Fancy

C + E

Rehearsal Dinner

Kirk and Amy are getting married tomorrow at the Black Canyon Resort in Estes Park.

Chris is an usher and Erica is a greeter.

Check out this gorgeous wedding site:

Open Sesame!

Invisible Fence

We had Invisible Fence put in the front and backyard on Monday. It is all installed, but not turned on yet until Zoey has her second training session after the holiday weekend.

We won't be able to leave the yard with her except by car for 6 weeks while she is learning the system.

The Rockies

We are learning Spanish!

Chris is learning Spanish and Erica is re-learning  Spanish.  You can pick other languages like German and French too.

Check out this application on the App Store:

Duolingo - Learn Languages for Free Duolingo Category: Education Updated: Jul 26, 2013 3950 Ratings

Sunflowers Soon

I started sunflower seeds way late this year, and am impatiently waiting for these guys to open. They are planted in a planter on our patio.

Light Up The Night

The backyard is all decked out in solar lights now (sorry for the poor quality night picture).  

The small lights are actually square "ice rocks".  They are smaller than an iPhone and just sit on the ground.  We really liked how they look and although not rated in great numbers on Amazon, the ratings were good.  We especially like how low profile they are:

Finding well rated, good quality solar lights is difficult when going off the ratings.  The uplight for the tree was one of the more expensive lights we looked at, but had some of the best reviews.  Common complaints include low light output and diminishing performance over time.  It will be interesting to see how they all hold up.

The Graduate

Zoey graduated Lil Beginner Obedience! She got a Graduation gown bandana and a certificate.

Chris is in Houston this week for work, so he missed out on the final exam tonight.

We were both a little shocked that she passed (I am not sure they actually fail anyone). Zoey likes to not pay attention to us at times and our trainer was a little bit at a loss as to why at times...

Thinking about enrolling in the Intermediate class. She has improved a lot over the past 6 weeks.

Chicago at Night

Walked to Millennium Park after eating deep dish pizza for dinner.

Old School Wrigley

Cubbies vs. Reds. Still 0-0 at the top of the 7th.

Driving with AGPERP

Erica is in Chicago for the week for work.

We did some shopping, now we are at the driving range.

Ben Taylor

Last night we met our friends Brian & Steph in Loveland where we saw Ben Taylor at the Rialto Theater.

Here we are with Ben. He is stooping down after Steph made a comment about how tall he is. Ben signed a hat Steph bought at the concert.

Ben is the son of Carly Simon and James Taylor. He looks like his mom, has an amazing voice, and plays guitar like his dad.

Gazebo. Start to Finish.

We suddenly bought a gazebo for the backyard.  Well, we had been talking about putting up something to help with the Western sun exposure for some time.  It is just so darn hot back there and we weren't using the backyard as much as we wanted.

We originally envisioned a heavy duty pergola with a louvered roof.  We got a quote from Western Timber Frame for a $6,000 kit that we would put together. It looked awesome, but not in the budget.  Chris designed and priced out the wood to make a pretty heavy duty one ourselves with louver components for about one sixth of the cost + considerable construction time.  So, when Costco advertised this little beauty on sale, that can be assembled in just a few hours (and good reviews) for even cheaper than diy, we ordered it immediately.

This is where all that pea gravel ended up.  It is weighing down the legs.

I Mustache You A Question

Fun picture from last weekends bachelorette party. From the background, you would never guess we were in the mountains. Blackhawks looks like a very mini Vegas strip.

National Root Beer Float Day

We had root beer floats to celebrate the occasion. We made the root beer in our sodastream.

Helper Dog

Zoey helping us load up plants and pea gravel tonight. 1 gallon Perennials are on sale (until tomorrow) for $3.88 at Home Depot.

We will show you what the pea gravel is for late this week/weekend.

We also had obedience class and Zoey wasn't having a great night. It was our fault, mostly. We didn't work with her as much as we should have this past week.

Bachelor & Bachelorette Weekend

Chris is throwing a bachelor party for Kirk in Fort Collins at the breweries and Amy and the girls are heading to Blackhawk for some gambling.

F18

Two of the Four F18s at the Grand Junction airport this afternoon.

Palisade, CO

We had a couple hours before heading to the airport, so we drove 15 minutes to Palisade. The land of wine and peaches.

Grand Junction Farmers Market