May Showers

Tuesday we went to Estes Park. We went too late to be able to go to Rocky Mountain National Park, but Trail Ridge Road wasn't fully open anyway. We did get to fed chipmunks. Or a more entertaining way to say it chick-munks. Here is Michelle feeding one from her hand and one eating off her shoe. Cute, ne? We fed them sunflower seeds until we were too cold to stand it.

We walked around Estes, got a t-shirt or two, a couple of pieces of candy, and some earrings. Nice time. Then we met up with Linda and ate at Dunraven. That was some pretty good food. Their mussels are very, very good. Michelle and I even ate about 3 each!! Before we ate, it snowed! How fun. I'm glad I don't live there, I wouldn't want it snowing during my summer, but my vacation, that's fine.

Wednesday, we packed up, ate lunch, and headed out. Our ride home was long and stormy. But Shannon drove well and I am here to tell of it.

Here are some more cute chick-munk pictures.
When we first got there, one little guy ran up to me, stood on his back legs and put out his arms. He then proceeded to wiggle his little hands at me as if saying "Food? Food? You give me food?"

S'mores-scapades

Sunday Jenette and Chris left because Jenette had to go to work on Monday. No fun. Shannon, Michelle, and I went to Borders and Michelle found her a s'mores cookbook. We actually saw it downtown in Denver, but didn't buy it then. Well, this awesome cookbook inspired us to have a s'mores party. And that we did.


As the photo suggests, these were no ordinary s'mores. We used various chocolates (caramel kisses, andes mints, snickers...), fruit (melon, apple, banana), and some cookies (graham cracker, grasshoppers, fudge stripes). Mmm... It was not only fun, but darn tasty.


Just so those who live nearby know, we have all the leftovers and we will be needing to use them. So, perhaps round 2 of the s'mores-scapades?

Monday we headed to Flat Irons Shopping Town. We walked around for about 5 miles! We got there about 11:30 and stayed until after they closed. 10:00. I got a pair of shoes and 2 tank tops. We ate at P.F. Chang's for dinner with Gary and Shannon got the most amazing shrimp dish ever! It was called Shrimp with Candied Walnuts. It was just that in a creamy lemon sauce with melon. It was so so so good.

Other things worth mentioning from Flat Irons day....

-We found a roaming "handicapped parking" sign.

-We had our lives challenged by a Zip shuttle (free mall transportation) at the crest of this hill. We ran pretty quick then proceeded to feel pretty stupid.

-We walked around 5 miles!!

He Really is #1

On Saturday we did a few fun things. First off, we went to Gary's new job at Matheson Tri-Gas. I won't show you any picutures of our tour, but I will show you the most snazzy group shot from our trip. We had to wear the hard hats, eye protection, and long sleeves while we walked around. Hence, our attire.


It was quite interesting. Gary seems to enjoy what he does, or at least find it neat. After the tour, we headed to Linda's to gear up for the races. Gear up we did. Holy cow we took a lot of stuff...

Then it was north to Loveland for some Centerra shopping. But we didn't have an oddle of time. Mostly we just ate some fabulous gelato from a shop in the mall. And I mean fabulous! Flavors were both normal and abnormal, like Strawberry-Celery, Hazelnut, Piccante, Mediterranean Sea Salt Caramel, just to name some. And they were all good. All of them!

We soon were off the the races. They had a 100 lap race (which was long), trains (which are always fun), and outlaw sprints (which go really fast). Well, the moon looked really neat and we saw a few more wrecks than usual. But we also witnessed history.


The #1 outlaw sprint car broke the track record for speed. It was set almost 10 years ago and he broke it that day while we were there. He went so fast. (Make sure you read that and said so slowly and importantly in your sentence.) It was very impressive. Michelle even got a picture with the driver (whose just about my age). It was really neat.

Then I....

Thursday was Boulder Day. We went to the new 29th Street Mall. Last time I was there (2 years ago), it was an unused indoor mall. They knocked down all but Macy's and built a street. Now it's an outdoor mall. We ate at this place called Mad Greens. It was really good! They had a bunch of fun salads. I got one with cous cous. Sweet.

We also went to Pearl Street. That is the old school outdoor mall. We got some creme brule ice cream. It was kinda gross because it was soooo sweet. We also got a marvelous chocolate covered caramel apple. It was so so so good! For dinner this day we went back to Longmont and ate at Ichiban.

