Friday, June 25, 2010

this week has been great.
started off with a great weekend full of drinks with friends, fishing on our canoe, swimming, grilling out food, cleaning, and playing with the dogs.

i only work 30 hours a week so usually thursday's and friday's are half days for me.
yesterday i got off work early and cleaned, went grocery shopping, mailed my father's day present only a week late (oops), actually cooked dinner for a change, and went swimming with charlie. and then after we got back i told him that soon my muscles were going to be bigger than his.
i'm not kidding either.

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i picked up these flowers at safeway.
safeway is awesome, by the way. i've been shopping at sprouts a lot lately because it's so close but they don't have a lot of stuff we need.

today after i got off work i got home to charlie playing with the dogs.
we're lucky to have a fountain right outside so they can cool off.
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while we were out an ice cream truck came by.
ice cream truck.

after they were done playing i took henry for a walk to starbucks for some iced coffee.
he never gets as much exercise as dunkin because he doesn't play "fetch". i guess the retriever in him just doesn't care about balls. anyway, he needs a lot more walks. and i'm trying to work on the whole "walk next to me and don't pull instead of dragging me with your throat thing". he was happy for the walk and the cup of ice i got him at starbucks. it almost made up for taking him out in a 100 degree day.

2 mile walk to starbucks. totally worth it.
yum.

and then i took about 100 pictures of the dogs because charlie was golfing and i was bored.

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sleepy from all the exercise.

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henry has the attention span of a gnat, which is why he's never looking at the camera.

please notice the food on his chin
ollie snuck in. please notice the food on his chin. he thinks anything on the table, counters, or sink is fair game.

yo woman, stop taking pictures of me
why are you still taking pictures of me?!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

life is good.

"it may be a simple life, but that's okay,
if you ask me baby i think i got it made."

Monday, June 21, 2010

summer is awesome becuse ...

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... playing frisbee with the dogs
... BBQs
... new belgium's skinny dip
... flip-flops
... sunglasses
... flowers growing on porches
... open windows
... rooftop bars
... 18 hours of daylight
... saturday picnics out on the canoe
... no boots, winter jackets, or snow
... thunderstorms
... OAR @ red rocks
... late night walks with my dogs
... grilling
... camping
... hiking
... baseball games
... bike rides
... fishing
... evening drinks on the balcony listening to van morrison
... ice cream trucks
... road trips
... popsicles
... beach towels hanging off of porches
... kids playing in the fountain
... driving with the windows down
... 4th of july
... fireworks
... tan lines
... iced tea in pitchers
... watermelon
... green grass
... sprinklers
... no homework

Sunday, June 20, 2010

life lately ...

has been awesome.
i'm no longer in a job where i'm yelled at by kids all day long, i took the summer off from school which means my nights and weekends are all mine, and i'm working in a job that i really, really like.

wednesday night, charlie and i went to lodos for dinner and 6 beers, one sunset, and 4 hours later it was 10 pm. that's right folks, i stayed out to 10 pm on a weeknight!
i'm fun again.
and during that dinner i told charlie that having a "regular" job has been the best thing that happened to me. he's been trying to convince me to leave teaching for a while so i know he was happy to hear it.

i've been spending lots of time outside, walking the dogs every day, i even joined the gym (i know, i know) & started swimming again.

friday night we met some friends at a rooftop bar.
saturday we took the canoe to boyd lake and spent the day out on the water, trying not to get tipped over by the wakes from powerboats. and although we forgot the oars (something we didn't realize until the boat was in the water) and charlie snapped his fishing rod. we had such a good time. and then we came home, went swimming, and grilled out steak and asparagus at 10 pm. i no longer feel like an old lady.

we're camping next weekend. if i win we'll be camping in wyoming, but we'll see ...

i definitely needed this summer to take a break from school. and i've decided not to switch degree programs because at this point i really just want to be finished.


Wednesday, June 9, 2010

it's the little things ...

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i feel like i haven't been blogging much.
i've been distracted by the gorgeous weather we've been having.

