Christmas Day was Great!!!

We went to Debbie's house for Christmas. Here we are trying to get out of our neighborhood. It was worse at Debbie's, but that is because she lives on the EASTSIDE of the I-25.

We ate...

unwrapped presents, ate, went sledding...

ate, watched a movie, made dinner, ate, watched another movie and then ate this wonderful dessert! It was an eggnog creme pie with rum! YUM!

This was definitely the highlight of the day. Sorry that you have to turn your head to watch it. After all the eating and a few eggnog's, it was very funny. I swear!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone! I received the best present ever, a white Christmas.

Where is Santa?

Has Santa stopped by your house yet? Find out: http://www.noradsanta.org/

Merry Christmas Eve!

Yikes! Sorry for the delay in blogging! Guess not much has been happening. I did slip down the stairs and fell right on my bum on the hardwood floors. That was fairly exciting.

Any who, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE! My sister came over today and we watched the Broncos get killed by the Chargers. It is so painful to watch a bad football game. Get rid of Cutler!!!! My gosh, look at that haircut! Can he even see anything??? Bring back Jake!

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

It's snowing and it's beautiful!

Here's Dan shoveling our driveway for the first time. So many firsts this year - first house, first cyclocross race, first shoveling!

Just like the Pilgrims

Actually not really. We hosted our first Thanksgiving in our first house. It was very exciting. Family and friends joined us and pitched in with food and entertainment.

Dan was the man and made the turkey and a few sides. I handled the table setting and drinks. After stuffing ourselves, we played games, watched football and danced. Yes, we had dancing, hence the entertainment part. By the time the last friend left, we were pooped. We were in bed and fast asleep by 9:00 pm.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday!

Walk Tall And Carry A Big Stick

Dan's dad, Fred, came out for a visit. Unfortunately I was in Philly for most of his visit but I was able to go on a few hikes with him and Dan. The really cool thing about Fred's visit was all the hiking he did thanks to the knee surgery he had on both of his knees this past summer. He was a hiking machine.

Here we are in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was windy and cold and I was so not dressed properly. But it was great to be out in the fresh air and hang with the family.

Many of the lakes we walked around were partly frozen.

Here's Dan standing on a frozen section. Despite the fact he was a half-inch from the shore and it was all of about a foot deep, it still made me nervous that he might crash through. Like I said, it was cold out and hiking in wet, cold shoes is one step away from pneumonia.

On our way out of the park we saw a long line of cars parked on the side of the road. This normally means there is wildlife in the area. So I yelled at Dan to pull the car over to check it out. This is what we saw.

Lots of elk. There were many more on either side of the frame. It was amazing! They just looked at all of us gawking at them wondering what was the big deal. Here are some close-ups.

I was craving some cookies one night so Fred suggested I make them. I thought great idea, how fun! So here I am making the cookies. If you look real closely, you will see really what I am making. It rhymes with egg nog and Jack Daniels.

Crop Circles????

View from the plane on my way to Philly.

Beckys in the City

Sorry for the long delay in posting..... I went to Philly, over a week ago, to visit my friend Becky. We hadn't seen each other in over 5 years and it had been 11 years since I lived in Philly. We spent two days whooping it up in NYC - shopping in SoHo and on the infamous streets of Madison and 5th Avenue (this is one of my new favorite places to shop), and eating in the meat packing district (that doesn't sound too good, but it was great!). Here I am in front of two of my favorite stores.

FAO Schwarz was pretty spectacular. I could have spent all day there and we don't even have kids! The FAO Schwarz man who greets everyone. Becky in front of a life-size pony stuffed animal.

View from our hotel - UN building on one side and the Empire State building on the other.

Some spectacular high rises and apartments.

The rest of the time was spent visiting with Becky's family and reliving our "wild days" on the Main Line.

Chicago O'Hare airport had this really cool touch-screen web TV screen. I checked out the weather in Denver.

My Favorite Holiday

Today Daylight Savings ended. Yeah! We get to fall back one hour which means an extra hour of sleep. Double yeah! Unfortunately not eveyone gets to celebrate this holiday. Sorry.

Weak!

So my sister killed it with the pumpkin carving this year. We totally went the other way. We bought blinking eyes and taped them to the pumpkins. WEAK!!!! Next year, we are really going to do it right.

Happy Halloween!!!!

BOO!



pumpkin carved, photo taken and submitted by deborah e.

Too Bad, So Sad

The Rockies lost in four. We got swept. It would have been nice to at least win one game. Guess they lost their momentum. Hope it doesn't take 80 years for them to make another World Series appearance. Maybe the Broncos can do better tonight.

Corn & Pumpkins

My sister Debbie and I went to the Chatfield Corn Maze Saturday afternoon.


We went last year and it took us close to two hours to get through it. This year - 19 minutes! Last year the corn was alive and tall and we went at dusk. This year the corn was dead and short and we went when it was light out. But still, only 19 minutes????


It was fun nonetheless.


Debbie got hungry during our trek. Thank goodness we were in a corn maze!


Afterwards we went to the pumpkin patch. The pumpkins were actually grown there, not shipped in. It's the real deal out here.


We were supposed to carve the pumpkins later that night but we got distracted on the way home and went furniture shopping instead. And then we watched the Rockies lose - again!

Not the Golden Arches

Went on another hike with Bethie on Thursday. We went to Royal Arch in Chautauqua Park. Chautauqua Park is my favorite spot in Boulder, so if you ever come out to visit us, be prepared to hike here. I couldn't believe Beth had never hiked Royal Arch, she's lived here forever. I've hiked this trail four times now in 1.5 years. Just an interesting fact. Hike was good, nothing interesting until we stumbled upon this.

Beth said it was from a bear. I thought cool, my first bear-like sighting! Luckily Beth brought Pepper Power. But then I found it was expired. What was that going to do, tickle the bear???? Beth seems to like her expired products because she also ate a year old Luna bar that gave her problems. Poor Bethie. The hike was fun and we went up at a pretty good speed, for me at least. One thing I did notice was the number of people on the trial in the middle of the afternoon. I asked Beth if people worked around here (because she lives in Boulder) and she said,"No, this is Boulder." Hmmm. Cool. And yes, I work, but just part-time which is why I was able to hike in the middle of the afternoon. Here are some lovely pictures from our hike.

Beth nervously standing on top of a rock in front of the arch. I think I made Beth nervous climbing on the rocks with my big Nalgene bottle getting in the way. I need to find a cool water bottle holder/pack like she has.

The Royal Arch.

Fire Update

All is well on all family home fronts. Yeah!!! Fred's house survived, Jenny finally was able to shower yesterday (double yeah), cousin Scott's property was safe (in 2003 he lost 80% of it to the Julian fires) and my parents never had to evacuate. As far as we know all of our friends in the OC are safe as well. And finally, Pepperdine made it through another fire. Whew, what a week.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those who lost their homes. These pics were part of a mass email.

Ramona, CA Fire Picture

This picture is looking out from the supermarket in Ramona towards Escondido. That is the back of someones house right before it went up. Photo taken and submitted by Jennifer B. Thanks Jenn!