The Art of Doing Nothing

It is officially winter break and we are really enjoying doing nothing. Paul and I have perfected the art of doing nothing in particular. We generally get really good at it during summer vacation, but we have taken the past 2 days to unwind from a really busy almost first half of the year.
Part of doing nothing for me involves a lot of pictures of...nothing in particular. Everyday things I guess you could say. So here are some everyday pictures from the last couple of days.
This is a picture of Maddy taking Rudolph off of the tree. Paul decided it would be a good idea to let her play with the stuffed Rudolph and then put him back on the Christmas tree. Luckily she succeeded without taking the tree down too.

These are the Christmas cookies I made for the cookie exchange tomorrow. I've tried to tell my friends at work that I don't NEED 5 dozen Christmas cookies, but I'm going to get them anyway.

Maddy enjoys sleeping on our bed and we will find her curled up on the fluffiest part. I'm washing our duvet cover and found Maddy curled up on the down comforter. So much for getting all the hair off the bed.

Winter

Yesterday morning we had a dense layer of fog the covered a majority of town. The fog left frost on all of the trees and grass. It was beautiful. The tree in our front yard has berries this time of year. We have no idea what kind of tree it is but it looked great covered with frost. I decided since I already had the camera in my car to take to work that I couldn't miss this opportunity to take a picture of our tree. I think I would have taken more time to take more pictures around the neighborhood, but I had to go to work. Here is one of the pictures I took:

The picture on the title of my blog is my latest attempt to use Adobe Photoshop. I'm slowly starting to learn how it works.

Snow

We have finally started getting some snow lately. This morning we woke up to about 3 inches of new snow. Maddy loves the snow and one of her favorite activities is trying to "catch" the snow that Paul shovels off of the deck. Here is what she looks like when she's done.

Christmas Parties

On Saturday we went to my staff Christmas party at Carinos. The food was pretty good but the room wasn't quite big enough.

After that Paul and I went to an ugly sweater party held by a friend of his. I guess we missed the competition and most of the people. Paul "found" his sweater in my give away pile a year or two ago. My sweatshirt was made by my mom in the early 90s. I'm not sure why it still fits but it does. It was very in at the time and it still isn't quite ugly enough for an "ugly sweater" party.


Here are some really great sweaters: http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/latest/ugly-christmas-sweaters-461208?src=syn&dom=yah_buzz&mag=tdg&ha=1

The rest of the story

The next day was suppose to be filled with trips to Walmart, Sams Club and Costco. Paul and I decided we could skip out of the shopping excitement so we planned a hike. We headed to Catalina State Park. We found a trail that was a large loop but we decided we should hike to the Romero pools and then turn around. The beginning of the trail was sandy and really had to walk on. Once we got up higher the view because better. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, about 70 and overcast. We reached the pools and decided to test out the water, which was freezing.

It was a neat little spot and I bet that it gets crowded during the summer. We grabbed Paul's Arizona favorite, EEGEEs on the way home and got ready to head out again.





I had read about places to go on a couple of travel books and they mentioned 4th Avenue. I assumed it would be something like Pearl Street and I was partly right. It was Pearl Street minus all of the nice stores. It was pretty hippie-ish and run down. I'm pretty surprised it was in the travel guide. We walked over to campus and found a better street to be on. We ended up have a drink at Gentle Ben's Brewery. They had beer named NCAAle and Beer Down. I tried a raspberry beer that was pretty sweet.
On our Thanksgiving we went to a movie. Paul's cousin is in the theatre business so we were able to go for free. Paul, his cousin, his brother-in-law and I went to Quantum of Solace and his brother, sister and the neices went to Madagascar. Once we got home it was pretty much time to eat. The food was great.

