Thanksgivin'

Thanksgiving '07 was a success. I started off the day with a hike on the Razor's Edge in Avila with some good friends. Since hiking burns about 475 calories per hour I figure its only right to add another 500 calories to the 5000-6000 calories that the average American consumes on Thanksgiving day.

If you do the math and assume that I strive to be average, I should have eaten 28.3 slices of pumpkin pie today. AWESOME!!! This is great news because it turns out Alison makes phenomenal pumpkin pie. Her pie building talent is another little bonus that I knew nothing about before we tied the knot. We have another whole pie in the fridge with "breakfast" written all over it. Don't worry, I've already worked this out... I'll burn it off by trap shooting with my father-in-law ( 1 pumpkin pie = 12.2 hours of "killin' clay" )

Enough about pie, lets move on to turkey. My mom barbecued ours. This may sound a bit unorthodox but dang that bird came out great. Shout out to Alison for taking me to school with some turkey carving classes. Everything else was delicious too, especially the company of my family. In addition to Alison and I, we had Mom Bartsch, Dad Bartsch, Lin-Z-Woo Bartsch, G-Ma-V, Shawnna, Doyle, Alyssa, Brendyn, Jordan and Zoe in the house.

The kids were really fun today. Sometimes its nice to have kids around as an excuse to do crazy stuff like launch rotten apples at each other. I had forgotten how fun water balloon launchers are. Zoe dog had the best catch of the day... she caught an apple in her mouth at somewhere between 60 and 100 miles per hour... all I know is that when I tried to catch one with my hand it stung really bad... but Zoe just took that flying rotten apple to her face and never stopped wagging her tail. After we dislodged it from her teeth she happily ran back for more. You gotta love dogs, and especially giant, invincible Zoe dogs! I also had a good time taking Brendyn and Jordan on a quick adventure to the creek that runs behind my parent's house. I caught thousands of tadpoles in that creek back in the day, and even had plans to sell frogs to the pet shop :)

We're looking forward to spending time with the Payne family tomorrow; SHOTGUNS and SHOPPING, now that's American!

Jackie's 21st - Black Tie Zainy

My cousin Jackie turned 21 so Alison, Lindsay, and I made the trip to Fresno to celebrate with a bit of wine tasting and lots of great company. Thanks to Josh and Steph for letting us crash at their place.

Another Beautiful Day

Today was just another beautiful day in Paradise. Alison & I did a bit of hiking in Osos at one of my favorite dog walking spots. Check out a map of our hike or download it to Google Earth.

We had lunch in Avila with Katie and Conrad, some good friends from Santa Cruz, who now go by the name of Katerad. It was either that or Connie :)

Then, just to make sure my carbon footprint for the day was enormous enough to make up for all those days of van-pooling, I drove down to UCSB to watch the Gauchos destroy my Mustangs in soccer. The drunken UCSB fans were doing some serious hating, but some of them were hilarious. The funniest thing I heard someone say was "Go home! Your cows are getting loose". Yeah, well your couch is on fire, and your yard is falling into the ocean!

It was sort of hard do decide who to cheer for since I work at UCSB and I got my degree from Cal Poly, but it was a great match either way.

Set your clocks back. Goodnight.

Bartsch Family Crest

Halloween Salt & Pepper shakers, oh my

Alison and I decided to have a bit of a pumpkin carving contest tonight. It wasn't much of a contest as you'll see in the photos. I pretty much blew her out of the water. Actually I'm much better at picking out gourds than carving them. We may have chosen smaller gourds had we known that we, meaning I, would have to carry them a mile. I carried these pumpkins so far out of the Avila Barn that it really was a pity to carve them up so brutally. We took the hay ride out to the pumpkin patch, and they pretty much just left us out there to rot with the pumpkins that had been kicked in by some really happy kids. So anyway, here I am hauling these gargantuan pumpkins out of the field, and all the while Alison is searching for an even heavier pumpkin for me to carry. I think she's hinting that I should get back to the gym.

Uuktuberfeist with Spanglerkel

I ran in an Uuuktuberfest fun run this past weekend. Mellissa Spanglerkel talked me into going out there, and I had a great time. I didn't exactly push it, and the only training I did involved curling silver bullets, but I was happy with my time. If you don't know already, it's time you found out that I'm always rushing to get wherever I'm going. This day was no different. I woke up with plenty of time to spare, but I just waited and waited around my house until there was just barely enough time to make it to the start line before the race started. I then realized I didn't have any cash to pay the entrance fee, so I made a quick pit stop by the ol' faithful parents house to borrow $10. Thanks mom and dad. The run was fun, and then I kept things going by hiking up to the Eucalyptus grove at the edge of Montana de Oro state park. Good times. Jeff and Alison need to run next time. Here are some pics.
Here is a video.

Almost 4 months

Alison and I have been married for nearly four months, and things are really going well. My good friend Jesse Acosta inspired me to get a family blog going. The Bartsch family blog is going to have a tough time keeping up the Acosta Family Blog because the Acosta's a have a little man named Micah that does most of the entertaining + they live in Hawaii, but we'll give 'em a run for their money.

I'm gonna get the new Bartsch to help me out with this blog so you, our amazing friends and family, can get your fill of Bartsch Banter between real life visits. It is 9:30 and I gotta hit the hay... big presentation to the bosses tomorrow. Cotton mouth and clammy hands here I come :)