Castle Rock Times - Thanksgiving Edition

Front Page
The big news of the week is the fact that we are one week closer to seeing our families over Thanksgiving!!

Entertainment

Saturday night was the 72nd annual Starlighting festival in Downtown Castle Rock,

hosted by Gary Shapiro of 9news!! We headed downtown at about 4 in the afternoon. We actually had to return some books to the library, so that was the first stop. Lucky for us they had a free trolley to take us back downtown. We then picked us out a spot that gave us a good view of the stage,

and ultimately a great view of the star on top of Castle Rock when it was all lit (lighted?) up. We then watched the fireworks display and walked around downtown window shopping at the boutique stores. The weather was great and we will definitely be going back next year. It is a fun tradition that makes us grateful that we live in such a cool town.

Business
In business news, I moved cubicles at work. My new cube has a window that looks out to Market Street and has a little more space. A co-worker moved right next to me as well, so we thought that it would be approriate for us to throw a cubicle warming party on Friday.

She provided the apple cider and I brought the Krispy Kreme doughnuts. It was a fun little gathering.

Sports
We watched BYU dominate Wyoming on Saturday, and we are eagerly anticipating the BYU-Utah matchup on Saturday. I think it will be a good game, but I'm pretty sure I know who will win. Any guesses as to who that will be?

Ho Hum week

So, there's really nothing to report of the happenings last week. Troy went to South Carolina for work for a couple of days but forgot to take a camera with him. We did find out that he got a nice bonus because of the "merging"/acquisition of his company with JP Morgan. That was really nice. I went to another stamping party on Saturday and we made Christmas cards. I'm super excited to send them out. Troy also got free tickets to the Nature and Science Museum so we went Saturday afternoon. We were hoping to go to the IMAX showing of the Titanic but the tickets were all sold out so we ended up watching something on blackholes at the planetarium. I didnt' really watch a lot of it because it made me a little queasy but it was nice and short.

Lastly, I thought I'd post something about Lexie. She is such a funny quite. Apparently she has a thing for boxes no matter what kind of predicament she gets herself into. Hopefully you like some of these pictures!

And, yes, that's Kleenex box stuck on her head!

Birthday Week

So this week was dubbed my birthday week by Tracie, and she spoiled me a lot. On Tuesday Tracie made cupcakes. They were fabulous and I had just enough breath to blow out the candles!!
I dressed up for work. Thanks to Brittany for the doo-rag, it really completed the outfit. Lexie was also excited for Halloween and kept a keen eye out for the Trick-or-Treaters. We were actually really excited to stay home and pass out candy for the first time in our house (I'm sure that will fade over time). We got to hand it out for a little while and then we went over to our friends Jen and Gavin's house for a murder mystery party. I was J. Stephen Peek, attorney-at-law, the friend and confidante of the victim (I even have the business cards to prove it). Tracie was Elise St. Gershe, the young, attractive maid at the DuPre mansion. It was a lot of fun, and we enjoyed hanging out with the three other couples.

We quickly moved past the Halloween holiday and on to Thanksgiving. On Sunday we invited some friends over for dinner and Tracie decided to be bold and make her very first turkey dinner. It was delicious!! Luckily Tracie had some latex gloves which makes handling the raw turkey much nicer. It was a fun day and it was nice to stress test the kitchen, the double ovens, and the big dining room table. They all passed with flying colors, now we just family to join us next year for the real Thanksgiving!!!!

Happy Almost Halloween!!!

