Liebster Blog Award and Sunshine Award

Recently, I received two blogging awards from Julie at A Beautiful Day.  Julie is a crafty lady who I met through Ryan as they were colleagues at his last job.  Even though we've never met in person we hit it off immediately and have emailed and followed each others blogs ever since.  The Liebster Blog Award specifically is all about helping create traffic for blogs with 200 or less followers so get on over the Julie's blog and check it out!  As a part of these awards I am supposed to nominate other blogs; however, I only read four:  Julie's, a private one, a one for friends and family, and one that I think has quit blogging...so, instead I will just answer the questions/give facts about myself as requested.

Liebster Blog Award - 5 Random Facts About Me

1. At any given time I could be carrying 5-15 lip glosses in my purse.  I know I only have one set of lips but a girl's got to be prepared!
2. I have been pulled over by a cop on foot...TWICE!  The first time I actually was committing an offense (left turn during the two hours of the day you couldn't turn left at that spot in downtown KC) but I maintain to this day my innocence on the second citation. 
3. I was born with Ronald McDonald red hair.  The color has since become less intense and is more of an auburn.
4. I love, love, love to read.  I always have a giant stack of magazines and books on my bedside table.
5. I love trying new things whether it be food, activities, experiences.

Sunshine Award - Q&A

1. Favorite Colors:  Red, Bright Purple, Navy Blue
2. Favorite Animal:  Dog...I do have three of them.  I really love horses too but I have no place to have one.
3. Favorite Number:  7?  I don't know.  Maybe that just pops into my head because of Seinfeld.
4. Favority Non-Alcoholic Beverage:  Right now I'm a bit obsessed with skinny caramel macchiatos and skinny cinnamon dolce lattes from Starbucks.  I used to drink boatloads of Diet Dr Pepper but I gave up soda almost a year ago and didn't drink much other than water and hot tea until lately.
5. Prefer Facebook or Twitter:  Facebook.  Not that I'm super savvy at Facebook but I don't even have a Twitter account.
6. My Passion:  Learninng.  I am always trying to learn something new about everything.  If I could just go to school all the time for all kinds of different things that would be awesome.
7. Favorite Pattern:  I don't have a lot of patterns in my closet as most everything is a solid color but what I do have is usually very geometric and bright.
8. Prefer Giving or Getting Presents:  I get really excited to give presents.  Sometimes I can barely contain myself and sometimes I give them for no reason at all.
9. Favorite Day of the Week:  Saturday!!!  It's usually an all fun play day!
10. Favorite Flower:  Oh that's hard because there are so many beautiful ones but I tend to have fresh lilies at the house a lot.

So, there you have it - some random facts about me.

Next post I'll recap last week/weekend.

Good News and Bad News

So from last week, I have some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that I got my pearl necklace in the mail.  I love getting packages in the mail and this was even sweeter because I received this pearl necklace by redeeming some "Vitality" points for it.  My company teamed with Vitality and employees could earn points for working out, taking classes on health, participating in races, etc.  I had enough points to get the necklace and a book (The Postmistress).  Too bad my company stopped participating in the program because not enough people were using it because I think the people like me that did use it definitely used it well!

But the cost of the bad news from last week probably paid for my free pearl necklace.  So, I locked myself out of the house.  Yes, I know you're thinking...how does that even happen?  Well, I'll tell you.  Ryan was out of town all last week so I increased my nightly security measures at home (I know I'm ridiculous).  This included locking the door out to the garage.  That door handle still happens to turn from the inside so the next morning when I went to take the trash out I didn't remember that I had locked the door the night before.  Imagine my surprise when I tried to get back in the house!  Thankfully, I had my computer with me so I could email Ryan to call a locksmith.  In theory, I could have harassed some neighbors but I'm such a late riser that most people are at work by then and I really didn't want to bother anyone that was at home.  So Ryan called a locksmith who showed up within 15 minutes and got me in the house after what seemed like no time at all.  The dogs were not happy with the situation and it was a little creepy for me to know that someone could truly break in that easily.  But all is well and I don't think I'll ever do that again!

Ryan got home on Friday and was so nice to cook me dinner.  He had been travelling so I know he was very tired but he knew I'd had a long work week as it was quarter close so he fixed shrimp pad Thai and bought some Thai beer.  Both items were delicious.

