Slideshow: The Kitties

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Family

We are finally home & settled back in to our routine after our trip to Oregon. Unfortunately, we are both sick and no amount of medicine seems to be helping! Hopefully we'll back to normal in another couple of days. Some highlights of our trip:

The "grown ups" at Bella Union.

The germ monster! Good thing he's such a cutie pie!! Henry, you were such a busy boy with school & skiing & friends that we didn't get a photo. Sorry buddy, but thanks for fitting us into your schedule a little! : )

At the California redwoods....in the rain! We had a great day trip even with the rain. We always love spending time with mom & dad Jones.

I think this is Mt Hood. Someone was reading the entire flight so I had to entertain myself taking photos out the window. Not bad, considering!

We had great time with family and friends. Of course we were also glad to get home and see our 'babies'. They made it clear that they were all happy to see us too! Speaking of those crazies, hilarious photos & video to come soon!

2010, Day 1

With 2009 now officially behind us, its time for some self-evaluation and overall improvements for the new year. I suppose given the forum, numero uno should be to keep up with the blog! Well, it is January and I haven't posted since August....yes, I think I can certainly improve on that consistency!

Numero dos: in short, dress better. I've decided that if I want to be treated as a professional and to be respected and promoted as such, then I need to make sure that I always dress as such. It's so easy to dress a little too comfortable, too often. So, I am making a very conscious effort to buy and wear clothes with this in mind. Sloppy clothes and casual shoes aren't going to get me anywhere, so they are a thing of the past!

Numero tres: continue to exercise on a regular basis and work to achieve and maintain my goal weight of $#* (I can't reveal all my secrets!). Well, there is my quintessential "lose weight" new year's resolution. The good thing is I'm not starting from scratch on this one. Greg & I have done pretty well at going to the gym 3 times a week. Hopefully we can maintain that, but I also need to go on my own and do a hard workout every time.

Those are the big three, but a few other things are in the back of mind as well. I know it's just because of my love for Project Runway, but I want to learn how to sew. Will I be making my own clothes or quilting anytime soon, no, but I want to know the basics. I'm certain this will be on the list every year for the rest of my life, but I am going to try to shop less and pay off the credit cards. I have a serious addiction to sale shopping which I know the drop of a ball in Times Square is no match for. Nevertheless, I'll try to make an improvement. Maybe I should throw away all my store coupons, I'm beginning to think they cost me much more than they actually $ave....

Day Trip to the Mountains

Our poor abandoned blog...I have neglected you for so long!

I suppose it took a while for anything to seem blog-worthy after the Bed Bath & Beyond tornado tried to destroy my Jeep. Nevertheless, we return in full force with a renewed energy and a fun post full of photos!

So, after a crazy summer filled with too much work and not enough fun or relaxation we decided to take a Sunday day-trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park. Even though we really wanted to get out and do something different we were a little hesitant to give up our Sunday, but it turned out to be one of the best Sundays we've had! The drive wasn't too long (just about 2 hours) and we just fell in love with Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park. (It was a free weekend too, so thanks for saving us $20 Secretary Salazar!) We only made it to 2 of must-see sites as directed by our co-workers, so we know we have so much more to go back and see/do. Next time we're looking forward to making up to the top of the mountain at the Alpine Visitors Center, hopefully over to Grand Lake, and I especially want to go horseback riding on the mountain trails. Its great that we have such a national treasure within a couple of hours of us, but I hope we get a chance to spend a couple of days up there soon so we don't have to worry about getting home early and going to work the next morning. Here are the highlights:  Due to the very annoying music that I selected when creating this slideshow and the fact that I don't know how to remove the sound, the slideshow has been removed. Lesson learned! If you'd like to see photos of our trip, just let me know. 

I should mention that I made homemade picnic food on Saturday for our trip (yes, I cooked it all myself!): over-fried chicken, corn bread muffins, pasta salad, and german chocolate cake (served double duty at Greg's birthday cake). It all turned out pretty well. The chicken could use a little tweaking next time, but Greg really loved the pasta salad!

Anyway, It is so beautiful up there, the trip was wonderful! Plus the nice clean crisp air is very refreshing. On the way home we saw so many cute cabins along the river, we can't wait to get the whole family down here for an adventure!

Tornado in Colorado!!

I have fabulous bathroom photos I need to post, but I haven't quite gotten around to it. This however, can't wait...

Check out this news story... http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/19683459/detail.html. The "mall" was Southlands mall, about 4 miles from our house. We were there. We had lunch, then stopped by a few stores. It started pouring down rain while we were in Wal-mart, but had actually let up a bit when we left. Then we stopped by Bed, Bath & Beyond in search of a soap holder for the new shower (more about that soon!)....We weren't in the store for 5 minutes when the tornado sirens went off and they started making announcements for us to go into the "shelters" aka bathrooms & storage closet. Of course we kept looking around as we slowly made our way up towards the front.

Fifteen minutes later the back window was shattered out of my Jeep, a huge piece of metal from the roof scratched the side & hail pounded down relentlessly. As soon as they would let us out of the back room we decided to brave it and head home. Thank goodness! Shortly afterwards the Police & Fire departments had the whole area blocked off (we passed them on our way out of there!). Based on the news, we're convinced even more damage happened after we left. The place was just a disaster. The shopping cart corrals were thrown all over the place. Some cars had literally been moved or even flipped over. Metal roofing was wrapped around light poles like paper ( I thought it was at first!). The ride home was super loud with all the hail, but we were so glad to get out of there and finally get home. Luckily the hail at home had not been nearly as severe and the tornado never made it that far.

Although my precious Jeep baby did get slammed in that parking lot, we know the damage could have been sooooo much worse! This is what we have to deal with:

May Bathroom Update

Its been over a month since the last update on our bathroom....I was waiting for the "Its finished, look how great it is!" post, but...still not done! Ugh. We do have progress though. Its so close.

Yep, we've got a ways to go!


Paige & Dakota inspect for quality control.


Those are starting to look like walls...


A floor, yey!


We're assured it will be all finished "this week." Why does that sound so familiar??? Probably because that's what he said last week too!

Spring Snow!

What had been about 24 hours worth of rain has turned to a full out snow storm in about the last 4 hours....with no end in sight! Oh well, we're just hoping it helps the grass turn nice and green.




Bathroom Update:


As is expected with contractors, we haven't seen him quite as much as we would like this week. Shocking right? We do have a little progress to report: the old shower head and faucet have been capped off and the walls of the closet are basically built. The new shower walls are barely beginning to make their appearance, but we should see a shower floor in the next couple of days. We've also decided to take on some painting projects ourselves, starting with the bathroom! The painting is planned to begin Sunday, so that should prove to have a few fun stories for posting!