What did we do this past weekend?!?! Friday, for Troy's birthday, I got us tickets to the symphony to listen to Beethoven's 5th Symphony. I even got all gussied up and wore a lot more make up than I ever would. I even did my hair. I picked Troy up from work and we had dinner downtown at a place call The Palamino. It was delicious. We even got to see some downtown action right outside our window. We saw a cop on a motorbike totally take down a guy on a bicycle. After dinner, we headed to Boettcher Hall (I think that's what it's called). Luckily it wasn't too chilly so the walk wasn't bad. The symphony was great and we had awesome seats. Unfortunately, when we wanted to take a picture I found out that the batteries were dead. So no pics from that night until we got home. Saturday we ran a few errands and started our Christmas shopping. Can you believe it?! I can happily say that we have all the nieces and nephews done except for the twins but we'll get there. And I have to say that they're pretty awesome presents. We also bought a cupcake carrier. It's pretty cool. I'm making cupcakes for Troy to take to work but we didn't know how to transport them but they have one at Crate & Barrell and it carries 2 dozen so it all worked out. Sunday, we had some friends over for dinner and we made sugar cookies for dessert. They were yummy. Then Monday night, we carved our pumpkins. Our neighbors graciously invited us over for Troy's b-day then afterwards we came back here to carve. I think mine is the coolest. It's the goblin. The stencil said that it was a 2 pumpkin out of 4 on difficulty but I would definitely bump it up to 3. It took me FOREVER to finish it and the pumpkin wasn't even for me but for the little girl. Her mom said that she would appreciate 10 years down the road when she's carving her own pumpkin. Great!

Troy carved 2 pumpkins in the time I carved one. If you can't tell the middle one says Red Sox and has devil horns and a pitchfork.

If you can't tell, Lexie's in a slight predicament. She has her head and one arm through the handle. It took her a while to get out. Silly cat.

Pumpkins, Bowling, and a little white stuff

We actually had quite a busy Saturday after just staying home Friday evening to watch Disturbia (really just a more modern version of The Burbs). We slept in a little too long and missed the Annual Pumpkin Chuckin' contest. We'll give you a full report next year, but as a teaser, the winning entry went over 500 yards (yes yards, not feet!) We did get down to the pumpkin patch at the Grange to pick up our free pumpkin.

We then went bowling for an hour. It was a lot of fun, and we bowled really well. Tracie's high was a 134 (one pin from finishing off with a turkey) and mine was a 150. We then came home to watch the BYU game. We started watching sometime in the 3rd quarter and BYU was already up big. As you may have heard, it started to snow, and then it really started to come down in the 4th quarter. I knew that cold weather was in our forecast for today, but seeing it made me scared enough to wrap our sprinkler pipes. Good thing I did.

We woke up this morning to a little snow on the ground. I took this before church just in case it melted by the time we got back. Since we go to choir practice before church, we leave at 8. So 4 hours later we get back, and look what we have!

A lot of snow! All told we got just over 6 inches down here. Denver got maybe a dusting, and it was melted by the time the Broncos kicked off at 6. I'm sure it will be all melted by tomorrow, and the roads weren't bad, but it was enough to make us bust out the Christmas music.

Lastly our neighbors Joe and Patti had a friend stand them up for a lunch date, so we were forced to join them for steaks at their house Saturday for lunch. They also had a computer monitor that they were going to give their Dad, but he did not want it. So we bought it from them. It's about time we traded in our ancient monitor for a new flat screen one. It is amazing how much more space we have on our desk now!!

Tagged

After much pressure from friends, I have decided to enlighten you guys with some known (maybe unknown) facts about moi!

So I've been tagged and am supposed to write 6 facts about myself. When I tag you, you can write 6 facts about yourself and then tag 6 others (I may be re-tagging people because a lot of us have the same friends!).

1. I LOVE FOOD!!!!! Since I can remember food has been a pretty big part of my life. I absolutely love it. Freshman year, I out-ate a pole vaulter that said he could eat more than me. On my first date with Troy, I definitely ate more than him. He ordered lasagna and I ordered the same with some chicken marsala. He struggled to finish his plate and I had no problem finishing mine. Food occupies my thought a lot of the day. When I worked at the BYU Bookstore I would just look at the cookbooks to satisfy my hunger until I could eat.

2. Along with having a love for food, I have a small obsession with cookbooks. I love looking through them even if I rarely cook the recipes that are in them. I would say that I have easily over 30 books but thank goodness by itch to buy them all the time has gone down.

3. I love playing with wrinkles in about anything especially the corners on my pillow. I like playing with them so much that I have put a hole in a couple of my pillowcases.

4. When I first got my driver's license I put myself down as being 5'5" thinking that I was still growing. I was also very proud to let everyone know that I was 5'5". My last semester at BYU I was taking a Exercise Physiology class and we had to measure our height. I am definitely 5'4 3/4". That was probably one of my saddest days. I do still say that I'm 5'5" though because if you round up that's what I am.

