San Francisco

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to San Francisco for the GRACE Science Team Meeting (GRACE is the acronym of a NASA satellite which launched in 2002. The science team meeting is a two day conference with almost 100 scientists who are involved with the project or use the data for research).

It was a short trip but I managed to fit in quite a bit of fun both nights once the conference was over. As you can see, I had a good view of the city from my hotel room. I roomed with my friend David (who has the same advisor as me), who I have roomed with many times on various work-related trips.


On the first night I had the privilege of hanging out with my Aunt Wendy who has lived in San Francisco for many years. We had such a great time and ate some delcious food at a middle eastern restaurant on Haight Street. My food theme for the weekend was kabobs (night#1: shish kabob, night#2: salmon kabob, night#3: sushi...which is kind of like a kabob except there is no skewer...and it's not cooked).


Towards the end of our dinner some loud music came on and a belly dancer appeared in the middle of the restaurant. After swinging a sword around a few times she then balanced it on her head and did a belly dance routine. This was the first time I've ever seen a belly dancer so I was impressed and a bit frightened.

On our last night in San Francisco, David, another grad student, and I hung out with my advisor Steve, and one of his friends. After dinner we hopped on a cable car and headed to a place called Buena Vista, which apparently invented the Irish Coffee. From there we all needed to take a taxi back to the hotel we were all staying. After some smooth negotiating by Steve we ended up getting a sweet ride home. You can see a picture of David and I getting out of our "taxi" below.


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A Dinner With The Dudes

To see the complete slideshow of the
Dinner With The Dudes click here.

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Becky and I have been a part of some very cool events throughout our years volunteering with our church middle school ministry, but this past Saturday night might have been the coolest. The 8th grade guys put on a formal dinner for the 8th grade ladies to show their respect and appreciation for them, and also to raise money for the Outrageous Love family that we are sponsoring as an 8th grade class. (Outrageous Love is something our church does every year where ~200 struggling local families are nominated and then sponsored at Christmas time, so they are able to have a few Christmas presents and buy groceries and what not).

Prior to the event, fancy-pants invitations were made and then hand delivered to the 8th grade girls several weeks ago at our Wednesday night youth group. The guys were required to wear a long-sleeve collared shirt, a tie, and slacks and requested in the invite that the girls also dress up for this formal occasion. One of the 8th grade guy's parents very generously offered the use of their beautiful home and also purchased all of the food for the ladies, so that all of the money that was raised could go directly to Outrageous Love. Another one of the 8th grade moms also generously donated pizzas for the guys to eat before the girls arrived, as they were not welcome to partake in the amazing food we served the girls.

All of the dudes showed up at least 2 hours before the girls arrived in order to get the house decorated and to start the preparation of the food. Below you can see what an incredible job they did decorating the room and setting the table. They also spread out about 200 candles throughout the house.


Shown here is Rambo, the executive chef, and Sander, his sous chef as they took a short break from preparing the food. The three course meal consisted of a salad, a choice of spaghetti with meat sauce or chicken alfredo, and a brownie and ice cream desert. Everyone, including Becky, said that the food was great...very well done kitchen staff.


Hal, Chris, Drew, and Josh looking quite studly as they waited to escort the ladies inside as soon as they arrived. Upon being escorted into the house each 8th grade girl was given a pink rose.

As you can see, I'm as far out of my league as the 8th grade guys were.


We ended up having 31 8th grade girls attend and every one looked so nice.


In addition to preparing a meal and serving it, the guys also serenaded the girls with a couple of Christmas carols, with Becky on piano. The night ended with the sweetest middle school dance party ever...our 8th grade guys are seriously good dancers. I should also mention that one of the leaders who was there was a professional break dancer when he was younger.

Group photo.


Becky with a few of her students.


Everyone is still smiling after a very long night of work.


At the event we raised over $1000 for our Outrageous Love family! Between the Dinner With The Dudes and the bake sale the 8th graders have been doing on Wednesday nights, we ended up raising more money than is needed to support our original family of 8, so we added another family of 6 to sponsor this Christmas!

I could not have been more proud of the 8th grade dudes for everything they did this past Saturday night. They were complete gentlemen and worked so hard to put on this amazing event for the girls. Becky and I were overwhelmed when we got home and realized how much money our students had donated. We are so blessed to get to be a part of these student's lives and are very excited to see how God is going to use this incredible group to continue to impact people's lives for many years to come.

