Christmas Tree oh Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas tree last night. We wanted to go cut one down, but all of the permits were sold out. We also heard that those trees are all a little puny. We wanted a nice looking tree so we headed to Lowe's. ;) We picked the first tree we saw and headed home. The whole tree fit in my Mazda! Jackson also decorated the outside of the condo and it is BRIGHT! He has lights EVERYWHERE. Yes, he is THAT guy. ;) Then he told me that I overdecorated the tree. Pssh. Like a tree can have too much red or silver. NEVER.

It is going to be a lazy Sunday here in Parker, CO. We had planned to go down to Colorado Springs this morning for church (at that mega church New Life where the shooting was last December-that place is HUUUUUGE) and hiking near Pike's Peak, but the snow stopped us in our tracks. Then I accidently overslept and missed church here. Oops. We are now planning on a day of football and studying as I have my final tomorrow evening.

MacKenzie thinking about attacking Santa...MacKenzie attacking Santa. Yay! ;) Just kidding, Susie. She's looking forward to her new bandannas. Mac has already played in the snow a ton and is looking forward to more snowball fights with Dad! :)

SNOW!!!

MacKenzie playing with Mommy in the snow!

Jackson was so excited for the big snow! It is really coming down out there right now. It is fun...for now. ;)

Today Jackson only had to work 1/2 of the day so we spent the afternoon apartment shopping. We are thinking of moving closer to our jobs and to school. The commute and leaving Mac in her cage for so long each day is getting old. We found some nice places, but we still have to break our lease here. Eek.

We went to the Macaroni Grill for dinner. Jackson had to send his dinner back! :( It was the greasiest mess of an entree we'd ever seen. Not good. We ended up sharing a meal which was probably for the best anyway. Then we ran some errands before the snow hit. Lucky for us we have turkey for years should we be trapped in the condo. ;)

We did NOT Christmas shop today as we were not really looking for any great deals on electronics. (It seems that stores lure you in with electronics these days.) I did read where a Wal-mart worker was killed today by people running him over. Yes, that is the state of our world. I was disgusted.

We need gift ideas from the Coomes family, please. :)

We are not sure what tomorrow will bring as we do not know if the snow will stick or not. Hmm.

Turkey!

Jackson with our 20 pound turkey! It looks great. It better taste great because Jackson is going to be eating this for DAYS!!! ;)

This is MacKenzie helping her father with turkey leftovers. (Notice the cute snowman plate, thanks Kathi!) Mac has decided that this was her favorite holiday this year. After she finished her snack we took her for a 2 mile walk. She loved that! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

This is Jackson about to eat a pumpkin pie that I, Jenna Petefish, cooked for him. Now if that is not love I do not know what is. Our whole home STINKS! (I think most of you know how much I hate pumpkin, cinnamon and any related spices...their color and their smell just disgust me.) Anyway, Jackson enjoyed his pie and that is all that matters. I feel bad that he doesn't get to be at home with his momma on Thanksgiving so I made him a pie. :)

We are very thankful this year. We have a great little family here in Parker and loved ones sprinkled from Evansville to Indy to Marion from Stuart, Fl to Chicago from San Francisco to Radford, VA. We are so glad that each one of you are in our lives. We are very blessed.

Have a great day everyone and know that we love you!

Broken Egg

Funny story...

This morning Jackson and I were getting ready for work and he decides he wants an egg sandwich. I told him just to stop by McDonald's on the way into the office, but he insisted that he had time to make one here at home. As I am pouring my cereal into my bowl and giving MacKenzie her share of my banana, Jackson drops an egg. No big deal as I just bought a dozen. After he cleans up that mess he gets another 2 eggs out and DROPS ANOTHER EGG! No kidding. 2 eggs dropped in 2 minutes. (It made me think of one of my favorite breakfast restaurants: The Broken Egg. It wasn't that great, but it is in Siesta Key. I LOVE that place!) My poor kitchen is chalked full of salmonellae now. :( After he finished the madness that was his egg sandwich making he went to iron his shirt and burned it! I had never seen this happen before either. Quite the morning for Mr. Petefish. (The rest of his day turned out much better! Thankfully.)

I went to class tonight and it was canceled! The nerve! I wanted to show my face again before the final. (The class has been such a review that I have had a hard time finding time to go..oops!) The final is on Monday so I have started to study. I am just ready for this quarter to be over and to actually have good classes in January!

