Camping May 2007

In late May we went camping with our friends, the DeKams. Beth and I are not big on camping but the kids enjoy it. Chad DeKam is big on camping (want proof? check out his blog at http://flyfishingthe50states.blogspot.com/) and it is good to go with his family because he has the gear and the know-how to make things go much smoother than they otherwise would go (besides that it's fun to spend time together).


We camped at one of the national campgrounds between Woodland Park and Deckers, Colorado. Chad brought along some bocce balls and we had fun playing bocce on the forest floor. That was the first experience I'd had with bocce balls but it was really fun. I ended up getting a set of bocce balls for Father's Day so there is more bocce in our future (don't know much about bocce? Check out this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocce).


We were close to Manitou Lake and we spent some time there. Chad had a canoe along and most of us went out on the lake. Chad also used the canoe with the kids in the little stream that runs out of the reservoir and that was fun for the kids (and a lot of work for Chad!).


Both nights I slept in the tent with most of the kids while the other adults slept in the little camper. One night Analise slept in the camper and the other night Fischer slept in the camper. Fischer fell off his bunk onto the floor during the night but managed to sleep through the fall.

The second night Stephen woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom so I got up to help him. We went outside the tent barefoot and that wasn't fun for him so I carried him over to a tree where he did his business (perhaps I should have taken him all the way to one of the outhouses but I didn't...he we had our dogs along and they don't use the outhouses so how bad can it be?). Anyway, we did avert potential disaster in the tent but the next morning after all of my help, he didn't even remember...oh well.


Anyway, we we had a good time.


About ready to leave


The camp set-up.


Marshmallows with Elizabeth, Dad, and Stephen. Note Steve's very cool Classic Broncos apparel.

Kids burning sticks


Good Mornin'...argh!

Fischer and Will doing dishes

The boys playing Candyland in the camper

Bocce

Fun with the hammock

Beth, Analise, Elizabeth and Alison on Lake Manitou with Pikes Peak in the background.

The guys (except for Fischer)

Stephen's big catch (it's a stick).

Chad and Steve on the stream

Chad and Jim

Chad and Will

Chad and Elizabeth

In 2002, the Hayman fire burned 137,000 acrs (214 sq miles/554 sq kilometers). This link will take you to a site with some impressive pictures of the fire. http://cbs4denver.com/slideshows/local_slideshow_158191120

Our campsite was fairly close to the Hayman Burn area and after spending some time near Manitou Lake we took a drive up into the burn area.

Here is Elizabeth in the Hayman Burn area with Pikes Peak in the background.

part of the burn area

Sand Dunes May 2007

Over Memorial Day weekend we spent some time at the Sand Dunes with our friends, the Smiths. The Sand Dunes in Colorado are the tallest sand dunes in North America. One evening we ate at a restaurant in Alamosa that is owned by the brother of our neighbor, Brent.

More on the Sand Dunes:
http://www.nps.gov/grsa/

On the way back home we drove along Skyline Drive near Cañon City.

More on Skyline Drive:
http://downtowncanoncity.com/skylinedrive/index.htm
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~sabthomp/colorado/coalbum/corockiescanoncity1900.htm

Here are both families...Smiths and Trumbles


It's fun to do civil engineering water projects in (or beside) Medano Creek. Here is a before and after look.

Jim and Dan

At the restaurant owned by our neighbor's brother

Elizabeth on the dunes

Bruce, Lisa, and Clara went on up farther than Elizabeth, Emma, and me.

The kid in yellow is some mystery kid. In orange is Will, in blue is Jim, and in the water, is Steve.

Jim, Greta, Emma, Clara, Elizabeth, Will, Stephen, Tobin

Trumbles witht the Dunes behind us

Skyline Drive

Trumble Family - Easter Sunday 2007

Aloha! Trumbles in Hawaii IX - Misc stuff and FINAL MESSAGE

From: Dan Trumble

Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007

Subject: Aloha! Trumbles in Hawaii IX - Misc stuff and FINAL MESSAGE

Hello. Thank you for letting me share some of our time in Hawaii over the past couple of weeks. Here are a few final miscellaneous pictures.

