Mamma Mia

Oh my gosh- how could I have forgotten to write about our Friday night?!?  I convinced Chris to go see Mamma Mia with me- the musical that has all ABBA music in it.  It was playing at the Buell Theater in Denver- so I got us tix for Friday night- 8pm showtime.  We went to Maggiano’s for dinner beforehand and then headed up to Denver to the show.  It was SO GOOD!  I loved it.  We had nosebleed seats unfortunately, but the music still sounded good up there.  And the play part was actually funny!  If you get a chance to see it and you like ABBA music- I HIGHLY recommend it.  It was a late night for us- we didn’t get home til midnight.  Wow- way past our bedtime

 

Adam and Maureen’s visit

One of my work (well, former work since he no longer works for IR) friends was coming to CO for a cousin’s wedding so we got together on Saturday to hang out and have dinner.  We also invited some other friends over since they had known each other when they all lived in Chicago.  Adam and Maureen are now back in Chicago (after spending a couple years in South Bend while Adam got his MBA at Notre Dame) and have a daughter now.  We had a great time hanging out, got to meet their daughter and generally had a great time!  The weather was perfect and the kids enjoyed seeing the dogs- I think they even petted them once or twice too!  Mostly they enjoyed seeing them from the other side of the door though

And now it’s a beautiful Sunday and I’m heading out for a bike ride.  Poor HB is limping around today because chris took her to the park yesterday to throw the frisbee for her and wear her out before our company arrived.  The poor girl is getting old- everytime she plays too hard these days she’s limping the next day :(  We’ll have to watch it and make sure it heals.

Cougar Canyon Golf Links

How nice to have a 3 day weekend!  Unfortunately, Chris had to work 2 of those days so the weekend was kind of a bust for him.  On Saturday we went for our 1st bikeride of the season- 7.5 miles and our butts were killing us!  Guess we need to get back in the saddle and get used to it!  We also took the dogs for a long 5-6 mile walk around the neighborhood to get them some exercise since they didn’t get to go biking with us.  I would love to teach HB to run alongside a bike so then she would tire herself out that much quicker!!!  Anyway, we walked around to the backside of the development and were amazed at the number of new houses back there and even a new elementary school!  It’s been awhile since we’ve walked back there.  We also rented some movies and watched them over the weekend- “We Are Marshall” and “Atonement”.  We Are Marshall was good but Atonement was a bit slow for us. 

On Sunday, while Chris went in to work, I went golfing with some friends at a course called Cougar Canyon.  It was down in Trinidad, CO which is VERY far south in CO.  It was exit 15 off of I-25- 15 miles away from New Mexico!  Jeez it was way down there.  But I only had to drive down to the Springs to meet up with my friends and then my friend Jon drove from there.  The golf course was fantastic- it was quite difficult for me though because the greens were very dry and hence, very fast.  So your putting had to be quite accurate or you went shooting past the hole every single stinkin’ time!  And, not to mention, that the wind was blowing at a steady 20-25 mph (or so the pro told us at hole #1) with 40mph gusts!  That put an extra challenge into the game that I didn’t need that day for sure!  But it was sunny and 80 degrees so it was a beautiful day- despite not golfing very well :)  Not 1 of the 8 of us broke 100 that day.  The course had alot of blind shots though so we were all pretty OK with our scores.  If we could go back and play again, we would at least have a clue what we were up against.  The course also had lots of ditches/canyons that would run along or perpendicular to some of the holes.  This 1 hole in particular had a deep friggin’ canyon running perpendicular to the hole right in front of the green.  Ater a particularly bad drive, my 2nd shot was still far enough from the green that I knew I wouldn’t be able to carry the ball over the canyon.  So I said goodbye to my ball and hit a sacrificial 3rd shot into the canyon, knowing that I’d be able to drop on the other side of the canyon near the green :)  There were a couple more holes that had tricky shots too- but that just makes it interesting, right?

I can’t seem to upload photos to my posts- not sure what I’m doing wrong because it seems everyone else is able to do so.  So I’m going to try to upload some new photos to the Photos page and see if that works.

Monday was completely dreary so I pretty much did nothing while Chris went in to work again.  Gotta love 3 day weeknds!

