Merry Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas!

The snow is lightly falling and we're getting ready to see the Hunt side of the family in just 10 days for a West Coast Canadian Christmas.  We're so thankful for our beautiful warm home, our healthy and fun girls, the jobs we love, the beauty of the mountains and nature around us, and the friends and family who support us.

2014 was an amazing year full of travel, adventure, challenge and growth.

Ava changed from being a baby, to having her 1st birthday in July, to walking and talking and playing now as a toddler.  Rachel grew from a determined 3 year old to a 4 year old who can swim, pedal her own big bike, ski beside a parent, and speak some Spanish at her bilingual preschool.

We traveled all over!  We skied and explored Colorado huts in January and February.  In March, Jason flew last minute to Morocco.  In July, we traveled with Grandma to Switzerland for nearly 2 weeks and saw the Matterhorn and Swiss Alps.  Meggan took the girls home to BC in August to visit family.  In October, we flew to Virginia to attend a lovely family wedding.

Meggan's job grew from a very part time interest to a (nearly) full time busy caseload at Ability Physical Therapy.  She attended 3 women's health courses (in South Carolina, Oregon and Colorado) and continued her orthopedics and dry needling practice.  It's an awesome clinic with a great team and is a great match.

Jason shifted from a typical teaching load in the Spring to a 'teacher on special assignment' role in the Fall working for the Educational Technology ("Ed Tech") team.  Instead of teaching students formally in the classroom, he does more administrative work and teaching of teachers to make technology more useable and accessible for all.  He gets to work with an awesome team that he loves.

We mourned the loss of Jason's grandfather, Raymond Oliver (aka Buddy) in September.  He was an amazing man and he will be missed but remembered with a huge smile and a generous heart.

This year we also ran, hiked, and tried!

Meggan climbed six 14er mountains this year, including the Pikes Peak Ascent Half Marathon Race. She completed a half marathon trail run, an Olympic distance tri and a half ironman triathlon in June in Steamboat Springs.

Jason ran a trail marathon in April, hiked a handful of 14ers, and completed his first 100 mile running race in Utah in September at The Bear 100.

As we reflect on this great year, we're also very excited for all the things to come in 2015.  We are so thankful that we have the support and love of friends and family near and far, and hope that we can visit and adventure together soon.

From our family to yours, all the best for an amazing 2015.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

-Meggan, Jason, Rachel and Ava Oliver

Saturday December 6th

Curious what two very big things happened to our family on Saturday, December 6th?

The first is that we had an accepted offer on real estate in Breckenridge, Colorado.  For those who don't know, Jason was living in Breck when we first met and we had our wedding there in 2007.  We moved to Boulder county in 2011 and it's about a 2 hour drive up into the mountains to Breckenridge.  We love to be up there, we play up there a lot, and we have dreamed about having a second home in the mountains for the last 3+ years.

Recently it seems that the universe has pointed us toward this decision, and now it's real!  We're still in shock.  But, if all the inspection and other logistical details work out, we will own a small 2 bedroom condo on January 16, 2015.  The building is at the North end of town, called 'Now Colorado', at Warrior's Mark.  We walked from the condo to the QuickSilver chair on Friday and it was 0.6 miles (1km).  There's also a free bus stop right outside the complex.

CLICK HERE FOR A LINK TO THE LISTING

We are still working out the logistics of everything, but plan to rent it a lot and use it when we can.  We're thrilled about this new addition and are excited to have you come and visit!

The second huge piece of news is that Jason will be running the Hardrock 100 mile race in July 2015.  If you haven't heard of this race, you probably haven't talked to Jason about running in the last 5 years.  It's a huge deal.  It's a very, very tough race.  Probably one of the craziest trail runs in the world because of the altitude, the amount of ascending and descending, the technical trail (or lack of trail), and the unpredictable and changing weather.  Oh, and it's also 102.5 miles long.

An item on Jason's bucket list is to run the race.  (In fact, since they change the direction of the race each year, he hopes to complete it in each direction at least once).

It's also a huge deal because it's very difficult to get into the race.  There's a stringent qualification process.  Jason has run just one 100 miler before - The Bear 100 he completed in September.  This was a qualification race and earned Jason 1 ticket into the Hardrock lottery.

1 ticket earned him a 1.3% chance of getting chosen.  (And he did!)

Confused?

So many people want to enter this crazy race that they have a lottery in order to decide who can race.  The race allows 140 people to start.  Some of those 140 people have done the race before and some have not.  Only 47 of those 140 spots are allowed from the group of people who have never started the race before.  There were 1146 people competing for those 47 spots this year.  And Jason only had 1 ticket because this was his first year qualifying.  Some people had as many as 128 tickets!

So, on Saturday, against all odds, Jason's name was pulled from the lottery.

Let the training begin.



hardrock100.com

November 2014

Highlights from November included:

1) Jason was nominated as a finalist (top 3 in the State) for the 'Technology Educator of the Year" award, and we went to a fancy technology industry dinner in Denver.  Jason was highlighted as an awesome teacher and we had a fun time with his co-workers.

2) We went for a family weekend away to Salida, CO.  I (Meggan) got to complete a few more miles of the Colorado trail.  Rachel biked 1.5 miles of it on Saturday and then on Sunday we hiked 6 miles as a family to complete some more.  

 3) Jason had a relaxing birthday at home on November 15th.

4) Grandma (Susan) and Aunt Karen came to visit from Nov 25-Nov 30 to spend Thanksgiving with us.  Karen has posted more about this trip in her blog, but we had a lovely visit and we were thrilled that they took the time to be with us.

5) Rachel biked her big girl pedal bike without anyone holding on to her.  The big is a little too big for her, so it's hard for her to properly mount and dismount the bike.  But she can pedal, balance, turn/steer quite well.  In no time, she'll be riding her bike to school!

6) We had a really nice visit with our extended Colorado family, including a classic game of Killer Bunnies, while enjoying wine and cookie dough.

7) We enjoyed our first family ski day of the season at Eldora resort.  This year we decided to get passes to Eldora mountain, which is an hour drive from our house.  A smaller resort that avoids dealing with I-70 seemed like a more reasonable idea for our family this winter.  

Certainly the logistics are wonderful!  We drove up to the bunny hill, parked, and Rachel and Jason skied while Ava and I played.  Then we switched off in the lodge for a few runs each, and drove home before making dinner.

Rachel has got the balance of skiing down and is starting to change her weight to make turns.  Learning to snow plow and stop seems to be more difficult, but it's coming!

October 2014

We're pretty behind on our blog, but we must share a few things in order to catch up.

The highlights of October include:

1) Cousin Kelsey and Eli's touching and wonderful wedding in Virginia, where Rachel was a flower girl.

2) Rachel turned 4 years old, and we hosted an 'under the sea' party at our house.

3) A trip to Calgary, Alberta for Meggan to attend a dear friend's wedding and have a weekend away to visit and relax.

4) Halloween, where Ava was a pumpkin and Rachel was Clifford the Big Red Dog.  Rachel got really into trick or treating this year, and it was very fun to 'do' the neighborhood.

October for us was a time to re-connect and enjoy our family time together, and laugh with our girls that are getting so big, so fast!