Raible Designs

Happy Birthday Abbie!

Abbie turns 14 today and she's celebrating in style. Her brave parents allowed her to have a slumber with all her friends. There's 11 teenage girls in our basement right now, screaming, giggling and making lots of loud noises.

I'm really proud of the young woman Abbie has become. She's a straight-A student and loves horseback riding and sleeping.

Trish and she bought a new horse a few weeks ago. His name is Tucker and they traveled to New Mexico to find him. He's a thoroughbred paint, with hunter jumper skills. We'd love to keep at the Raible Ranch, but we want to see what the winters are like first. For now, he's at Friends of Horses, which has an indoor arena. Next year, the girls plan to compete and hopefully bring home lots of trophies!

Happy 14th Birthday Abbie!

Life Update: A Summer to Remember, a New House, and a Sweet New Gig

TL;DR: I had a super fun summer traveling with my family, recently moved to a new house in the country, and I've joined Stormpath as a Developer Evangelist. Wahoo!

I've written several "life update" posts in the past, but there's been few as epic as this one. When I wrote my 2016 Goals, I listed "July in Montana" as one of them. And y'all know that "finish the bus" was #1. Since the bus is done, I wanted to show it off in my hometown 4th of July parade in Condon, Montana.

A path to these goals became clear in mid-June, shortly after visiting London and Tallinn with my Mom. It involved a lot of driving, but I was determined to make it happen. I was so excited about my plan that I sent an email to my best friend, Owen, on June 15.

Raible Road Trip #70: To Jekyll Island and Back

My Dad's 70th birthday was January 16, 2015. Years ago, we started talking about celebrating this event and suggested we go somewhere warm. Trish and I proposed Hawaii, Mexico, or even Cuba. My Dad had his own idea: he wanted to go to Jekyll Island, Georgia. He spent a few high school years in Brunswick, GA and had fond memories of the place and weather. He also wanted to drive there, because road trips are awesome. At least they are in my family. We've done many family road trips over the years; the last one was in July.

One of the great joys in owning a VW Vanagon Westfalia is having the ability to sleep anywhere. Home is where your van is. We did a bunch of van repairs and upgrades last fall: rebuilt the transmission, added modern headlights, installed a Truck Fridge and a Propex heater. It was finally in tip-top shape for winter camping (or a road trip), so I suggested to my parents that we drive it to Georgia, via New Orleans. They agreed and we all smiled with thoughts of visiting the Big Easy. We'd never been.

My parents flew to Denver a few days before we started. Our journey began early Sunday morning, January 10th. We left Denver around 6am and I spent the first couple hours driving in the dark, eastbound on I-70. Within the first hundred miles, the van's odometer quit working, so we had to rely on the gas gauge to know when to fill up. For anyone that's owned a vanagon, you'll know their gas gauges are fairly unreliable. Tom Hanks even talked about this on the David Letterman show.

Happy Birthday Abbie!

We now have a teenager. Abbie turns 13 today and we're celebrating with smiles in the Raible household. Abbie is in 7th grade now. She's a straight-A student and still loves to pick on her little brother. She's old enough that she's picked up an after school job babysitting and often has more money in her back account than I do. Trish takes her horseback riding a couple times per week and she recently competed in her first horse show competition. You can tell by the photo below that she enjoyed the experience.

If you're a long-time reader, you might remember the day she was born. I started this blog only a few months before.

Happy Birthday Abbie! Most people are scared of their children's teenage years. We're not. You're an awesome human and we love your fun-loving spirit, your kindness and your ability to rile up Jack like no other. We can't wait to experience your teenage years with you and support you in whatever challenges you take on. 😋

The Last Day of School

Today marks the last day of the school year for Abbie and Jack. I wrote about their first day of school back in August. It's Jack's last day in 4th grade and Abbie's last day in 6th grade. I snapped a picture to capture the memory as they were rushing off this morning.

For summer activities, Abbie is still horseback riding every week. Jack is playing flag football and his team has been dominating. Both just joined a swim team. They competed in their first swim meet last weekend and did great. This is the first summer we didn't sign them up for a bunch of summer camps. We figured their daily 8am swim practice would be enough. I'd love to do a summer Devoxx4Kids class, but I'm having some difficulty finding volunteer instructors.

