Full House

This weekend we did another "stress test" on our hosting capabilities. Our friends Spencer and Mardee and their one year old daughter Cadence were out visiting from San Francisco, and Robyn had two of her old roommates, Tracy and Emily out visiting as well. We survived the massive rain storm Friday night by hunkering down at the Cheesecake Factory. On Saturday we headed down to the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It was a lot of fun, and the views were gorgeous. Cadence got a lot of attention, and especially liked the lady with the big black dog. (Unfortunately Cadence grew bored just as we pulled out the camera!)

Before we could go out and play we had to do our chores, so Tracie watered the garden and found our massive cherry tomato growing.
I got to move to the next level of manhood by mowing our grass. (Actually it was more like cutting down weeds, but quite manly nonetheless.)
Another picture from the Garden of the Gods. Spencer and Mardee were a lot of fun to have out here, and even more so it is nice to have friends in San Francisco that now owe us a favor! :)

Lexie has a new game, which consists of me throwing things up at her while she lounges on the balcony. She actually has pretty good hands (paws?) and will catch it with her claws.

Sickly...

If only I had a camera on me this morning. Apparently Troy ate something yesterday that did not sit well with him. This morning he looked whiter than a ghost but thankfully there was no puke-age. But that did leave me to go to church all by myself and teach our primary class. Luckily there were only 4 kids today instead of 11! The funny thing is is that Troy and I ate the same things yesterday so I guess I have a tougher gut than he does. This past week has been pretty uneventful. The weather has been getting warmer but not unbearable. We do appreciate being at a higher elevation than Denver so our evenings are pretty cool. For those of you who don't know, I changed jobs back in March and now work for my dentist. The opportunity came at the right time and I decided to take it. Right now, I'm working the front desk and handling all insurance stuff and scheduling appointments. Troy's so excited that we can talk insurance stuff now! Once the gal that I'm covering for comes back from maternity leave, I'll be transitioning to a dental assistant position. I actually had my first taste this past week and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. I even got to take a impression of my mouth and make a model. I do have to say that I have some pretty good looking teeth! Anywho, from now until late August will be a whirlwind of fun. We have some old college friends coming in this weekend (are we really old enough to say that?!?!?!?! I thought my parents could only say that), the weekend after mom wu is coming to visit and hopefully dad wu will come along. The next weekend is our anniversary, not sure what Troy has up his sleeve but I'm sure it'll be fun. And then finally, the weekend after that is our beloved Jenna-bean's wedding! We cannot wait and we're excited.

This is Lexie discovering the air conditioning for the first time. I don't know if she knows what to think of it yet.

These are our green beans that we planted last weekend. They are finally starting to sprout. the other picture is of our strawberries that we were once dead but decided to come back to life. Just disregard the brown things.

Cirque

Yesterday we went with Aaron and Robyn to Cirque du Soleil. The show was called Corteo and took place in a tent set up in the parking lot of the Pepsi Center. The story is about a clown's funeral. I don't know if I really followed the story, but the acts were cool. It was very gymnastic, and included girls swinging around on chandaliers, guys jumping on beds that were like trampolines, and a guy that did hand stands on ladders. (The acts are hard to describe, but suffice it to say, numerous times I vocally said "Wow" with what they did.) The music is very catchy and we have been singing it since yesterday, especially when we do some cool trick!
Here is the picture from inside. None of the performance since it was "strictly forbidden."

We got home last night and joined the rest of our cul-de-sac in having a block party. The BBQ started around 3, and we got there at about 7. We just hung out in our neighbor's yard, and got to know everyone better. It was a lot of fun, and we are grateful that we have cool neighbors that are all pretty social. I think it might happen again at the end of the summer.

We are now counting down the days until we can mow the lawn, which will be next week sometime.

Week(end) O' Fun

So, I have to say that we had a blast this week. It also helped that it was only a 3 day work week for the both of us. 4th of July, we hung out with Robyn and Aaron and went to the pool. Later in the afternoon we had a BBQ then went to the Liberty Fair at the fairgrounds in Castle Rock. The fair was a little hickish for me but the fireworks were awesome. I think we timed to be over 30 minutes long. It was great. Reminded me of the time my family went to the high school to watch fireworks and I had my head buried in my mom's' lap crying my eyes out. Times have changed. Thursday evening, Troy's little bros came into town for the weekend. It was a thank you present to them for helping us do the landscaping. We had a blast. Thursday night we took them out to dinner and just "crashed" at the house. Brett brought Playstation and we played Crash Team Racing. I love racing games although I prefer Mario Kart. Friday, we went to Water World. It has been a loooooong time since I've been to a water park but it was tons of fun and I'm happy to report that none of us got sunburnt. Saturday, we went bowling. Will, you'll be proud of me. I bowled a 154, the highest score out of all of us. We bowled 4 games and I scored the highest. It took me a while to get my rhythm down, but once I got it (in the middle of the 4th game) I was on a roll. Afterwards, we went to the ESPN Zone. The first game we played was the basketball game. You have 40 seconds to shoot as many baskets as possible and guess you whooped everyone. Oh yeah, that was me. I got 45 pts and the next closest one was Troy with 26. I won't mention what the little bros got. We also played the race horse game, Nascar, and the football throwing game. Man, was I sore the next day. Sunday was a day of relaxtion...and church...and games. We played Five Crowns (or as I like to call it, Triple Crowns), and Mormon Bridge. Monday, I had to work but the boys kept themselves busy with basketball, all the Playstation games the boys brought, and a little bit of yardwork. Hey, we couldn't have them come and not do a little something in the yard! Anywho, now it's back to our regular routine.