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Thanksgiving in Chicago and Michigan

Becky and I took a mini-vacation to Chicago and Michigan to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family. Now that Becky's brother (Marcus) and his wife (Sarah) live in Chicago, we were able to fly directly from Denver to Chicago. While Marcus and Sarah worked on Wednesday, we spent the day in downtown Chicago. Neither of us had been to Chicago for many years and had really looked forward to spending a day in the city....We love Denver, but for the record, it barely even qualifies as a city. It's more accurately described as a big town; so getting to spend a day in one of America's great cities was something we were very excited about.

The picture below shows Becky with a big grin on her face, which she had the entire day walking up and down Michigan Ave.

In Chicago they have entire men built completely out of Lego's...we don't have Lego men in Denver.

My one requirement for our day in downtown Chicago was a visit to my favorite pizza place in the world: Giordano's. My family once drove something like 4 hours out-of-the-way on a road trip just so we could eat at Giordano's. That may sound a little crazy, but I bet you don't remember the time you didn't drive 4 hours out-of-the-way for dinner.
After our day in Chicago we drove with Marcus and Sarah to Becky's parent's house in Michigan. We then managed to celebrate three major holidays in a span of three days: Thanksgiving, my birthday, and Jesus' birthday. It was a bit of a whirlwind of family events but we had a great time at all of them. We also managed to fit in a meal with our great friends Joel and Sarah. We miss being around our amazing friends from Hope so much that it is always such a joy whenever we do get to see them.

The day after Thanksgiving Becky and I went with Becky's parents to cut down a Christmas tree. The tree farm we went to took us on a hay ride to the middle of the tree farm where we could then pick out the perfect tree. After some intense inspection of many trees we finally found a great one. Shown here is the tree that is now in the Byker's house while it was still connected the the ground, along with Joyce, Becky, and Bernie.
Later than night I was caught in this candid photo while decorating the tree.

On our last night in town Becky grandparents (Joyce's side) came to Becky's parents place for dinner and to celebrate Christmas with us, since we'll be in Fredonia with my family for Christmas this year. After many failed attempts with the camera self-timer we finally came up with this great picture of the family.

I'd just like to say that we are both so thankful for how blessed our lives are. We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with friends and family as well.

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Why I'm Bad at Blogging...

There are two main reasons why I'm bad at blogging:

Reason #1. I don't take pictures.

It seems that in order to post a new blog entry you need to have pictures to accompany the story/event/or whatever you're writing about. The simple fact that I hardly ever have my camera with me prevents me from keeping the blog up-to-date. Fortunately Becky does take some pictures so that they can some day end up in the scrapbook, and on the occasions when this happens I usually do get around to posting something.

For example, two weekends ago I went to Pasadena, CA for a job interview. While I was there I got to see 6 friends from college (Noel & Heidi Snyder, Brian Hanning, Dave Fisher, Ben Iliev, and Barry Teshema) and one friend from High School (Rob Lefferts). Over the course of the four days I was there, and all of the various fun activities, I didn't take a single picture, despite the fact that I had brought my camera all the way to Pasadena.

This is too bad because this would have made a great entry to the blog...especially the part about Hanning being a special agent for the U.S. Diplomatic Service (he is a stud).

It seems that once we have kids we will have plenty of pictures to post because people's cameras seem to become attached to them once babies are around.


Reason #2. Fantasy Football.

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Steamboat Springs

We have been terrible at posting lately as life has been a bit busier than normal. Last weekend Bryant and I took a 4-day vacation to Steamboat Springs, CO. This was the third year in-a-row that we have taken a long weekend together to Steamboat as it has become our favorite place in Colorado to visit.

We took our bikes up, and went on a long bike ride along the Yampa River. It was great to try out my new bike (a birthday present from July) and enjoy the beautiful weather.

We also spent time at my favorite bookstore and I treated myself to multiple mochas!

Each time we've visited Steamboat, we've hiked along Fish Creek Falls. This time we completed the 10 mile hike and enjoyed the view from Long's Lake.

Sigur Ros at Red Rocks

Two weekends ago Justin Mast, one of my closest friends, came out to Colorado for a visit. The highlight of the weekend was a Sigur Ros concert at the Red Rocks Amphitheater. For those of you who are unaware, Red Rocks is the greatest place in the country to see a live show, and if you enjoy live shows then you must add seeing a show there to your list of things to do before...it's too late. This was my fourth Red Rocks show with the previous three being Incubus, DMB, and John Mayer. I hope there will be many more in the future.


