Unexpected Day Off

I wanted to go to church today...
     but I woke up too late to go.

I wanted to go to the Springs today...
     but the weatherman said it'd snow.

I wanted to go on a hike today...
     but my muscles all screamed no!

I guess the couch is where I'll stay...
     and nap until roommates show...
     and nap until sun is low...
     and nap in the TV's glow.

(Just kidding, I'd never fall asleep with the TV on... that's such a waste of electricity!)

Helen's Murder Mystery Dinner

Happy Sunday, dear readers! I am on house arrest for 24 hours because I had a vomiting episode in the middle of the night. It's policy that staff do not come in contact with other staff or guests for 24 hours after a puke event, to prevent spreading of whatever bug is present. Thus, my dear readers, I have time to update you with recent events! We've been busy with conference visitors since Thursday, but we had an opportunity for some staff bonding this past Monday, with a special Mystery Dinner, hosted by Chelsea, with the help of Anna, Hannah, Joy, Kellie, and Lauren!

Everyone, because of the Staff Ride a few weeks ago, is familiar with the story of Helen's Rock, and how the heap of calcified horse manure ended up landing on, and killing, Helen, the Texas Olympic sharp-shooter who worked at the ranch many years ago. The point of the mystery dinner is to figure out "Who Dunnit?", or, who killed Helen? All of the staff were required to dress up as a character from the story. From left: Kellie (Japanese Climatologist), Caroline (Diamond Lil), Anna (Texas Olympic sharp-shooter teammate #2), Chelsea (Helen's Upset Sister), me (Sheriff Sassafras), and Hannah (Shavoshala's gypsy handmaiden.

Tish (Russian geologist) and Caroline (Diamond Lil) showing off their revolvers.

Abbie (Texas Olympic sharp-shooter teammate #3), Lindsay (Helen's ghost), and Tish (Russian geologist).

So how it works:

1. Staff sit down at a table with a list of characters/suspects and each person receives a "menu" of murder weapons

2. Each person checks off 3 murder weapons to "order"

In the kitchen, each murder weapon represents a food item/eating utensil. On the food item/eating utensil will be taped the name of a suspect that is NOT the murderer. One by one, each person will order something that will give them a clue as to who DIDN'T murder Helen, and the process of elimination will help them to guess who DID murder Helen. You get it?

3. Staff are served their three items, and are allowed to order three more items until 6 "rounds" have passed.

4. Individuals sitting at each table are allowed to collaborate and a representative is to stand and make an accusation at the end of the meal. Above, is JHam (the horse, Picklefart), accusing Jacob (Texas Ranger George Arrington, far left) of killing Helen.

5. The accused have the right to defend themselves, or receive court appointed representation (one of the organizers can defend the innocent).

What makes it all fun:

1. You don't know what you're going to get. An arrow could represent a toothpick. Some people, when ordering their three items, receive a toothpick, a plate of meatloaf, and a cup of ice (yes, it's just ice). That makes it tricky and getting what you want to eat may require some time to figure out what murder weapons represent what food items/eating utensils. Having a table collaborate definitely speeds up the process. Next time, I think it should be every man for himself. No cheating!

2. Hearing the accusations. It's like the game of mafia, you make it up as you go. The more creative and outlandish, the funnier it is!

3. Hearing the defense of the accused. Like the accusations, the more ridiculous, the more fun!

At the end, we, the organizers, came out with the "real story" and announced the real murderer. Texas Ranger George Arrington, who had been in search of an outlaw, wanted for heinous crimes, was really in search of our very own Helen! It turns out that her life before coming to work on the ranch was a dishonest one, as she cheated in the Olympic competitions, and was wanted for other various crimes. Above is a picture of Jacob (Texas Ranger George Arrington) with Lindsay (Helen's ghost). Ah, justice is served, on both ends! The Texas Ranger ends the life of a criminal, and we discover who Helen's mysterious murderer is!

And we all lived happily ever after.

The end.

First Staff Ride to Helen's Rock

Yippee! Yee-haw! First staff ride of the year! We're all heading up to Helen's Rock this afternoon! Aren't Coulter and Kammie looking excited to go?

View from the fence. Lookie all the pretty horsies! All the names of the horses are written on the chalkboard to the right.

We have five wranglers that choose horses to suit our riding abilities, and help us on the saddles.

Heidi and her awesome chaps. She is always dressed perfectly for each Lost Valley event!

