Kidologist.com: Karl Bastian's Personal Site and Blog
Archive for Breckenridge
November 7, 2011 at 11:56 am · Filed under 24 Days of Thanks-Giving, Breckenridge
This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving.
DAY #7: Breckenridge
Those who don’t ski may find it odd that my family’s favorite get-away is a town ranked #9 in the world for skiing, when we don’t ski! But I am thankful for Breckenridge, Colorado.
But a lot of it’s charm is the that it is the only mountain town truly open all year around, has no fast food restaurants, is filled with lots of quaint little shops (yes, I enjoy that, ladies) and the mountains towel above on both sides. I come here (as I am today) to write, relax, and to work remotely. It’s our ‘home away from home.’ We’ve found a nice place to stay with free Internet, an awesome pool an(with hot tubs!) d a great view of the mountains! Sometimes we stay a few days, but often I just come up for the day (which is free) when the ‘flatland’ is getting to me. If you are ever our guest, we will most likely bring you here so you can get a taste of Colorado away from the metropolis of Denver. Free Gondola rides up the mountain to eat at a cool restaurant with spectacular views is a must as is the roller coaster on Peak 8! (no joke!) I will sometimes find a spot to work and watch the skiers on Peak 9 coming down like ants on a hill, or over on Peak 8 (were the ESPN X Games are filmed) doing jumps the size of houses! There are so many places I have found to just blend in with the skiers and work! Several DiscipleTowns were written here. After all, I am closer to God here in the Mile High City! (And even more so, once I drive up into the mountains!)
Where do YOU go to get away? I’ve always done this, since college when I would find lobbies in high rise office buildings in downtown Chicago with incredible views to study in, or luxurious hotels – I love finding great places to get away, and if you are creative, there are always wonderful and free places you can go, if you are willing to just look!
November 1, 2011 at 9:00 am · Filed under 24 Days of Thanks-Giving, America, Apple, Awesome Products, BeTheDadToday, Breckenridge, Children's Ministry, Christianity, Discipleship, Evolution, Family, Food, Friends, iPad, iPhone, Kidology, Luke, Mac, Marriage, Moody, Parenting, Photography, Politics, Spiritual Growth, Star Wars, Technology, Yosemite
Today I launched a little Thanksgiving Project over on Kidology.org called “24 Days of Thanks-Giving” – basically I am providing a simple Word doc you can download and every day from Nov. 1 until Thanksgiving add ONE thing you are thankful for.
It’s really just something I need to DO MYSELF – but I thought maybe others might want to join me, and I’d enjoy reading/seeing what others are thankful for. So you are welcome to use the Word doc, or just post in the forum what YOU are thankful for! So let me begin today, with my first post. These are NOT going to be in priority order, otherwise I’d have to go God, Family, etc. and then later on, people might judge me for putting one thing “above” or “before” another – so right out of the gate let me say, these posts will be in RANDOM ORDER of things I am THANKFUL FOR!
DAY 1 –
Yosemite
DAY 2 – God’s Word
DAY 3 – My Mom
DAY 4 – Photography
DAY 5 – Pandora
DAY 6 – George Lucas
DAY 7 – Breckenridge
DAY 8 – Barq’s
DAY 9 – Mercy & Grace
DAY 10 – Steves
DAY 11 – Freedom
DAY 12 – Luke
DAY 13 – Sara
DAY 14 – My Bookkeeper
DAY 15 – Science
DAY 16 – Da Cloud
DAY 17 – Awana & Sunday School
DAY 18 – My Dad
DAY 19 – True Friends
DAY 20 – Scottevest
DAY 21 – My Customers
DAY 22 – Tennis Balls
DAY 23 – Flight
DAY 24 – Jesus
October 5, 2011 at 2:28 am · Filed under Adventures, America, Breckenridge, Colorado, Photography
For Luke’s Fall Break, we came up to Breckenridge and on Monday we headed out for what we thought would be a 2-4 hour tour of the area to see the changing leaves… it turned into a twelve hour tour of Colorado! But we had a great time!
It was great having a convertible at a time like this!
We had driven past this scene and a mile past I ended up doing a U-Turn to go back and took about twenty amazing amazing pictures here…
It ended up being one of the most beautiful stops of the entire day…
The horses kept posing for me in different arrangements!
But Luke’s favorite was when we spotted a UFO back in the hills that had just landed! We got a picture and then got out of there before they abducted us!
Here is a close up zoomed in:
That had to be the highlight of Luke’s day! For me, it was just being out with the family, cruzin’ with the top down in the PK Cruiser:
Which is why THIS is my new Facebook Profile Pic!
Later, Sara said her favorite stop was by this old tractor and wooden barn, and I must say, I did enjoy photographing my favorite subject here:
And he was a great sport as daddy made him pose this way and that… but then, he was getting to climb all over a tractor, so it was a pretty cool deal for both of us!