On Saturday night we had Scott and Sue over for barbeque and games.  Ryan and I are not very good at fixing barbeque for only four people so we ended up having a ginormous feast.  Then we played the game Apples to Apples.  Basically, there is a deck of green cards and each card has a word on it, such as unscrupulous or classic.  You turn one green card over per round and every player except one, who is the judge, must place one of their seven red cards down that they think best describes the green card.  The judge picks which one they think is the best and that person wins that round and then the next round a new person is the judge.  So for example, if the green card showed the word classic then players might throw down cards that said things like meatloaf or convertible and the judge would say they thought meatloaf was the most classic descriptor in the bunch.  It doesn't always work that way, however.  Once when I was the judge I got this hodge podge of cards thrown at me:

I don't think that beer, flying monkeys, or beanie babies are all that principled...  So you can see, this game can get pretty interesting.  We had so much fun playing it!

We stayed up wayyy too late so we didn't make it to church on Sunday but Ryan took me that morning to Nordstrom to exchange my Tom's shoes.  I, like Julie, am a little behind on jumping on the Tom's bandwagon.  I've purchased Ryan and both of my nieces some Tom's shoes and I've purchased my mother-in-law a Tom's sweatshirt but I had never bought a pair for myself.  I've always kind of wanted some and I love the idea that for each pair that I buy a pair is donated to a child in need so I finally got online and ordered some but they ended up being too big so I had to go in and try on a new pair and exchange.  For anyone looking into Tom's my experience was that I needed to go a half size down from my normal shoe size.  And I love them!  My second pair of "Dorothy" shoes.  Hey, I am from Kansas so if the shoe fits...

Sunday was kind of dreary so I ran at the gym instead of outside. 

And then Ryan took me to Tequila's for dinner!  Mmmmmm.  And that's pretty much last week/weekend in a nutshell.

Oh, and my friend Julie has nominated me for a Liebster Blogger Award so I will come back to that in my post as I need to put some thought into it.

Easter Weekend

Over Easter weekend we were supposed to be hosting Ryan's parents; however, one of their dear friends passed away last week so they postponed their trip so they could be home for David's funeral.  David was a part of their lives ever since I came into the family and was always so much fun to be around and I know he meant a lot to them.  Losing someone is such a difficult thing and it always feels like it's too soon. 

Without family in town, Ryan and I decided to have an Easter weekend with just the two of us even though we'd had other, very kind offers.  Saturday morning we volunteered at the church's pancake breakfast/Easter egg hunt.  It was super busy!  Ryan was in charge of cooking the bacon and sausage and I ran around and did a lot of random jobs, including cracking eggs, making orange juice, wiping tables, etc.  Can you believe we were there before 7 am?!?!  Yeah, no one else could believe I was up that early either.

I was pretty exhausted after working the breakfast but we still managed to take the dogs to the dog park because it was such a nice day.  Mojo had previously done something to injure his foot so Ryan doctored him up and was even nice enough to write on his "cast".

On Easter Sunday, we attended our usual 8 am service with coffee afterward.  When we came home Ryan finalized his work on the fence while I started preparing our feast.  This was the first time I had ever baked a ham and I think it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.  However, we now have about 9 lbs of ham in the freezer because I made a 10 lb ham for just the two of us.  :)  I say it makes for great lunch meat.  For 3 months straight.

When I got to work yesterday, a colleague gave me worry beads that his mom brought back from Greece.  Apparently it is a very Mediterranean thing to sit and clack your worry beads back and forth.  Basically, you place an equal amount of beads at each end of the tassel, then hold onto the string in the space between the beads, and then flip the beads on the top part of the tassel back and forth over your fingers so they clack with the beads on the bottom.  I think I might be driving people around me nuts but its actually very soothing to do this.

Another soothing thing for me at work is to walk outside and sit in the courtyard.  My building takes up about 1/2 of a city block, another building takes up about 1/4, and the other 1/4 of a block is a courtyard filled with trees, bushes, and flowers.  I love sitting out there when the weather is nice and the flowers are blooming.  And this practice is probably less annoying to colleagues.

Enjoying the Weather

For the rest of the weekend a week ago, we spent a ton of time outside enjoying the weather.  We went cruising in The Church Lady.

Ryan took me by Happy Cakes and I got a Mexican Chocolate cupcake that was absolutely delicious.  I first tried Mexican hot chocolate at our resort when we were in Playa del Carmen last November and I had to have it every day because I loved it so much.  This cupcake incorporated the sweet and spicy components just like the Mexican hot chocolate I was obsessed with.  And I know these pictures are sideways, I can't figure out how to change them so for now...you get sideways pictures.