In other news, we have decided to hike Pike's Peak for Jackson's *gasp* 32nd birthday this May. His actual birthday is on a Tuesday so we will be bumping it to May 9, 2009. It should take us about 8 hours to do the 12.3 mile hike. Anyone is welcome to join us. The weekend before we will be in Indiana for the mini marathon. We figure that will be a good warm up for climbing a 14,110 foot mountain. Sweet. :)

MacKenzie got so into playing ball tonight that she did not want to stop. I got in the shower and she dropped the ball in the tub with me. I was shaving my legs so I was in no position to grab the ball. She paced next to the shower for a few minutes and then gave up on me. She jumped in herself, grabbed the ball , jumped back out and shot me a warning look. It was pretty hilarious! She loves ball!!

Monday, Monday, Monday

Tonight we had our dear friend Meg over for dinner. We had chicken parmesan with pasta and green beans. We had "birthday brownies" for dessert (I really made them for a pregnant lady at Jackson's office who has been craving chocolate, but I figured she could share with us!) It is always nice to have Meg over. She got to see all of my Christmas decor (minus the big tree that we have not cut down yet!) and play ball with MacKenzie. Lucky gal. ;) I have been excited for someone besides Jackson to see our Christmas setup. Jackson's friend David is coming in a few weeks, but guys don't notice your Crate & Barrel decor. ;) 

December 6th we are hoping Meg will join us at the Christmas light parade in downtown Denver. She is starting some new chemo here soon and she is not sure how it will make her feel. As always, if you could keep her on your prayer list that would be great. She looks great! I would never guess that she was in the middle of nasty chemo. She is just as wonderful as ever!! 

I tivo'ed the IU game for Jackson today...how sad. Notre Dame killed them. GRR. It is going to be a long year as an IU fan.  

It was a gorgeous day here in Parker. I took MacKenzie for a walk without my jacket- only a t-shirt. It was so nice. We walked a brisk mile and then I headed for the grocery. Someone remind me to never go near a grocery store around Thanksgiving again. Cinnamon city. :( The whole place stunk! Gross. 

Jackson has a short week at work this week and we are pretty excited for that. Wednesday we intend to hike around at Red Rocks as the weather is supposed to be great. Thanksgiving day's weather is looking iffy so we may just do a movie! 

Bald Mountain

This my favorite picture ever of MacKenzie- what a little mountain dog! She's just taking in the view with her dirty paws and Colts bandanna. (She seems to be a good luck charm for the Colts as they pulled out a very exciting W this evening! GO COLTS!) I just couldn't resist snapping a pic! :)
At the top of the little mountain that we climbed today there was a bench. One needed a bench as it was so windy that little MacKenzie was getting whipped all around (that is why it looks like I am choking her- I'm not, she was just blowing a bit!).

This is the view from the top. Since the mountain is only 5 miles out of Boulder we had a lovely view of both Boulder and downtown Denver. It was a gorgeous day here!

After the hike we went into Boulder's Pearl Street Mall area. It is a really cute promenade shopping district with both chain and non-chain stores. We got a few Christmas gifts and an ornament for ourselves before we headed out. The downside about the Pearl Street area is that they do not allow dogs. I know. Disgusting. Typical Liberals. (I'm just kidding, calm down.) While we were shopping we saw the oddest thing: a woman asking a store owner to use the telephone. Jackson and I were so confused. Borrow a phone? Doesn't she have a cell phone? Who doesn't have a cell phone in Boulder (I call it the cold Palm Beach!)?? The shop owner even stumbled around a bit like he hadn't heard a question like that in a long time. After she promised it was a local call he handed the phone to her. So weird. It was really funny, we were all totally just shocked by the question. (She had just lost the group she was with and needed to phone one of them to see where they were. Still...no cell phone lady? Come on!)

We went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. It was so good! The restaurant was all but empty since the Broncos' game had not ended yet. We enjoyed our meal then headed back towards Parker...just in time for the game to end and to sit in traffic! It was not too bad, but we definitely did not time things well!