5. Before I got married, I used to exercise regularly. Since I've been married...well you can say that the number of times I have exercised, you can count on one hand. I will say though, I think about exercising all the time. This last year I have had some people ask me if I have lost weight so I just want to say that thinking about exercising really works!!!!! That's my secret. I think about it daily but rarely do I do anything about. It's all about mind power!

6. Lastly...when I was a baby, I never sucked my thumb...I sucked my tongue. I know it sounds weird but I think many of you already know this. I would just roll my tongue in half then suck. Well, I still do it to this day. I've tried to stop but I guess you could say it's a bad habit. I do attribute my straight teeth to it though.

Anywho, I hope all of you have enjoyed reading this. If you knew these things about me I just wanted to refresh your memory. If you didn't know well now you do! Happy Fall Day!

Oh...the weather outside is frightful

Not really but we did have a bit of a cold front this weekend. Friday I didn't have to work so I got a little stir crazy around the house. Luckily Troy, Robyn, and Aaron are all good sports so we ended up hanging out downtown. We had dinner at a place called Dixon's and then headed over to ESPN Zone to play some games. It's always good to go if you want to exercise but not really think that you're exercising. We played the basketball game (as always), raced the horses, played fooseball hockey, rode some bikes, raced some cars, boxed, and drove a semi. It was a pretty fun night. Saturday, I went out with Robyn and Aaron to take some more engagement pictures. I think I took some pretty decent pictures considering I have no experience in that area. All I have to say is there has got to be one picture that they BOTH agree on. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Saturday night, we watched the BYU game. Every year, during football season, Troy adds some extra channels so we can watch the BYU games and then when the season's over, we discontinue it. He's so funny. Sunday was our first Sunday that we did not have to teach our primary class. If all the kids showed up we would have 15 kids so they decided to call another set of teachers. I told the primary president that I didn't want to split the class because it's rare that all the kids show up let alone 10 kids so we decided to alternate teaching. I think it's a good idea. Last night, we had a wonderful dinner with pot roast, carrots, salad, mashed potatoes, and rolls. It was delicious. Afterwards, we played 2 games of Scrabble. I must admit, I'm a huge fan of the game.

Autumn, Fall, Rocktober

It's crisp!! Fall is definitely in the air. If you had October 7th in the office pool for the first day that we would make a pumpkin pie, you win!! It went well with our hearty pork stew.

We planted our tulip bulbs yesterday. It was a lot of work to dig all those holes. I hope they look good in the spring. Thanks again to Tahitian Noni (Will and Kristin) for the bulbs.

Tracie had a stampin' up party yesterday at our neighbors' house. I think she really likes making the stuff, and it is a good creative outlet for her.

We have also really been enjoying the Rockies in the playoffs. It is cool to see everyone get into baseball, especially because this time of year the Broncos tend to dominate the sports scene.

Yesterday Tracie took some engagement pictures of Aaron and Robyn. I think they turned out pretty well, we'll see if Aaron and Robyn can agree with one that they both like (they are both really HM!)

We also enjoyed General Conference this weekend. It is nice to be able to watch it at home, and we even busted out the Primary Bingo games for the afternoon session. Elder Hales really came through!!!

Greatest Game in Rockies History

Their 14th win in their last 15 games. Roughing up Peavy for 6 runs, and then winning it off Hoffman in the 13th! The game was incredible, and we couldn't tear ourselves away. A couple of co-workers went to the game, and they said that the stadium was electric, and before the game started, downtown was buzzing. I'm glad we were a part of it. Go ROCKIES!!!


Sorrry Matt.