... summer, summer, summer.
... a new bikini. & wearing it for the first time this summer.
... evening walks.
... grilling new things on our teeny grill.
... dinner with friends on a friday night at a cool patio in louisville.
... live music.
... sleeping in until 10 this weekend! this never happens.
... a new routine. late to bed, late to wake up.
... a summer paperback to read before bed.
... a night to myself.
... izze sodas.
... skinny dip is back. :) i had my first of the season in telluride.
... open windows.
... charlie making coffee in the mornings.
... walking my dogs.
... long, long phone conversations with my mom.
... weekend bbqs.
... an evening drink on our balcony with all 4 of our animals squished outside with us.
... my petunias which have more than survived!
... resigning our lease which means we are officially not moving in 2010.
... henry not killing a baby bunny.
... long, long days.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

and the rest of the telluride pictures ...

no joke we took like 400 pictures in 4 days.
i'll spare you 375 of them.
here's a few of the random ones that i could turn into several more posts. but i won't.

we went hiking again on sunday.
we did the judd wiebe trail from town and then wandered into mount sneffels wilderness area for a few hours.
our original plan was to hike mt. sneffels (a 14er) but the most recent trip report for it was for a few days before we were there. the mountain had recently gotten about 30 inches of snow and some guys did a pretty technical climb up and backcountry skied down.
since we have none of that gear (and because i'm scared of avalanches) we decided to stay below 11,000 feet.

aspens
the aspens were trying hard to grow some leaves.

hiking buddies
dogs are awesome.

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sweet mountains.
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us.

switchback
1.5 million switchbacks.
note to self: make sure to eat breakfast when hiking for 6 hours. especially when dinner the night before consists of chocolate covered strawberries and champagne.

d-man cooling off
haha ... this picture makes me laugh.
the dogs were so hot that any time they found snow they immediately laid down in it.
about 2 seconds after this picture was taken dunkin went sliding down the snow pile.

happy anniversary
"dinner"

evening nap
one very sleepy puppy napping in front of the fire.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

bridal veil falls, telluride

i love hiking.
this is no secret.
hiking in telluride was amazing. mostly because of the views.
we hiked saturday and sunday. and when i say hike i mean we spent about 6 hours wandering the trails both days. aside from a minor (ok, really painful) sunburn on sunday we had a great time.

the hike we did on saturday was bridal veil falls. you basically drive through town, continue a mile are forced to stop because you run into the mountains. i had looked up this hike before we went and wanted to do it because i wanted to see the waterfall. there were actually a few waterfalls along the way, and although the hike climbed the whole way it was pretty easy. in fact charlie complained that it was too easy, but the views were worth it. our plan was to hike past the falls to silver lake but because there was so much snow and the river we needed to cross was so high we turned around about a mile past the falls.

bridal veil falls
bridal veil falls from the "parking lot"

up


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looking back at the town.

mist from the falls
mist from the falls.
it was pretty much raining around this turn.

rainbow from the falls
rainbow. so cool.

power plant
hydro power plant. so cool.

the trail turned into a river
the trail turned into a stream from all the snow melt.

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after the falls. it got pretty!

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

it's official, telluride is my favorite place.
must return immediately.
even charlie said we had to come back to ski and for our anniversary.
maybe we'll just make it a bi-yearly thing: christmas and our anniversary.
i'm sure our family would understand if we told them we made a commitment to telluride for the holidays.

reasons why i love telluride:

1. it's super dog friendly.
sweet parking spot

2. it's nestled in the mountains.

free public transportation

3. organic food, cloth napkins & no paper plates = the good kind of crunchy.

4. you can walk around with your socks like this and fit right in.

sexy socks

5. their free public transportation system is a gondola
ps. dogs are allowed.

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6. great food: smugglers pub, brown dog brewery, and some no name lunch place that was amazing

7. you can lay by the pool when it's 60 degrees outside.

8. 360 degree views of the mountains.

9. hiking and skiing. that is all.

10. they host cool events like the mountain film festival and bluegrass festival.

town of 2,000

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

road trip!

holy crap, telluride was amazing.
the drive was beautiful, if i haven't said it before, i love colorado.
our hotel was awesome, the town was so cute and exactly how i imagined it.
the hiking had some of the best views i've ever seen.
oh, and spending 4 days with just my husband and dogs was definitely the highlight.

i came home early from work friday, packed up the car, turned off my phone for the weekend, and we hit the road.
we took the "scenic" route down to telluride aka not i-70 and it was so worth it.
it was twisty and turny through the mountains and valleys and didn't take us any extra time.
if you're road tripping from denver to southwest colorado it's definitely worth the views.

small town USA
small town, usa

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reservoir.

valley
recently i've been loving prairie grass and clouds.
part of the reason i want to spend a weekend in wyoming.

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almost there ... hello, san juans!

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another random town.
the valleys were beautiful!

and probably my favorite:
road trip!
there were so many random ranches and farms along the way.

i know this sounds crazy but i had almost as much fun in the car as i did in telluride.
we used to take road trips to see family all the time when we lived back east.
i'd make us mix cds, and we'd stop at wawa for soda and a sub.
there was no wawa, but i did make us a playlist (of course telluride made an appearance) and pack us some snacks.