I've been slacking with this blog, and haven't been keeping up with all the events that have been happening. Let's see, since August 5th we went camping, and the Democratic Nat's Convention took place, among other things.

Camping was fun. This was our first and only camping trip of the season. We went with Leah's high school friend Dale and her husband Scott, son Connor, and dog Otis. I had made reservations back in May at Golden Gate Canyon State Park. August 22-24 was the first weekend they had available. I wanted to go to the Aspen Meadows campground, since we camped there before, and I knew it's a "tents only" campground. I also wanted to get one of the hike-in sites that are about 100 yds from the parking lot. This way it's more private and there's no road traffic to keep you awake. It was a god time! Jake did well sleeping in the tent. The first night (Friday) he refused to sleep with us on the air mattress. Instead, he wedged himself at our feet, between the mattress and the zipper door. It didn't seem comfortable, and we kep checking on him during the night, but that's where he wanted to be. The second night he fell asleep on Leah's lap by the campfire, so he was easily transferred into our sleeping bag, right between us. Other highlights of the trip was a short hike around Panoram Point, skipping rocks at Dude's Fishing Hole, playing guitar around the fire, surviving short but intense rainstorm, and watching Otis maxing and relaxing around the fire. Here's some pictures from the trip.

The following week the Democratic Convention came to town. The news completely consumed the media and newspapers. I took a half day on Thursday, the same day Obama was set to give his acceptance speech at Invesco Field in front of 75,000 people. I wanted to experience this once-in-a-lifetime event, since it's not every day that the National Convention takes place in your home town. I was somewhat disappointed to see so few protestors and rallies. From how the media reported it, downtown was a hotbed of police confrontations with protestors, but I saw none of it. What I did see was lots of people trying to sell stuff like buttons, t-shirts, hats, pins, posters, etc. When I was there on Thursday, I saw more capitalism on display than activism. Oh well, it was a historic week all the same.