End of the Year!

Sorry for not posting. I've been too busy playing outside a lot and working! Instead of typing up something, I thought it would be fun to make a little video to close out 2010. See everyone in 2011!!!!

Up and At 'Em!

It's stupid early right now (2:40AM!!!) but I'm so excited because we have today off from school so I woke up early to get more things done! Not only did I want to post a blog but also get in some much needed knitting time before working out, cleaning house, and running a few errands (including looking for a dining room table we badly need before we host a Thanksgiving dinner! Yikes!). Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm definitely a morning person! I LOVE getting up early and getting a jump on things! Please tell me some of you are the same!

I'm sure some of you have noticed the change in my header and yes, I'm now married! Everyone has been asking me if married life is different. Since Adam and I had already dated for 6 years prior to being married and lived together for 4 of those years, my answer mainly has been no. (I can see where people who don't live together prior to marriage could say yes. Learning to live with someone and their idiosyncrasies is always an adjustment! A good one, though, if you've been living alone for a long while.) The only big change I have had to work on is getting use to saying 'husband' when I had finally become consistent with saying 'fiance' over 'boyfriend'! No worries, though. I'm quickly adjusting! ;)

It's been such a fun journey these past months being engaged and going through the whole process of planning a wedding. Things that day really turned out well. Adam and I were able to keep the party size fairly small (64 people) and keep it personal. My mom, my dad, and awesome sister were able to help create many things for the day to keep things personal. My dad my the signs, my mom made the owls and found the cotton branches, my sister and I sewed/created the "Mr./Mrs." pendants and burlap runner, and my dad even went hiking into the Florida wood to find those gorgeously, huge pine cones! He came out with some battle wounds, though. He came out with a ton of chigger bites! :(

I thought I would wrap this post up by leaving you with some of my favorite pictures from our Engagement Shoot to our Wedding Day. Our photographers were amazing and I love how they have captured these moments forever for Adam and me. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I do.

(FYI: Sorry the pic sizes are smaller than normal. I was too lazy to upload each one into Flickr and change them!)

Time Keeps on Slipping...

Oh yes. Once again, I have managed to let too much time slip by without posting any new blogs. I will still have to keep it short but hopefully you can tell from the new header why I've been a bit absent. :)

I promise to make a proper post over the next few days!!! Stop back by!!!!

It's That Time of Year Again!

Can you tell school has started back? Oh, yes. This time of the year, when I the first few weeks of school begin again, always has me completely behind in many other areas of my life, including blogging. This year, since moving to a new state and basically a new coast, has me feeling really swamped! Things started to calm down last Friday and this weekend, Adam and I were finally able to get in some time to have our engagement pictures taken. Check out this link to see a slideshow of the amazing work our photographers did! The weather and temperature was perfect. 74 degrees!!!! I love September! Fall is the best!

We lucked out being able to shoot our pictures up in Boulder since one canyon over from where our pictures were taken was a huge wildfire that had broken out and the smoke, blowing the opposite way from us, was insane. My heart goes out to all the families affected by this fire. I'm so thankful to be able to have been able to have our pictures taken where we wanted them.

We are basically three weeks out from the wedding and everything is starting to go so fast and feel incredibly real. I had my last dress fitting this afternoon and my brilliant seamstress did an incredible job fixing my dress. What was wrong with the dress, you ask? Well, I ordered it from a store in Florida with my hollow-to-hem measurements and when the dress came in, it was 3 1/2 inches too short. The hem hit where it was supposed to only when I was barefoot! No worries except I kinda wanted to wear shoes since my fiance is a whole foot taller than me. :) My seamstress worked some of her magic and added some beautiful material to the bottom to make the dress even more gorgeous than it already was.

Lots of fun little things are being planned and I can't wait to share some wedding photos in a few weeks! How is everyone else's September going?

Some knitting going on...

I've always loved seeing all the adorable knits there are out there for the wee ones in the world. Recently (as in last week!), a friend of mine gave birth to the most adorable little girl and I was thrilled to have knit this sweet giraffe for her. I'm going over to her house today to deliver the gift. Fingers crossed that she likes it! :)

Calling All Crafty People!

Okay peeps! I've not talked a lot about it on here but I have a wedding coming up at the end of September and now it's beginning to take a forefront in my mind as the details are being worked out. One thing I thought was really cute was this "Just Married" banner on etsy.



