Ecker Christmas

 

Christmas time

 

.

            

Singing Our Hearts Out

Erica sang karaoke in a private karaoke suite with her former co-workers at Voicebox Karaoke.

 

Small Biz Saturday

There is a small strip of shops that have popped up over the past year at 44th & Alcott (cobbler's corner).  We headed over to check out the Small Business Saturday sales.  

Our favorite shops: 

Cheese & Provisions. - we've mentioned this shop on the blog before (here, here  & here.). They have all kinds of neat dry goods for sale, cheese classes, wine, etc.  Technically, the wine is for drinking on the premises.  But they have a contraption to pour wine without pulling the cork, and as long as you drink some of the wine there (we had a quarter of a shot glass full), you can carry the wine out of the store.  The wine is well priced, just as reasonable as a liquor store.

Honeycomb & Co. - awesome flower bouquets and cute home decor. 

Eco Mountain - environmentally friendly home store.

               

FaceTime with AGPERP & LRP

 

Black Friday

We relaxed at home and did some online Black Friday shopping and browsing.  Then we headed to Tennyson Street.  

First stop: Hops & Pie   They had $5 pours of Pliny the Elder  which is a hard to find double IPA from Russian River Brewing out of California.  We also ordered the pie of the month:  French onion soup purée, roasted fingerling potatoes, braised beef short rib, carmalized onions, & gruyere.  So good.

 

Second Stop: Desteeg Brewing.  For some big Belgian beers and Sequence.

 

Thankful

We hosted Thanksgiving today. We made turkey, sweet potatoes, & Chris's famous cranberries.

The wine helps with the cranberry making only.  It doesn't go in the cranberries.

 

 

Zoey got lots of love today.  

 

Fancy ZZ

 

Cocktail Class

We attended a cocktail making class at Leopold Bros. tonight.  A November in New England (pictured - sparkling white wine + cranberry liqueur) was waiting for us when we arrived.  3 additional recipes were demoed and sampled.  Then, we got to try our hand at making our favorite behind the bar.

 

 

Neighborhood Watch

 

Skulls

We made skulls a couple weeks ago at EvB Studio.

 

Our New Tree

We applied for a tree from the city at the beginning of August.  Our property was sited and the city arborist decided on a Pin Oak for our yard.  It was delivered and planted yesterday.

We were given directions to water 3 gallons, 3 times a week until it freezes.  Then water once a week for the winter.

 

 

Birthday Boy

We had a very memorable dinner at The Populist to celebrate this handsome guy tonight.

 

Lights!

Chris hung the rest of the lights in the backyard.  It is so cool.

 

 

Valhalla Cakes

There's a new little bakery in our neighborhood - Valhalla Cakes.  It's a young gal who specializes in fancy custom cakes.  But she always has cookies, cupcakes, and other treats for sale too.  We took a walk and stopped in today.

Her cake look book was amazing.  You can see some of her work on her Instagram page:  

https://www.instagram.com/valhallacakes/

 

March of Dimes

We attended the March of Dimes Signature Chefs Live Auction tonight.  Chefs from Denver & Boulder served food alongside a silent and live auction.  Erica's co-worker is very involved with March of Dimes and was the event chair.  

We won a silent auction item which was very exciting!  We were bidding on the Patron Bar which had 2 bottles of tequila, 2 bottles of liqueur (mango & chile chocolate), 12 stainless steel mugs (for Jalisco Mules), 2 shaker sets,  muddler, strainer, cocktail spoon, recipe book, pen, and lime squeezer - all Patron branded.  It's for charity, but we feel like we got a deal as well.  It was a fun evening.

 

KC

Our hotel room view.  The birthday group is going to the Chiefs game later today.  We're hanging out in downtown.

 

Surprise!

We surprised our friend Keith at his 50th birthday pub crawl in KC this afternoon.  

 

The KC girls. ❤️

 

Chi-Chi

Chris ordered us Chi Chi, a Chinese Crested by Jelly Cat.  

 

 

Girls Night Out

A pink limousine, Rob Thomas/Counting Crows at Red Rocks, and some awesome chicks!

 

 

Night Rider

We've been trying to bike more for shorter trips around the neighborhood.  We biked to and from our friends house last night.  3.5 miles each way.  Our dear friends gave us extra gear for visibility.  Including this vest.

 

Switcheroo

We changed out the legs on our sectional.  It was a quick project and small change for the better.  We ordered the new legs from Pretty Pegs.

Old standard issue IKEA legs.

 

New & Improved Pretty Pegs.

 

Minden, NV

Chris was in Minden for work this week.

 

 

Goo Goo with the Girls

Goo Goo Dolls & Collective Soul

 

SnapChat

We're on snapchat.  Courtney talked us into it.  We're not that good at it, but we love getting snaps & we'll try to get better sending them on our end.

Here's a guide on this whole thing if you need it: http://www.theskimm.com/skimm-guides/snapchat.

One of our favorite things is the filters.  There are new ones all the time.  Here is a new filter we were playing around with tonight.  TGIF!

 

Work & Play

We tackled yard work and glued down the caps on our little retaining wall.  Then, we hopped on our bikes for a late lunch at Postino, followed by kombucha flights at American Cultures.  The long weekend flew by and we are sad.

 

 

 

Inaugural Patio Lighting

We bought commercial outdoor lights at Costco a while back.  We got one strand up today.

 

HH at Old Major

We rode our bikes to Happy Hour tonight.  Chris snapped this pic.

 

Sun Mountains Lake

Our friends just moved into a new house off Sloans Lake.  Their rooftop deck is terrific.

Presidential

Another print we purchased in Steamboat was Abe.  Cat Clausen, the artist, is a sweet lady who admires Abraham Lincoln (what's not to admire) and paints him almost exclusively in every technique she practices - oil, pen and ink, etc..  One of her Abe paintings hangs in the West Wing of the White House. 

She starts each painting with the eyes which she always paints with a paintbrush and the the rest evolves from there.  We bought Blue on Blue   Cat described the piece as Abe working, concentrating at his desk, and looking up from that work.  The original was also on site - oil on canvas, with a lot of razor blade work. It was awesome.

We hung Abe in the wine room.

 

Summer Tomato Pie

This was excellent.  Layers of tomato, garlic, basil, and cheese.  

I didn't take the time to sweat and dry all of the tomatoes and was worried the pie would be too watery, but it turned out fine.  I did shake off each tomato slice and got rid of all seeds before layering into the pie.

Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/228381/summer-tomato-pie/

 

Another Open Mind

I made this guy with the left over clay from my Open Minded Bowls class.

 

And, my first 2 open minds have been fired and black washed.  Now I need to find a home for them in the house.

 

Pizza on the Patio

Good times last night with Kim & Court.

 

National Dog Day

There was an art walk in Steamboat last weekend and we found this print.  We had to get it, it looks just like Z.  It even has her spots on her chest.

The artist is from Florida.  He has painted many different breeds: http://www.michaelvistia.com/dog-breeds/

 

Lake Street Dive

Our Steamboat adventure all started with Lake Street Dive   They played on Saturday night and we made a trip out of seeing them.  The lead singer's (Rachael Price) voice is incredible.  The venue was small, 550 seats, and we were 10 feet away from the band.  

You should check 'em out.