Tucson

For Thanksgiving Paul and I went to Tucson to spend some time with his family. His aunt and uncle and one of his cousins live there and there was talk as a family about spending a couple of holidays there. Paul has a very small extended family and all that was missing this year was a cousin and his sister and her two kids and husband.
We got there late on Saturday night and flew back on Thanksgiving. On Sunday we went to his cousin's house for dinner and were able to swim in their outdoor pool. I guess the termastat is in the alley and some kids turned up the heat. I'm sure it will cost them a fortune, but the water was probably about 85-90 degrees. The three older kids who are 4, 4 and 2 1/2 all got into the water with Paul, his brother-in-law and I.
On Monday the men, expect for Paul's dad, went golfing and the rest of us went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It is more like a zoo than a museum and is a pretty interesting place. It was fairly hot, probably 85 degrees out and the museum is all outdoors. This is the view from the entrance to the museum.

When we arrived we went and watched a Harris Hawk flight demonstration. It was interesting. The Harris Hawk lives in groups and hunt together so we saw about 4 of them that flew over our head while we learned more about them.

We then continued to wander around the museum looking at havelinas, coyotes, deer, mountain lions, and hummingbirds. We saw this lizard crawling on some rocks.

The kids were getting pretty tired and so were we. I ended up carrying Paul's cousin's son for the second half of our visit. We finally made it to the ice cream place. We hadn't eaten lunch and I was starving.
Paul's nephew had his first taste of ice cream, which helped his two teeth that were coming in.

The ice cream gave us enough energy to look at the Bighorn Sheep, otter, beavers and coati and head home.
Once we got home we had a delicious dinner of Mexican food. I know, I know, I don't normally like Mexican food but this wasn't too spicy and tasted great.
That's it for now...more to come later.

The Dog

Well Maddy had her first playdate in a very long time yesterday. We will be gone for a couple of days and have a co-worker watching her. They have a Black Lab and considered bringing her over to play with Maddy. Well Paul was in charge and I guess it went okay.
Maddy doesn't always have the best dog manners, which is why we no longer go to the dog park. She has a tendancy to try to be the Alpha Female, but really is the bottom of the pack. She gets a little scared when other dogs really want to play with her. Well, I guess Nell, the black lab, and Maddy got in a couple of spats which resulted in a little scratch on Maddy's nose. I guess in the end Maddy tried to play but Nell "didn't know how" as Paul put it and then Maddy whined and whined when Nell left.
I think she will be happy to see Saddie next week since she is her only friend who will play tug-o-war with her.

If you look really closely you can see a teeny, tiny scratch on the top left of her nose.

Music

Well it is that time of year when Christmas decorations appear EVERYWHERE. I'm still trying to restrain myself, but I'm very excited for Christmas music this year. I feel like it might be a bit too early still.

I'm also ready for some new music. If you have any songs you think I would like like me know.

Coaching

Well it is official, I'm back to being a coaches widow. Basketball try-outs started this week and the season will last at least until the end of February. I'm slowly remembering what it is like to have the evenings alone. I can watch whatever I want on TV and can use the computer without scheduling a time. :-)

I was recommended to be the JV swim coach for a local high school. I have often contemplated coaching again. I loved coaching but I still haven't quite figured out how that would work with my job. I'd be late for practices and I'd have to leave early for meets.

Really?!?

I spent today at a science training at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It started at 7:45 and I got there a little bit late. I've always been a horrible parker. I normally look for spaces far from other cars, ones that I can pull through or that are at an angle. I knew the parking lot would get crowded so I just picked a spot and parked. Knowing that I was probably not straight when I got out I made sure that I wasn't over the line...I wasn't and you could barely see the lines. So I was stunned when I got out of my class at 3:30 and found this on my windshield...


All I have to say is really?? Has our society really sunk to the level where perfect strangers will belittle others just because they parked unevenly? Oh, but what do I know I'm egotistical, domineering or simple minded.

Politics

Pauls one of the two guys in the race...he's dressed like Obama.

Bachelorette Party

I rarely get to go out with just the girls so I always am up for a bachelorette party. It is nice to just show up and have the night all planned out and scheduled. We stayed downtown at the Hyatt Convention Center. It is in a great location is a very nice hotel. I think they had a pool and hot tub but we didn't have time to check it out. Once we got dressed and ready we went up to the 27th floor of the Hyatt to the Peaks Lounge. This is a very cool bar with amazing views of the mountains and downtown. I would recommend visiting even if you don't stay at the hotel. They have open seating and some different cocktails. Apparently they are rarely busy...except for last Saturday night.

