Frisbee Friday

While it's obvious we love Denver (I mean, we are buying a house here), a lot of people commonly ask how Oscar is doing and adjusting to living in Colorado.  We no longer have our dog beach (although there are dog parks here, we just haven't ventured to them yet because Osc can be iffy with other dogs), he loves visits to the parks.

One of our hometown friends recently moved to Fort Collins (yay!) so we took the hour drive up to visit him (and breweries; post to come) recently. He was gracious enough to let us bring Oscar along for the trip.

 

Of course the problem with bringing Oscar to a strange apartment and then leaving him for the afternoon was that we needed to tire him out. Luckily we found a frisbee golf disc in the car!

A word to the wise, apparently dogs must be on leash at all Fort Collins parks. A ranger pulled up to remind us of this and we barely snuck out of a $100 ticket for not having our leash on! At least our plan worked perfectly.

 

This weekend we continue on with the home process and have our home inspection! We're also getting the sewers inspected and having a contractor come out to meet us towards the end of the inspection to give us an estimate on removing a popcorn ceiling and for any other items the inspector may find.

And more exciting plans, I'm meeting a group of Denver bloggers for a little wine/appetizer/craft party. It's kind of like an awkward blind date; except that it's not blind since I've followed some of the blogs for a while now. Besides, the hostess moved to Denver the same month as us AND has a four year old English Bulldog. Meant to be, right?

Have a happy, fun and safe weekend and Superbowl!

Whoops.

It's here. It's been here a week now. Whoops. This is certainly not how I planned to start off the blog in the new year, but ya know, the holidays are busy, especially when you travel!

A recap of our holidays:

We were all set to drive back to Illinois early Christmas Eve morning.  Ben had suggested driving back after work on 12/23 and I'd shot the idea down for fear of driving over night and us staying awake (last summer Ben's family drove out to CO and his mom fell briefly fell asleep at the wheel. Thankfully the rumble strips her up immediately, but because of that we instated the rule that someone needs to always be awake with the driver). Monday morning, 12/23, I got to work anxious to get the day over. After checking the forecast and road conditions, I emailed Ben and said "what the hell? we might as well drive after I get off to have the extra time with family" and we did just that.

We arrived home at 4am MT/5am CT and immediately hopped in bed for a few hours.  By 10:30 we were up and at 'em. We even made it to 10pm Christmas Eve Mass!

This year's Christmas was a strange one.  With our nephew being here, my SIL decided they wanted his first Christmas to be in their own home in Chicago.  My brother and his wife decided that their dog is on her last leg (so sad!) and it was best not to travel with her but they hated the thought of leaving her behind, thus we both missed siblings at Christmas. None the less, it was so nice to be home with our parents and Mr. Sister. Home is always home.

My parents wonky tree

Sleeping in my own bed

Family Tradition: Ticket to Ride and wine :)

 Thursday I got my first EVER spray tan. I went to a place called Flesh Tones as recommended by my hair stylist/wedding make up artist, Glam 2 Go. A person did airbrush spray and it was only $15! I was pretty nervous that first night, but overall happy with the results!

Friday Ben and I hopped in the car for our next roadtrip, a five hour drive to Indianapolis for MT's wedding! We were supposed to have arrived with an hour to spare before rehearsal, but do to the worst back up I've ever seen, thanks to a overturned jello and pudding semi load (REALLY! I could not make up a worse excuse!), we barely caught the end of rehearsal.

Wedding day was perfect.  MT had arranged for hair and makeup (and food) in the private loft area of an adorable salon called A'Do.  From there we went to a beautiful Catholic church for pictures and the ceremony.  Who would have thought that the last Saturday in December in the Midwest would end up being 50 degrees?!

I was pretty proud of my makeup! I saved $50 and did it myself :)

The party bus and reception were a blast. One of my best friends, MJ and her husband were there. I hadn't seen her in months so it was great to catch up and hang out. 

I die. Love the look on MT's face

 

Sunday morning, dead tired, we drove back to the QC to watch the Bears lose. My inlaws had driven to Chicago on Christmas day and taken our gifts for SIL with, returning with their gifts for us; so Sunday night we FaceTimed and opened another round of gifts.

10 months old; isn't he adorable?!

...because we were up early on Monday to get on the road back to Denver!

The loves of my life

We got home around 5pm and had our last Christmas tradition: Ben and I's exchanging of gifts. I love this quite wrap up (or should I say unwrapping? ha!) of the holidays and the time between the two of us after the chaos of family.

 

 I hope you had a great holiday season!

Holiday Cheer

I'm still pinching myself that Christmas is next week. With the move, our traditions and routine of the holidays aren't quite the same. I'm not sure I'd realize it was holiday season if I hadn't insisted we get a tree.

