AAVE Trip BLOG » Colorado Discovery #3 Shout Out!
August 5, 2008
Colorado Discovery #3 Shout Out!
Posted by Nate at AAVE in : Colorado Discovery, General AAVE Trip BLOG , trackback
Summer fun in the Rockies!
Hey Abbott, friends and family back home.
It’s CD#3 sending a shout out from the Colorful Colorado! Thanks for sending your kids on this trip they are amazing, funny and all around great!! We rafted the last two days down the Arkansas river in a beautiful section called Browns Canyon. All the kids had a wonderful time and some enjoyed it so much they jumped out of the raft in fits of joy and went down the river on their own solo rafting trip, WITH life vests! We pulled them back in the raft as soon as we could of course, it was so much fun!! We’ve been on some group hikes and swimming in a couple of rivers, cold rivers. We’re never to far from a water supply and we are either jumping in or dumping on each other.
The food is really good too we had fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, salami with baguette’s for lunch with banana’s, mangoes and guacamole with chips and salsa. The evening before we said ‘como estas?’ at the Coyote Cantina where we all stuffed ourselves with the classic colorado mexican food and competed in intense games of fooze ball!! The Italian girls, Clara Ballerani and Elena Bellocchio and the spaniard Javier Pereira seemed to have the game dialed.
We have awesome circle up meetings as well! Last night we each answered Tristan’s question: Do you believe in love? and What is love to you? We also talked about the influence of music and lyrics in supporting healthy lifestyles. Wow!! I was impressed these kids are very mature.
So for those of you who don’t get to meet all the kids, except your own. Here are a few things that have happened to show you a bit about each of the group members. We have two girls from Italy, Clara and Elena, both are very sweet and fun (and give good lessons in italian ‘boun pomeriggio!’). We were in the cold river yesterday evening when Clara came running around the corner and jumped in the cold river while the rest of us were slowly getting adjusted. Elena was in the van (which we generally aren’t allowed to eat in) when I saw her eating some chocolate bar so I went to the van to grab it from her when she took the rest and shoved it in her mouth and with a big smile ate the rest. Then handed me the wrapper like all was well. I couldn’t help but laughing. 
Rob Ettinger is a determined boy, he is really strong and would only climb the hardest climbing routes, he even attempted a overhanging problem!!! It was hot in the sun and we had to put sunscreen on Rob, we didn’t know the sunscreen was purple so he had purple sunscreen on him while he climbed, it was pretty funny. And he’s not sunburned. Max Newman is our California goof ball, so funny, you should see him dance! It’s not uncommon to have the van cracking up with Max in the middle!! Stuart Stanley is our ball of enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter if we wake up at six in the morning or go to bed at midnight he has a ton of energy and excitement. Tristan Litre, Brian Cook and Jeremiah Hassett (Jere or Jerememiah) all from Georgia are all funny kids. We were on the tarp during the first of the trip and they started the TWF (tarp wrestling federation) soon everybody was tangled up in a sleeping bag battle. These three boys have a lot of strength and smarts. They can speak fluent French and when we go climbing they always choose the ‘hard routes’!! Javier is our mature boy, and real quick one two, he has mad foot skills when we play soccer. When we were playing soccer and frisbee he was quick and agile. Plus he as a such a funny laugh; when he laughs you have to start laughing because it’s so great!!! Now Sam Moore is such a rad kid! Sam is super funny and does awesome dance moves, and he’s a friend to everyone. He has a witty humor and is always helpful! Jacob Richmond (he and Max came together) is such a amazing kid. I was putting water on the kids this morning to get the sleepy ones out of bed when Jacob comes out of the sky with a nalgene bottle and soakes me right in front of everybody. They all thought it was really funny! Next you have to know about Ali Marks, ‘not Allison, it’s Ali’, she’s fantastic, she’s a really good climber and she has a ton of energy!! Ali is really optimistic which is such a bonus (and mom she has a really good photo of her with pig tails and a rock climbing helmet that you have to see cuz it’s so cute, I’ll make sure she doesn’t delete it!). Okay last story, this is about Demeatria Olah from Texas, she is our little ‘Qween Kahuna’ (that was her name when we went bowling), she is a cheeky little water girl who probably got the whole group soaked our first night at Ruby Mountain, including myself, and wouldn’t stop soaking everyone till we all just stood there because we couldn’t possible get more wet. It was so much fun!!!
So as you can see we have an amazing group!!! Everybody is rock climbing as I write this message and tonight were going to SHOWER!!! and swim at a hot spring at the base of the 14,000 ft Mt. Princeton!!
having fun in the sun living the AAVE life!
Taylor Allred, Tara Allman, Katie Arnold
Colorado Rocky Mountains
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