Dancing with the Stars

OK- I admit it, I’m addicted to Dancing with the Stars.  I have only been watching it since Season 3 but I’m truly addicted.  I watch it every week and I vote!  And I’ve wanted another female start to win since Season 4 when Laila Ali got the shaft and came in 3rd.  And then in Season 5 when clearly Spice Girl Mel B should have won!  It all comes down to a stinkin’ popularity contest and who can get more people to vote for them!  Sometimes that stinks.  Anyway, a female finally won Season 6 last night and I was super happy to see Kristy Y. win!  I know… I’m such a dork.  But at least I accept and embrace it :-)  And I even stayed up “late” to watch it- the show didn’t end til 10pm and that’s my bedtime.  Again, a true dork… 

Now that DWTS is over I’m going to have to move on to another reality show of some sort.  I just saw a commercial for a show last night called “Wipeout”.  If anyone has ever watched Spike TV (I think that’s what channel it’s on)- there’s a show that takes place in Japan (at least I think it’s Japan) where they do crazy stunts and races.  They voice-over it in English with crazy dialogue.  I don’t know the name of the show because it’s usually on at night when we’re just flipping channels and we see it and start watching it.  Anyway, it’s really amusing to watch and this new “Wipeout” show reminds me alot of it. 

 We had another picture-less weekend- meaning we didn’t do anything exciting enough to warrant taking a photo of it :-)  We rented 2 movies- “Into the Wild” and “Untraceable”.  Both were good and I’d recommend them.  Chris worked on building a “retaining wall” of sorts on the side of the dog run to try to make it prettier and I cleaned the entire house.  Sounds like great fun, huh?  The weather was beautiful all weekend and we took several walks around the neighborhood to get out and enjoy it.

After just talking about the beautiful weather we’re having along the Front Range, I just got an email yesterday talking about the fact that Arapahoe Basin ski area is still open, has a 54″ base and just got 14″ of new snow last week.  How crazy, huh?  I was just saying to Chris this past weekend that we haven’t been up to the mountains since the middle of April.  But he said “Well, there’s not much to do up there just yet”  Meaning that we’re done with skiing and there really isn’t any hiking yet- unless you want to break out your snowshoes.  So we’ve been sticking around home and enjoying the nice weather down at our lower elevation.

 

Movie rampage

Chris and I have been on a “movie rampage” as I call it for the past couple of weekends.  I feel like we’re trying to “catch up” on all the movies we haven’t see during ski season.  A couple weekeds ago we rented “27 Dresses” and “Juno”- both very cute/amusing.  I’d recommend them.  Then last weekend we rented “I Am Legend” and “Home of the Brave”- I’d recommend both of them as well.  “I Am Legend” was a bit scarier than I thought it was going to be- but mostly because of things jumping out at you.  I’m a sucker and that always scares/surprises me.  As for “Home of the Brave”- I’d recommend everyone watching it- it’s sorta depressing but still a good movie.  It follows 4 Iraq war soldiers after they come home from their time over there and shows how they have a hard time fitting back into society and how they deal with it.    I feel like we watched some more movies but maybe it was just those 4… hmmm, that doesn’t constitute a very good “rampage”, does it?  Oh well… oh wait!  We also WENT to the movie theater for the first time in a LONG time too (I couldn’t even tell you when the last time was that we went to the movies- but their popcorn is still good!).  We saw “Made of Honor”- it was cute but very similar to “My Best Friend’s Wedding” but in reverse.  I’d still recommend it- a cute story.

Other than movies, our weekends have not been very exciting.  Honeybrown and Nittany got a new vaccination last Friday and on Saturday Honeybrown was having “leaking” problems that we guess were due to this new vaccination.  That made for an exciting day/night- never sure where the next puddle of pee was going to show up.  At one point she was laying on her dog bed while we were watching “Home of the Brave” and a scene had a rocket being fired and it was really loud and woke her up.  So she jumped up and we could see that she had “leaked” all over their dog bed- ew!  And her fur was all wet with it too- and then she came over and stood next to the coffee table and shook- so we had pee all over everywhere- yuck!  So we had to stop and clean everything up- we decided to keep the dogs in the kitchen (Nittany too in case anything started happening with him) but then I felt bad and decided we should sleep in the kitchen on an air mattress with them.  What spoiled dogs, huh?  She was no longer leaking on Sunday but then she developed a limp with her back, right paw- jeez, what is going on with this girl?!?  But by Monday the limp was better so we never took her to the vet- I guess we won’t really know what caused the leaking and the limping… this weekend just drove home the fact that we won’t be getting new carpet til we sell the house!

