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Today is Jeff's birthday! Our oven is still non-functional, but his lovely employees bought him a birthday cake to bring in to work, so I'm off the hook! We enjoyed a nice dinner together of prime strip steaks, salad, garlic bread (baked in the toaster oven), and a lovely Hermitage that I started decanting at lunch today. Aren't you impressed at our advance wine planning skills? I am... this is actually the first time we've attempted decanting anything for more than, oh, 2 hours, and we're quite pleased by the results. We were a bit worried that we'd ruin the bottle by doing this, but it turned out to be fantastic.
Here is a picture of the birthday boy, his cake and a random airplane part:
Nothing much new to report around here. We did finally hear back from the oven repairman. He finally got in touch with the manufacturer, who gave him instructions on how to fix our oven. So, parts are on order. We've been sans oven for a little over 2 weeks now, and it looks like we'll have at least one more week to go while we wait for the part to arrive. We're just happy that some action was finally taken.
The bedroom curtains are coming along! I was hoping to have one completely done this weekend, but I still have a little bit of work to do on it. I'm sure I'll get that one done over the upcoming long holiday weekend, and hopefully I'll be motivated enough to get the other one done, too. The end is in sight! Yay!
It's been a rather normal week at our house, so we don't have anything particularly interesting to write about other than we are quite sad about the loss of our oven. Jeff ran the self clean cycle on it about 10 days ago, and it made it all the way through just fine, but when it came time for the door lock to disengage, it did not. Instead, we were greeted with a flashing "F7" in the display and a lovely beeping. We've had no luck so far with the repairman or the manufacturer, and we are starting to have difficulty coming up with dinners to make without the use of the oven. Hopefully we'll get the thing fixed soon, because I'm craving baked baby back ribs, chicken parmigiano, roast chicken with herbs, pork chops with sage, enchiladas, and any number of other dishes that require the use of the oven. I'm about ready to go out and buy one of those countertop Cuisinart oven things just so we can have a nice slow cooked meal!
In other news, we both recently joined Facebook, so if you happen to be on there, look us up!
I'll leave you with a cute picture of a pup, just so this post isn't a complete waste of your time...
Fang investigates his birthday card from Grandma and Grandpa
I got up this morning with grand plans to knock out one of our master bedroom curtain panels this weekend. Over the last several weekends (prior to the Colorado trip) I'd been diligently spending three or four hours a weekend working on them. I'd sewn the lining, and hemmed the bottom of it, and I'd sewn the curtain panels with their pretty contrasting stripe in the middle, and hemmed the bottom of those, too. Today was going to be the big joining of the linings to the curtain panels day. It was going to go so well that I would definitely have time to get at least one of the joined panel's headers sewn in so we could finally get one of the things hung up in the bedroom, and I'd be all proud and happy of how awesome it looked. Well, it didn't turn out quite like that. When I laid out the liner and the panel together on the floor, I discovered that I'd accidentally hemmed the wrong edge of the liner. I'd done one of the vertical sides, and not the bottom, and I'd done it to both liners. D'oh! So instead of sewing and making lots of progress today, I got to rip out 16 feet of hem featuring black thread on black fabric. Talk about painful. Jeff came down to the dungeon (that's what we call our basement) to help and provide support. He ripped a couple of feet for me, and ironed out all of my carefully pressed creases from the now undone hems. I decided to step away from the project and resume it again tomorrow. I spent the rest of the afternoon moseying around Target and going to the gym. I found several excellent deals on items for our Operation Christmas Child boxes during my wanderings, so that made me feel better (17 cent boxes of crayons, anyone?). Hopefully I'll get the linings re-hemmed on the proper side tomorrow afternoon, and then perhaps the big joining of the panels will proceed as planned next weekend.
Our little boys turn four today. They're just as cute now as they were when we met them!
