2010

I can't believe that 2010 is almost over! Where did it go?!? We have had an eventful past year and we are looking forward to 2011. Here are some highlights from our year here in CO:

Our trip to Boston to see our dear friend, Josh, graduate from Harvard!
Our trip back to MT to see friends and family.
John and I both were baptized this past summer. It was a truly special moment.
Many days of hiking and fishing.
Conni overcoming her fear of bears!
John got a new job working at Western State College in Gunnison. He is the Mountaineer Card/ Program Specialist. He wears many hats at this job, but he is liking it a lot!
Conni got a new job as a lunch lady at the local school in Crested Butte. She is enjoying her time at the school, but mostly loves getting off of work by 2:15pm :)
We moved into a house! While we loved our little garage apartment, moving into a house has been an unbelievable experience. So much space! We realize now how much junk we have accumulated in such a short period of time.... But now we have an extra room for guests if anyone wants to come visit. :)

We love you all and hope that you have an amazing Christmas!

The Mahoney's

Twin Lakes

For this Labor Day weekend we backpacked to Twin Lakes. It was quite the adventure. We had to drive up part of Pearl Pass, which if you take it all the way leads to Aspen. It is a sketchy road, but we made it! We did have a hubcap fall off....but we put it back on.

It was a beautiful hike in. We camped next to the lakes and enjoyed some fishing in the morning. We packed for two nights and ended up staying one. We decided to go home after fishing due to the weather changing. We decided not to chance driving Mustard on the pass if it were to rain.

Here is a link to the pictures of our weekend. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well!

The Mahoney's

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2131401&id=43803027&ref=mf

Much needed update.

Well, once again we are not very good at keeping up on our blog. Here is what has been going on.

We went to Boston and went to an Harvard graduation. It was such a great trip! It was fun to travel together. We managed to make it through the city and see some really cool sites. But we also were reminded of why we love living away from the city as well. :)

After Boston we were both baptized. What an amazing experience! It was pretty stormy and cold all day but when we were in the river the sun came out. God is so good! Both of our parents were able to be there for us. It was a very special weekend for us. We continue to strive to better our relationship with each other and God. Strengthening our third cord is top priority for us.

Last weekend Conni hiked with a group of girls to Aspen. It is an 11 mile hike and is one of the most beautiful hikes around. She had a great time with 8 lovely ladies.

This weekend we are looking forward to a much needed respite in Durango, CO. John's brother-in-law's parents (confusing enough?:) live there and have invited us over for the weekend. We are very excited to relax and check out another part of the state.

I think that is about it for us. Hope that summer is going great for everyone! Hopefully we can remember to update this more often...

The Mahoney's

Home and Back Home

At the end of April we were able to go back to Montana and visit family and friends. It was so great to be back!! We stayed with Walt and LaRae (Conni's parents) on their ranch. John was a great help to Walt around the ranch and getting things ready for summer. Conni got to spend a lot of time with her mom, sister and nephew. It was a great relaxing time!

It was interesting though, on our way to Montana we kept calling it "home" and then on our way back we were calling Colorado "home" too. It was a neat concept for us to be able to love two places so much that we are able to call them both home. We really feel that these past seven months has been so beneficial to our marriage and to us individually. We feel that we can call Crested Butte home not just because it is where we live but because we now have a group of people (of all ages) who have become our support system here. Oh Be Joyful Church has been key in making CB our home. They have become our family. We feel so blessed to have such a large family. :)

We have been talking about getting baptized for quite some time now, and we have finally decided that on June 13th we would both get baptized. :) God's timing is so awesome. How many married couples get baptized together? or even how many husbands get to help baptize their wives? We are excited to be able to do this together. It will be an awesome landmark in our marriage to remember forever! And a great opportunity to show and share to others how important God is in our lives. The icing on the cake...both set's of parents are planning on being here for it! Have we mentioned how blessed we are?? :)

Oh! We leave this Friday for Boston. We take the bus to Denver stay Friday night with John's cousin and then fly out to see Josh (John's old roommate)! We cannot believe it is finally here!

Rain. Wind. Snow. Repeat.

It is spring time here in Colorado and we are realizing that it is very similar to Montana's weather. Unpredictable. Today's sunshine is an improvement from the flash blizzard we had yesterday.

John is still working at the fly-shop. His boss has been out of town for the past week so John has been really busy at the store. However, he still finds time to fish after work :)

Conni is currently out of work. Her boss closed up shop for the off season. He plans on opening it back up some time in May. She has been keeping busy by hanging out with Bethany and the kids and volunteering for the Outdoor Industries Women's Coalition (OIWC). She is organizing and getting nominations for the awards that they give out at events throughout the year. She is really enjoying it and it is a great way to get her foot in the outdoor industry and meet people.

We went over to Salida a couple of weekends ago to meet up with the parents of some friends of ours in MT. We went fishing and had lunch with them. It was great to get out of Gunnison Valley for the day. Last weekend Conni went to Taos, NM with some friends for a night. She is glad that we live where we do. She said it was a neat place to visit but had no desire to live somewhere so dry and with so much sage.

This coming weekend we are traveling to MONTANA! We are so excited to come back for a visit! We get in on the 18th and will take off around the 30th. We cannot wait to see our friends, family and COSTCO. :) See you all soon...