In typical CO weather, it was 79 yesterday and then a front blew in last night and they’re predicting snow for today.  It was lightly snowing this AM when I drove to work but nothing was sticking.  Thank goodness- I’m ready for spring! 

I’ve decided Chris and I need to do something a bit more exciting than watch movies and clean up after dogs so I can take some pictures and add them to the blog- pictures are always way more fun than just text!  Hope everyone’s doing well!

Sweet Valley High

Cindy and I were IM-ing about this the other week… was anyone else addicted to these books when we were in junior high or high school or whenever it was?!?  Or was it just Cindy and me :-) Turns out that they’re “updating” and re-writing the first 2 books in the series to reflect modern times.  Cindy had seen an article or someting on the web so she sent it to me- which then sent us down memory lane reminiscing about how BAD these books were but how we were still addicted to reading them.  So we checked out our local libraries and found that mine had the new, re-written book and Cindy’s had at least 1 of the books as well.  So, off to the library I went to get my copy and sit down with some ”good” reading.  Then I decided to google “Sweet Valley High” and see what was out there about it.  I found some very funny blogs- see link below.  I had found one when I was searching before but can’t seem to find it again… oh well.

http://www.dwanollah.com/blather/030102/index.html

This one was pretty good reading… way more entertaining than mine!  But reminiscing with Cindy about SVH made me think of other series books that I read that I was similarly addicted to- The Girls of Canby Hall, The Baby-Sitters Club, etc.  I’m sure there were so many more but I just can’t remember them.  I was also very impressed that the writers of a bunch of the blogs said they actually HAD the books still.  Cindy and I were wondering whatever happened to our books… probably got donated or trashed at some point when we had grown out of reading them (I don’t even remember when I stopped reading those books…).  So that was my trip down memory lane.  I was inspired to write about it today because I just finished reading the new, updated book #1- and MAN WAS IT BAD! But what a great trip down memory lane thinking about reading these books oh, so long ago! 

Coughing up a lung…

Isn’t that a nice image-invoking title?  I haven’t posted again because I’ve been sick and haven’t felt like doing much when I get home.  I was talking to Lisa the other day and she informed me that Marilyn (her mother-in-law who lives in Greeley who I spent last Mon. and Tues. with while Lisa was still in CO) went to the doctor and was told she has bronchitis and, if left untreated, that can turn into pnemonia (is that how you spell it?!?).  Then she said that both she and my dad have the same symptoms that I do- so I figured maybe I should go to the doctor as well.  My dad had already gone but, luckily, no bronchitis for him.  So I went to the doctor last night and luckily no bronchitis for me either.  She told me it’s just a viral thing and that basically I’d have to suck it up and live through it.  Go take some sudafed bascially :) 

So, other than being sick, there’s not too much new with me.  Work is fine.  My “new” job (been in the position for about 3 months now) is going well- learning lots and getting used to the position- finally feeling competent!  The shorter commute is fantastic- 30-35 min compared to 50 minutes.

Our weekends have been fun but nothing too out of the ordinary.  We spent the 1st 2 weekends in April up in the mountains for the end of ski season.  Copper had some great live bands and celebrations going on.  A fun time!  Then the next 2 weekends were spent in Greeley since Lisa, John, and the girls were here.  I golfed with my dad (he flew out to CO to help Lisa fly home with the girls since John had to go back to work) at a very nice course (Bear Dance) just south of Castle Rock- it was a fantastic time!  And then last weekend we just did things around the house that we’ve been putting off all winter and spring so far- mowing, cleaning up, etc.    No big plans for this weekend either- probably more chores around the house.  We’re hoping the tree we planted last fall (to replace the one the dogs ATE when we first moved into the house 8 yrs ago) lived thru the winter and will bud pretty soon.

So… other than that, I guess I’ll stop rambling on now.  I did post some pictures though!  I’m still figuring out all the blog features and how to get them to look pretty.

Welcome to my blog!

Well, I’ve finally joined a bunch of others in creating a blog.  I really don’t think there will be anything TOO terribly exciting to write about… but I thought I’d create one anyway just for the fun of it.  So, welcome and if you’re reading this- hope you’re not bored