New Grill

We've been needing a new grill for quite awhile considering we've had our old one for probably almost 10 years and it's been through two hail storms in two different states.  Recently Ryan found a grill at Home Depot that he was really interested in as it has inserts for a pizza stone, veggie tray, and all kinds of other cool extras that he'd have to tell you about.  This is what I came home to last night:

He successfully assembled it (grudgingly glancing at the directions every now and then as I was watching) and we decided we wanted to try out the pizza stone. 

The pizzas we made were delicious and it was actually really easy.  We used pre-made crust to save on time but we definitely want to try it with homemade dough sometime.  The three kinds we made were: 1) pepperoni, tomato, onion, and jalapeno with red sauce, 2) mushroom and onion with white sauce, and 3) margherita (didn't get a picture of this one). 

I'm so excited that it's finally grilling season and I can't wait to use this grill the rest of the summer!

Another thing I came home to last night was this:

My brother Mark sent us this seasoning that is made in Manhattan, KS.  I don't know if tastes any good or not but it sure is fun to say it's name.  Maybe we'll try it with something on the new grill. 

Easter

Ryan and I started off the day with early church service at 8:00 am.  He had to bribe me with a promise of breakfast afterwards to get me up that early (my vote was to attend the later service at 10:00 am).  For breakfast we headed to Jack-N-Grill which is a delicious New Mexican restaurant that roasts its own green chiles for the spicy and tasty green chili that I smothered all over my eggs and hash browns.  I forgot to take a picture of our meals before we devoured them.

Later I made our Easter dinner of salmon with brown sugar and mustard glaze, asparagus and green beans with chili-orange oil, and balsamic red onions.

It was sooooo good!  Thanks to my trusty Everyday Food magazine by Martha Stewart.
The dogs were pretty excited about it too.

I hadn't made any dessert because I thought I would try to be healthy but both Ryan and I were craving something sweet later in the evening so Ryan decided to make homemade ice cream!

And then he used the homemade ice cream to make homemade blizzards!

Yum!  Easter 2011 was a good one.  Hope everyone else had a great day as well.

Acorns and...Bones?

Ryan and I have been wondering for a couple weeks where this bone sitting on our fence came from.

It was so curious because this part of our fence is fairly secluded and is only accessible by tramping through bushes and plants in the front yard and down a rock bed in the side yard only to have to climb on some extra paving stones we have stored right there in that nook.  We knew neither one of us had put the bone there and it didn't make sense that our next door neighbors might have placed it there...it really didn't make sense that anyone would have placed it there.  We think we found out today how it got there:

I'm pretty sure the ornery little squirrel that always plays in the trees right outside our kitchen window is the responsible party.  He/she seems to love antagonizing the dogs by constantly running the fences and running through any trees where the dogs can see him.  I guess now he thought he'd grab a nice, juicy bone to taunt them?  I just love this funny little squirrel.

More Graduation Pics

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Tom was a great photographer the entire graduation weekend and Buffy was nice enough to send a bunch of those pictures to me.  As his are about a million times better than the ones I took I thought I'd post them.

The whole crew at Old Capitol Grill:

Ashlynn...being shy?

I'm sure Ryan was being ornery in the picture immediately below.  He seemed to be behaving better in the next one.

Ryan's Mom and Dad

Vearl and Buffy

Here are some pictures we took outside the Denver Center for Performing Arts before the ceremony.

Ryan and Buffy

Ryan with his Mom and Dad

Rob, Jaime, Kylar, and Ashlynn with Ryan

Clayton, Mark, Wendy, Kya, and Cole with us.

And finally, a picture of the photographer himself (apparently after doing something ornery in the first picture) with Buffy and Ryan.

Here are some pictures inside the ballroom where the ceremony was held.

Here are a couple random pictures where we caught certain adults playing with the kids' toys.

Graduation

Wow what a weekend!  Last weekend was Ryan's graduation for his Master's degree and we were so lucky to have most of our family in town to celebrate with us.  I am so, so proud of Ryan and all of his hard work.  He took less time than the normal two years to finish AND had a 3.97 GPA (nerd alert!).  This is the same guy that used to only pretend to study and go to class to try to impress me when we first started dating (yes, I'm a nerd too).  It meant so much to both of us to have our families with us for this exciting event.

My brothers and nephew Cole were the first to arrive on Thursday night.  It was such a treat to get to spend some time with the boys.  I'm pretty sure I have the best big brothers ever. 

Then the rest of the family arrived on Friday.  Everyone came to the house for a bit to visit and then we headed to Old Capitol Grill in Golden for some yummy dinner and drinks.

 Mojo has some new favorites.  He wouldn't leave Kylar and Ashlynn alone all weekend.

 Here Ryan's mom is giving Clayton what she "thinks" is Tylenol. 

 I'm pretty sure little sis gave that awesome T-shirt to big brother for Christmas.

Then Saturday was the graduation ceremony in downtown Denver at the Denver Center for Performing Arts.  It is such a cool area and it was a perfect day!  Thank goodness we got there early because the place was full!  Tom was such a good photographer I'm pretty sure he could moonlight as paparazzi.  He was all over the ballroom snapping pictures.

We celebrated with a delicious lunch at Sam's No. 3 which is an awesome diner in downtown Denver just a couple of blocks away from the Denver Center for Performing Arts.  It was recently featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the delicious food and milkshakes and we definitely shared a lot of laughs and good times.  It was the most hilarious thing that my brother Clayton, who is from Kansas, ran into someone he knew at the restaurant.  Typical social butterfly I suppose. 

Later that evening, we had a graduation party at home with just family and we enjoyed food (I don't know how we found room to eat) and games.

Time flies by WAY too quickly when we're with our families and last weekend was no different.  It was really tough to get up for work on Monday after all the fun and excitement but I cheered up quite a bit when I got to my office and found the notes Kylar and Ashlynn left me on my white board.