We had a great Colorado weekend! :)

P.S. We are going to start making Christmas cookies soon...could we please get the Leena (spelling?) cookie recipe? Also the stuffing recipe. Thanks, Susie. :)

A day in Denver

Thanks for making the switch to the new blog! :)

We had intended to go to Boulder today to hang out, but we got a little lazy. We decided to hang out in Denver instead.

This is a picture of Washington Park- a very lovely park in the middle of Denver. It is really close to downtown, my school and the ritzy Cherry Creek shopping area. We love Wash Park! The homes that are right on the park go for 700k+ because the park is so wonderful. They have 3 different paths so that bikers and rollerbladers don't run over walkers. They have a dirt path for those runners who shun concrete. There are always tons of people there walking around, playing tennis, playing volleyball or selling puppies! We would LOVE to live near Wash Park as it is really what living in Denver is all about. MacKenzie enjoyed all of the dogs. There were a ton of dogs! (Please notice her Thanksgiving bandanna- thanks Grammy! She got tons of compliments on being so festive.)After we walked in the park we headed to dinner at the Cherry Cricket. It is our favorite non-chain restaurant in Denver. It is really a bar that just has great food. It is such a misfit in the Cherry Creek shopping district as it is nestled in with a Saks and Neiman Marcus! :) After dinner we walked Mac around the shopping area. She tried to eat a pigeon- causing her mother to scream like a crazy woman because a.) I am deathly afraid of birds those dirty, nasty things b.) she thought it was a toy and really made it mad. The people in Crate & Barrel got quite a show of a small dog attacking a bird while its mother flipped out and its father laughed at both. Hmm. After all of the excitement we took Mac to the dog bakery for a quick treat. She loves that place.

We have not done much else today. We organized the garage. Yay! ;) Tomorrow after church we are headed to Boulder to do some hiking. On the way home we intend to stop at a Cracker Barrel for dinner. Yum! :)

New address

We changed the address to keep random people from posting comments. Please do not link to our blog from yours.
Thank you.

Decorating for Christmas!!

This year our holidays are a little mixed up. We moved Thanksgiving up by 2 weeks so it is already over for us. I decided to decorate for Christmas today since I will not be home Dec 12-15 or 24-29. That's a lot of Christmas decor time to miss! (Don't cry for me though, I'm certain Palm Beach with Danielle and NYC with Jackson will be much cooler than looking at my Christmas decor around the condo!! :))

MacKenzie is helping me to get in the Christmas mood. She has a santa doll that we kept at Susie's last year since Susie actually likes Santa and I don't. Since Mac won't be home this year we brought santa home to her. She has not let him leave her side. I decided he must smell like Grammy's house because surely any dog of mine wouldn't like santa this much!! ;)

Ok, I feel the need to explain my disdain for santa. Growing up we were not allowed to believe. I don't know how much of it was Kylie was unwilling to believe and ruined it for her little sister (me!) and how much of it was my mom thinking that santa distracted from the real meaning of Christmas. Either way, I do not ever remember believing that some fat dude made it to every home on one night to bring gifts. I think I am far too logical for that mess. (If you, dear reader, are like most people your first concern is for our future children. Are you saying that don't get to believe? Good question. It is quite the controversy whenever we discuss it. I say NO! Jackson thinks it is all in good fun. I think it is teaching kids that lying is ok as long as everyone is doing it. For now I avoid the topic and when Kate/Carter is old enough to believe I am certain there will be an ugly fight ;)) Anyway, Deb never decorated with santa and I never gave him much thought until I met Jackson. Jackson's family really digs the jolly old man. Susie has the creepy little santa that is like 100 years old that sits under the tree. She collects santas. She LOVES santa. (I will admit that "Mrs. Claus" gives some excellent girly presents!!) Isn't it funny how our 2 families are so different? I go along with the santa talk at Susie's because I love her and Gracie (whom I hope stops believing this year--???). Susie even gave me my first and only santa statue. I was a bit upset to discover some santas while trying to help my mom pack this last weekend. TRAITOR. (Kind of like we never got to do Halloween and I found a costume of her's from last year!!) Anyway, there is my convoluted story about why I don't love santa. It really bothers some people. (Susie! Jackson!)

We are decorated our condo's exterior! I am really excited because we've never done much of that before. We also are getting a permit to cut down our own Christmas tree. When we finish with it, we return it and they make it mulch! (I don't think we get to keep the mulch which is fine since the HOA does landscaping here.) We are pretty excited for this adventure! :)

Until next time- keep to NYC Christmas ideas coming!