After drinks we headed to Larimer Square for dinner. We had reservations at Cru which is a wine bar. We sat downstairs in what looked like the tasting room. It was great because we had the downstairs to ourselves. We shared a couple bottles of wine, a cheese flight and each had a great meal. I've taken after my dad and of course took pictures of the food, wine and cheese. These are for you dad...

After we ate we went to Lime which is also in Larimer Square. They had great strawberry mojitos and lime tequila shots... half a lime filled with tequila. We then headed to Suite 200 for the rest of the night. We had a great time dancing and watching all the interesting people that were at the bar that night.

We had a great time and were able to enjoy our extra hour of sleep. We woke up and then had brunch at the Altitude restaurant in the Hyatt. They had an amazing buffet and we had 50% of our food with our stay.

Call me Jackie

This weekend we spent quite a bit of time with friends. On Saturday we went to the "out-laws" for a family pumpkin carving contest. We're lucky to be honorary members of the family and sometimes get to join in on the family fun. We competed in the contest two years ago and knew that the competition would be tough. I scrambled at the last minute to find some sort of inspiration on the internet and Paul just thought he'd wing it. After a great meal of chili, corn bread and tortillas we went to the garage to start carving. I decided to try something new and with some good insight from those around me I carved this pumpkin. Once everyone was done we voted and.... I was the winner. I got a lovely travelling "trophy" or goblin troll and the title of Jackie.

We finished out the night with more drinks, the card game golf, spoons (which was really forks since we didn't have spoons) and a visit from the sheriff's office. Apparentely the 9 of us that were still playing card games were too loud for the neighborhood at 2:00 am.

Here are a few more of the carvings. I have yet to really figure out how to take a non-blurring picture of pumpkins without a tripod.

Addiction

I've realized lately that I might have a couple of addictions. Nothing dangerous of course. Since we came back from Italy I have been developing a taste for coffee. I've always been a hot tea drinker especially when the weather gets colder and have always enjoyed frapaccinos in the summer. We even have a 4 cup coffee maker that had only been used by visitors until this school year. I have found that I crave coffee of some sort in the morning. More specifically a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks. I try to limit my visits to once a week since it so expensive. I've also been trying to figure out how to make GOOD coffee. I've tried little sampler packs, dairy creamer, half milk/half coffee, ect. I have yet to find anything I really love, but I still need to keep experimenting.

I have also come to realize I'm addicted to magazines. I LOVE to get a new magazine in the mail and I have to avoid the magazine aisle at the grocery store. I don't know if I like them so much because you can just sit and read some of it and not have to read the whole thing or because they're full of interesting information. I'm an equal opportunity magazine reader. I currently have current issues of Simple Scrapbooks, Runner's World, National Geographic Adventure, Everyday with Rachel Ray, Oprah, Domino, Creating Keepsakes, and Real Simple. Of course I could have found more that I'd like to read if given more time and money and if I didn't feel so guilty about the paper it takes to produce all the magazines. I often enjoy reading Cosmo, Women's Health, Time, Marie Claire, Martha Stewart Living, ect. I love to read different magazines that our friends have at their houses. I guess I just like all the random information you can find inside the cover of a magazine. That and unwinding after a crazy day on the couch with a short read. The hard part is which to buy subscriptions to.

Ha ha

Relaxing Weekend

Well as the rest of the family has done I've caved in and started a blog. We'll see how it goes. Conferences are coming up and so is the end of the quarter. I as usual have a ton to grade so that means I was able to get a lot of other things done around the house, while I procrastinate. I took some time to get caught up on my favorite comic "One Big Happy". I've gotten a couple of new scrapbooking magazines lately and was feeling inspired to make a page of things I'm thankful for. I started taking pictures this morning and of course Maddy got herself into all of them. I guess she doesn't want me to forget I'm thankful for her too.