banks, measuring up to 3-4 feet. That is the part that really got me. I could handle the sun, elevation, exhaustion, but that snow... it really did me and everybody else in. However, we persevered and all got up to the top! And then persevered again and all got to the bottom in one piece! It was definitely one successful and intense hike!

L: There was 4G pretty much all the way up the mountain so Nate was using a remote desktop app to control his computer at home and run some code! Of course!

R: Nate and I at the Dream Lake Overlook (995' climb up and 1.6 miles in)

T: Panorama as we were approaching the tree line (with Nate's cousin and uncle)

B: Nate and I at the Emerald Lake Overlook (1,882' climb up and 2.9 miles in) -- this was after a good deal of the snow so we are happy but exhausted

T: Nate taking a picture of the crew all huddled up and eating lunch (2,660' climb up and 3.9 miles in)

B: Panorama of the perennial snow bank right before the top (I may have taken this a bit too quickly because I was unrealistically worried about the threat of avalanche)

T: Panorama of the top of Flattop Mountain (4.3 mile hike and 2,849' climb up to put us at 12,324' -- over two miles up from sea level)

L: Nate and I posing by a flag near the top

R: A shot from the top where you can see the parking lot where we parked our car (surreal and sort of sad!)

Cropped Cardigans

My friend Laura wanted a few cardigans cropped to be shorter. There are quite a few tutorials online for this kind of thing, and it seemed very straight forward. Of course, I measured about twelve times before cutting and then I found out the sweaters were all a little bit different so that was annoying. One of the four I cropped was a full inch longer than the others. Just for funzies (and to annoy me!).

I cut the middle of the sweater out so that I could attach the ribbing to the top part of the sweater. The button spacing, thankfully, aligned close to correctly so that was nice, but if I were making it a different size, I could see the button spacing being too short between the top and the ribbing. I needed to pin everything pretty intensely, because it was stretchy material and the machine tends to pull the bottom through faster than the top so if you're not careful, you can get some large differences between the two fabrics you are sewing.

All of the tutorials recommended a zigzag stitch, which is usually what should be used for this. However, I found that a different stitch was better -- I think it's a modified blind stitch but I can't seem to find the correct name for it on the interwebs. This stitch has the zigzag but also has a few straight stitches on each side (this is the stitch I have used to hem at least a dozen of my brother's shirts). This caused the fabric to ripple less since there was less thread going back and forth. In the end, all the cardigans looked nice and cropped, and Laura was very happy with her newly modified cardigans! The sleeves didn't need any modification because they were already 3/4 sleeve but they could be modified exactly like the main part of the cardigan.

Sodastream & Flavored Syrup

This is something that I have wanted to mention on this blog for a while, but now is a good time. For Christmas, Nate's parents gave us a Sodastream. Specifically this Sodastream model. This is something I wanted for a long time because I like drinking carbonated water. It was really easy to use and we started using it in January. It did come with some "syrups" and they were ok, but not great. The suggested dilution was WAY too syrup-y and sweet so we haven't really used them at all.

We have had to replace the carbonator twice now. Once in mid-April and once yesterday. I thought this was going to be super hard and frustrating, but we just went to the Bed, Bath, & Beyond (there is one next to Costco so it's super convenient) with the old one and they had new ones there. They are apparently $15, but Bed, Bath, & Beyond honors their "$5 off $15 or more" coupon for them so it becomes $10, which is really cheap for about 3 months of carbonated water.

At first, Nate was skeptical of the Sodastream, but now he uses it almost as much as I do (which at least once a day). So, if anyone is really into drinking carbonated water and thinking about getting a carbonator, we really recommend this one. Yes, you can make your own and yes, that's probably cheaper and handier, but the Sodastream is really easy to use, takes up very little space, and the cartridges are super easy to replace.

So, recently, especially now that it's summer, I have been wanting to find a syrup that I can add to the water to give it a little bit of flavor. I started looking online, and all of the syrups I could find were just sugar. They had high fructose corn syrup listed as the second ingredient. I didn't want sugar but rather a flavoring, so I was really frustrated. Finally, I decided to just make some of my own. I had a few berries in the fridge, so I boiled them with some water and a tiny bit of sugar (I also added some rosemary and a squirt of lemon juice to round it out). I ended up with the perfect flavoring (I don't think it's even syrup since it's not syrupy) that was not sugary at all. Yay! And it was super easy to do. I should have done this long ago!

I used a cocktail shaker to strain out all of the berry skins!