Happy Birthday to Me and Fall Foliage

Happy Birthday to Me. I will gladly admit that I was not looking forward to turning 25 years old this year. I had a hard enough time turning 24 last year but for some reason I'm okay with it. My only complaint thus far is that I'm now part of a new demographic which does make me feel old. I had a wonderful birthday. Troy said that he was going to make me breakfast Friday morning but the idea of pouring cereal and milk for me at 5:45 in the morning and letting it sit for an hour did not appeal to me. It was a good idea. I got to work and found that the girls had gotten me a houseplant which is quite beautiful. Now if only Lexie will behave and not eat all the petals. Troy got me a game system that plays both Nintendo and Super Nintendo games. He also got me Super Mario Kart but it hasn't arrived yet. Brett and Taylor, all I have to say is bring it on!!!!!! After work, I came home to a clean house and Troy making my birthday cupcakes. I opted for cupcakes because you can only make 24 with a box. Troy made dinner for me which was fantastic. He made steak, roasted potatoes, and roasted asparagus. It was all delicious. Who needs a fancy schmancy steak house when I have Troy. Robyn and Aaron had dinner with us also. We then had a night of game playing. We taught Robyn and Aaron how to play mah jong. I think they were more interested in stacking the tiles.

Saturday was a busy day for us. I wanted to do a little shopping at the outlet stores. We ended up buying a sandwich maker and a soup pot. That was the best deal of the day. Regular price was $225.00 but they had a sign for $99.99. Apparently one of the employees was supposed to take the sign down the night before but forgot. The cashier did the math to give us the discount but ended up doing it wrong and rang it up as $80. I told her that the sign said $99.99 but she said not to worry about it. We ended up buying the pot for 63% off. How great is that?! After a little bit of shopping, we went and had dim sum. It's definitely not like Hong Kong but it's the best we have out here. Then we took a drive into the mountains to look at the fall folliage. I think this will have to be an annual trip for us. It is absolutely gorgeous. I love fall. We're starting to get the feel of fall down here. The mornings and evenings have a little bit of a chill and I love the crispness of the air.

Anywho, thank you to all for your birthday wishes. It made turning a quarter of a century old a little bit easier. :)

Happy Birthday

Please join me in wishing Tracie a happy quarter century. Happy birthday Tracie!!!

Princess and the Castle

What a weekend! Tracie and I were relaxing this evening and we both said to each other that it seemed like a three-day weekend because we got so much stuff done. We awoke Saturday at 8 to go outside and plant our bulbs, but decided to hold off for a couple of weeks after talking to our neighbor. So we will be planting them before and after general conference in two weeks. So we got ready for the day and headed outside to Princess Hayley's 4th birthday party.
She lives next door and all of the neighbors were out to celebrate. The kids liked jumping around in the bounce house, while we enjoyed chatting with everyone, the pizza, and watching our next door neighbor Joe try to catch a yellowjacket with a cup and paper plate. We then ran some errands, and came home to make some potato salad for our BBQ at the Moylett's. The BBQ was a lot of fun, dessert was fantastic, and we played a Catch Phrase with the three couples there. (The men swept 3-0 by the way).
The Moylett's had just purchased a new TV, so the gave us there old one. If you can't tell, we now have a full 8 inches more of viewing pleasure (27 inches total). No more pulling the TV out to watch movies! We got home late, but prepared our prayer rocks for our Primary lesson this morning. But the late night did not deter us from getting up early and heading to choir practice this morning at 8.
After church we decided to start making our house a home. First we hung the curtains in the front room. It is touches like these that remind me how grateful I am to be married. I would not know how to pick out something that looks good, but I sure appreciate it when it does. We also finally got our ceiling fan prewire fixed, so we were able to hang the ceiling fan in our bedroom. We want to thank Grandpa Ware for this housewarming gift, and promise that it made a lot of sense when we bought it at the end of June. (Got to love the prompt response to our warranty issues!!). Finally we hooked up the new TV and hung our big picture. Whew!

Over the River and Through the Woods...

to Grandmother's house we go. Okay, so maybe we didn't go to Grandma's house but they came to us!!!! Grandpa and Grandm Burt came to vistit us this past weekend. They arrived Friday evening and we were able to go out to dinner. We went to a place called the Old Stone Church Restaurant. The place was pretty cool looking. We sat in the choir loft. Dinner was fabulous. Afterwards we pretty much just crashed. Saturday we took them to Downtown Denver. We ate at Pat's Philly Cheesesteaks and was able to participate in a Penn State hoopla. It was pretty fun. Afterwards we made our way to the outlet shops in Castle Rock. We had fun meandering through the stores and buying a caramel apple from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. It was very tasty. Then we made our way home and watched the BYU vs. Tulsa game. Although it did not end in our favor, I thought it was an okay game. Sunday, we went to church and then played games for the rest of the day. Have I ever mentioned how much I love games. Grandma and Grandpa taught us how to play Tippie Canasta. That's a really fun game. Too bad you always need to have 4 players. All in all we had a fabulous weekend with the. THANK YOU GRANDMA AND GRANDPA.