We enjoyed a fire out on our patio.  Hopefully we get some precipitation this week so we can continue to have fires this spring and summer. Just last week was the scary North Fork fire that burned out of control and destroyed thousands of acres and many homes.

This past weekend was also extremely gorgeous so we walked one evening to Dairy Queen, Ryan put up more of the fence so that all he has left is to repair some of the slats, and we enjoyed some beverages on the patio of a little bar in Olde Town Arvada.

I think this doggie at Cheapskates wanted to go home with us.

Saturday night we grabbed some wings at Buffalo Wild Wings and then headed home to watch the Final Four and cheer for KU.  While I hold KSU nearest and dearest to my heart, I also attended KU for one degree so will always cheer for them as long as they aren't playing KSU.  Hopefully they can start to do a little better in the championship game tonight as they are currently down quite a bit heading into halftime!

Also last weekend we just spent time outside doing nothing other than relaxing, talking, reading, etc.  It was wonderful.

We finished the summery weekend off with some summery barbeque.  YUM!

New iPhone

Well, I got the newest iPhone, which it totally awesome and I'm obsessed with Siri and the screen resolution and picture taking capabilities and pretty much everything else, but I'm having issues figuring out how to rotate and save my pictures.  I never had problems with my old iPhone but I'm fairly technologically incompetent so I think I'm going to have to have Ryan take a look at this for me.  So, until I (Ryan) get that figured out, I might not be posting many pictures. 

So, anyway, we've had a good week and a half since I last wrote.  A week ago Wednesday Ryan stopped by our friend Jodi's house after work to help her with a quick fix on her convertible so she could drive with the top down in the gorgeous weather we've been having.  I suggested that we all go to dinner as I didn't know how long it would take and we didn't have any other plans.  Well, when we showed up at Jodi's she had some tasty beverages ready for us and the cup she handed Ryan had an uneven base (on purpose) so when he set it down it seemed as if it was going to spill everywhere.  Hehe.  Pretty funny joke.  After Ryan fixed the car we eventually went to dinner at Mickey's and Jodi and I enjoyed more cocktails and we ended up not getting home until well past our bedtimes on a weeknight!  It was fun to break the normal weeknight routine and spend time visiting with a friend.

Last Friday, Ryan took me to a Greek/Italian restaurant I'd been wanting to try and I had a groupon for.  I'd never had authentic Greek food until a few years ago when I was in Salt Lake City with one of my Greek colleagues and I couldn't get enough of it but he told me there wasn't anything as good in Denver as what we enjoyed in Salt Lake as the place was owned by a Greek man and his parents and Mom and Dad did a lot of the preparation and cooking.  It was actually kind of funny because the family that owned the restaurant knew people that my colleague knew in Denver.  Apparently the Greek community (out West at least) is pretty tight knit.  So, even though John warned me there weren't any great Greek restaurants in Denver, I was bound and determined to try to find one.  I'm glad that Ryan was willing to take me, considering it was clear across town, but alas, Bucci's in Denver did not measure up to Aristo's in Salt Lake.
This is a picture of the saginaki (flaming cheese) appetizer we got. 

Saturday morning, Ryan was up bright and early to start setting posts for our fence that blew over during some high winds.  I don't think the dogs are going to be very happy when he's finished and can't have access to the giant backyard behind us.  The neighbors back there made sure to tell us they didn't mind if we left the fence down for awhile because they just love our little little dogs.

While Ryan was working, he asked me to make him some coffee because he didn't want to come into the house all dirty and gross.  I proceeded to tell him that I don't know how to make coffee but he assured me it was very easy and to just put some scoops in the filter and fill the reservoir.  So that's what I did.

I don't think Ryan is going to ask me to make coffee anymore. 

