New house rules

What is our entire house up to? Cesar Milan time! (he is the dog whisperer) Glad the dogs are eagerly soaking it up!

hey forrest......

catch me if you can!

(please, everyone, excuse my extreme amateur photoshopping skills!)

it's true.  d and i are signing up (bought the plane tix already) for the 2012 disney world marathon in orlando jan 8!  i can't wait.  we really wanted a goal to make it thru the winter and here we go!

on a side note, i had wanted to race cross this year.  i helped mentor some awesome women and did one piddily race and my shoulder was having none of it.  i'm back to pt, doing some upper body strengthening and getting ac injections again so i'm hanging up the bike and running instead.  the ortho "shooting me up" said i best stay off my cross bike for awhile.  by the time i get back on i'll be ran over.  best of luck this year, crossers!

Smokin on the Beaver

this past weekend we went home for:

a) my mom's youthful birthday (she really is so young!)

b)  the 2011 smokin on the beaver competition

basically it's a bunch of people smoking meat all day and entering it in competition.  there are categories for wine, food, beer, and beans.  while the meat is smoking we watch football, ate homemade ice cream..... it was a good weekend!

and can i just say how much i HATE the new blogging system?  it's so hard to use!

Andy, my good friend's husband showing his pheasant he's entering in the open category.

 apparently you get extra points for presentation.

it was great seeing old friends!

a look at the crowd.  

Monday

We had a really great weekend(more to come later)... But onto monday....

Brian, the surgeon I work for was out of the office this past week and so we decided that it would be absolutely hilarious to switch his "rich chocolate" protein powder out for rich chocolate ovaltine

Now it may just be that he has a cold and his taste buds aren't functioning on full cylinders, but he drank the ovaltine with water and failed to notice it wasn't his protein!

i could barely keep a straight face.

now i'm in big trouble. i either:  a)  tell him i switched it out and get in trouble for doing so, OR b) don't tell him until he runs out and then i'm in trouble for him not getting his protein in.

either way i think i'm hosed.

Happy birthday dallas!

All three of your jeeps and all three of your animals and I love you! Have a great day!

our weekend

in the words of one of our orthos was, "magical" (although when he uses it, it is in a sarcastic tone, this is not).  more to come later on that.  

today we hiked harvard.

last night was exciting, it was hard to go to bed, it was hard to get up....so we got up an hr late and ran out of here, barely making it back for my church pre-school duties.

i digress.

we set out to hike harvard & columbia.  it's 12.5 miles to do harvard, 13.5 or something to do columbia.  why not do them both?

dallas headed up the valley

looking west of harvard.  there was a lot of low laying clouds and the moon was still out.  it was amazing

looking across the valley.  the south side of harvard faces yale

was really trying to get a self portrait but found myself turning around and looking for dallas

who was coming down from the boulders

we tried.  but after trying the traverse, much of it boulder climbing on melting snow we turned around as it was going to take us all day.  plus my hands were numb (i'm a cold weenie).

with a little dusting on the mtns they were in spectacular form.  this was one of the most scenic hikes i've done.  definitely worth every step!

Some like it soft

Ezra is the perfect example of spoiled, snobbish dog. Pillow on top of pillow on top of baby mattress.
Yes, pathetic is the word youre looking for.

Gretta could care less if she has a laminate floor for a pillow.  Low maintenance.....my kind of girl!

William is hiding in solitude.....somewhere.

our weekend

this weekend was nice.  

friday we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.

how does time fly like that?

we went out to eat with one of our favorite friends in boulder.  

it was great!

saturday i cross raced.  

i can't really remember the last time i did this...well it was october of last year, right before i crashed.  even with a mechanical and a loaner bike i had fun.  unfortunately our weekends have started filling up so i don't know how many more i'm going to be able to do this year.  

today we were supposed to hike, but at 4am dallas want' "feeling it" and if yo'ure not feeling it then it's kind of hard to get motivated to go.  except for evans, the mtns we havn't done close to our house are at least 13mi hikes.  

that could make for a long day.

so instead we went to ikea, and rei and i'm doing my art homework.

dallas found a great way to polish the aluminum on his jeep and it's SO much faster than the stupid airplane stuff he was using.  he is almost 1/3 done.

how shiny is this thing? 

here is our reflection in the jeep

(by the way, i love pictures in series)

Studyin....