Since I have some sewing skills I figured I could give a go at making this myself. The only thing is, I've never done any printing/stamping on fabric! Before doing tons of online research, I thought I would throw it out to the awesome people in blog land. Have you all ever done any printing/stamping on fabric? Any suggestions on how to go about creating this banner? Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

The Fruits of my Labor

Within a week of arriving in Denver at the end of May, I was determined to have my own successful garden this year. You may remember from an earlier post, I bought some of these and, as of today, I FINALLY have the first veggies from the garden!

As you can see, I have two kinds of tomatoes here (Yellow Pear and Early Girl) along with two jalapenos! And how did I decide to use some of these awesome veggies? To make homemade guacamole!

(Apologies for the out-of-focus pics. I was using my phone.)

The molecajete was an amazing wedding present from Adam's sister and her family. I've always wanted one!

Other veggies that are growing pretty well (besides the tomatoes and jalapenos) are the beans, cucumbers, watermelon, strawberries, bell peppers, and corn. Unfortunately, the carrots, squash, zucchini, and different lettuces did not even sprout. I figured it would be a long shot with the lettuce since they are cool-weather but I thought I would give it a go anyway. I plan to replant the lettuce seeds again once it cools down here. I'm not sure what went wrong with the other veggies and I'll take any insight anyone has!

When I was checking on my veggies this afternoon, I noticed one looked like it had been on the losing side of a battle with a critter. Here's the evidence...

Very sad since I only have two bell peppers at the moment and this was one of them. I haven't used anything in or around my plants to ward of critters but maybe I should have? Dunno....

No worries, though! I'm completely loving having some veggies ripening and from the looks of many of my plants, the garden should be bursting with ripened veggies and fruits in the next few weeks. May have to do some canning!

Happy Birthday!

(Red Velvet cupcakes w/cream cheese icing, his favorite)

To my love,

Many wishes for a wonderful birthday! You mean the world to me.

Much love and a thousand kisses,

r

Girls' Camping/Hiking Weekend!

I was lucky enough to have a new friend invite me along for a girls' weekend camping and hiking up in the Rocky Mountain National Park in the Estes Park area. We rented a campsite just to make life easy since it's summer and the weekend up there can be crazy with tourists trying to find a spot on a first-come, first-serve basis. The 1 1/2-hour drive up from Denver was perfect since it gave me time to get to know everyone and we all hit it off with each other right away. I love when you meet people that just "get you" and everything clicks, you know? :)

Once we got to our site we quickly set up our tents. A storm was rolling in so we decided to drive around snapping some goofy pics with the dark clouds as a killer background and just doing some site-seeing. The tourists up there were hysterical to see with all their funny poses so we decided to take a pic in front of the sign entering RMNP in poses we all saw tourists do...

After getting the first round of goofy out of us, we drove from the Beaver Meadows entrance of RMNP up Bear Lake Road. Bear Lake was gorgeous but a little too crowded with tourists so we made our way back to camp to cook up some yummy appetizers and dinner. Wendy (cowboy hat) starting acting hip-hop which was hysterical since she doesn't have an ounce of hip-hop in her soul. Sara and I began imitating and this pic was snapped. I swear it was funny in the moment!

The night was filled with massive silliness and I loved every moment of it! I think we laughed ourselves to sleep. The next morning we packed up camp and headed up Colorado Highway 7 for our hike that was to start near the town of Allens Park. On the way we had to stop for a photo-op that was too gorgeous to pass up. (This is one of my faves.)

The hike itself was stunning with views all along the mountainside trail that opened up to eye candy like this:

We arrived to our halfway stop at Calypso Falls and had snacks. The falls were amazing and the pic doesn't do it justice at all!

We lucked out by having a Steller's Jay land right next to us on a log and hung around long enough to snap some pics. How beautiful is this bird?!?!

One of my fave pics from the trip is Sara and I snacking at the Falls when a bout of the giggles overcame us.

This pic pretty much sums up how all four of us were the entire time... laughing 'til out bellies hurt. After our snack break, we hiked back to the car and headed home. The ride back was filled with more laughter (shocker) and plans of when we could get together for another trip again. How cool is it to meet girls like this?! Life is definitely good....

Busy in the New Casa!

It's been a few weeks since I've posted but it doesn't seem like it! Wrapping up on school, packing, and seeing friends definitely made the time go by quickly!

Last Saturday, I left at the crack of stupid (aka 4am) and drove 15 hours to my pit stop of Manhattan, KS. It was really great getting to drive through Chattanooga and Nashville one last time since I have so many great memories driving those roads to see friends. Quite the nostalgic drive. The first part of Kansas was interesting as I passed a museum for Brown vs. Board of Education, the Eisenhower Library, and the Wizard of Oz Museum! If I wasn't so antsy to get to my stopping place, I would have definitely stopped to see some of these places. (A do-able drive back, if I want, though!)