Birthdays, Vail, and More

No I haven't stopped blogging!  I don't know what has kept me from updating in the past few weeks but since I've been away for so long this might be a long and disjointed blog.  With not very many pictures.  Let's see, where to start.  Well, two weekends ago we had a couple of birthday parties to attend.  Our friend CJ threw a surprise party for his wife at the West Woods Golf Club Bar & Grill that is pretty close to our house but we'd never been to.  Jane was surprised and we had a great night meeting new friends.  We also attended Lily's first birthday party, which was butterfly themed.  Lily did a great job on her cake and it was fun to catch up with Amy and Dion and Steve and Lindsay.  Also that weekend we went skiing at Vail.  I really wanted to try out a new ski resort because we'd only gone to Keystone all season.  I really liked that at Vail you park in an underground parking garage and then you have just a very short walk to the lifts.  And the village is SO adorable.  I didn't like the actual slopes as much as Keystone though.  I felt like I was catwalking a lot (which is where you are on a flat area and have to propel yourself) and that I had to take various lifts to get where I wanted.  I think a lot of that is probably because Vail is an older resort.  It was actually extremely warm up there that day and I was too hot in my ski gear!  Who knew that could happen?  Unfortunately, I think that might have been our last ski day of the season because it has been so unseasonably warm and there was never a really good snow base to begin with.

Also that weekend we got to enjoy a drink and pizza out on the patio at Udi's because the weather was SO nice.  We met our friends Jess and Jesse at Arvada Beer Company for some drinks and conversation and we enjoyed dim sum with our church group at a new place called The Emperor.

Last weekend we vowed not to make any plans and we did a really good job of it.  We got to take care of a lot of housekeeping type items and I was able to enjoy running outside, Ryan got to work a little on The Church Lady and he tore down the rest of the back fence that the wind didn't blow over.  Now our dogs have a huge area to roam around in because the neighbors behind us have a very oversized yard.  We also both enjoyed some pampering massages.  It was a wonderful weekend!  Sometimes I think the most mundane weekends can also be the most enjoyable. 

I read a couple books in the last couple weeks, one of which I loved:  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.  I also watched the movie Bridesmaids which I found pretty hilarious because I'm easily amused with raunchy humor and I appreciated that the humor was coming from other females.

Leap Week

Well, I'm afraid I had a much better "leap week" than Ryan did.  He had his wisdom teeth removed first thing in the morning on leap day.  Because I had mine taken out many years ago, I really kind of forgot what an ordeal it is!  I had to drive him there and stay during the entire procedure and then there were so many rules to follow about what he could and couldn't eat, and what he could and couldn't do, and then of course there were the prescriptions and the ice.  Poor guy came out of the procedure in a wheelchair with an ice stuffed sock wrapped around his puffy face.  Thank goodness we found a wonderful bed last weekend so he at least had somewhere comfortable to rest (you are right Meghan - such an improvement on quality of live).  This picture is actually a couple days after the surgery when he was more lucid and less puffy.

During the time Ryan was unable to eat, I on the other hand enjoyed a couple of lunches out with friends.  I met Amy and Lily at Yak & Yeti and discovered they have the best chai tea lattes on earth.  I have had chai tea lattes before and I have been to Yak & Yeti before, but I'd never had a chai tea latte at Yak & Yeti.  I am now forever ruined.  I also got to go to El Toro with Chris to dine on some delicious fried tacos.  Yes, a fried taco.  So incredibly delicious.  Too bad I didn't get pictures of either lunch outing.

By Friday night, Ryan was feeling a little better...well, better enough that he wanted to go to The Archive Room to try Batch 19, which is a pre-prohibition type beer brewed by Coors.  The company found some old recipes when they were cleaning out basement archiives so they decided to brew them.  It was actually really good and a pretty cool story.  Right now it's only available in Colorado but I think they are releasing it to other states in 2013.

On Saturday, Ryan helped Dion put down hardwood floors while I went skiing.  :)  I think I got the better end of that deal.  The weather was actually terrible which made it great for me because not many people were on the slopes.  I made several runs and did really well and had a really fun day. 

Ryan started to be able to chew as the weekend progressed and lucky for me he took me out to Beaujo's.  I had been craving it ever since I walked through Keystone Village and smelled the aroma of pizza.  We also stopped at one of our regular haunts, Arvada Beer Company/Mannekin Frites, during a Sunday cruise in The Church Lady.  We hadn't been out for a cruise for a long time with the weather and with Ryan having it torn apart to do some work.   

A couple other random highlights from the weekend:

We went to Murdoch's and they had baby chicks!  Sooooooo cute!

Also, discovered the best peanuts ever:  Ricky's Lucky Nuts in Spicy Chile Chipotle flavor.  And I read a really, really great book:  Every Last One by Anna Quindlen.  I read a lot and in the past year have greatly enjoyed most of the books I've read but I haven't been this moved by a book in a long time.  It was extremely emotionally difficult but I was just completely blown away.