Sigur Ros has been one of my favorite bands since college. Their music is incredible, as long as you don't mind that the lyrics are in Icelandic, except for the one CD they did where all the lyrics are gibberish (they call it Hopelandic). On this tour Sigur Ros was without the Icelandic string quartet Amiina who they usually tour with. Usually at any given time during a Sigur Ros show there are 12+ musicians on stage. They still produced a very polished and powerful sound but a few of the songs seemed to be missing a little something without the additional instrumentation that usually accompanies them.

We had a great time and it was a beautiful night. Below is a picture of Sigur Ros on stage with the lights of Denver in the background.


Below is one of two large rock formations which outline the sides of the venue.


An interesting side note (to me anyway) is that since college I have had a list of three bands that I really wanted to see before...you know, it's too late. Those bands were Silverchair, Radiohead, and Sigur Ros. I had the incredible opportunity to see live performances by all three in the past 11 months. (Radiohead was the best show of the three).

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Before and After

My beautiful wife got a lot of hair chopped off this past week. She cut enough off that she was able to donate about a foot of hair to a non-for-profit organization that will use the hair to make wigs for cancer patients...I think that's really cool.

And without further adieu, here are the before and after pictures (please note: 1. Becky likes having her picture taken with our dog, and 2. our dog is still recovering from her torn carpal pad previously mentioned on this blog).

Before:

After:


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Go Buffs!

It has been awhile since we've posted to the blog so we're playing a bit of catch up...

...a couple of weekends ago we experienced our first University of Colorado Football game ever. It seemed that since it is the 6th football season for which I've been a student at CU (I know it should be U of C, but everyone says "CU".....I don't like it either) it was time we took in a game.

Upon walking into the stadium Becky said to me, "This is it?" She was referring to how small the stadium is. The CU football stadium holds about 55,000 fans, but the only college football game she had ever been to was at the Big House, so in comparison this place looked like kind of a joke. Our football stadium isn't the biggest, but I'm guessing it has one of the best views of any stadium in the country.

At the beginning of both halves they run Ralphie the buffalo around the stadium. This is quite intense and is amazing to see live. The runners have been seriously injured in the past when everything did not go exactly as planned.

It was a beautiful day for a game and CU had a come-from-behind 34-27 win. Perhaps we should officially become CU Buffalo fans since my team (Syracuse) and Becky's team (Michigan) probably won't do much of interest this season.


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A 5-Star Weekend

This past Sunday Becky and I had the amazing opportunity to spend a night at the Broadmoor, a 5-Star resort in Colorado Springs. We would normally not be able to afford such luxurious accommodations but our good friends PJ and Kersta invited us to join them for a drastically reduced rate. It was the first time we had been there and it was very impressive.

Some of you may have seen this AP photo from a few weeks ago when the US Senior Open was held at the Broadmoor. We did not encounter any bears while we were there.


Becky and I posing in front of the lake. Becky is wearing what I called her "rich lady" hat ($5 at Old Navy).

The view from our room.

We spent much of our time on Sunday and Monday at the pool.

We had a great time hanging out with all of the 5-year-olds at the pool taking turns going down one of two very cool slides.

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NYC and Radiohead

This past week I (Bryant) had the incredible opportunity to visit New York City and then head up to Boston for my first-ever Radiohead show. I did all of this with my good friend Tim, who I've known since I was in fourth grade.

I flew in on Tuesday and that evening we ate at a very cool Italian restaurant a few blocks off of the main strip of Times Square. I hadn't been to the city since I was about eight so it was just awesome to be there again.

The next day we drove up to Boston for the show. I've been a big Radiohead fan since I first heard OK Computer (which is considered by many to be one of the greatest rock albums of all time) when I was a junior in high school. More than 10 years and 4 Radiohead albums later I finally got my chance to see them live. The show definitely lived up to my high expectations and was one of the best performances I've ever seen.

Tim and I at the show.

Radiohead.

And for those Radiohead fans who are reading this I've uploaded a few short video clips of the show...

The National Anthem.

House of Cards.

Paranoid Android.

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Zoe: "Being a mountain dog is harder than it looks."

Hi, my name is Zoe, and I'm a dog. I just want to make one thing clear for any of you who might be jealous of my life in Colorado: being a mountain dog is harder than it looks. Sure, I get to chase rabbits every morning on my walk, and I get to swim in lakes and streams all the time. I get to explore the Flatirons of Boulder and the Rocky Mountains off-leash almost every weekend. But this life is not for everyone. For example, I am currently on the 5-day Disabled List with a torn carpal pad, which I received during a hike this past Saturday up to the Royal Arch in Boulder...and my dad (Bryant) didn't even give me any beef jerky like he usually does when we go hiking. And did you know that sometimes he makes me wear a pack to carry stuff? (please refer to earlier posts for photographic evidence). Well, I would like to write more but I can only type with one paw right now as the other is bandaged. Have a nice day.