Chelsea (black hat), one of the wranglers, is helping Caroline to her buddy for the afternoon... I don't know the name. I don't know how people remember all the horses' names. For me, it's worse than remembering human names.

View from my horse, JR. Chelsea says that if you look at his blaze (the white stripe on his face), it looks like the letters 'JR' and so that's what they named him!

Off we go! Here is where I put away my camera because I didn't want to drop it accidentally and have a horse hoof smash it to pieces :)

When we got to our destination, we tied each horse to a tree. There is a special knot to keep it secure yet easy to untie... unfortunately, I didn't learn that in girl scouts :( 

The first group to get to Helen's Rock! From left: Rachelle (baker), Tish (gift shop), Kellie (wrangler), Coulter (kitchen), Brooke (wife of Tony, the manager, and mentor to all us girls), Becca (Brooke's daughter), and Kammie (cabins)!

When the rest arrive, CK and JHam (that's how I was introduced to them) tell us the story of how the huge rock came to be there.

Yes, this rock that is behind Charlie (wrangler).

Actually, it might be the rock to the left, behind CK and JHam. Whatever. There is a huge rock, and the awesome story behind it is that it is a huge clump of calcified horse manure, which was projected from a reactivated volcano at the opposite side of the valley, onto the body of Helen, the Texan sharpshooter, who was about to snipe her boyfriend, the head wrangler at Lost Valley Ranch in the 1960's, because he was cheating on her with the princess Shavoshala from the country Chechnia. Yeah, it's kinda morbid and confusing. But here is Lauren, giving a great interpretation of the Chechnian engagement dance!

It was FREEZING at Helen's Rock, so after the long story (I cut out a ton of stuff), we started to head back down to the ranch.

JR! Everyone loves him because he walks around with his tongue hanging out the left side of his mouth. See it peeking out? JR, you're so silly!

And down the mountain we go! Yes, everyone is ahead and I'm behind. JR is reliably slow. They matched me with him because I've never really ridden a horse. It was a bit frustrating to be lagging behind, but there was a good group of us with slower horses and I appreciate not overstepping my limits and playing things safe. Live to ride another day!

Garden of the Gods

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." Exodus 20:8

Last Sunday we were able to go to down the mountain to church again. The other staff keep telling me to appreciate this, because we probably won't have another free Sunday until November :P I snuck a picture during worship of the giant screen. See the man on the screen? He's actually on the other campus, playing there, while there's another guy on the stage, playing along. They alternated leading songs. It still blows my mind.

Brooke Warnock, the ranch manager's wife, had the wonderful suggestion of grabbing food on our own and bringing it to the Garden of the Gods for a picnic lunch. The weather was GORGEOUS that day, and it seemed like all of Colorado had come out to play... and walk their poor dogs who've been cooped in by the snow we had.

It's a beautiful park, full of huge red stone formations that sort of appear out of nowhere. It's also very close to Pike's Peak, so as you walk among the rocks, you have a backdrop of the beautiful Rockies.

Here, so they say, are the kissing camels. In my humble opinion, I think it's a camel on the left, kissing a gigantic goat, since the head to the right has horns and no hump. Whatever you think it to be, it's still pretty cool that the rocks have that natural opening :)

I really want to come back and do some hiking!

The people in my car decided to go to Safeway (they don't like Albertson's here) to buy bread, cheese and turkey to make our own sandwiches. A real picnic!

Along with picnic benches, there are also tree stumps carved into chairs to sit on. Clockwise from top left: Hannah (waitrii), Caroline (cabins), Anna (kitchen), me (waitrii) and Tish (trading post).

See the Rockies in the background? Gorgeous!

On the way back, we have to drive through Pike National Forest.

For those of you that don't know, there was a devastating fire in 2002 that burned acres and acres of land around the ranch. It was a miracle that the ranch itself wasn't destroyed. However, the carcasses of the trees still cover the landscape as you see in the foreground in the above picture. It is a sad reminder of what beauty is lost by the actions of foolish people. Click here for more news on the Hayman Fire. Talking to the staff about how the landscape has been affected, they still think that the mountains are beautiful. You can actually see more, while hiking or horseback riding on the trails, because the trees aren't in the way of the view. Above is a picture of the reservoir on the way back to the ranch... which you wouldn't have been able to see from the road if the trees were still growing! I was really sad, driving to the ranch, to see all the dead trees, but everyone is right... there is still beauty all around if you are looking for it, and choose to see it.

Valentine's Day!