I crashed pretty quickly then got up the next morning pretty early and hit the road once again. The last two-thirds of Kansas can be a little bit of a challenge since the drive the entire time looks like this:

These spaces were so huge, I finally understood the real meaning of "wide-open spaces". I actually went through a storm front and was able to see where it began and where it ended. Amazing. I also passed a huge farm of windmills that were enormous! There must have been 200-300 of them!

After 5 hours of driving through Kansas' "wide-open spaces", I was very happy to finally come upon this:

Three hours later, I arrived to movers unloading all my belongings into the new house! The rest of that Sunday, all of Monday, and most of Tuesday consisted of, literally, dawn to dusk unboxing and unpacking. Once the house started to actually resemble a home, Adam and I next tackled replenishing our fridge and spices and cooked up some yummy turkey/feta/cranberry burgers!

On Thursday, I felt like having Mexican so I went over to an older post of VO2Maxxed and borrowed their recipe for fish tacos using mahi-mahi. I made three of their baja sauces (the Green Baja Sauce, the Pink/Red Baja Sauce, and the Chipotle Sauce) and had such a great time using my food processor again! (It's been 6 months since I've been living with my in-laws.) I also was craving some pickled red onions so I used this recipe and was thrilled with the results! It was so easy too! The side item used was a cajun shrimp and corn salad with lime-chili dressing. Check out the pics of the results! (I LOVE all the colors and the pink of the onions in the jar rock!)

Yesterday, Saturday, a friend from Greenville came in to visit and I we went up to Boulder to hang. I first took her Chatauqua Park then we went to Pearl Street and mulled about until we came upon this place that puts feathers in people's hair. We were totally game and now we both are rocking some feathers! It'll be fun to have something crazy in the hair while out of school!

Here's Bridge at Chatauqua...

Here's a shot with some of the feathers in my hair. Crazy fun!

Bridge is such an amazing friend that when we got back to the house she wanted to tackle the front garden that was completely overrun with weeds. Here's one small section of the garden before we tackled it...

And here's after just weeding, mulching, and putting in pavers!

We left as many of the flowers as we could and now I just need to figure out what to fill in the empty spots with to brighten it up. The garden faces the east and is shaded for a good part of the day until the middle of the afternoon where it does get some sun. I've noticed poppies are in serious abundance out here and I definitely like those! Anyone have any suggestions, I'll take them!

I'm loving Colorado and it's only been a week!

(Sorry for the post being so incredibly long! I obviously had a lot to catch you up on and I wanted to share it all! )

4 Weeks and New Challenges (but fun challenges!)

(Sorry for not having a pretty pic with this post. I promise the next post will have some!)

In exactly four weeks, I will have loaded up the Subaru with the last pieces of my life left in Atlanta, driven 1,400 miles, and arrived to my new life in Denver, Colorado. I'm definitely ready to be in the same city again as Adam. Six months away from him has been seriously hard!

Adam and I lucked out finding a house to rent at a ridiculously affordable price in a pretty cool area of Denver called Washington Park (or, as the locals say, Wash Park). The house is wicked spacious with a huge deck and an equally large backyard with lots of possibilities. One of the possibilities I want to jump on is starting up some gardening again. This presents a new challenge of learning for me since I've never lived in this kind of climate/altitude before and I need to learn about the growing conditions and vegetation unique to Denver. In addition, I'll probably do container gardening since the house and it's backyard, don't technically belong to Adam and me and I don't want to cause any issues with the landlord by converting the backyard into my own personal Garden of Eden. I came across an interesting gardening system called Earthbox after watching a youtube video of one of my favorite chefs, Rick Bayless being interviewed. The boxes seem to get pretty good reviews but I would love to hear if any of you have used an Earthbox!

The change of scenery will also present a new twist on what goes down in the kitchen. I've been reading some about cooking/baking and know my boiling point will be affected due to the change in atmospheric pressure which will in turn affect, among many things, my cooking time. One way I have really enjoyed cooking is braising and I'm not sure the specifics on how this change to a higher altitude will affect this kind of cooking. Obviously, I understand the cooking time will be longer and I'm guessing I may need to start off with more liquid then the original recipe calls for, but I came across a good point made on a website related to high-altitude cooking and it got the wheels in my brain turning a bit. The comment was this:

Charts giving the boiling point of water vs altitude are based on the standard atmosphere and can be quite misleading. If the barometric pressure is different from the standard atmosphere, the actual boiling point of water will vary from that given in the charts.