And on a side note...we have finally been harvest a crop. We're farmers!!!

For some reason, Lexie really, really likes to eat the ends of green beans. What a weird cat.

Tennis, Football and Fall

Now begins one of my favorite seasons of the year (it's in my top 4), fall. For one we have really enjoyed watching the U.S Open and the best tennis player of all time, Roger Federer. We have nothing against Federer, but especially Tracie gets frustrated that he never loses! Tennis is great, but having college football back is the highlight of fall. We had a few friends over to watch the BYU game yesterday, and we were all impressed with how they played in the second half. We are counting down the days until the Utah game (76).
Fall also means a dip in the temperature, and the nights are definitely cooler. Today was also decidely autumnal in weather, and that means we get to bake. We didn't make the pumpkin, but it is much more photogenic than the banana bread!!
Lastly, the leaves begin to change. This is old stock footage to tide you over until they actually start to change.

Labor Day Fun

Since, only working 3 days a week now holidays seem to blend in with the rest of the week but it's always a highlight when Troy doesn't have work. So this weekend has been filled with tons of fun. Friday night, I picked up Troy from work and had dinner at one of our favorite Chinese food places. ( I would even say that it's probably the closest thing to Sam Woo that we have here) After dinner we played mini golf at a course that even had flags in the holes. Troy won by 2 strokes and got a hole-in-one. Saturday, Troy got up early and I willed myself out of bed. (the previous Saturday, I may have slept in really, really late) Troy had mentioned that he wanted to go for a bike ride so we cruised around The Meadows for a little bit. Afterwards, we made our way to the pool. This was the last weekend that they would be open for the season and we wanted to soak in as much of the great weather as possible. We met up with our neighbors there and even got to sit on the "kiddie" side of the pool. It was a lot of fun except Troy may have forgotten to put sunblock on so he was feeling it by the end of the day. For dinner, I made a fabulous Creamy Fettucine with Shrimp and Bacon. It was tasty. Apparently Troy likes to take pictures of my food so here it is. Sunday, we went to church and taught our primary kids. They actually noticed that we were gone. I felt special. In the evening, our culd-de-sac had a progressive dinner. We were in charge of the desserts. We made oatmeal carmelitas, brownies, and apple crisp (thanks Kristin). Our neighbors are so much fun. Monday, I cut Troy's hair. I started cutting it then took a step back and noticed that it was a lot shorter than I normally cut it but needless to say, I think it looks pretty good. Afterwards, we went to the pool for the last time. :( Troy remembered to put the sunblock on this time. Then we went to Colorado's annual Taste of Colorado. It's where a bunch of restaurants set up booths and you can have a taste...at a small price. It was fun. We got to taste chicken tandoori, BBQ brisket on a bun, steak on a stick, crab cake, and a corn dog. All for less than $20. Then we came home and relaxed. All in all we had a fabulous weekend. It was a wonderful end to our summer and I can say that I'm now looking forward to the fall.

Beans, beans, the magical fruit...

I have been waiting so long for our green beans to starting popping up so I could post this blog with that title and they're finally here. I just thought I'd give everyone an update on our growing garden. I have now picked off 4 cherry tomatoes to date and have eaten all of them except for one, that went to Troy, within a couple minutes of picking them. The strawberry plants that we thought had gone the way of the earth decided to come back and they're thriving more than ever. They're kind of alien-like how they sprout off from the main plant and take root. Earlier in August, I noticed that blossoms were on our apple tree but sadly, we had to pluck them off to strengthen the roots. That was a sad day. Lastly, our green beans have been flowering the last couple of weeks and I've been waiting patiently for them to start growing the beans and they're finally here. If you look really hard, you can find them.