Ah, Valentine's Day. I remember when we used to call it "Singles Awareness Day". Since there is a no-dating policy at the ranch which prevents us staff from dating each other, most of us are single with the exception of the married, long-term staff and the few that have girlfriends/boyfriends off the ranch. I wasn't expecting much, as I am one of the single folk, but I should have known better, being surrounded by such loving people!

Remember in elementary school when you'd give and receive cutesy Valentine's Day cards with Batman or Strawberry Shortcake on them? Well, we have a staff mail center and some of the staff decided to bring us back to the past :) Though... instead of Batman, we had The Prince of Persia, Jake Gyllenhaal. Haha. No picture, sorry.

But even with the holiday, we had to work. We cleaned the round-up room, which was fun, because it is head to carpet WOOD! All... 15-20 feet of it. I don't know the exact measurements, but it was quite an undertaking.

This painting is said to be worth $40,000. It's beautiful, and quite large. It was very heart-pumping, taking it down and putting it back up again, since we were afraid of damaging it. We live life on the edge, here at the ranch. :P

What's this? A surprise!

We had a special delivery from Tony! It turned out that the lovely Warnock children baked us cookies! One batch for the Cabin girls, and another batch for the Watrii! One, two, three... AWWWW!!!

"Wishing you a smile-a-minute, lots-of-fun-in-it Valentine's Day!" The signature above "REB A" is from Rebecca Warnock, our favorite (only) little girl at the ranch :)

Oh Lindsay, our fearless cabin crew leader, tackling the ceilings with Murphy's Oil like the professional she is. Even using that ladder we couldn't get up to the ceiling, it was that high. We ended up having the maintenance boys finish the center rafter :) Thanks guys!

And after a hard day of work, we girls had a third surprise! The men of Lost Valley made dinner for us!

Cooking, serving, cleaning... they did it all! From left to right: Nate (maintenance), Coulter (kitchen), and Paud, the chef of the evening (kitchen).

To show our appreciation, the girls decided to dress up for the occasion. From left to right: Tish (gift shop), Lauren (kitchen), Anna (kitchen) and Lindsay (cabins).

From left to right: Anne (head chef), Caroline (cabins) and Kammie (cabins).

Roommate picture! Chelsea (wrangler), Rachelle (baker) and me (watrii).

The lovely Hannah and I are the two new watrii this season. Yay for newbies!

When we sat down, our appetizers were already set for us. Paud calls this "Lost Valley Sushi", avocado (yum!) and red onion, cilantro/parsley (I couldn't tell which) and a tarty sauce, placed upon slices of cucumber. Delish!

Our wonderful chef, Paud (who has worked in many fine restaurants before coming to the ranch), rings the bell to announce each course.

And time for the entrees! Here is Paul (wrangler) trying his hand at serving. Good job, Paul!

For the first course this evening:

Charred New Zealand Lamb Loin with Roasted Red Bell Harissa, Parsley-mint Pistou & Shallot Demi-glaze

"Why, thank you, Zack (maintenance)!" thinks Sarah (waitrii) to herself as Rachelle watches with amusement.

Yum! The parsley-mint "pistou" was delicious with the lamb. Oh, heaven!

For the second course of the evening: Roasted Airline Chicken with Mediterranean Chickpea Salad, Susan Snap Peas & Feta Tatziki. I didn't understand much of what Paud said, but it was delicious!

For the third course: Roses! Just kidding :) Jeremy (accounting?) was so sweet to present each woman with a rose as a token of appreciation.

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." Eph 3:17-18

Happy Valentine's Day!

Men of Lost Valley Ranch

Oh, how sweet that was. It was a good reminder that Christ's love is amazing, that I am cared for by an awesome God, who knows me and cares for me in ways I cannot even fathom. 

"But what is dinner, without dessert?" - Lumiere, Beauty and the Beast. Dark chocolate cake with cherries or...

Tropical something or other... I forget. It's basically an elegant key-lime pie. It was quite good, even though I don't like sour foods. I always gleek when eating sour foods and I don't like the feel of the muscles in my salivary glands exerting such great amounts of force :P

I was so blessed by the dinner the LV men put on, and it wasn't only because of the fancy food or the roses and excellent service, but it was because they put so much thought into making something special for us ladies. At least for me, it's really the thought that counts! :)

To top the evening off, I watched one of my favorite romantic comedies, "You've Got Mail", with some of my favorite ladies at the ranch.

The End.