Even peeking into a mysterious old shed has it’s appeal! (I found my way in, but didn’t tell him, there were too many ways to get hurt… but it was cool!)
I dread the day the cooperation with the camera will cease… but right now he puts up with it, knowing it is our love that drives the click, click, click. Perhaps there is a little vanity in him that enjoys looking at the pictures later? I’ll take it! I want to remember these days.
The barrel was filled with spools of old string. Letting him keep one was the deal that got him to climb in for a picture, though later I realized he probably would have climbed in anyway… it was kinda fun!
Even Sara agreed to pose for a few pictures for me!
Now there’s a facebook profile pic!
I thought it funny that we both got pictures of ourselves in the car mirrors:
That’s the road up the Continental Divide she is taking… which I took up at the top:
and then from the other side of the Divide as well, looking the other way:
It turned out to be a pretty crazy day, though fun. We chose a route on the Lodge “Activity Guide” and charted it out on the map, thinking it was perhaps a 3-4 hour drive and it turned out to be a nearly TWELVE HOUR drive! We went over the Continental Divide a total of FOUR times by the end of the day. We were laughing that they would give guests a “leaf viewing tour” that was a 400 mile tour of Colorado and not tell them it takes 10-12 hours. We only stopped for one meal and one store and to take pictures a few times, so it wasn’t like we lengthened the trip by much. We were just glad we had left around 10a.m. and not after lunch!
Of course, as the driver, I was getting most of the blame from my weary passengers, but I kept blaming the piece of paper we were following. But in the end, we mostly laughed it off and just enjoyed the day together.
I did end up deciding there were some lessons from the day, and you can hear all about that in my Kidmin Talk Podcast #3 which I recorded earlier today. There were really quite a few fun applications to the Adventures of the day to ministry, but I won’t go into that here, it’s best told on the podcast already.
But it was a great day with the family! Fall is definitely here – and God did a spectacular job showing off His creative abilities with splendor. He didn’t have to make the changing seasons beautiful you know. He could have just been practical. But He chose to do it with class and color and have a little fun with it, just for our enjoyment. The same opportunity is given to us. Why be practical all the time? When you can, do things with class and splash a little color and fun into life too. Not because you have to, but just because you can. That’s how God operates. And guess what? You were created in His Image! So stop being so practical and waste some time and be creative and unpractical for a change!
Do something beautiful and unnecessary, before you forget how.
That will make God’s day – just like He made mine this week.
March 25, 2011 at 11:00 am · Filed under Adventures, Breckenridge, Devotional, Family, Leadership, Life, Luke, Parenting
Today was a VERY exciting day for my little boy! For he got to go MUSHING!
It was an exciting day for ME, because I got to drive my family on a sled across the snowly plains with mountains on all sides of me! What a thrill it was indeed!
Luke got to see some dogs, which he LOVES but can’t own due to daddy’s alergies (and no e-mails about allergy-proof dogs, we aren’t going there, been there, tried that!)
Here’s proof that I LIKED the dogs, just ain’t gonna OWN one!
But mushing was a BLAST! And being on the sled with my wife and son inside was a really cool feeling! (Quite literally too)
I realize those dogs were in more control than me – but I since another guest DID wipe out (woman driver, ha!) there was some steering to it! And I was the only one that got to do some downhill driving, though it was mostly level the whole way.
We never got over 15 MPH, but it was very windy and snowing, so not sure I’d want to go faster…. nah… I wish I could have, just not with the family on board!
But how could there be a Leadership Lesson in my day of Mushing? Could there BE any lesson on Leadership from my day Mushing? I think so. These dogs have done this run a thousand times. A few of them have run the Iditarod in Alaska. Some as competitors, others as medical dogs. I’m merely a tourist who gets to feel like I’m doing the real thing here. The reality is, I’m just along for a ride. But they humor me and my family. (For a buck.) But they know the trail and run it well, really just for fun! What they ran with me today is really quite easy for them compared to what they are actually capable of, I’m sure!
Sometimes in life and leadership we get to thinking we are pretty hot stuff (or cold stuff in this case) but the reality is, we are just following a path that has been laid out for us ahead of time. Either by others who went before us, or – if not – by God Himself, who determined that He wanted us to do what we are doing, He chose us, gifted us, and prepared for us the very things we are doing. And while we might think it’s pretty impressive all we are doing, it’s actually a piece of cake for God compared to what He is capable of!
I Corinthians 4:7 is a verse my dad made me memorize as a young boy, “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” He saw that God had given me some gifts that would lead to a certain level of success in life, and wanted to make sure early on I never thought for a moment it had anything to do with me – but that I would always know, I was just riding a sled being pulled by God.
And if I ever got off that path, I’d end up looking like this:
Yup. That’s me. I did go off the trail to see just how deep the snow was, and it IS deep! Luke said later, “I didn’t like when you did that daddy, I thought you were going to sink and I’d have no more daddy!”
I think I’d better stay on the path for my son’s sake!
