Our New Airplane!

Well it's certainly not ours yet.  We are looking into joining a 1/8 partnership in a Cessna 172.  We took it up for a flight the other day and here are some pictures of it.  It will save us a lot of money in the long run, especially while Chris is getting all of the flight time and taking classes to become a commercial pilot.  I was actually quite proud of him.  He had been looking into getting a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee.  Although his 1992 Jeep Cherokee has been running just fine, in some ways he does deserve a new car.  But the day we were going to go look at them, he decided that he needs to make sacrifices if he wants to be a pilot.  So this airplane is half the price of a used car and will be much more beneficial to us in the long run because it will cost half as much to fly.

High School Friends Girls' Night Out

One of my best friends from high school, Mariana, was in town for a few days interviewing for med school here in Denver.  She did her undergrad in Kansas but is actually from Brazil.  I'm really, really, really hoping that she and her husband will be moving here soon for school!

While she was in town we got together with some of our other friends from high school in Golden.  It was great seeing everyone again!  Sometimes it's fun to just hang out with the girls!

Mariana and Kelly

Mariana and Sadie

Yikes, I knew I was bad at bowling, I just had no idea I was THIS bad!  

Me, Kelly, Mariana, and Sadie.  What a fun night!

College Girls Night Out

Last week a couple of my friends from freshman year in the dorms at CSU got together!  It's hard to believe that we've been friends for almost 10 years!  Wow, that doesn't mean we're getting old does it?  Maria is happily married and has a beautiful two and a half month baby girl.  And Brooke is getting married in June.

She's going to be a fighter!  Watch out Maria and Tony!

Jordan and Brooke

The girls!

Another Fun Flying Experience

We were quite excited to go see the Royal Gorge near Canon City.  But we didn't quite make it. The weather was getting worse between Colorado Springs and Pueblo and it was snowing, so my very smart and safe pilot decided to turn around.  Maybe another time!

The reason for our turn around

Warm Weather in Denver!

It's a bit after the fact by now, but since it was so wonderful, I feel the need to share it.  We had a beautiful, warm, sunny day in Denver!  It got into the low 60s which is incredible for winter!  I was outside wearing shorts and a long sleeved shirt!  I was so exited, I really wanted to go biking while getting some sun on my ridiculously ghostly skin.  Plus going biking would make it seem like spring, no snow, warm weather, shorts.   But Chris thought it would be too windy so we went hiking and geocaching instead with our pup.  I have to admit, I wasn't all that thrilled.  We drove about 20 minutes from here into the mountains and it went from low 60s to upper 40s, not to mention it was super windy!  Brrr!  As soon as we got to the trail, our hike was in snow and I couldn't work on my tan being covered as much as possible .  But Chris was able to cheer me up and make the best of the situation.  It ended up being a fun hike and we did some geocaching along the way.  If you don't know what that means, as I didn't, it's like a scavenger hunt using GPS to locate little items that are hiding.  It's kind of a fun and exciting way to get some exercise and enjoy the great outdoors!  If you'd like to learn more about it, you can check out http://www.geocaching.com.

Jason LOVED being on a hike, especially in the snow!

I found the first cache, The Rocky Monkey Cache.  We were searching for a long time in all of the rocks.  This was also the warmest part of the hike, as you can tell by my hiked up pants.

The second cache was the Castle Cache, Chris found it.  On our way to the next cache, Jason saw some deer and went chasing after them.  He was gone for about 5 minutes and when he returned he was exhausted!  He had to stay on the leash the rest of the time.

By the time we got to the third cache, I was freezing and the snow was up to our calves, I didn't even look for it, but Chris didn't take long finding it under the rock.  This one was called Out on a Limerick.

My Special Talent

Have you heard that everyone has a special talent?  Maybe it's cooking, sewing, mountain biking, wood working; it could be anything.  All these years I've been searching for mine... and I think I've finally found it!  Not that it's anything to be proud of or that excited about it, it does save money though and makes me look nicer.  :o)  I can give myself fairly decent french manicures.  And little flower stickers make them even cuter.  It's really quite simple.  Chris and I usually watch a movie or two each week, so I do it during that time.  That way I'm not wasting any time and I have time to let them dry so I don't ruin it within the first couple of hours.  I just paint the white tips on messily and then take a Q-tip with nail polish remover and clean them up.  I also splurged for the OPI $14.95 nail polish and I think that helps keep the polish on better and makes my nails stronger.  I try to add another coat every day or two for about 3 coats.  And there you have it!  It may not be as professional looking as a going to the nail salon, but it saves about $20 a pop!  :o)

My Valentine's Day French manicure (see the little hearts?)  :o)

Taking on Much More Than we had Expected!

Chris and I have wanted a gas fireplace for our family/TV room downstairs since last winter.  We accidentally ran into them at Home Depot a couple of nights and ago and decided to go for it!  It was half price, we had a gift certificate there, and we thought it would be a fairly easy project, just reroute the gas line about three feet.  But then it turned into much more than we expected...

It all started with this...

Which led Chris to take off a little section of our ugly wood paneling to get to the gas line.  Since we bought our home almost a year and a half ago, we did a lot of improvements to the upstairs in the beginning, and have pretty much been trying to pay it off since then.  We certainly won't let that happen again!  We didn't think we'd start on the downstairs for quite some time.

And we thought the wood paneling was ugly!  What we found under it was hideous... this wallpaper and almost a foot of mold across the wall along the bottom.

So Chris figured with the mold, we should replace the entire wall.  We also found no insulation in between the cement and the wall.  No wonder it gets so cold down there!  Once we're finished with our project, we won't even need the fireplace!

I think he actually enjoyed tearing the walls up.  No more ugly green paint and wood paneling walls in that room!  Hurray!

And now we have a total disaster in that room.  We had to move all of the furniture to either our living room upstairs or into the spare bedroom downstairs.  Chris had wanted to build an entertainment center into the wall so now might be his chance.  It would be fabulous if we could re-carpet and floor while we're doing everything else, but we'll have to see how much everything else costs.  Wish us luck!