Goodbye My Precious...

We are getting rid of CABLE!

After thinking about it for a while I've made the decision (more like commitment) that I would downgrade our Comcast to only high-speed internet. Currently we have expanded cable - and admittedly, I watch it too much. Will on the other hand, never watches cable. He plays video games or streams tv shows on the Xbox. I have found that I have a select few shows I like to watch (Secret Life of the American Teenager, Make It or Break It, Little Couple, Cake Boss, Real Housewives of (enter place) County, 18 Kids and Counting, etc.) If you didn't catch it, I tend to watch mass amounts of TLC and ABC Family. But the best part is most of my shows I can find whole episodes of ONLINE ... for FREE!

The more important part of downgrading is more time to do other (more fulfilling) things. I start my online classes for Community College of Denver at the end of August (Chemistry & Sociology) and I really don't need the distraction. I'm also going to focus on playing with digital scrapbooking more - and I've been toying with the idea of starting piano lessons again, which that extra fifty bucks would be beneficial for. Anyone know any good piano teachers in the Denver Metro area??

All in all, it will be better for me not to have cable (Will is not going to notice a difference at all since he doesn't even use it). I've already called the cable company - now I just have to take the leap and drop the box off at the service center. We shall see when that happens.

.... so a while ago I FINALLY registered my car in Colorado. I mean I've only lived here about 2 years now - but I finally made it official. We had to document it - and now I'm finally sharing it!

Will was nice enough to swap out my plates!

He also thought it was important to "blur" the plates

for security reasons on the internet. LOL - so goofy!

Kinda lame how you cant even see the plate! But nice try Will : )

Oh, and can't forget....

We are headed to Washington this Thursday night - and we are jazzed!!!

P.S. - I found out today that I'm getting promoted at work. Yay! From Office Services Coordinator to SENIOR Office Services Coordinator. LOL.

Tourists

Lately we've been keeping pretty busy with work, our callings at church, Will's photography, and trying to spend enough time with each other when work permits - but we've been lucky enough to find some time to visit a couple tourist attractions lately: the Denver Zoo and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It was fun to finally get to visit.

Most of these pictures are self-explanatory .....

I was shocked to see a camel! I've never seen one before.

I didn't realize their humps actually look like this!

Will's absolute favorite!! BEARS!!!

On to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.....

I did the Start! Heart Walk for the American Heart Association a couple months ago and I won 2 free tickets to the museum for doing so - so we were able to enjoy the museum for FREE (even better!)

These animal sculptures were crazy real! They had them

for every possible animal.

This was neat: behind the glass there were scientists working

with microscopes and everything.

The Egyptian exhibit was my favorite. Brought up old memories

of studying the tale of Osiris and Isis back in school!

It was cool to see the real mummies and the differences between

the more rich and poor mummies.

The Nature and Science Museum was cool - it was nice because it wasn't as HOT as the Zoo! I have to say my favorite exhibits were the mummies and the (Pacific Northwest) Native Americans! Probably because I learned about that stuff in school. My least favorite would have to be the Space exhibit .... I've never really been into space stuff. Will's favorite exhibit was the taxidermy animals. More specifically, when asked what his favorite part of the science museum was he says: "the Bears". Go figure. : )

Overall, it was fun! Now I just have to get through this week. I'm single-handedly coordinating our very last office moves this week at work. I'll be working late into the evening tomorrow night and most of Saturday - which will be great because it'll be the LAST!! I've been doing these moves every couple months for the last year!! Woo-Hoo, it's over!!

Will & I will be headed to Vancouver next weekend - and we are way excited!! I hope it'll still be HOT hot HOT when I get there! : )

In the meantime - don't forget to check out Will's photography blog. He's improving so much and he's gotten so good! (link on the right of the page) Spread the word for anyone who has a wedding or has senior portraits/family photos needed!

Fourth of July Festivities

Yesterday was a great Fourth of July! Minus the fact that we didn't end up going to Water World. When we checked the hourly forecast (since you can't tell by looking outside what the day will bring around here) this is what the forecast looked like:

We didn't want the chance of rides being closed due to thunderstorms so we decided to hit up the Cherry Creek Arts Festival instead. I guess I didn't realize how huge this festival was - and how crowded! The festival features 200 artists - chosen from 2500 nationwide applicants! It was really busy - but I liked watching all the people from the street while Will fought his way to look at the art in the crowded canopies.

We ate this awesome pizza. It was like french bread pizza.

They had what they called "Culinary Avenue". There was WAY too many choices.

We had to walk all up and down the street before we could decide.

There was this unique exhibit with sculptures made

of scrap metal. This was a skeleton playing a guitar.

Everything in this exhibit was kinda creepy.

After the Cherry Creek Art Festival we hit up the movies to see Transformers. We'd been putting off seeing this movie since Will had heard bad reviews and was kinda disappointed by that - but the movie ended up being pretty good! Just kinda long. You can see Will wearing his Harkins shirt that gets us free popcorn (for the year) when he wears it to the movies.
After the movie we had dinner (grilled hot dogs) with our friends Bri and Bo then watched the fireworks and lit off a few fireworks at their place with a few others. They live only 3 blocks from us, but yet the view from their roof is SO much better! They don't have any trees in the way so you can see fireworks all over the metro area - we watched fireworks from the Mountains to Downtown and over to Cherry Creek, not to mention everyone's residential fireworks! Bri and Bo are the managers for the building they live in - so we were able to get on the roof when no one else was. It was great!

This is Bri (in her new sweatshirt I might add) with sparklers on her head.

