So it has been 10 months since I have posted anything to this blog, but this past month we went on a weekend trip that was so unique and fun I just have to share!
Matt and I went to Durango, CO to do some soaring in the trees. We first learned about this company called Soaring Tree Top Adventures a year ago, it is a zip lining adventure that is only accessible from the Durango-Silverton train or by helicoptor. The Durango-Silverton train is a popular scenic train ride through a canyon over the animas river and has some spectacular scenery. The whole trip was amazing as we had never been to the southwest corner of the state, which is just beautiful. The drive alone was a fun trip! Anyway on to pictures of our soaring.
This is us just before walking onto our first platform, they gave us a thorough orientation and saddled us up, now we are off! I can't stress enough how wonderful the staff were, this company has patented most of their equipment and design of their course because it is so unique. I truly believe there is no other zip lining adventure quite like this one.
Matt, being used to climbing trees in a saddle felt right at home and was the first one to jump off the platform.
By the end of the day we were doing tricks, hanging upside down and going from each side of the canyon, over the river.
We got to zip through this aspen grove, that would have been amazing just two weeks later when the aspens are in full color.
They had a natural fresh spring that supplied all their water and is completely safe, I was getting a refill, wish I could have that in my backyard!
Eating a yummy lunch in the tree tops!
Matt getting ready for take off.
Waiting at the Rockwood train station.
Here are some pictures of the train ride.
The next best part about our trip was our accomodations, I love to find unique rentals to stay in and hit the jackpot with this one! We stayed on a ranch outside Durango. They had this beautiful guesthouse with a huge porch and a hot tub out on the deck, not to mention this place was less expensive than most the hotels in Durango! Below is a picture driving up to the ranch.
They had the coolest garden and garden gate, actually the craftmanship of the gate was most impressive.
These last few pictures are from our drive, below is just coming through an area called little switzerland. This drive was one of the best I have ever experienced in Colorado.
Below is the town of Ouray, I want to come back here, it is nestled in this area called Little Switzerland.
Another fun part of our drive was driving through the agriculture area of the state near Grand Junction. We were able to drive through Pallisade for some peaches, Olathe corn, and there are also numerus wineries along the way to stop at as well.
On our drive home we went through Pagosa Springs, this picture below was a little east of there we found this scenic pulloff, it was the only one we actually stopped at along our travels and it was worth it!
Here are a couple of videos from our soaring, disclaimer: I have never been able to get videos to load and work from blogger so I hope these work but I will be surprised!
The week of closing we had a huge snow storm and thank goodness for four wheel drive, we had a huge pile of snow plowed just in front of our driveway and could only get in with the Xterra! These pictures are from just after closing with our realtor...
Matt also installed our new water heater, here he is reading the instruction manual...
By week two we had our appliances, but not a kitchen to install them yet so they sat in our dining room while they just worked around it all...
Week three we had carpet, new interior doors, and most of our kitchen installed. Ready or not we had to move in by the end of this week.
Also during those three weeks, Matt had to get busy! He built us a new deck and did a lot of plumbing work throughout the house. I painted the garage doors, the front door and did lots of cleaning and caulking our bathroom. Our deck is amazing, he did such a great job!
Before... dilapidated and unsafe not to mention small as heck!
After: spacious and relaxing!! It comes just off our bedroom too. We haven't gotten to enjoy it much with our snow storms and cold weather but we look forward to it this spring and summer!
Kitchen... before... dull and missing most everything...
After!! We love it, it is wonderful...
Moving day everyone helping us get settled!
Living room before....
Our Living, dining, kitchen area is very open with a great floorplan. 
Our master bedroom before...
And after... It's a great room for us, very quiet and good for sleeping during the day for me. It also is big enough for our furniture to fit comfortably which is great! Our bedroom opens up to a half bath that is also attached to our main upstairs bath.
This is our view from our guest room. I am pretty sure you can only see the mountains in the winter but still we like to say we have some mountain view!! The guest bedroom is actually one of my favorite rooms in the house. It has great windows with good light. One window faces northwest to see the mountains and the other faces east to see the city and the plains.
Above is our basement room which is mostly storage. It still needs work, we basically just carpeted it for now and will address it later. There is another bathroom down here and it opens out to the garage which Matt is currently working on. He is installing garage door openers and organizing a work station for himself. We took the old cabinets from the kitchen to make a little workshop. 