NYC at Christmas

We're headed to New York City at Christmas time this year. We will be there from Dec 24-27 (updated dates since our family Christmas has been cut short) and we are looking for input on what to do.

We will be going to Rock. Center to see the tree and perhaps ice skate

We will be taking a walk in central park

We will be meeting some friends for lunch (hopefully at Serendipity 3's- love that place)

We will be walking to store window displays to see their glory

We will be going down to Wall Street (it is like a trip to Mecca for those of us in the financial industry!)

We are toying with the idea of seeing the Rockettes...

Does anyone else have some great idea on things to do? I will be shopping there, too. Naturally. 

We would really like to see a choir sing carols and such on Christmas Eve but we're not sure where to find that either

Any ideas are welcome! :)

Strange day

With all of our issues with the condo right now, I decided to stay home today so that I could be here when the landlord was. He was sooo rude. My favorite shirt was stuck and ruined and he had the nerve to tell me that it was too fancy to be washed in a standard washer. WHAT?! Who tells me how to wash my clothes? I was so annoyed. Then he went into the attic to see if our furnace was gas- it is. He knocked down insulation and didn't pick it up. I had just vacuumed. UGH! He finally left. GRR.

Then I take MacKenzie out to pee. A lady riding her bike on the trail stops and says, "your dog pees here too often. I paid more to be back in this part of the neighborhood and I don't want brown grass all of the time." I assured her that Mac peed no more than any other dogs and that we also paid to live her. I let her know that single family homes were built each day and has private yards. I was so mad. What a witch. Mac will certainly be peeing there each time we go out now. Take that!

Then my doorbell rings and it is a milkman. Seriously?! He has me try his fancy milk and gives me a free half gallon. I can hardly contain my excitement. ;) How random. I highly doubt that I convert to having my milk delivered.

Ugh, what a weird day. I'm like beyond annoyed at the world right now so I think I might nap!

Happy Anniversary, Jackson.

STUCK!!

Sigh. How annoying. We come home from a trip and on my first load of laundry the washer eats my FAVORITE shirt! It is so stuck. I have tried everything. I ended up sending an photo of it as an SOS message to our landlord, Kevin. Kevin is on our list right now as he told us the place was all electric and we just got a $85 gas bill. LIAR! So now he needs to get my washer fixed. I have laundry just waiting next to it to be cleaned. MacKenzie will have to sleep in a dirty bed tonight. :( Poor baby. She won't be pleased.

In other news, we got presents in the mail again! YAY! Happy anniversary to us! Free food- my favorite kind! :) My Dad and step-mom sent us a nice card, Qdoba money and Cracker Barrel gift cards. Thank you so much! :)

I met Jackson's external counterpart today. I expected a fat, old Mexican dude. He was a middle-aged, short, thin, white-haired Italian man. Hmm. Good thing it was dark and he couldn't see my surprise! He makes Jackson look like a giant.

We had a lovely dinner at Buca this evening. Yum! And now we're not eating for days after having so much food at home and here. Back to the gym tomorrow!

Recap of home

The IU game was great! The Hoosiers won. :) Go team. We love sitting in those seats and feared we wouldn't make it to any IU games this year. We are happy that we did.

Sunday we went to our church, Grace, to see the new sanctuary that opened 2 weeks after we left. It was really nice. It made the venue feel much more intimate than it really was. We were quite impressed. We then met up with Heidi, Andrew and Laura for lunch at McAlister's. YUM! We even ran into Gretchen and Gerald there so we enjoyed their kids' antics. So fun!! :) We hung out at the Porterfield's place for a bit then it was time to head to Upland for "Thanksgiving." Shannon stopped by and had appetizers with me. Then we head the real meal: turkey, dressing, potatoes, green bean casserole and apple salad. It was delicious. After that we tried to help my parents pack, but since they seemed to not need us we headed to Ivanhoe's for dessert with Christina! We had a nice time catching up with her and hearing about her wedding plans. Poor Susie even got teased quite a bit about her boyfriend! :) We had a nice time and really enjoyed getting to see everyone! Thank you!