The Mahoney's

Update

Well, it has been awhile since we have updated the blog. Here is what has been happening in our life. March 15th Bethany, John's sister, had a baby boy-Tanner Brady!! We are all very excited! Tanner and Bethany are doing really good, Praise God! Becuase of the new addition we have had a lot of family in town. It was really nice to see everyone who came and it made us miss everyone we didn't see even more. We are still trying to make a trip back to Montana sometime this spring.

John's parents are here for another week. It has been so fun hanging out with them. John has been going fishing while his father, Mike, goes with and paints. Pam, John's mom, has been helping Bethany at home with the three kids, such a blessing in this time of many transitions.

Crested Butte has been busy these past couple of weeks. Spring break is here and we have had our fair share of shoppers coming downtown. The town hosted "Big Air on Elk" last week. They closed down Elk Avenue (the main street) and built a kicker. The jumpers were towed in by snowmobiles. We were told that the event was coming off a three year hiatus, too many serious injuries. However, this year there were no serious injuries so they expect to do it again next year.

As the off season is drawing near we are trying to make plans to do some camping and site seeing. We are hoping at the end of April to go to the Grand Canyon for a week to meet up with some friends. We also hope to go to Moab and make a trip back to Montana.

The temperature is getting warmer (somedays) and we see more slush, but the snow is still here. There is still a couple of feet of snow in town. We are both very ready for spring/summer and no snow.... for at least a couple of months.

Really, that is all we have to update. We hope everything is going well for everyone!!! Happy Spring!

The Mahoney's

Great Weekend!

We took a road trip to Ouray and Montrose on Sunday. It was great to get out and see more of Colorado! As well as box stores and people. ;) In Ouray we went to the hot springs and checked out the ice park. We all came to the conclusion that we would not like to ice-climb. It seems like too much work to be cold and the possibility of ice chunks falling down sounds no fun. But it was fun to watch...for awhile.

Last week was our first "Couples Coaching" session. It was a lot of fun! It was great to have candid conversations with people from all areas of life. Since it was the first one it was mostly a meet and greet dinner. We knew 4 of the 6 couples. We are to think about family origins and how that affects our marriage for this Thursday. We will fill you in on what this means more after Thursday.

Also this last weekend Conni went on a women's retreat with our church, Oh Be Joyful. There were 19 ladies who stayed up at a house on the mountain. She said it was a great time but also very emotional. She was reminded how broken this world is and how important it is to show everyone love. They studied a Beth Moore study called "Loving Well." She (Beth Moore) talked about loving the "joy" (easy people to love) "testy"(those people who are constantly testing you) "foe" (enemies or those we hate) and "far" (strangers) and how we can love everyone in every situation through God.

Tomorrow John is going to hang out with the young guys in the community and build relationships via playing xbox. Conni is going to help out with the girls bible study. We are both very excited to get involved with helping out with the youth ministries here.

We have found out that there is a lot of spiritual oppression here and many dark practices remain in Crested Butte. In fact, at the store that Conni is working at the owner held a "smudging" which is burning incense to get the "bad spirits" out while "praying" and chanting and then lighting a different incense to bring in all the "good spirits". She opted not to attend. Many of the people here are very lost, hurting and want nothing of what we have. So all we can do is just love on them but really, what else can you do?

Pictures!

Up on the mountain they had TONS of ice sculptures! They were so cool! The next few pictures is from our trip to Ouray (ice climbing capital). The last picture is Mt. Crested Butte.

Powder Day!!!

Today is a powder day! It has been snowing for the last 7 days giving us 29" of new snow. Many of the shops have put up their "powder posters" and are closed for the morning. We are excited for the snow however we don't downhill so it really isn't that big of a deal for us other than the fact that no one will be in our shops today. :)

Tonight is our first night at Couples Coaching. It is a group of six couples that get together for dinner and talk about issues that arise in marriage. The couples range in age so there will be a lot of knowledge and great conversations. We are really excited for this!

Work is going good for both of us. We are planning on going to Boston this May to watch our friend Josh graduate from Harvard with his second Masters. We are so happy for him and we cannot wait to go see him and the east coast.

That is about it for us. We hope that all is going well for you!

The Mahoney's

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog. To be honest, I'm not sure how much we will use this but it is a way to keep family and friends updated on our adventures. Here is a snap-shot of what is going on in our lives now.

John is working at a fly-shop called Dragonfly Anglers. In the winter it turns mostly into a winter clothing store and spring through fall it is all about fishing and guiding. He is meeting a lot of people and scoping out the fishing spots for this coming season.

Conni is working at a gourmet kitchent store called Cookworks. She is liking it but not retail hours. She is learning a lot about cooking and what tools to use, now if she would only use them at home ;)

We both love it here so much. It is so beautiful, much like Montana. Conni compares living in Crested Butte as living in a snowglobe, and she means it in a good way. We love living close to John's sister Bethany and her husband, Tyler, and their two adorable kids Leigh and Will. This March we will welcome child number three and could not be more excited to be here when it happens.

We bought cross-country ski gear at a local ski swap in November and have been trying to use them as much as possible. We have a groomed trail just down the road from us and we try to do that when we can. We also have passes for the Nordic Center, which grooms A LOT of trails in the surrounding areas. It keeps us busy and is much more affordable than downhill skiing/boarding.

We miss our families and friends but realize that this time away is really beneficial for our relationship. However, we do look forward to visiting sometime this Spring. :)

We love and miss you all!

The Mahoney's