The end of the season

So apparantly the only thing that raises my blood pressure is Aggie football. Yeah, I watched the game - and I tend to get stressed out (like more stressed than vet school finals ever made me!) when we're down. So, just out of curiosity, I took my blood pressure on this nifty little machine that Jon has. Now, normally my BP is low... like 105 over 65 low. Which drives Jon crazy, because his is usually a bit higher than normal, even when he's just hanging out on the couch non-stressed. So, I checked mine right after Penn State scored the touchdown that jumped them up to 24-17 tonight. And the results??? 135 over 113 - I think this is like an all-time high for me. Aggie football will always be worth it though - and I can't wait for next season! Whoop!!

Happy holidays!

I'm flying out to Texas this morning to spend Christmas with family and friends, so I won't be posting for at least a week and a half. I hope everyone has a great holiday!

Another use for my A&M sports pass..

cause I know I'm not using it again (my college sports pass), but for some reason I don't want to throw it out. Too many happy memories I guess - early mornings standing in line for tickets, standing in the student section of the stadium, wearing raincoats and getting soaked in the rain (no umbrellas allowed!!), and loving being an Aggie! Well, tonight my sportspass doubled as a snow-scraper for my car. Yeah, I'm definitely still a Texan!! I forgot to put my snow-scraper thingy back in my trunk, so when I left work this afternoon I had to rely on my mittens and the sportspass to scrape the layer of snow and ice that had already accumulated in the 3 hours since lunch! Crazy Colorado weather!! My drive home went pretty well though - only skidded out once, and not really too badly. I love my Toyota - very dependable in all weather!

New appliances

So last week we got our fun new big tv! (Yeah, that's too many adjectives without commas...whatever.) Today our new dishwasher and oven and microhood (apparantly you can't call it a microwave if it goes over the oven - who knew?). Jon has been working on getting everything installed (he's had some obstacles), so pics to follow. But woohoo for new working appliances!!

More Thanksgiving pics

Big Sky Country

Okay, so it's not really Montana - but isn't this a gorgeous Colorado sunset over the mountains??

YOU CAN'T SEE ME!!!!!

Gig 'Em Ags!!!

38-30 -woohoo!!! Wasn't that just the best game ever?!? Aside from the Coach Fran thing that is - I can't believe he won't coach the bowl game!
In other news - we partook in the Black Friday sales and bought ourselves an early Christmas present - a new tv! Jon can tell you all the details - but it's definintely bigger and better than our current one. So next year's Aggie games will be watched in HDTV. =)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It's still morning here, so the turkey's in the oven making the house smell yummy, and Jon is out showing his parents some snowy Colorado scenery. So the kitties and I were left to show you pics of the snow: (They're still not too sure about it - they are native Texans after all.)

Ernie

Since the last post didn't have any pictures, here are a couple of Ernie chilling on his cat tree.
(Yes, he is just a few inches from the ceiling in the family room - it's a freakishly tall cat tree.)

Weekend update

We had a pretty fun weekend here in Denver suburbia. Jon and I both worked Saturday (me at the clinic and Jon from his office at home - he's got another big deadline coming up.), and then we went out to dinner Saturday night. We went to Benihana's - a Japanese steakhouse hibachi place - with some friends from my work. I LOVE this place! We used to go for my birthday or other special occasions when I was a kid. You sit at a C-shaped table around a huge hibachi grill. All the food except for soup and salad is cooked right in front of you. The food is really yummy, but what makes this place so fun is that the chefs are entertainers. They flip food in the air, catch it in their hats (toques?), throw it on other chef's grills, make steaming volcanoes out of onions slices, tell jokes, etc. It's super-fun, but on the expensive side, so definitely a rare treat for us! We had a great time, and we learned the all-important lesson that I cannot recognize several major athletes and actors in photos. (They have lots of pics of famous people at the restaurant with the owner.) Yes, it's a flaw - I'm working on it, I swear! =P

Sunday we had lunch at PeiWei (yummy noodles!), went grocery shopping and did some cleaning/chores around the house.

Today Jon was at work, and I got some things done around the house. I had a guy from a local garden center come out to do a landscape design for our backyard. I'm sure we've posted about this before, but gardening in Denver is way different than gardening in Texas! He had lots of great tips, and I'm very excited to see the final design next week! He also gave me a phone number of a guy to come out and "blow-out" the sprinkler system. Because it gets so much colder here, you have to have someone use a compressor to blow all the excess water out of the pipes to prevent freezing/expansion and other damage to the system. Who knew? (Well, apparantly lots of people - and now I'm one of them!) Luckily, I was able to get the sprinkler guy to come out today as well, because despite the great weather today (70s), rumor has it that we're getting snow and temps in the teens on Wednesday.

Then the highlight of our weekend (I always consider Monday part of the weekend because I have that day off instead of Saturday) - Jon's parents arrived this evening! They got here around 430-5pm, just in time for the sunset. We had fun showing them our house, and then we all went out for dinner. We went to a cute local restaurant and had mini buffalo burgers, sweet potato fries, and pizza! But not just any pizza - one had chicken and asparagus and sundried tomatoes, and one had pears and walnuts. Yum!! We're very excited to have them up here for Thanksgiving!

To brine or not to brine...

This is no longer a question in my book. I made a practice turkey (practicing for Thanksgiving next week!) and brined for the first time. Wow, it was way worth it! The turkey stayed moist and perfect for several days afterwards - I will definitely never make a turkey without brining it again!
And of course, I took pictures so you too can follow our turkey's brining adventure.
The cast of characters (well, aside from the star):


The salt, spices, and water get boiled together:

Can you believe one plastic bag cost over $3??