Susie had a few things she needed done around her place so Sunday night we came back to Indy and busted our humps for a little bit. She's doing much better since the surgery, but it still quite restricted in what she can do (i.e. no taking to trash out...Rose Mary! GRR) We then retired because our flight was at 7- so early!

We got to the new aiport without any problems. ;) I cannot say the same for the people who were just so confused and poking along 70 at like 5 mph! GRR! We had Qdoba for breakfast- it was so good. We had never tried to before. They make mini burritos in the morning and I wish they did that all of the time. YUM! Security is really weird at the new airport because they break you up by how often you fly. We fly all of the time so we got a fast line. It was really strange. I really, really hate the Clear service that allows people to cut into security. I seriously told a lady today that she could not cut me again for one of her customers. She tried to fight with me- she clearly had not met me on too little sleep before. I won and she moved to the back of the line. HA! Anyway, our flight was not full at all so we had a row to ourselves. Jackson and I slept most of the way back to Denver. It was lovely. We swung into a Starbucks to poor Jackson some caffeine (he had a FULL day today at his office on like 4 hours of real sleep!) so that he could make it through the day. I dropped him at the office and headed to get MacKenzie. She is soo tired from camp! She had to take a shower as she always stinks when she gets home, but she has been snoozing since.

Tonight we're going to dinner to celebrate our 2nd anniversay that is tomorrow, but I have class in the evening. I better go get myself around as I've spent the day doing laundry, unpacking and settling back into our place here in Parker.

Back home again in Indiana :)

We made it home to Indiana! The flight was...interesting. Jackson was next to a BIG dude who didn't feel the need to stay in his own seat. Jackson wanted to charge him for sharing seats! LOL!! Other than that the flight was uneventful- just how I like a flight. Indy's new airport is simply amazing!! I LOVED it! (Jackson thought it was too much- I disagree.) We ate at Harry & Izzy's (a sister restaurant to St. Elmo's) before we headed out to Susie's the night. We had their famous shrimp cocktail of course, yum! It was a fabulous meal. 

We chatted with Susie for a few hours then headed to bed. Jackson tossed and turned all night, keeping me awake in the process. Someone remind me why married people have to share a bed? GRR. He finally went downstairs to toss so I could have 2 hours of sleep. Grr again. I got up bright and early to come to Upland (God's country) to spend the day with my Mom. I have a video of Madison and Macy's reactions to my homecoming that I'll post when we get back to Denver. Mom and I went to Cracker Barrel (of course) for breakfast- yum again. Then we went into Auto Pros to visit Duckie. It is a cold and rainy day in Indiana. Very November like. I got my ears candled this morning, too. If you have never had this done I highly recommend it. It feels really good and gets you all cleaned out! Lovely! ;)

Now I am helping my Mom pack up her office and some of my leftover memorabilia from high school. Tear. I'm getting so old. Back to my quarter life crisis mode. 

We're headed to an IU game tonight- front row seats (thanks again, Uncle Duane!!) and all. We're pretty excited to be at Assembly Hall again. Go HOOSIERS!!

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Jackson walked outside this morning to let MacKenzie do her morning business and was only half awake when he realized his feet were really cold! He looked around and saw that we'd had our FIRST SNOW of the season. 11/14/08. I am calling it a little early. I am not eager to drive in the snow (this was only 2 inches so not that bad). MacKenzie loves playing in the first few snows, but soon she'll get sick of it and refuse to pee on it. That's always fun!

We head to Indiana this afternoon. We'll be dropping MacKenzie off at Camp Bow Wow, of course. I'll put the link up again so you can check on her. http://www.campbowwow.com/us/co/parker/CamperCams/tabid/1143/Default.aspx

Have a GREAT weekend! :)

Quarter life crisis

Lately I have been feeling particularly confused about what I want to do with my life. I go to work and do accounting...it nearly puts me to sleep. I keep thinking that I do not do anything the helps anyone. I'm just looking to do something that I can be proud of. I keep looking at nursing for some reason. That would take a lot for me since I hate science classes and I am super squeamish. I cannot help but think that nursing would be more conducive to having children. No? The whole 3 shifts a week (I know they're really long shifts) seems like it would leave a nice amount of time to spend with our future children. I was reading the blog of an ER nurse today and I was so inspired. Anyway, I am having a quarter life crisis. I am knocking on 25's door (in 7 months) and I still have not done anything significant. Perhaps I should go to Kenya for a mission trip. I have always wanted to go to Africa. Ugh. I am just so lost. I'd appreciate your prayers for guidance. 