She was sad she burnt a hole in the hood of her new shirt.

Me with the sparklers.

This is Bo - and you can kinda see how clear

the view was. We were 5 stories up so I'm sure that helped.

Kudos to Bri for making this yummy festive dessert!

It was a busy day overall but way fun! Happy Fourth of July - and we hope everyone else had a great holiday!

Fourth of July Weekend!

I love the Fourth of July! I'd have to say that it's probably my favorite holiday. There's nothing better than a holiday during the summer made up of sun and bbqs and chillaxing all day - not to mention celebrating our freedom as a nation and wearing/decorating everything red, white and blue! We started our holiday weekend last night by going out to mexican food and shopping. It was great!

Will picked up some new running shoes ...

since he's got the "bug" now too.

The most exciting part of last night for me would have to be finding a fireworks stand way in SW Denver!! Back home there are fireworks stands on EVERY corner - but fireworks are illegal here (probably because its so dry) but I was so excited to find a stand in some "unincorporated" corner of Denver. I really just wanted some sparklers since they're my favorite - but we bought just a few little extra items too.... because we don't want to get in trouble of course (since we live so close to downtown).

Our fireworks "spread"

Not as much as I'd have in Washington - but I'm happy anyway....

Plus I didn't want to shell out $100 in fireworks!

Today Will and I went to Cherry Creek State Park for some jet skiing with his dad, sister and friend Dwayne - his mom joined us later on in the day. It was pretty fun - and we got quite a bit of sun!! We were originally going to go camping this weekend - but decided it would be more fun to stay around here and do some of the things we don't normally get to do.

A lovely photo of Dwayne and Will - hamming it up of course.

Grilling burgers for lunch.

Relaxing ... pretty much what we did all day : )

This would be Will, Dwayne and Shannon in the pic.

I think I got the most sun.

This is me near the end. I got quite red - mostly my shoulders and arms.

These are the skis - and our "spot" for the day.

I think I got the most sun since in the bottom left corner of the next pic you can see the lounge chair/floaties that I laid out on most of the time, while everyone else was sitting higher up on the beach in the shade (as in the pic earlier) Maybe next time I'll sit in the shade (probably not).

Shannon and Dwayne headed out:

In the parking lot at the end of the day:

This is later in the afternoon - chilling at home.

You can see how red I got.

We were inside because of the next photo......

Lovely Denver Summer Thunderstorms.

This one was MAJOR and this doesn't do it justice.

The cracks of thunder were setting car alarms off and freaking our cat out!

More rain...

We were smart enough to drive to Chipotle right during this storm so we got to drive through seriously flooded streets! Just running to and from the car made us soaked - and we were only about 10 feet from the door! One hour later it was sunny and totally blue skies again. Lovely. Good thing we left Cherry Creek just an hour before this storm. Hopefully our sunburns calm down before tomorrow because Water World is on our agenda!

And Just for Fun.....

This is Abby in what we like to call "her apartment". We got it so she would stop clawing the end of the bed - but since we got it for her she spends more time laying in it than hanging out with us! (She also doesn't claw it - she only sleeps on it .. and yes she still claws the bed).

We love her anyway.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!

Happy Birthday To Me (and other things)

This has been a great week! I took the entire week off work and flew to Washington last Saturday - returning to Colorado late Thursday night. Monday and Tuesday I went to the beach with my sister's family and Wednesday we celebrated my dad's 66th birthday. Will missed out on all the fun since he stayed home in Denver.

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a blast! First thing, Will and I went to the Cherry Creek Farmer's Market and ate breakfast burritos and coconut macaroons (and bought corn, tomatoes and this awesome specialty salsa). Afterwards we needed to burn off that breakfast so we went hiking in Boulder.

This picture was taken near the trailhead at

the beginning of the hike:

This hike had lots of meadow ... and rocks!

Will poses very gracefully....

I'm glad we wore really good shoes because

this is probably the rockiest hike I've ever been on!

See at several points it looked like this:

I almost tripped a couple times.

The view looking over Boulder.

For dinner, Will took me to the Melting Pot in Littleton (YUM!)

We didn't take any photos at dinner, but this was on the way to the restaurant.

Will got me a DQ strawberry cheesequake ice cream cake -

but it wouldn't thaw so we microwaved it.

This picture was taken afterward - it looks melty but it was really good!

Thanks to everyone for my birthday gifts! Here are a few:

My parents got me a desperately needed griddle

And Will's parents got me a creme brulee torch/set

I have been talking about trying to make creme brulee forever!

And to burn off all the food gifts I received,

my husband was kind enough to encourage exercise.

He got me running shoes and Shannon (sister in-law) got me the awesome

Nike + iPod running tracker I was looking at.

My new running shoes

And Will also got me the Wii Fit - how kind of him.

It was a great great birthday! Thanks to all for the birthday wishes! And thanks to my wonderful husband Will for getting the entire weekend off work for my birthday.

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in forever - I really haven't taken many pictures since our Disneyland trip. Not much has happened - time has really been flying by! I can't believe today is the official first day of Summer. Since I last posted, Will got in a minor car accident - so he had to use my car while his was being fixed ... for three weeks! Since he works most weekends, I learned to ride my bike for transportation - and the fine skill of walking to get where I want to go! It was actually nice by the end. I was annoyed in the beginning - but by the 3rd weekend I was starting to enjoy it. But now we have both cars and all is normal again.

We're excited for Summer and all the fun activities. Hiking and camping are on our list this summer - as well as another trip to Washington in August.

And also - HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the fathers out there - especially our own! Happy Father's Day, Dad!