Gretta Jean looks real mean

Today we stopped by the farm supply store. I couldn't help but buy gretta the studded collar. With pink nails she looks awesome.

Hopefully she can protect Ezra the same way la Fonda protects Kip (napoleon dynamite)

Particle board covered by laminate, covered by laminate

Boredom

We are so bored we are watching the Tuesday night fights over penguin ( the toy). Poor penguin

Mmmmm

Christmas is the worst worry season for me. Did i remember everyone? (no, I never do). Will I get everything done?

Since the Christmas cards went out earlier this week I have vowed to keep going. So ive started the truffle making. If my truffles looked prettier I'd make them for a living. They are so fun when not under pressure! So far we have: chocolate chip cookie dough, mocha and these little peanut butter ones that d helped make. He says they taste like reeces.

What is this?

This is a productive weekend! Christmas cards all ready to head to the mailbox!

Bed hog

Gretta has the endurance of a 10 yard sprint and then the fun is over. Today after a huge walk and hours of raking leaves shes out for the count. Ezra wishes she got the lesson about sharing space.

Fun sat night

If you live in the Denver area I highly recommend my Framer friend's business,"paint by wine.". Byob and have step by step instruction while you paint away with your friends! At the end you just take your picture home with you. It's a pretty sweet deal

I love our oak tree

It's always the last to dump it's leaves but they are usually a good fall color show so im ok with it.

Happy birthday.....to me!

I have some great coworkers! They got me some awesome earrings and made these beautiful cupcakes over the weekend for me. Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes!

(also turning older I have acquired Achilles tendonitis, which is not a welcome gift).

art history

doing my homework tonight, 

there is a strong resemblance between paul revere,

and jack black

Sonic

Everyone enjoys a little ice cream on a Friday afternoon!

Got off of work early

Decided to play a little snow frisbee!

younger- old people

our last week has been very boring with nothing to report, i'm so sorry.  i'ts especially boring w/ no william around.  he was usually good for a laugh.  d & i both miss him a lot!  

we are both fighting things right now-- me, with a croupy cough and nonstop snot and dallas, with an infected gum (ouch!).  last night the excitement level was over the roof here.

-andi picks dallas up from work and they drive home together

-and and dallas eat the soup made from the crock pot together

-andi and dallas sit on couches opposite of each other

-both fall asleep

-at 10:15 we both wake up and decide it's time for bed.

what just happened to us!?  holy smokes. 

with a birthday coming up im' vowing to rejuvenate

Powerless

We havnt had power since 2 am this morning. Supposed to get power by noon tomorrow? Today was a long day! No power at work so we left early and now just hanging out in our 58 degree house in down jackets!

wanna be a gangsta

today instead of doing fun stuff out in the nice weather we did things to help winterize the house.  one being raking all the leaves so they aren't a wet mess wednesday when it snows on them.  usually the dogs are very photogenic but this time they looked at little T-O'd taking the pic.  

i couldn't resist photoshopping

Sunflower showdown

Today ksu travels to stinky lawrence to play football. My uncle dan decided to make a bet. It's official--- He signed on the line!

Africa

tonight we met w/ our African travel agent.

stumped as to what to get us for a gift for any occasion?
(columbus day, Washington's birthday, thanksgiving, Christmas, valentine's day, First day of passover, 4th of july, ezra's birthday, random feel like giving something away day, etc....)

the answer: cash.

it's gonna be a trip of a lifetime.....if we ever get over there!

(planning for next october--this way we can see all the animals, birds like flamingos migrating, able to swim with the penguins and still hit octoberfest in frankfurt w/ some good college friends.)

in memoriam

we havn't seen the little guy for >36 hrs and the dogs and i have been seeing a lot of coyotes on our early morning walks.  sadly, i think he's gone.

miss you little guy!

Finished!

And sold! (a miracle!). After months of not working on it I finally got it done!

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I feel like I have nothing going on but yet am so busy. Stick with me- I promise to be better!

Modern day segregation

(please ignore ezras eyes)

Running

Today I learned that even if I don't have time to eat breakfast and am starving at lunch that is no reason to eat the entire chipolte burrito the rep brings me. This lesson is only appreciated if you try running for one hour after work and have horrible stomach cramps the entire time.

That will never be happening again!

For beezer

Look Beezer! We get summer and winter at the same time here!

trip #2

trip #1---running the walt disney world marathon

are we in shape yet?  

hardly.

trip #2---- (i can't believe i havn't posted sooner!)

a couple of weeks ago we were at a fundraiser auction and for an extremely discounted price, bought.....

a 6 day 6 night safari trip in south africa!  

weeks later i'm still pinching myself....whether that be from the excitement of the trip or the cost of the airline tickets i don't know yet.....

so once we get our airfare saved up we're taking the dogs to the farm and we're going to see some bigger kitties!

fairly big kitty

which would be breakfast for this one

Money savers

Going on two different trips is exciting but a financial drain. We have totally had to refocus our budget to save! Save! Save! That being said our eating out every few days due to pure laziness and convenience has came to a screeching halt. We have to be creative with what is in our pantry. Tonight I was totally craving ice cream or something sweet. Instead of going down the street I pulled out the double boiler and made these scrumptious little bites!
I think in the long run this was a better option after all!

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!