I love technology!

I love technology. I love facebook and blogger for allowing me to keep up with all that is going on in the live's of people I love. I noticed the other day on facebook that one of my many former college roommates was taking "vacation" time to study for an exam. An exam?! She's back in school? I didn't know that. So I quickly write on Ms. Jenna Hess' wall to see what gives. Turns out the showoff is working full-time and taking a class at Northwestern! Psh! I was really excited for her. I am still getting over the shock that she is an accountant, too. Who would have ever guessed that we'd both be number crunchers?! (You'd find it a lot more odd if you ever met Jenna, she's a TRIP!) Anyway, I love knowing what is going on with her. I cannot imagine being from a time without the internet. Do you know that people used to have to go to the library to do research? Can you even imagine?! (I do still have one prof who swears the internet will die and makes us go to the library- ugh!)

I love knowing the my friend Megan (the Marine wife from my previous post) is getting to go to Virginia tomorrow to spend a few weeks with her parents before Kyle comes home from deployment. Call me nosy, but I like to know what is going on.

I like seeing pictures of my friends from high school who now have babies (I cannot imagine!) and all of that fun stuff. I also like to see photos from my single friends who still think they're in college. ;) I just love it. Hearing from Jenna the other day made my week! Isn't it funny how that works?

In other exciting news, my Uncle Duane has come through and gotten Jackson and I front row seats to the IU game on Saturday. Look out, Assembly Hall, here we come in our Crean & Crimson t-shirts! :) I am pretty excited! We LOVE IU basketball. The ticket sales this year have dropped a ton and I blame that on fair-weather fans. If you can't love 'em when they're losing get off the boat people! And of course the tickets become more readily available and cheaper when I leave the state. GRR. End of rant. :)

Jackson is so excited to head home. It is really quite cute. I haven't let myself get excited as my parents are really too busy with their move to hang out with us much.

The verdict from the plasma comments: no go. It was my idea to make a little extra cash around the holidays, but Jackson hates needles and their hours don't work with his work schedule. I am certainly not hanging out with the alkis and homeless people alone. (No offense to alkis or homeless people, I have a real heart for you, but one cannot be too careful.) I guess I'll think of another way to make some cash! Ideas? :)

Veterans Day

Above is a photo of my dear friend Megan's husband Kyle and his Platoon's officers and staff. Kyle is the 3rd from the left. He's such a handsome Marine. :) I got the chance to hang with Megan and Kyle for nearing a week in May and it was so much fun. Kyle let me try on his vest (it was soo heavy!) and helmet. I looked pretty tough. ;) I have such a deep respect for the sacrifices that our military men and women (and their spouses and families) make. I know firsthand that uprooting yourself from home is not the most fun thing to do, yet they are forced to move quite often. A lot of my friends from high school have served and I am so proud of them. My grandpa, dad and Jackson's father all spent their time serving this great country, too. I appreciate their efforts so much. Thank you to all of our veterans. God Bless America. :)

Plasma

Jackson and I have been arguing about whether or not donating plasma is a good idea. I won't tell you which one of us wants to donate so that you don't pick sides based solely on the person. :) I would like to know if anyone has heard anything negative or positive about donating plasma. It generates an extra $60 a week in income per person, but has one of us a little worried. The donation center seems to be in a shaky part of town, but we feel certain that it is clean inside. Thank you in advance for your thoughts!

Errands galore!!

Today we ran errands for most of the day. Since it is Saturday it was also laundry day. Yippee. Jackson made me laugh all day today. We went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to grab a few Christmas presents (we are trying to stock up on presents now so that we can store them at Susie's place when we go home next weekend--she just LOVES it when we store things at her place ;)) and I saw a new throw blanket that I wanted. (I have a real issue with shopping for myself during the Christmas season-oops.) The color that I wanted, gray, was on the top shelve- which is really high at BB&B- so Jackson took another blanket and tossed it up to the top shelve about 4 times to knock a gray blanket loose for me. Some old ladies watched him, horried. I died laughing. He's creative! :) We also picked up this giant bone for Addie (pictured above). MacKenzie pulled it out of the bag thinking it was for her. As you can see, it is bigger than she is! She's not happy that it is not for her. :/ As we were leaving BB&B with 3 very small stocking stuffer type presents I excited exclaimed, "yay! I have some of my Christmas shopping finished already!!" to which Jackson looked at me and said, "Oh yeah, Deb, Kathi, Susie here you go-Merry Christmas we got you each a $10 gift." I don't know why this cracked me up so much, but it took a solid 10 minutes for me to catch my breath. I seem to have taken after my mother and married a smartass! He claims that this is better than being a dumbass. I agree. :)