For example: If you live in Denver and wish to calibrate your thermometer using boiling water as the standard, the charts will tell you the boiling point of water in Denver is 202°F. If on that day the barometric pressure in Denver is 30.05 inHg, the correct boiling point for water is 212+°F. If your thermometer indicates 212° in boiling water, you will believe it to be 10° high. This means that if you are cooking a chicken to an internal temperature of 170°F in the breast, you will actually overcook by 10°, scratch your head, and wonder why is was dry when you did everything right.

A more reliable way to determine the correct boiling point of water, at a specific time, is to use the calculator below. Just enter the current barometric pressure, in inches of mercury (inHg), and click on "Do Boiling Point Calculation". The correct boiling will be returned in the lower window.

Now I'm wondering if I need to be checking the barometric pressure before cooking something, like a chicken, in order to properly adjust for the correct internal temperature needed so my food is still edible. (Yeah, I know. Probably a nerdy thing to do but this is my analytical side coming out of me! Thanks, Dad.) Anyone have any suggestions and/or advice? I would seriously appreciate the tips! :)

Music!

Here's a new group I've been digging lately. The band is from England and I'm totally loving their bluegrass style!

I didn't forget ya!

Sorry for being MIA for a while. The last month and a half has been completely filled with IEP meetings for all of my students along with several other tough meetings my coordinator requested I sit in on to try to bring a different perspective for our program. The meetings have been brutal and the paperwork has been crazy! Needless to say, I'm thrilled that last Friday concluded my last meeting and this whole week is my spring break!

I had an interview this morning at a really awesome school in Denver and was offered the job! I'm definitely excited about getting this job at this school because not only does this school have an awesome program for the Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing but the school is also exactly 3.4 miles from the house Adam and I will be renting starting in June! Which girl will be commuting to work on her bike??? THIS girl!!!!

It's crazy how everything has been falling into place and this was the last thing Adam and I needed to happen to make this move to Denver complete. Now all I have to do is finish out the last two months of school in Georgia then head out west! The Colorado dream has become a reality!

Something to make you smile

Came across this on youtube and thought it was too cute. Enjoy!

I am....

...Colorado bound tomorrow! Seven weeks is a wicked long time to go without seeing Adam. Can't wait! I'm also getting in a lot of wedding stuff like finding a caterer and photographer. Should be interesting!

Fiber Work

(My friend Lisa modeling her new beret I made for her. How cute is she in it?!)
I finished up on a lovely project I started a couple of days ago. (The pattern can be found here on ravelry.) Today was not as fulfilling as I would have liked at work so to make up for it, I quickly finished this hat to help give me a sense of accomplishment.

Modifications: (Due to only having one skein)
-Casted on for more slouchy version (74sts)
-Worked whole hat in a very loose gauge
-Only worked two rounds of lace pattern instead of four before going into the working of rounds 1-6 one time, etc, etc…

(Sorry for the yuck-tastic photo. I took the picture with my phone since my camera only allows me to maually focus my lenses!)

Determination

Andy is Dick and Sandy's sweet King Charles Spaniel. She has been most gracious in allowing my dogs to stay with her while we are in transit to Colorado. When Andy was a puppy, her favorite place in the whole world to hide was under the couch. As she's grown older, and obviously larger in size, her favorite hiding spot has become more of a challenge. Taking this challenge head on, this puppy is willing to put forth the effort to squeeze herself into her favorite "puppyhood" spot over and over again just for the simple pleasure of hiding. You've got to admire that kind of determination. A good life lesson, I think. Even the biggest challenge can be taken on with some will-power and determination.

The In-Laws (to-be)

Meet Dick.

I also call him "the dude". (Secretly.) He makes the most incredible meals every night for myself, the Mrs., and himself to have at a lovely farm-style table accompanied by fabulous amounts of amusing dialog. (I feel like I'm back in Europe where I never rushed a meal and enjoyed the company.)

Meet Sandy.

Sandy is fantastically artsy fartsy and would give her left arm to help others. (I hope she doesn't, though. It's really useful for serving up proper hugs.)

These are my in-laws. Well, starting 9/30/2010 but I figured I would get a jump-start on things. :)

(Please forgive my sub-par photos. I was taking these in an effort to learn how to better use the manual mode on my Nikon. I should have messed with the white balance but I was too focused on getting enough light into the camera without having a lot of noise.... so I forgot! I learned a lot from this session!)