Living in Colorado

So for every negative thing about living in Colorado (13 inches of snow at the end of April) , there are 10 positive things that more than make up for it. This is one of them. We have beautiful views of the sunset now, especially from the top of the stairs and Robyn's room. The temperatures have also been relatively mild a couple of days this week, and at least down here in Castle Rock it cools off pretty well at night. Since we are out of the house most days, opening the windows at night and in the morning keeps the house cool enough that we don't use the AC that often. (Which is a good thing since we our watering our grass every day!)
Shane was in town for a "team-building" extravaganza and had a few hours on Wednesday before the big kickoff, so I brought him to see the house and yard. It was good seeing him and we appreciated the sleep-over offer. We cleaned all of the house on Saturday, and I think Lexie approved of our job on the stove.

Lastly, we will keep everyone updated on the grass. This is the front yard, which almost looks full. You will probably continue to see pictures of the front yard until the seed takes on some of the patches in the back.

Grassy Knoll

Well...we're not quite there yet but we're doing a lot better than last week. Can you see how much our grass has grown and it's only been 2 weeks! Monday, we decided that we'd give our gardening skills a whirl and planted strawberries, a raspberry, 2 cherry tomato plants, oregano, shallots, and some green onions. Who knows what fruit it will bring forth but we have our fingers crossed that they'll last the season. We also planted some daylilies and daisy plants Troy's co-worker was so kind to give us.

Like watching grass grow...

That pretty much sums up our week. Tracie started working full-time at the dentist's office (4 days a week, no Fridays, lucky!!) I sat at a desk all week, which my body greatly appreciated!! We also enjoyed watching our grass grow. Can you see a greenish hue to the dirt? One of Robyn's friends from OT school was in town to see John Mayer at Red Rocks, so she stayed with us on Friday night. We always enjoy having guests, and I think I talked her ear off during our tour of downtown. Tracie says I am starting to turn into her Dad as the knowledgeable, handsome, entertaining, engaging, appealing tour guide. (She actually just said tour guide, but I know what she really means. I mean we have been married for almost 3 years now!) Saturday we attempted to buy some more plants to fill up our garden area. The total haul was 2 scallion plants, 2 cherry tomato plants, and some oregano. At least it's a start!! Enjoy the grass and other pics of the landscaping from last week.

Day 6...And we're Done!!!!!!!Finito!!!!!!!!

After 12 tons of boulders, 14 tons of rock, 6 bags of soil prep, 8 trees, 1 shrub, 3 1/2 rolls of landscape fabric, 3 valve boxes, 27 sprinkler heads, lots of pipe, 2 wheelbarrows, 10 shovels, 3 rakes, a tractor, bobcat, trencher, and 6 wonderful, hard-working people, we are happy to announce...badadaaaa badadadadadadaaaaa...(if you've seen Zoolander)...we are done with our landscaping!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (For the time being) Yesterday was a day full of work. We started at 7:00 in the morning and didn't finish until 9:45 but hey, the pile of rocks is finally gone from our driveway. Now we just need to hope and pray that we don't kill our yard.





Lexie supervising. What a great job!

Day 5

Sprinklers aren't exciting, but picking trees are! We spent the morning looking for trees and we ended up with seven.
Tracie and Mom did most of the finding and had a plan for us at the Tree Farm. We got a peach tree, two apple trees, two clumps of aspen trees, two dwarf red leaf plums, and a maple shrub.
Waiting for the trees to be loaded.
Putting them in the back yard, the rest will go in tomorrow.

Day 4

What to report on today...Tracie went to work and the rest of the family worked on the sprinklers. There you have it folks. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more exciting.

Day 3

I don't know what is harder; all this landscaping work, or updating the blog daily. I don't know how you do it Kristin!
Here's the picture from the end of the day yesterday. The wall looks really good, and I'm glad it's done.
Today we got our gravel. Think we got enough? And to think we get to move it all one wheelbarrow at a time!!
The tractor has been a mainstay, as has this look on Brett's face.
More "supervising" :)
The view from the middle terrace. It's starting to come together. Tomorrow's project is the sprinklers, so the pictures won't be as cool.

Day 2

So I have to admit that since Tracie was working today, there aren't as many picutures today, sorry!! These first two pictures show how we left things on Monday.
The skid-steer that we rented yesterday afternoon was a life saver. We wouldn't have been able to have moved all that rock without it. Plus, it was a blast to drive!

Here are the shots from the end of the night. Sorry they are so dark. Stay tuned for more pics.We also got our tree, sprinkler box, and sprinkler clock today. At about 7 p.m. (hence why we don't have pictures). It only took a couple of months and a lot of phone calls to get it done, and it was just in time, since we are doing the sprinklers tomorrow.

Landscaping...Day 1

Our landscaping has finally begun. Troy's parents and brothers, Taylor and Brett, came to help us put in our landscaping. I can already say that I'm really excited to see the end result. Here are some pictures of our progress.

Before today...












During today...