Ezra to Andi: do something about this!

I lost an old friend

It became obvious today that I need to replace my current ice scraper. That or get a garage, but the ice scraper sounds cheaper.

Ez just likes to hang in his room

The mask

My open art studio class is all participating in the Denver hospice find raiser. Each person paints a mask and then they will be auctioned off at a later date. Mine is called, through the aspens"

Watch out, golden, co

Beanie & ez are On the loose!

antero

for the longest time dallas and i have been putting off hiking antero.  it's a long hike up a boring jeep road.  we decided to try and tackle it this past week.  long story short we didn't end up making summit,but we did get to around 13,000.  even though we didn't get it, it was a good workout (6ish hrs of snowshoeing is quite enough for one day, thank you).  blogger is having difficulties but hopefully you can figure out the captions!

"antero1":  there is a speck up there amongst the tress that is dallas snowshoeing.  it was super nice to follow tracks and have a bit of the work taken out of it for me. 

antero 2:  dallas stands in front of mt white...antero's neighbor

antero 3:  we left denver around 5am.  coming over the hills to fall into buena vista's valley.  the large mtn in the middle is princeton.  antero is to the left.

antero4:  we stashed our snowshoes at tree line to hike up.  when we came back for them there was ironically a snowshoe bunny next to them.  they are super rare to see.  he was a beautiful little guy. i know i probably shouldn't have fed him a triscuit but i couldn't help myself. 

happy new year!

whew!  the end of December was a complete whirl-wind and i'm so happy it's over.  although i have plenty of events coming up to keep me busy, it should be exciting and scary at the same time. 

as a brief overview--- i thought i was "done" with Christmas on Dec 8.  I went home to help with cows and then the email came that they were going to do another one.  I had nothing left so I started from scratch prepping for another show the 21-22.  It wasn't as good as the first one, but still profitable and I was glad I did it.  Finally it was time for Christmas!  We went to Atwood, then Ulysses and home.  It was 5 days of no responsibility.... and more importantly, no chocolate. 

Now we're back to the grind.  Although that sounds boring, 2014 is already beaming with opportunities and there shouldn't be too many dull moments here.

for the first time in about 30 years the milk tank is leaving the barn....but this time for good.  dallas and i pretty much manhandled this thing.  the barn is turning into a wood shop for my dad and yes... i already have "my order" in

between the market and leaving for kansas, we did a little AR photo shoot for a new magazine company.  it was pretty cool to have the indoor range entirely to ourselves

i did a gingerbread house w/ the kiddos.  this picture looks like we are much neater than we actually were.  there is nothing kids like more than spreading a 6'x3' area with sugar

you guessed it-- doing a series on cows.  good thing they were willing to do a photo shoot for me

my sister went all out on her Christmas sweaters this year.  my parents were lucky enough to win them. 

my mom came and saved the day and helped me with my chocolate booth again.  i'm looking for helpers for an event in March.  bueler?  bueler?

bella bean turned 1 on the 27th.  she was a pretty trashed dog by the end of the week. 

prairie dog hunting with the cousins.  i had to promise i wouldn't talk much.

Look closely

How we got a road tube in the clean laundry pile I have no idea.....

almost done!

the other day dallas informed me that i should blog.  yes, i'm sorry cyber friends, i've been pretty laxed about it lately.  however... i do have good reason!

during the month of november i launched pre-Christmas chocolate sales.  i'ts a great way to get a somewhat of a guesstimate on how many chocolates to make. 

this is the best picture i could find of my booth.  it looks much better than this

starting the weekend before thanksgiving, i've been pulling quite a few 14-16 hr days to get all my chocolates made, wrapped, packaged and sent.  my sister was out 1 week to help out with the Firefly handmade holiday market (in boulder) the 6-8.  our booth was SUPER busy.  so busy that saturday we didn't move.  no food, no bathrooms, just a constant influx of people.  which was super.  i was really pleased with how the market went.

vacation

afterward, beezer and i went home to help a full day of cow working.  it was great to finally be done with work stuff and on vacation.   ....  until i got THE EMAIL.  the email saying that there was a really strong request from people to have the market AGAIN the 21-22.  i was in a good mood and said that of course i would do this again.  then i came home.  and realized what i really signed up for.  which was 1 week of replicating my inventory from round 1.  additionally, i was out of boxes and have to make all these too.  so right now i'm staring down at only 5 more days until my real break.  every day i tell myself that "i can do this" only to be totally exhausted by the end.  ezra is having pooper problems again, the weather is too nice to be working inside and that might sum things
up! 

so!  if you are in need of some fabulous handmade gifts, come by 16&pearl in boulder this saturday and sunday (21-22) from 10-5 both days.  you can grab a sample from my mom or pay me for chocolates to take home.  either way, it will be a delicious start to your Christmas season.  seriously--come.  it's a good time. 

fritz still gives bella bean a daily morning bath.

Happy 6th birthday Ezra!!!

Andi

Will Larry Burnum please stand up?

Maybe he is one of the hidden people the islanders were telling us about?

Bean loves fritzel

"A bull named Sue" is finally done!

The largest lake in Iceland

And so clear that divers can experience vertigo

The polar plunge

It was a great afternoon

For riding buffalo creek!!!

one great week!

wow.  i wish every week could be like this.  i'm having the hardest time that one week ago we were flying into reyjavik.  4 jam packed days of amazing views and countryside...then followed by a jet lag day, my birthday and another friday.  (and weekend).  it's back to reality around here but a sincere thank you to everyone who wished me birthday wishes and made my day special! 

this is where the north american and european tectonic plates meet.  they move further apart around 3 cm/year.

 

What a blur

We get back from our day trip and fall right to sleep. So many things.... Waterfalls, steam, tectonic plates, glaciers.... But no northern lights thanks due to the massive cloud cover. Today we hit the blue lagoon for a few hours before heading back. We will get into denver around 5:45 tonight. Going to try and defy jet lag by staying awake on the plane. The odds of this actually happening are about slim to none.

Day 1

We didn't get much sleep on the way over even though it was about a 6h45 min flight. (Easy and very doable. As in doable enough to doit a few more times). Today we went cave exploring and walked around town. It's absolutely beautiful here. Dallas and I bought islandic wool hats and gloves.

Lazy afternoon... At least for doggies