We joined the gym today. I'm hitting the Pilates class on Monday. It should be really fun. They also have a lawncare class that Jackson is just dying to attend. He wanted to teach it, but it is taught by a master gardener. Sadly he has missed this year's sessions and will have to learn about lawns in the spring. Tear. ;)

We also redecorated our living room this weekend. I have had the same decor for over 3 years and I just wanted a little change. We are keeping all of our other things (don't freak out, Mom!) so that when I am no longer sick of them they can make a comeback. Pottery Barn was having a great pillow sale so the new pillows inspired the whole room. We got a new lamp shade, a new "P" candle, another newspaper bin for extra pillows, a new clock and switched out the rug.

An overview. MacKenzie wanted to be in the photo.

A close up of the inspiration pillow and a shot of the couch (notice the new throw blanket to the left!) We actually stuffed the pillows ourselves because Pottery Barn charges $18 for inserts. CRAZY! We got stuffing for $5 per pillow at Hobby Lobby. :)

Our new lamp shade, "P" Candle, and pillow bin made of recycled newspaper (it matches Mac's new toy bin!)

The barrel chairs outfitted with their new pillows, the new clock and Mac's toy bin.

I'm very pleased with the new look. It was high time for a little change!

Date night

Jackson and I are going to be home next weekend and super busy so we decided to celebrate our anniversary a wee bit early tonight. I picked Jackson up from work and presented him with his presents. He got some new Nike Plus Shox (for gym use only) and a new North Face jacket (I bought myself a new one too...oops!). We went to Littleton for dinner at Buca di Beppo. It has become our anniversary tradition. Their food is so wonderful. And they messed up our order so we have food for tomorrow, too! Excellent! :) We did a little shopping at Pottery Barn (they're having a great pillow sale!) and William Sonoma. I did get one Christmas gift knocked out. Thank you very much. :) Then we headed to the light rail to ride downtown to the Pepsi Center to watch the ol' Denver Nuggets (thanks for the free passes, Meg!! Aren't we just green as can be?). The Pepsi Center is beautiful (we prefer Assembly Hall) and it was a really packed house. We don't really love the NBA so we only stayed until half-time. It was free lift ticket night (our real reason for going) so Jackson will now be sitting pretty on some mountain soon. :) For the record Denver did magically pull out a win, but the game was a real snoozer. The light rail is really nice and clean. I would never ride it alone or anything, but with Jackson it was a fine time. MacKenzie finished her birthday cake tonight and played a few rounds of ball- her favorite. We are going to sleep in tomorrow, yay! Then we're headed to join the Parker Receration center since the weather has gotten cold and walks outside are no longer as exciting. I'd like to issue a big "BOO" to winter.
Good night!

MacKenzie turns 2!

MacKenzie licking her licks at the sight of her birthday cake! (She got to have a birthday week since Jackson and I are going to be gone all evening at the Nuggets game.)

An upclose photo of her cake- yum! ;)

And now a trip down memory lane...

This photo was taken right after my parents gave us MacKenzie. I will never forget pulling up to their house and wondering why the heck my crazy Mom had her camera in my face! I was so distracted with her weirdness that I missed MacKenzie walking out into the kitchen and under my feet. A few minutes later when I finally saw her, this was my face. :) I love it, my Mom captured my reaction perfectly.

MacKenzie loves the over-sized chair at Grammy's house. I love this picture of Mac and Jack bonding.

As most of you know, MacKenzie loves to play ball. I blame Madison for this since she gave MacKenzie her first toy: a ball. I love this picture!!