This semester i am taking an art history class purely for fun and i love it!  William now has a deeper appreciation for 15th century art as he gets snuggle time away from the canines.

Because shes so cool....

Gretta has fangs of drool!

(someone really wants some ice cream!)

the colorado relay (last weekend)

waiting for our runner to come up and over for the exchange. 

 

check out the background--we had beautiful views!

 last weekend i spent friday and saturday cramped up in a car with 4 other folks (10 total for our team) slowly making our way to snowmass for the conclusion of the co relay.  i thought last year was fun....but this year was awesome.  i had SO much fun.  the whole event is pretty much unexplainable unless you are actually there....sleep deprived, tired, trying to sleep in some schoolyard's fb field, getting ready to run, running at 3:00 am or plastered in sweat from your last run and knowing you won't get a shower until you get home the next day.

it was SO much fun.

handing off the number at an exchange

i enjoyed the people in the van (i did last year too---but we laughed pretty much nonstop this year) and had some really challenging runs.  they were runs that i would have never made myself do unless i had 9 other people counting on me to finish!  i was runner #1 this year.  i have learned my lesson!  when looking at the running routes this year i was purely looking at mileage and how much climbing there was--not at the descriptions.  WHOOPS!  not being an uphill kind of gal, i ended up running up:

boreas pass in breckenridge

AND 

up vail pass!!!  

nothing says "we support you!" to a teammate like waiting for them to come in from their torrential downpour rain run at 2:00 am

you know what i'm talking about.  we started at the stoplight there by copper (across the highway from the super expensive starbucks) and took the bike trail up.  i had no idea i was supposed to run up the ENTIRE pass until right before (most likely because im an idiot and don't read all the running descriptions), which was a good thing because had i known, i probably would have fainted.  

done!  200 miles ran by our team.

my total mileage for the trip was 16, which looking at other runners from my team doing 30, 16 didn't look so bad!  (actually it looks pretty weenie-ish!)  i have nothing to complain about.  i felt great, had some good challenging runs and was still able to walk the next day!  i can only hope they ask me back next year.

Mt Elbert--highest peak in co!

 i always hate 3 day weekends in colorado.  i love the 3 day weekend but hate going the mtns to enjoy them.  it's packed up there and 70 turns into a parking lot by 3:00.  instead we have deep cleaned our house.  exciting way to spend a weekend i must say!

saturday, very last min, we decided to hike on sunday.  now when we go hiking it's... "we'll figure out where we're going when we get in the car."  (basically we either go 70 or 285). we ended up at mt elbert.  i had already done this peak this summer but dallas hadn't.  but it's one of the few peaks i would do over and over.  an enjoyable ridge hike the whole way up with a great view of massive.

we didn't end up getting to the trailhead until 6:30, in which we started hiking in the 29 degree weather and i'ts accompanied darkness.

pictures don't do it justice.  with the sun just peaking over the mtns, their purple color was spectacular!

we're in great hiking shape right now and made the 9.5 mi trip in record time.  back home in napping mode by 1:30.

enjoy your labor day!

GAMEDAY!

our house on "normal" days
our house on gameday!

today felt like fall, and so appropriately as it was the first day of college football! oh how we've been waiting for this day to come. ksu like to keep it exciting and only win in the last quarter, but a W is a W!

Thank heavens.....

Finally....after having little red out here for 5 years, she finally (illegially) drives! D took me for a ride tonight after he finished up the brakes.

On lookout, waiting for the.race to start! Legs hurt badly climbing up here after the relay!

run, andi, run!

tomorrow my team leaves at 4:00 am for the colorado relay.
i did this last year---it is really a fun time!
our team of 10 will run around 180 miles, mostly trail...
it just hurts
and yo'ure tired
and sweaty
and riding in a car for >24 hrs
but i can't wait!

a few weeks ago i got an email saying my old team was still needing runners. i said, "you've got to be kidding? yo'ure calling me?" (take in mind i'm just now getting back in shape from my horrendous bike accident last october which required several months of physical therapy)
i hadn't ran over 1 mile since then.
as of now i think i can fake 14 pretty well. it's going to be slow (2/3 of my legs are uphill) but it will be great! we start in breck and end in snowmass.
happy friday to everyone!

gretta gets a pet-icure

i couldn't help it----pink nails to match her pink collar.
meanwhile ez is like, "what is going on!?"
she is quite the girly girl.
she loved every minute of it!

