Sisters

Low Vis

Last day on the slopes. Back to snow and fog. We still managed to find some amazing snow, none the less.

Bluebird Day

The Summit lift was open for the first time today thanks to some beautiful weather.

We are at the tippy top of Mt. Bachelor at 9,000 ft.

Mt. Bachelor

It was storming all day today with gusty winds and snow. We almost didn't board today. But we are so glad we did. It even cleared up for a few minutes and the sun came out. So, we snapped this picture.

Deschutes Brewery

The newest addition to our family, a growler. Oh, and there's Andy too.

This growler did have "the world's best beer", Red Chair, in it when we left the brewery.  The boys enjoyed it at our VRBO (Vacation Rental by Owner) over the course of the week.

Chair Lift

Home Away from Home

We rented this house in Bend.

It has been a long day of travel and we are glad to have finally reached our destination.

Snowy on Mt. Hood

Rainy in Portland

Wine Cork Letter

The Wine Cork Letter craft is all over Pinterest and the Internet right now.  I just happened to have a stash of wine corks and some spare time, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

What you will need:
Microsoft Word or other word processing program
printer + paper
scissors
glue stick/glue
wine corks (I needed 57)
glue gun + glue sticks
cardboard

1.  Print out 2 letter templates using Word (I picked M, of course).  I used Cambria font at an 800 pt size.  Set the paper margins to zero and select the outline feature in the font toolbar.  The final dimensions of the M were 8.5 inches wide and 7.5 inches tall.

2.  Cut out your letters.

3.  Use one letter as a template to arrange your corks.  I chose to use the side of the cork that had been stained with wine.  Set aside.

I have seen this done with the unstained ends up and I have seen painted corks used as well.

4.  Glue your second letter face down onto a cardboard box and cut around the paper letter with a heavy duty scissors.  This way, when you flip it the right way after cutting, you won't have any pencil marks on your cardboard template.  The edges of the cardboard letter will show around the corks once they are all glued on.

You could also trace the letter face down onto the cardboard and skip the glue.  That seemed like too much work to me.

5.  Using hot glue, secure the corks onto the cardboard template in the same way you had laid them out in step 3.

And, voila:

It stands very well on its own and will live on the built ins in the dining room. 

Most of the other tutorials used wooden letters (instead of cardboard) which can be found at any craft store.  This might be a better option if you are going to hang your letter.

I think it turned out great, and it didn't cost a thing (not counting the cost of the wine, of course).

Pup Update

Still no Zoey. 

I spoke with Shannon, the breeder, on Thursday and the Pet Courier who is out of Austin, TX doesn't expect they will get to South Dakota until March to pick her up on his route.  Shannon initially said it could take up to 2 weeks  for the courier to make a pick up.  There was a snow storm in SD last week, which didn't help things.  

We are really anxious and have most of the preparations in place for her arrival, but this is actually not a horrible situation - we are going to be out of town the last week in February and we initially asked Shannon to hold her until we got back.  But, Shannon was confident we would have her by now, so we agreed to take her as soon as we could and Cori and Bob graciously agreed to puppy sit while we were away (thanks for the offer, C&B!).

But now, Zoey gets to stay with her mama a little longer.  She is only 11 weeks old (she was born on 11/26/12).  And, I have time to read the dog and puppy rearing and training books we have bought and checked out from the library.  We also checked out the first season of the Dog Whisperer for good measure.

Books:

Communicating with Your Dog by Ted Baer (it got great reviews)

The Complete Chinese Crested by Brenda Jones

The Art of Raising a Puppy by The Monks of New Skete

Cesar's Rules by Cesar Millan

Chinese Crested: A Comprehensive Guide to Owning and Caring for Your Dog by Juliette Cunliffe

With Love From Loveland

Look what we got in the mail this week!

Our friends Ivan and Joy sent out Valentines from Loveland, CO and we were one of the lucky recipients.  Ivan and Joy also happen to live in Loveland, but anyone can have their Valentine's hand stamped just like this one.  

According to the With Love From Loveland site: hundreds of thousands of Valentines are packaged inside larger envelopes and sent to Loveland, where volunteers hand-stamp them with a Valentine's verse and send them on to the intended recipients.

Instructions on how to re-mail from Loveland are also at the link above.

And, in case you were wondering, the red verse on the envelope reads: 

A text, a Twitter, or e-mail will do,
But not the same as a love letter from you.
From the "Sweetheart City" on Valentine's Day,
Sending wishes the old-fashioned way.

Happy early Valentine's Day!  xoxoxo

Romeo & Juliet

At the opera tonight. This is Erica's first opera. Chris has gone once before back in college.  We both really enjoyed it.  The only part we didn't like was that it was 3 hours long including two 20 minute intermissions.

Flashback to New Years

Chris had taken these pictures on New Years Eve, and he has kept them all to himself until now.

Girl Power and some major concentration to boot.

Brian is busting out the jams.

I think Kirk (on right) just got booed off the stage.

Puppy Shopping

I think we have discovered every pet store within a 20 mile radius of our house today. We stopped at 'em all! 

Chris picked out Zoey's leash & collar:

We signed up for $100 in PetSmart coupons.  

We found a great website for dog food reviews and we signed up for dog food recall e-mail alerts.  Costco's Kirkland brand dog food gets good ratings (4 stars out of 5) and I think that is what we are going to go with.  It seems like the best bang for our buck and we found out it is made by the same company that Zoey's kennel uses.

A Gaggle

Herds of menacing geese are roaming the neighborhood!

We live one and a half blocks from a large park where the geese hang out. They are often in the road and in yards across the street from the park. We have never had them flock so far away and into our yard before.

They hunt and peck and when they are done, they move on to the next yard leaving a wake of poo.

On a side note, do you see the new neighborhood addition?  Look for the lime green door.  It fits in better than we thought it would.  The new neighbors have moved in, but we have not met them yet.  They have a Golden Retriever and look young.

Night out in Denver

Last night, Erica had a girls dinner at Ignite! While Chris had happy hour with his work pals at Avery Brewing in Boulder.

We met up with each other at Star Bar for a drink.  It is a great dive bar with an awesome beer list.  From there we went to the Marquis Theater to meet up with friends. The band was not very good, so we left.

Luckily, we found karaoke across the street and we sang our hearts out at El Charrito.

We ended the night at the Denver Diner.  We arrived in style in a limo that we managed to hail outside of El Charrito.

We're Expecting!

Meet Zoey, our new Chinese Crested puppy.  She is 9.5 weeks old and we are expecting her to be delivered next week.  The Kennel we bought her from, Outlaw Chinese Cresteds, is in South Dakota and we are having her delivered via a pet courier.

Zoey is expected to weigh 8-9 pounds full grown.  The breeder says she is a sweet little girl who likes to snuggle and play tug of war with her sister.  Her favorite toys are balls and small plush animals  Zoey is litter box trained, and we are  very excited about that. 

This is Zoey's dad:

This is Zoey's mom:

We have a lot to do to get ready for the big arrival.

Master Bedroom

Paint color: Restoration Hardware Light Silver Sage color matched to Behr.

Erica was a little nervous about the color at first.  The paint looked very baby blue during the initial cut in.  But now that the room has two coats of paint and some dry time, it mellowed into a pretty blue-green-gray.  Very zen, which was our aim.  We also like how the color brings out more of the red tones in our bedroom set instead of the darker espresso look it was giving off before.

Plus, we were able to really give the floors a good vaccum and scrubbing while we were at it.

We think it is a long overdue change for the better.

Painting in Progress

Painting the Master

Before: Beige, Dingy, & Blah.