MacKenzie was a little afraid of the convertible so for the few days I had my Volvo back after the accident, she wore a seatbelt. Isn't she so cute?! :)

I took this photo one day at a stop light. She was looking at me funny and I thought it was cute.MacKenzie is awfully tough on toys so Grammy is always sewing them up. We snapped this photo because it looked like MacKenzie was helping Grammy sew. She watched the entire process! She has caught on that Grammy can't sew her things as easily now the we live 9,482,429 miles away from home (I know that's an exaggeration) and has been easier on her toys. Whew. Mommy really didn't want to learn to sew!

And finally, my favorite photo ever of MacKenzie. She dressed up for a birthday card photo so today we'll use it for her. Happy 2nd birthday, MacKenzie. We love you very much!

Doe, a deer, a female deer

This morning I took MacKenzie out to do her businesses and this was my view: DEER! I LOVE it when we see deer! (In their own habitat and NOT on the roads!) There were actually 6 does (I checked and that is the plural version of doe) and 1 buck, but I couldn't get all of them in the picture as I only had my iPhone's camera to work with at the time. I'm so glad that we picked to live on a nature trail. It is so lovely. Jackson heard the coyotes howling last night and said they sounded mad...they must have been on team elephant. ;)

I started my job yesterday. Nothing too exciting. I did some cost basis information for an S-Corp (thanks to Wikipedia, whew! I hadn't done that kind of basis in YEARS!) and then assigned tax codes to a company's books so that their information would flow into the tax return correctly. I had never done this before so my new boss, Gregg, had to sit with me for like an hour. Are you as excited as I am? Ugh. I almost died of boredom. No one that works there is my age. Sigh. At least this kind of work is only around until January then it is TAX TIME! YAY! Well, I'm off to my first ever "webinar" at my job for some software they're about to purchase. Then I have millions of errands to run before we have dinner at our favorite Denver joint, The Cherry Cricket (http://www.cherrycricket.com/), with our friend Meg. :)

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

In my college speech class I had to read a book to class. I chose to read, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" because it is one of my all time favorites. Today, I am Alexander. I firmly believe in respect for those who lead our country so this will be the only time that I express how I really feel. After this, I promise to myself to respect our leader. I hate what America has chosen for her future. End of rant. I will now sulk into a chocolate chip cookie. Perhaps I'll even move to Australia! (That only makes sense if you have read the book.)

I started my new job today. I'll post about that later. I am busy sulking.

Grocery

At our grocery store the clerk empties your cart and each line has their own bagger. It is really kind of fancy. (They also have self-check lines, but why do it yourself when it costs to same to let someone else do it?!) Anyway, I was waiting in line to check out behind a handsome young man who was clearly making dinner for a date (on a Monday? I digress.) that evening. He had salmon, candle and flowers. Collective aww. Anyway, the bagger notices his clear plan for the evening and says, "Looks like you've got a date tonight. How sweet to cook dinner. This stuff isn't cheap!" just as she finished speaking the clerk pulls a HUGE box of condoms from the young man's cart and announces, "I think he has plans to get a return on his investment!" I wanted to die! The poor guy was mortified. I pretended to be engrossed in the magazine I had grabbed, but I was laughing so hard. He quickly left and the girls and I laughed at the timing of their observations. Classic, ladies, classic.

Lonely

MacKenzie is getting her haircut this morning. This place sure is quiet without her!

Update: MacKenzie is back and looking very cute for her birthday this week. :)

The view from the top

We made it! :) Next we want to hike this bad boy!

This is the view from the top. It honested looked like it does from an airplane- we were that freakin' high. Ugh. Terrifying. Very pretty, though. :)

Our ride to the top. A big, red cog railway train! We were seated with a nice, young couple. The girl was studying at Focus on the Family. Interesting.

Jackson wanted to get just a bit higher so he stood on a rock. ;) If you look closely you'll see big-horned sheep. They pretty much promise you'll see them on the train trip. They were not there on the way up the mountain, only the way down. We decided that they cage them and release them right before the train comes! :)
And a picture of MacKenzie because she's just so darned cute.

Pike's Peak

Above is a photo of what we're doing this morning- taking a cog railway train to the top of Pike's Peak! YAY! :) We're also going to do a bit of hiking around the mountains. Then we're having lunch at Cracker Barrel. Could one ask for a better day? I think not.

HAPPY WEEKEND! :)