Winter Wonderland

We walked down the road for dinner out.  It's a Winter Wonderland out there.

Mystery Man

We are working from home today because it snowed about 4 inches last night and it is never fun to deal with traffic on snow days.  It usually doubles our travel time.

This man has been snow blowing around the whole neighborhood, including our sidewalk and driveway.   How nice!

There aren't really too many snow blower days, so maybe he is taking advantage?  No matter, we are grateful!

My Boss is a Seahawks Fan

And this is what happened to his office today while he was out of town on business travel.  After this, the Broncos have to win or we are never going to hear the end of it.  

Lil Intermediate

Zoey is back in school.  She started The next obedience course at PetSmart tonight.  Her main competition is an 18 month old wiry haired terrier named Pirate.

We started working on 'heel' and sitting with distractions.  

Social Hour

Z is staying with Megan, our dog vacay sitter. Megan says:

Zoey is a total goof! She's been playing with the other dogs really well, its been an absolutely gorgeous day outside.

Frisco

We hung out in Frisco today.  We stopped at the Frisco Museum, the GatherHouse glass blowing studio for a glass blowing demonstration, and finally to Prost for beers, pretzels, and sausages.

Glass Blowing.

Prost!

Day in Vail

We went skiing at Vail with our good friends, Kirk and Amy today.  It had been 20 years since Cnris has been and this was the first time for Erica.

We had a good day, but won't likely be back anytime soon.  It is not a snowboarders resort - lots of catwalks and lots of acres.  We spent most of the day figuring out how to get where we wanted to go, and then even more time getting there.  The snow was so-so with a 44" base, but conditions are basically the same at all of the slopes in the area right now.

Chris on Gondola One.

Back to the Future

New glasses!  

These remind me of my very first pair.  I think we were in 4th grade, and I picked out a pair of tortoise shells.  Anyone have a picture? 

It has been 7 years since my last new pair which broke a few weeks ago and were being held together with tape, so about time!  

Sleeping Beauties

5 Year Flowers

Chris bought flowers for our anniversary and they are still going strong.  Tulips are my absolute favorite.

Gel Nails

I received the Salon Gel Polish Starter Kit by Sally Hansen for Christmas and it is great! I tried it out for the first time and got 8 days out of my polish.  It would have lasted longer but:

1.  You have to seal the free edge of your nail on each coat and I think a few of my nails were too short to do this, even though I tried. 

2.  I am really rough on my nails ex: I scraped one against the tile backsplash in the kitchen and that was the end of that - it was the first to chip.

I have had professional Gelish nails before and they have always been difficult to remove with long soaking times. These came off with 5-10 minutes of soaking, and the polish crinkled up and away from the nail so there is no scraping your nails to death.  

I also found this website that instructs how to use regular nail polish between the base & top gel coats.  The comments talk about using regular polish over the gel too.

This is Day 1, but it looked the same on day 7.  Day 8 is when the chips showed up on almost every nail.

myVEGAS Slots

We are heading to Vegas in April for a good friends 40th birthday. In preparation, we have both started playing this slots app. It is free (although you can purchase chips in the app if you want - but you get more free chips everyday, you just need to be patient), and you win free comps on the strip. Ex: for 1,000,000 points you can pick a Bellagio Fountain Song, and for much less, you can redeem for monorail passes, discounted hotel rooms, and free buffet passes.

myVEGAS Slots by PlayStudios
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myvegas-slots/id714508224?mt=8

Cyclocross National Championships

We spent the day in Boulder to watch our friend Brian's debut at the Cyclocross National Championships which were held in Boulder's Valmont Bike Park.  He placed 49th in his division, which is very commendable - he has been recovering from a cracked rib from a bike crash for the past 8 weeks.

Brian is number 186.

Anniversary

We had dinner at Colt and Gray to celebrate our 5th year of marriage. The house made Braunschweiger and the Brunet Cheese were excellent, but everything was very good (Arctic char, duck breast, olive oil & pistachio cake with blue cheese ice cream...)

5 Years By the Numbers:

1,825 days

100+ flights to be together

4 countries traveled

3 states lived in

3 houses and an apartment

3 Wild West Relays

1 half marathon ran together

1 Master's Degree

1 Chinese Crested

1 obedience school graduation

Plenty of yard work

Cleansed

I didn't actually start the cleanse until Tuesday.  I was running late for an early Monday morning meeting and didn't have time to make any of the days drinks.  So, Today is the last day.  I was pretty hungry on the first night, and I did stray from the smoothies at dinner to have some sort of solid food - drinking your food is very un satisfying.  I think this particular cleanse was a nice way to hit the reset button and actually did a better job than some of the longer cleanses I have done.  On to health and wellness in 2014!

Lunch drink on the left and breakfast drink on the right.  

This is Happening. Starting Today.

Winter Doldrums

It has been a snowy weekend.  We won't be getting the extreme cold that WI and Chicago are facing, thankfully. Stay safe and warm, everybody!

Bacon Wrapped Grissini

Happy New Year!  We hosted a small get together at the house last night.  This was a new recipe  that I made - it was easy and delicious!

Ingredients

1 Package Bacon

1/3 C. Brown Sugar

3 Tbls. Chili Powder

1 Package Italian Grissini (skinny breadsticks)

Directions

1. Mix brown sugar and chili powder in a shallow bowl or plate

2. Wrap Grissini with bacon, leaving a handle of breadstick only on 1 end

3.  Roll in the brown sugar mixture.

4. Bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes on a rack on top of a cookie sheet.