I'm getting our Colorado trip photos loaded onto the web now, so I thought I'd take a minute to write about the trip. We decided in early August that it would be fun to take a quick road trip up to Colorado with my siblings and our two dogs. We managed to find a few days that worked for everyone, a place that none of us had visited yet, and a hotel that would allow dogs.Joella, Fang, Errol, Jeff and I left Wichita at about 6:30 am on Saturday, August 2nd. We drove to Hays, stopped briefly to pick up some snowballs (yum!) and met up with Nathan, his girlfriend Ashley, and Dan. We then proceeded to caravan the rest of the way out to Colorado. We stopped in Burlington for free road maps at Nathan's request, and for lunch. It was crazy hot (100-105) for most of the day, but as we got into the mountains outside Denver, we happily watched the thermometer drop all the way down to 90, then 80, and then finally down to 62 as we approached Independence Pass. Half of us (the ones in our car) weren't really planning to hit 12,000+ feet on our first day in the mountains, but those people in the other car lead us that way. It turned out to be fine - no one got too sick from the big altitude change, and we got some pictures of everyone at the pass on the first day of the trip. We rolled in to Snowmass Village at about 7:00 pm, checked in to our hotel, and went to Il Poggio for dinner. Jeff and I had this delicious veal gnocchi dish with asparagus and roasted tomatoes. It hit the spot.
Independence Pass
The next day, Sunday, we had breakfast at the hotel and decided that we'd spend the day at Maroon Bells. We got into our hiking gear and met up to drive to Aspen Highlands, where we picked up the shuttle bus that drove us to Maroon Lake. From there, we took the Crater Lake trail. Fang and Errol were allowed to hike on this trail, which made it more fun for all of us. Errol was pretty slow after about 20 minutes, so he got loaded into his pup pouch for carrying. I carried him for a while, then Joella offered to take him. She and Dan got well ahead of the rest of us, but we all eventually arrived at Crater Lake in time for lunch (some sandwiches and fruit that we picked up at the grocery store in Snowmass Village). Fang was a super-trooper pup and he hiked the whole way! Well, almost the whole way - there was one area of the trail that was small boulders from an old rock-slide, and he got carried over those. After a relaxing lunch and photo session at Crater Lake, we all headed back down the trail to Maroon Lake. We went into Aspen for dinner at Pacifica later that night.
Nathan and Ashley walk Errol on the trail
Joella and Dan at Crater Lake
On Monday, Jeff, Ashley and I got up early to go horseback riding on Buttermilk Mountain. Jeff rode Tivio, Ashley rode Johnny Walker, and I rode Prince. They were all mostly well behaved. The 1.5 hour ride took us up the ski runs into a little meadow area and back down again. We had time for a quick lunch back in Snowmass Village before we had to get changed into our rafting gear. The rafting company picked all of us up in the Village, and drove us down Highway 82 to the Roaring Fork river, where we all went whitewater rafting. Jeff, Ashley and Dan were all virgin rafters, so we tried to pick a not-to-scary trip. It turned out to be a little wimpy for all of us, but we still had a great time, as evidenced by the smiles in the photos. Everyone got wet, no one fell out, and we were back in town in time for dinner. Jeff and I decided to go into Aspen for dinner at Rustique Bistro, and the rest of the kids went to Double Dog Pub around the corner to relax.
Ashley with Johnny Walker, Jeff with Tivio, and Michelle with Prince
Rafting the Roaring Fork River
Ashcroft Ghost Town
On Wednesday, we all headed back to Kansas. It was a really long drive, but it was worth it for all the fun we had together in Colorado.
Here's a link to the photos - enjoy!
Alright, I'll fill you in on our latest adventure. We popped out to Colorado for a few days with my brother Nathan, his girlfriend Ashley, my sister Joella, and my brother Dan. Fang and Errol got to come with us. We just got back last night, so we're still working on unpacking, doing laundry, and getting the pictures loaded on the computer. We made good use of the pup pouches while hiking the Crater Lake trail near Maroon Bells, and while shopping around in Aspen. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw pictures of us with the pouches on the internet long before we get our own photos loaded, because we literally had dozens of people stop us to take pictures of the dogs in the pouches! We did a bit of hiking, some horseback riding, and some whitewater rafting, among other miscellaneous activities. It was pretty fun, and we'll be sure to get some pictures up soon!
(Yes, you're being submitted to more of Michelle's HDR silliness)
Crater Lake and Maroon Bells
Maroon Lake and Bells
Ashcroft Ghost Town