Mt Princeton

folks---it's getting exciting!
we are nearing the 1/2 point for finishing the 14'ers!

of course i am thinking in the back of my head:
"so on average---each mountain is about 10-ish miles and at least 3100 ft of climbing....so if we have about 29 mtns left that leaves us with... what? only 290 miles and ~90,000 ft of climbing..."

wow. that's a LOT!

anyway, we did mt princeton today. the road up was awesome so if you do it--- DRIVE! i'ts tame 4wheeling (dallas let me drive--that's how tame it was. apparently i was practicing)

we had a great view of antero, which is across the valley and is still on the "to do" list.

Goldilocks

We got gretta a bed today since shes been sharing w ez. Not sure how much she likes william-locks hanging out on her new pad.

Our house is one thrill after another

Look how exciting it is here!

KICKBALL!

(sorry, no picture)

i have been HYPED up all week for this--

FALL KICKBALL!!!

i don't know why but i have the greatest time playing kickball. the summer was good. our team was horrible, but our team is FUN and that's really what counts.

team name: got beer?
mascot: nothing
record so far: 0-1 (although it was a good fight)
we lost to the sea pandas.
we always lose to the sea pandas!

something special for the fall--dallas is playing too!
i may have (on pure accident) forgot to tell him some of the rules for his first game
and he had quite a few errors last night (costing us some outs!)
but it will be awesome---
just don't count on us for anything on wednesday nights!

William, happy for 5 min of peace and quiet

beezer visits!

and gets buried in dog

yesterday we hiked the shavano/tab group.

it was exhausting.
i was tired going in, dallas has been gone for the past 3 mo.
by the end we were dragging.
although it was only 12 miles, you essentially had to climb 3 peaks to get them all in.

up shavano
down shavano
up tabaquache
back down tab
up shavano again
down shavano

we enjoyed it though
saw some pretty trees
and got a subtle reminder from mother nature that fall is quickly approaching in the high country
we were supposed to hike today as well but yesterday left us sore and grouchy and we thought we shouldn't push our luck. most of the collegiates are 10+ miles.

today i'm not sore but someone else might be. :)

for the record

gretta likes puffcorns
ezra does not
and
william still does not like gretta

William

Now that there is another giant set of chomper jaws in our house im sure that there is at least one of you worried about william.

Let me assure you that william is a feisty little thing and if he can survive the coyotes he can survive gretta. Gretta, while wagging tail, gets close, and william growls back. Im sure that he is molting his coat with anxiety but soon this honeymoon phase will be over and everything will level out to some kind of normal.

Need some more lap space

Grocery shopping

Andi: oooh my mom and i love these!
Driving home, as im munching away....
Dallas: the guys at the plant love those. I try one. (munch) ew.  i think i just at stephyerfoam

Andi: you probably did! With artificial butter!

Needless to say, the entire bag is mine and i dont have to hide it!

Ez gets a friend

......a permanent friend.
After seeing gretta at the animal shelter we couldnt stop thinking about her. Now.... Our house has 85# of more protection

We thought it couldnt get worse

Having a 75# dog in bed is something we are not particularily fond of, but deal with.

But when mr. deflated basketball came to bed too we had to draw the line.

Nice try ez

i've been emotional lately--i know.
sorry to anyone who has talked to me as of recently.
friday was my last day in boulder.
i had a great time working with rob.
it was really hard to leave.

as of today i'm with exempla on their lutheran campus.
i'm still doing ortho
i still don't know what to do with my life,
but,
this is a good option in the meantime!
my commute has lessened from 45(+) min to 10.
right now we're in orientation and it makes you want to jab your eyes with a dull pencil but i'm hoping that it gets better than this. .....
otherwise i may be begging for my old job back.