 

You would think for sure that in Denver's surrounding area there would be plenty of spot to cut down your own tree...but after spending some time on google it seemed like our only option was to get a license to cut from a forest.  My sister has joked that since moving to CO my style as become more lumberjack (see below), but I'm not quite there there!

J Crew Factory Vest (similar) // Lands End flannel (similar)

Old Navy Vest (similar, $15!) // ModCloth Scout top // Sorel Joan of Arctic boots (cheaper option)

 

Instead, we opted for a tree lot conveniently located at Little Man Ice Cream.  Ice cream and a Christmas tree? I was in Heaven.

Oscar got his first taste of LM and LOVED it! He may even be a bigger fan than his momma.





We're adapting more and more into our new life. Oscar loves having Ben home with him.  Ben likes working from home, but I can also tell it's sometimes a struggle not to be in a typical work environment. But it has it's perks; for him: being able to wear sweat pants, make lunch or go for a lunch run; and for me: coming home to a clean apartment (included mopped floors) and clean laundry (this guy's a keeper!).

Sometimes I feel like I'm putting too much pressure on me/us to "get going" making friends, volunteering and to build up our connections here. Then I take a deep breath and remind myself, we've been here not even two months. We'll enjoy the holidays and then I'll try to put more effort into those goals in the new year.

We just need to get through the holidays, right Osc? It looks like he's already tired of them.

 After all, it IS the most wonderful time of the year.

Week Recap

 Me oh my was this past week a doozie! Both the Bulls and Blackhawks were in town and we planned to take full advantage. After all, most Bulls tickets for standing room (at the tip top of the United Center) are typically around $100, so now that we've in Denver we felt like we could actually afford tickets! Then I was pleasantly surprised by a coworker with free 10th row tickets...free is even better!

 So instead, we spent a little more on Blackhawks vs. Avalanche tickets than we planned.  The game was terrible (for Hawks fans) but we did have some fun before the game!

 

 That was Tuesday night; Thursday night was the Bulls game. Darn, TBS scheduling meant we were the second game of the night, starting at 8:30 MT! Once again, the game was another dud as a Chicago fan.  The most exciting part of the game was 80's Night half time perfomance by Tiffany ("I think we're alone now..."

 The new screens at the Pepsi Center are insanely large!

With the late night Thursday, we had planned to lay low Friday and go snowboarding (for my first time!) on Saturday...however, we didn't realize how strict the rule of signing up for lessons 48 hours in advance was (you'd better believe I don't dare set foot on the mountain without lessons first!), so instead we checked out a few breweries.

Our Mutual Friend Brewing will be celebrating their year anniversary in two weeks.  This was the cutest and quaintest little brew pub. It was so cozy for a cold night!

 

 From there we headed over to Epic Brewing, which has a much more commercial (and bright) atmosphere, but some awesome berry! I had their stout mixed with a kriek (tart beer) for a chocolate cherry flavored beer combo. Yum! Epic's story is pretty interesting. They're from Utah and recently wanted to expand but were told they weren't allowed; instead, the set up camp in Denver and now brew three beers that are only available in CO

 And of course, leaving Osc alone for a few hours, he was rowdy and excited for us to get home.

Sunday morning we hopped over to Crema Coffee House, one of the supposed top coffee shops in Denver, and I'd believe it. Not only was the coffee good (although a little fruity for our liking), but their cinnamon roll (warmed) was amazing!

 

Later I met my first "friends" in Denver, some girls from a message board I frequent for an amazing brunch at Roija downtown, Denver's top restaurant according to Yelp. No pics, but trust me, you want to try their raspberry marscapone french toast. My mouth is salivating just thinking about it. The company was great too. It's so funny to meet people in person that you "know" from the internet.  I know it sounds weird, Ben thinks it is, but really there weren't any lulls in the conversation! It was refreshing!

The rest of the day was spend ordering our holiday cards (woohoo!), shopping for Thanksgiving (yep, we're staying here and having our first Thanksgiving on our own. Keep your fingers crossed that our beer-brined, of course, turkey turns out!) and relaxing with my boys.

Hope you had a great weekend! 

Hooray for Huey!

 Last night was our last night with Huey. I came home from a girl's dinner and my heart broke to see the boys laying on the couch together.

I spent the remainder of the night with Huey in my lap. We talked about his new family and how much fun we had together.

Then this morning, our handsome Huey went to his forever home. Before he left we spent more time giving him some last minute loving.

It's certainly bittersweet. Huey is our sixth and longest foster. He was with us over 25 weeks. In the time we've taught him so much: how to walk on a leash, not to be scared of people, his name, potty training, stairs, etc. The list goes on and on.

At the same time, Huey has taught Ben and I. He's helped us to work together as a team. He's reminded us that there are always new things to be learned in life and sometimes we just need to take a deep breath and enjoy it. Thank you Hughsie!