We had a great time. The weather in Colorado was cold and the weather in Hawaii was very, very nice. We stayed with Andy and Amy and their three kids (Amy is my sister) and just had a lot of fun.

I have sent an invitation to you to view my pictures on Snapfish (except for all of you Compassion folks whose email addresses aren’t in my list in the correct format…if you are receiving this in your Compassion email account and you want an invite to see all of the Hawaii pictures that I posted to Snapfish, send me a message and I can arrange that). If you’ve enjoyed all of these pictures I’ve sent over the last two weeks or if you are very bored and have lots of time on your hands, then you may enjoy viewing more. Many of you have probably had enough so don’t feel obligated. There are almost 400 Hawaii pictures posted to Snapfish.

Did you know that the Hawaiian language has only 12 letters? The 5 vowels plus 7 consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p, w).

Luhapelowu ahunani okaamenewi enikipi - Thanks for letting me share!

Actually, that’s not really Hawaiian; I just stuck a bunch of letters together.


P.S. Some of you have not been on the list of folks that received the prior 8 Hawaii messages (yes, this one makes 9). If you are interested in seeing those other messages, please just give me the word and I’ll be happy to pass them on to you.

God bless,
Dan

__________________________
Some final pictures…

This is a picture Elizabeth took from the plane on the way in.

A - Airstrip for Honolulu Airport and also for use by Air Force
B - Ford Island
C - (white spot just to the right of the letter) U.S.S. Arizona Memorial
D – Pear Harbor
E – roughly the area where we saw the subs and other military boats that passed by
F – Approximate place on Hickam AFB where Andy & Amy live

Some of the kids prepared a little Parent Appreciation deal. Note the snacks and the lettering on the wall. They made the leis and there were 2 or 3 little speeches of appreciation.Picture of Mao in Chinatown.
Aloha Stadium where the NFL Pro Bowl will be played in a few weeks.

Aloha! Trumbles in Hawaii VIII - Foliage and Other Nature Stuff

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007
Subject: Aloha! Trumbles in Hawaii VIII - Foliage and Other Nature Stuff

There is a lot of pretty stuff in Hawaii (duh!). It is, of course, humid and tropical and all sorts of neat things grow there. There are also rats and mongooses (mongeese?) that were brought in by people. The rats came on ships and the mongooses were brought in to control the rats but mongooses are out in the daytime and rats are nocturnal so they pretty much peacefully co-exist. We didn’t see any rats (thankfully!) but Beth and I did see some mongoose (mongooses? mongeese? whatever). There is a lei (purple and white kind of on the edge) but the rest of this stuff was collected while out on a walk. The boys enjoyed these seed pods that they liked to think of as “boats”. The other picture is a cattle egret (also known as a buff-backed heron. As it turns out, it’s nothing all that special. According to www.honoluluzoo.org/cattle_egret.htm it is now on six continents and in 45 of the 50 United States…oh well.

Dead crab or maybe just a crab shell. How should I know? I don’t live near the ocean!
Bird More plants (this is at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial).
Cool tree.

The “Hitachi Tree”

http://www.hitachi.com/IR-e/library/annual/2005/ar2005e_01.pdf

A cool tree near the “Hitachi Tree”
Flower.

Some seedpod thing or something.
Elizabeth, Kimberly and Caleb with a Rainbow Eucalyptus tree.
Snails.
Praying Mantis.
Trumble family with nice foliage in the background. We wore these shirts to church in Colorado today.
A banyon tree.
Another banyon tree. Note how the roots come down from the branches and create a whole bunch of stuff (roots coming down from branches, I guess).
Sunset near Ko Olina.
Hickam AFB and the Leong’s minivan (straight ahead).
Another sunset picture.
A crab or something.
The state flower of Hawaii is the Yellow Hibiscus.