For summer vacations, we've only planned one: a 4-day road trip through Wyoming, Jackson Hole and Yellowstone National Park. From there, we'll head to my parent's house for a fun-filled 4th of July. Our current plan is to drive the Syncro and The Bus. Yeah, it's a long shot that The Bus will be done after all these years, but one can dream, right?

Syncro Solstice 2015

Our Syncro has been running in tip-top shape ever since we got a new Subaru H6 engine last August. Since then, we've driven it 9000 miles, most of them on trips during the ski season. To begin the camping season this year, we traveled to Moab, Utah for the annual Syncro Solstice gathering. We attended our first Syncro Solstice last year and it's been on our calendar ever since. This year, Trish and Abbie opted out, so it was a boys trip for Jack and I.

We left Denver on the Thursday morning before Mother's Day weekend. We made it all the way to Grand Junction (about 4 hours) before we stopped for gas. That's where our adventures began.

Farewell to the 2014-2015 Ski Season

My family and I had a terrific ski season this year. Last year was an epic year with 11 resorts and a heli-skiing trip to British Columbia. This year, we skied Winter Park/Mary Jane, Steamboat, Copper, Crested Butte and Telluride. I logged 42 days of skiing, my most ever.

My season started on November 19th at Winter Park. Trish and I skied it again together a few days later. Opening Day at Mary Jane on November 28th was beautiful.

Over Christmas and New Years, we stayed at our Ski Shack near Winter Park and got a number of days in. My buddy Joe Lamont and I skied together on the coldest day, when it was -6°F at the base of Mary Jane. I was pumped when got to ski with Mattias Karlsson and his family just after New Years.

Skiing Adventures with our Syncro in the Rocky Mountains

Our Syncro Westy was returned to us in early February, after being in the shop since just before Christmas. It was in the shop for body work caused by an accident that was my fault. Luckily, no one was hurt and the damage was minor. The morning after we got it back, my awesome friend Ryan Moore and I packed it up and headed on a hut trip near Aspen, Colorado.

The next weekend was one of the most popular skiing holidays: Presidents' Day Weekend. We packed up the kids and drove our Ski Bus to Crested Butte. I took my guitar and Trish took her banjo (we both started taking weekly lessons at the beginning of the year). Our drive was smooth and our weekend was fabulous.

Saturday was Valentine's Day and I surprised Trish with a photo shoot of our family. I'd secretly hired Alison White to take our pictures and we met with her to talk about what we wanted on Saturday morning. After a fun consultation, we ventured to the mountain, picking up James Ward along the way. We skied a few runs together, stopped at the Ice Bar for a car bomb, then whisked off to our photo shoot.

We are extremely pleased with the results. Thanks Alison!

Harry Gates Hut Trip in the Roaring Fork Valley

It's been several years since my last hut trip. When my friend Brad Swanson invited me this year, I jumped at the opportunity. Trish skipped this trip and my good friend Ryan joined in her place. It was Ryan's first hut trip. As a snowboarder, he opted to snowshoe with his snowboard on his back.

Our journey to Harry Gates Hut began early last Friday morning. Our Syncro had just returned from the body shop the night before and was ready to head for the hills. We arrived in Basalt, Colorado (in the Roaring Fork Valley) around 11am and were on the trail at 12:30pm.

From experience, I knew it was going to be a long slog uphill. I rented telemark skis, with NTN boots/bindings, from Confluence Kayaks. We both quickly realized we'd packed too many supplies, as our packs were quite heavy. Nevertheless, we trudged on, one foot in front of the other.

The House

A few months after starting this blog, I wrote about The Cabin. I grew up in a cabin in the backwoods of Montana, with no electricity and no running water. I lived there for 16 years before moving to Oregon for my last two years of high school. As you can imagine, this makes for a good story now that I'm a programmer by trade.

Since I'm between clients right now, I decided to head back to the cabin to see my parents for a bit. My Dad retired in 2009 and my Mom in 2010. They started building their retirement home just up the hill from the cabin in 2004. My parents moved in two years ago and completed enough of it to show it off at a big party before Trish and my wedding last year.

The House is a majestic building, hand-built and beautifully crafted. Both the interior and exterior are amazing, with gorgeous trim and a wonderful attention to detail. The porch is possibly the best in the world, high and mighty with a great view of the cabin and garden below.