welcome

Welcome to our blog. Feel free to check it out and make any comments. I hope this helps our friends and family keep up with what's happening on the Central Coast. Enjoy.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas in Cali

this year i am spending the break in california. i started by visiting my sister, shayla, her husband, jonathon, and their three girls, tiera, aleena, and sabella. i had such a good time hanging out w/ them in the beautiful california weather. here's a little slideshow documenting my time w/ them. enjoy.

Monday, December 17, 2007

mytube

some of you may not know that i've thrown together some slideshows/videos and posted them on youtube. they're really not too special but they might be worth checking out. feel free to go to my youtube page and view them: http://www.youtube.com/robchat2008.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

motorcycle diary









as some of you may have heard, megan and i were in a little motorcycle accident on september 16th, just outside of richmond. here's a quick rundown of what happened. it was a beautiful, sunny sunday morning and since church doesn't start til 1:00 we decided to go for a morning ride. we were outside of richmond a few miles just cruising on a nice country road. it was sunny but a little cool so i decided to start heading back. there was a road off to the left so i turned on my blinker and slowed down to turn. since we were on just a two-lane road and there was an oncoming car i had to stop in our lane to wait for the oncoming car to pass and then it would be clear to go. just as the oncoming car was approaching and i was anticipating going, i glanced in my side view mirror only to see a car coming up behind us going way too fast. i knew we were going to be hit. i heard him lock up his tires for just a second then i heard the impact. suddenly, i was on my belly sliding headfirst on the road and i could feel megan still on my back. we slid for a while off to the right side of the road and then rolled through the dirt and landed in a ditch. we both had some pretty bad road rash and something was obviously wrong w/ my left knee since it kept slipping out of socket, so they loaded me up and took me to the emergency room. megan rode along. a later MRI showed that i had a completely torn MCL, which put me out of the richmond marathon i had been training for. megan's left foot was torn up pretty badly but luckily nothing was broken.
we're both doing much better now. i'm back running, surfing and cycling again. megan's foot has healed up nicely. the guy that hit us has accepted complete responsibility. he admitted to the cops that he was going 50mph and that he just wasn't paying attention. he was cited w/ reckless driving. while i enjoy riding a motorcycle, i realized that day that people just don't see you and what would otherwise be a small auto accident can be so much worse on a motorcycle. considering the circumstances, megan and i are so lucky to walk away w/ the injuries we had. with the motorcycle money his insurance company gave me i bought a new macbook, which is much safer.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Amish Country


This last summer, I made a couple of trips to Intercourse, PA (Amish Country) w/ some good friends. We spent our time there eating incredible cookies, learning how to make pretzels from a tiny man, and riding around the countryside in an amish wagon driven by our amish friend, Elsie.

The Amish are really cool and they're not as out of touch as we were expecting them to be. Elsie had more Dixie Chicks songs memorized than Megan. I definitely recommend going.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

heliboarding in ak





this last march during my spring break, some of the boys and i got together to visit the tingeys in juneau, ak and to do a little heliboarding. the group consisted of ben case, paul nielsen, andrew dawes, brent tingey and myself. i flew up a few days before the rest of the group to work w/ brent at the dental clinic in juneau. it was a lot of fun doing dentistry w/ my longtime, high school friend. after one solid day of work, brent and i hit the local ski resort on a tues, which is one of the two days a week the resort is closed. since the lifts weren't running, we just hiked the park and hit a huge table over and over again. on wed, when the resort was up and running, we went the conventional route and rode the lifts. by this time, both dawes and paul had joined up w/ us. by thur, the last member, ben case, was w/ us so we all boarded the ferry to take the 2 1/2 hour ride to haines, ak, where our heli awaited us. we gave ourselves a small 3 day window w/ the hope of getting up in the helicopter for one solid day. when we arrived we were discouraged by the cloudy skies and the tales of nonstop snowfall that had grounded the helicopter for a couple of weeks. the area had gotten 9ft of snow in the previous two and a half weeks. the idea of all this snow around us not being ridden was killing us. we had to get up. the first couple of days were filled w/ fine-tuning our ability to find buried transmitters w/ our avalanche gear, eating hamburgers while watching march madness at the only restaurant within miles which luckily for us had such good food, as well as building kickers over the parking lot behind the heli shed. come friday evening we were faced w/ a big decision: do we accept the fact that the weather is not going to clear up and cut our losses by heading back to juneau and hitting the resort before having to leave ak? or do we try and do what we traveled all this way to do: get up in the helicopter? we discussed this and then took an informal vote. we all knew we had to exercise some faith and stick around. we came to heliboard. needless to say, on sat morning (our last day in haines) i woke up at the crack of dawn, went outside to relieve myself (that's right, our sleep shack did not have a bathroom) and much to my surprise was greeted by a beautiful clear sky (a "bluebird sky" as the local skiers call it). we knew we were going up.

we were able to get 6 runs in w/ the helicopter totaling over 20,000 vertical feet, which took most of the day. riding in the helicopter was so much fun, but the boarding was unreal. the snow was so light and fluffy and there was so much of it. the runs were steep and as wide as you would ever need them to be. it was heaven. of course just as we were being picked up after our last run, the clouds rolled in and the sunshine was gone. in fact, we raced to the airport to catch our short flight from haines back to juneau but it was too late. we were officially stuck in haines, but nobody cared. we were all floating still from the perfect day we had just experienced. we got a cheap motel, some fish and chips and rehashed the best runs of the day.

i eventually made it back to richmond one day late due to the snow-in. i even got to miss a day of my pedo rotation (but those sticklers made me make it up in may). it was one of the greatest trips of my life. a huge thank you to brent and amber for being such incredible hosts and making this happen. it was so fun riding w/ friends i hadn't ridden w/ in years. it was just 5 guys, past their prime, having a good time.

Friday, January 12, 2007

first blog ever


well, this is my first official post. i recently returned from a well-deserved winter break. i started things off by going to my friend trevor's house in phoenix, az. we had a good time eating fried filaburto's burritos and going to the cardinals vs. broncos game at the new stadium. after my time there, i flew up to slc to visit friends and family in utah as well as do a little snowboarding. i had a great time hanging out w/ jerod, honna, carter, mason, and stacy. i was able to get up to brighton and solitude a few times. i had an epic new years w/ the boys in salt lake. i always have a good time in slc and i'm always so sad to come back to richmond. however, i always adjust to the good life in va. so now i'm back drilling on teeth and scraping plaque. school is back in full swing and i'm already looking forward to the next break.