Shannobo

This last week Shannon and I spent some time with his dad, Gary. With a new world starting for us in about 2 weeks, we may not get the time to spent a week in Colorado anymore. So we made sure the trip was good. Friday we bought a Nintendo DS and Puzzle Quest and headed on out. We started with a long drive from Manhattan to Longmont accompanied by a tornado. You can kind of see it in this picture from my phone below.



But here is a more impressive video from someone else.

Saturday we went to a Colorado Rapids game. We would up with great seats and I got a nifty scarf.

Sunday we went to Colorado National Speedway for some good ol' races. That was fun, as it usually is. We saw a 31 car super-stock race. It was full of LTD-goodness.

Monday, Memorial Day, we headed to Boulder for some art show and looked around a lot of neat things, in the rain. But we ended the day with fabulous Japanese food and sushi from Ai Steakhouse and Sushi.

Tuesday we went to Estes Park. Not much new there. Just pretty, expensive things. Oh! Gary got me a pocket knife. It's a good little knife for me to keep in my purse and use when needed. Thanks!


Wednesday, I went to Casa Bonita for the first time. I was impressed. I can see how it would be the most rockin' place when you're little. I mean, I'm 26 and still thought it was pretty neat. It reminded me a lot of how older parts of Disney World are.


Thursday I did something I haven't done in about 15 years. I shot a rifle. And something I've never done, I shot a pistol (4 different ones actually). Gary took Shannon and I shooting at his gun club in the morning and it was a lot of fun!


We left for Garden on Thursday as well. No tornadoes on that trip.

Friday is today and we made some strawberry spinach salad for dinner, yummers. On to the last 2 weeks of freedom before we start our jobs. Wow. No more school...

Christmas 07 Number 1

Colorado was our first stop for Christmas fun this year. We decided to go there first because last year the weather was too bad to travel that far so we didn't go. You may recall some ice and power-outs.


Well, we did some shopping at Centerra (above), Estes Park, and Boulder. We ate a lot of gelato. We had it from about 4 different places. Well, maybe only 3. But still, it was a lot of gelato and it was all good. :)


Saturday, our last day in Colorado, we had a big ol' family get together at Linda's. There were a lot of people. Me and Shannon, Jenette, and Chris, Michelle, Gary, Linda, Grandma and Grandpa Dick, Randy, Nancy, Wes, Jennifer, Suzanne, Emily, Amy, and Jonathan, Lindee, Terry, Katrina, Adam, and Dakota, Jerry and Cindy, and some of Linda's neighbors stopped by. So, 25-ish. Plus there were 4 dogs, Shadow (a German Sheppard), Libby (a terrier), Major (a beagle), and Jake (a poodle?). Not all of them are pictured above. But Major is below and he is a very cute and smart little puppy!!


This video is of Dakota playing Wii boxing with Emily. I don't know if Cody actually won.

It was busy. But fun.

LED Lights Rock (bottom brewery)

We went to Centerra last night with Gary and Michelle. They had decorated for Christmas by putting white LED lights on all their deciduous trees and sweet dark blue LED lights on all their evergreens (not pictured). It was so so so cool looking. It was also very cold. And Michelle got an orange Broncos jersey of Champ Bailey. (He's going to the Pro-Bowl!)

Slingle Bells

It begins with sweet taffy. We stopped and got Michelle on our trip to Colorado and also got some taffy, flavors like Cherry Cola, Red Licorice, Juicy Pear, Peach, Grape, Rum...

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.

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.