Heart,

Zoe

P.S. People in Boulder actually converse with their dogs as if they are people.

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UCYC: Part 1

I spent all of last week at UCYC (United Christian Youth Camp) in Prescott, AZ with about 80 middle school students from our church. Unfortunately, Becky was not able to go due to limitations in vacation time, but she was very cool about me leaving her for a week to hang out with our students.

It was an incredible week...except for the whole 16-hour bus-ride part. But we made the best of that by making one of our students lie down in the aisle so we would have a table for Euchre ( shown in the first picture below).


While at camp we got to do all of the classic camp activities: rock climbing, mountain biking, kayaking, paint ball, leap of faith, swimming, and tons of silly games (bumper soccer was my favorite). The best part of the week was the time we as leaders got to spend with our students building relationships and discussing the teachings for each day. It was a very meaningful week in which we got to be a part of our students growing in their faith and choosing to take God's calling to bring justice to the world more seriously. Becky and I are very excited to build on the momentum of this past week as the next school year starts for our students.


In addition to God doing some very cool things in the lives of our students, it was also one of the funniest weeks of my life. I have not laughed as much as I did this past week since college. Middle school students can be quite brilliant and hilarious and they kept all of us leaders laughing so much that several of us lost our voices.

We had one 8th grade student join us for camp who we had never met before. His name is Hal Boelts, which I decided sounded very similar to Steve Holt! from Arrested Development. I got all of our guys saying Hal Boelts! in the same manner as Steve Holt! from the show. You can see all of us in our Hal Boelts! pose in the pictures below. If you have no idea what I am talking about watch this.


Me with chest hair (real) and one of my students Chris with chest hair (fake/drawn on with marker).


One of the leaders Ryan, some of the 8th graders, and myself on feux-hawk Thursday.


The pictures below show some of the 200 middle school students at UCYC during one of the worship services.


Becky and I are so blessed to get to hang out with the students from our church and just be a part of their lives.

Stay tuned for Part 2 which should feature some hilarious videos which likely only I will be amused by.

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Marcus and Sarah's Wedding

On July 12th, my little brother got married! Marcus and Sarah met at Calvin and have been together for about two years now. It was great to be a part of such a happy day. Since we haven't gotten to know Sarah very well living in different states, it was so nice to be able to spend time with her and her family prior to the wedding. I forget that as I have grown-up, Marcus has as well, and he will make such a wonderful, caring husband. We're very happy for both of them, and excited as they begin their life together in Chicago.

Bryant and I before the ceremony

A small group of the Byker family

Mom and Dad on the dance floor

Best Independence Day Ever.

We spent much of the July 4th weekend with our very good friends PJ and Kersta. We got the festivities started a bit early with a Thursday night trip to The Melting Pot for their signature "Goodnight Delight" special (this was our inspiration for Fondue Night 2007 and Fondue Night 2008).


Since we live about 40 minutes away from each other they spent the night at our place and we kicked off our 4th of July with the most patriotic breakfast I've ever had. My brilliant and hilarious wife got the idea to purchase ridiculous amounts of raspberries and blueberries and that we should then use them, along with a cake decorating device filled with home-made whipped cream, to decorate our pancakes in a patriotic fashion.


This is Becky's very impressive American Flag pancake.

PJ's blueberry star pancake.
Bryant's simple yet effective U.S.A. pancake.

Later that day we all headed down to PJ and Kersta's house in Denver. We then formed a bike gang, grabbed some firecrackers, and headed for downtown. We took a short break at Wash Park along the way and listened to a symphonic band play for a bit, and then took a very cool bike path that runs along a creek from Wash Park to downtown Denver.


The plan for the night was to hang out on the rooftop deck at Jackson's, a pub right by the stadium, where we would have a great view of the post-game fireworks, so we made our way to that area sometime during the 7th inning. While we were just hanging around in front of the stadium some random guy walks by and says "hey, you want some free tickets?" Our answer was of course yes. He only gave us three, so we bought another for $10 and all four of us headed into the stadium in time for the top of the 8th inning. They were fantastic seats.


When we walked in the Rockies were down 17-16, which as I'm sure you are aware is a ridiculous score for a baseball game. No runs were scored until the bottom of the 9th when the Rockies scored two to win the game 18-17. It was awesome - the near sellout crowd went crazy. We then had one of the best seats in the house for the best fireworks display in Denver. I hope everyone enjoyed their day off as much as we did.

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