Ichiban is a rather authentic Japanese restaurant. It's not a sit down restaurant. It's more like Panera. Your order and pay. Then get your food later when it's done. It was pretty good.

Friday we went to downtown Denver. We walked along 16th Street Mall (creative names). Michelle found a good card holder to carry around with her. That was good. I found these awesome sudoku pads! I can keep a small book with 126 sudoku in my bag at all times. Yay!

We didn't have a really long time to look around downtowm. But we did end the day with a MLB game: Colorado Rockies versus Kansas City Royals. Fancy that. It was a surprisingly good time. I'm not a baseball fan, but I enjoyed the game. The Royals wound up winning but only because the Rockies pulled their good pitcher after a strike-out and then the Royals scored their only 5 runs in that inning.


We ate dinner at the game.Shannon and I got hot dogs for dinner. Yes, hot dogs. I know, we never eat them, but these were different.


The one on the left was Tuscan style. It had chili, cheese, and sour cream on it. Maybe something else that I forget. But the one on the right! The great one was Chicago style. It had pickle, tomato, cucumber, mustard, celery salt, and evil peppers (they weren't good, I didn't eat one). It was really hard to eat, but good even being a hot dog. I would probably eat another one of those. Yes, I would definitely eat another one.

Where I've Been

I was gone from my home for 12 days and 11 nights. During that time, I managed to see my parent and parent-in-laws and step-parent-in-law and significant-other-of-parent-in-law. Before I start, I don't have my pictures from Wichita because we forgot to burn them off of Rhonda's computer....

We went to Wichita first to surprise Mom for Mother's Day with a nice dinner at Larkspur. It was nice to see her happy and to spend some time with her. We went shopping too and left Sunday night.

In Garden, we took Rhonda to eat at Pho Ha. It was pretty good. We also got an oil change and watched some distant lightening. We left on Wednesday since no one was nice enough to cover for Michelle a work on Tuesday night.

On the way up, you may have seen, I finished another skein of yarn! I am actually almost done with this third skein now, but I still have a bit left in it.

Look at the Snotvia, it's done.
The other thing is the bottom of the skull and crossbones.

When we finally made it to Colorado, we ate at Johnny Carino's and then went back to Gary and Linda's. Johnny Carino's is an okay Italian restaurant. They do give you free refills of Italian cream or regular Italian sodas though. That is awesome.

Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich

I really like ice cream cookie sandwiches. But I don't really ever eat them. I just go up to the cooler, point to it and say "Ice cream cookie sandwich..." Well, Shannon, the stud, got me one! He was getting a movie with family from redbox and I told him that one sounded good so he got me one from the convince store behind the redbox! Mmm...it was good!

You can't really tell what this is. But I'll tell you. It's the second pirate we saw in Boulder. This guy had a hat, a coat, a large flag, and some other life essentials including a rascal.

The first pirate we saw was just walking around. Hat, boots, coat, the walk and all. He was about as pirate as our costumes get. But I think that was his normal attire, not a costume.

To Co Part 2

I've gotten a lot of knitting done recently. At Chris' graduation, I finished the Snotvia. Since then, I've completed my second skeins and began the crossbones, and skull. It is a pretty big bag. With each round I get more and more excited about finishing it!

To Co Part 1

On our way to Colorado, we stopped at Colby's Oasis truck stop. It's a pretty funny place. Take that blonde kid. She sang about her chicken nuggets and danced with her potato chips. In the background are some nuns thrilled to be getting ice cream, but unable to operate the automatic door.

That's Right...well...wrong actually

The correct answer to the first one was 69.3. And you had to show your work (and the second was yes). Besides this, the student's been a good student.

She is that cool

I'm sitting here still studying. Every so often I look up to see random pictures from my screen saver. I see this one of Grandma Fuller smiling and I smile back. Then I notice the sweet, sweet sticker on her sweater.

It's kinda cute

I like to write down things in my notes during class that are comical or out of the ordinary. Then when I go through my notes, as I now am, I see these things and laugh. This time I found the symbol to the right drawn in my notes, a normal way to express an estimate of theta. Well, the thing above it is called a tilde. Dr. Yang, my Stat Theory II teacher called it "a little wiggle."

How cute!

Do you have a chi-square table?

This morning at 7:30 am about 240 students sat in Umberger 105 taking the STAT 325 final. This isn't all the sections. There are 16 in total with 40 students in each!

No Trash

That's the trash can in the women's bathroom at the new Manhattan Starbucks. And that's right, it politely asks you to not use it.