Pouring the brine solution over the turkey in the brine bag:

Mmmm...briney:

The turkey sits in the brine solution overnight.

The finished product!

Jon just read through this, and would like me to let everyone know that you can also brine steaks, salmon, pork...pretty much any type of meat is the impression I'm getting. So now you know - go brine something! =)

Pics of my purchases

Here's what I bought today at the cute shops in Evergreen - mostly Christmas stuff. The Santa reminded me of the cute ghosties I bought there last month!
Also, a couple of cute pics of the cats. Jon's making the "bug" sound (he makes a chirping sound that means there is a bug in the house for the kitties to chase) so they're looking pretty intense!

Evergreen, CO

Jon has been working very long hours for the past month or so, in preparation for a project due at work next week. Lucky for me, he was able to take a break today to spend with me! We had brunch at The Egg & I - super yummy! Jon had a version of eggs benedict with asparagus and ham, and I had a yummy greek salad with chicken and artichokes.
We spent the afternoon in Evergreen - a cute little town about 45 minutes away from our house, up in the foothills. Mom and Dad stayed up there a couple of nights when they visited us last month, and I spent a day hanging out there with them. I wanted to go back this weekend because one of the shops Mom and I went to was having a Christmas open house with sales this weekend. Jon was a good sport about it, and tagging along with me through 3 different shops. And yes, I did purchase some goodies at each one! =)
We also drove around looking at houses up there - it would be a fun place to live aside from the commute. While we were driving around, we came upon an elk in the road. A couple was walking through the neighborhood, and said that happens all the time! The elk joined his friend across the road in one of their neighbor's yards and weren't phased by the car or my camera at all!
I hope everyone else had a fun weekend too! It was great weather today (70s), but is supposed to be in the 30s tomorrow!

Fall flowers

I love all the colors of fall! I hit up the sales at Hobby Lobby today - gotta love 50 and 66% percent off! =) I bought the black-eyed-susans pictured above to put in the cute birch wood basket Mom bought me. We went shopping in Evergreen, CO (remember the cute ghosties??) and this was one of my souvenirs! It had looked pretty empty sitting in front of our fireplace, but I think the new flowers really make it pop!

I also bought a fun reddish-orange bouquet (either mums or dahilas - not sure), but I haven't found a home for them yet. Happy November everyone!

Sometimes it's good to be lazy...

So, we moved into this house in late January 2007 - we had a blizzard the month before and the yards were all still covered in a couple feet of snow. There weren't any summer or fall pictures of the yard, so we didn't really know what the plants in our yard were until spring/summer rolled around. Example: back in the spring I got very excited by 2 "vines" that were growing very quickly next to our rosebushes...only to realize when they hit 8 feet tall that they were actually Aspen trees.

With that experience behind me, I wondered about some of the shrubs around our fence line - the ones that were just kind of green and leafy. How to know if they were really shrubs or just some overgrown weed? Several of them answered my question by producing copious yellow flowers in May. But there remained this one shrub that kept proliferating at a fast rate (reminiscent of my Aspen "vines) that never had any flowers. I toyed with the idea of removing it, but never really got around to it.

Fast-forward to last week - and it turns out that mysterious shrub turns a bright, gorgeous red in the fall! I still don't have a clue what it is - but now I've noticed that several of our neighbors have one as well. Anyone have any ideas as to what type of shrub it is?

goodbye to the halloween decorations for another year

I love Halloween decorations - I'm always a little sad to put them away in November.

Those pumpkins above the closet are actually soup bowls - but aren't they cute as decorations?














I got 2 of these bat candle holder thingys at the Pottery Barn outlet store in Virginia this summer.



















And my new favorite Halloween decorations - Mom and I found this trio of ghosties when we were shopping in a cute store in Evergreen, CO during their trip last month. My favorite is the ghost with the tilty head -reminds me of our cat Emma. =)

8 hour day - for once!

Don't you love it when you get to leave work early? I do!! It is very rare for me (ummm...3 times total in the 15 months I have been at work!), and I definitely enjoy it! (Although I have to say that waiting until 5pm for lunch makes it less of a perk!) Oh well, at least I still got home before dark (in time to water the plants and move them up towards the house for the cold weather tonight). Happy November everyone!

happy halloween!

I hope everyone had a good halloween! We had a good evening. I had today off so I spent the day recovering from my cold - sleeping late (12.5 hours!!!), reading, raking leaves, etc. It was colder today (high of 50) but still gorgeous outside - raking leaves always feels so autumnal doesn't it?
Our neighbor had told us that our street usually has 50-100 kids treat-or-treating, so I bought 8 bags of candy in anticipation. We had our first trick-or-treater around 6pm while we were still eating. I love the cute little kids who are too shy to say "trick-or-treat" without prompting from their dad. =) Our third trick-or-treater was our neighbor Fish - his prize was the free knife set we got when Jon ordered from Omaha Steaks - we figured he could use them for his camping trips.
Jon and I kept a tally of the trick-or-treaters (along with Ernie's help - he loved all the visitors!) - grand total?? 31. So we're left with a lot of candy - hopefully it will make it to our workplaces before we both gain 5 pounds!!
sugary wishes for all! =)

Naptime - Ernie pics

Our male kitty - hard at work on a Sunday afternoon.

Deal of the Week

I love the Grocery Game! Freebies from this week!

Our backyard

October SNOW!!

First snow of the season - probably 3-4 inches. (it snowed quite a bit more after this pic!) The view of our deck from upstairs complete with our huge maple tree.

View of part of our backyard (and yellow-leaved maple!) along with our neighbor's pretty red tree.

Does anything say "fall" more than bright gold mums??

Our pretty red maple tree in the front yard - I love autumn colors against the snow!