Happy Napping Pupper Doo

One for the Record Books

Are you ready for this? Are you sure? You're seated? well braced? 

Alright, well here it comes: 

I cooked dinner on Tuesday night!

Yes, it's true. I followed a recipe (in place of the instructions on the side of a "cup of noodles" that I typically fall back on when Eric tells me to make dinner) and created an edible meal that neither poisoned nor crippled Eric and me.

What was this meal? Well it was cashew chicken lettuce wraps. A knock off of a very yummy PF Chang's appetizer. It was so good in fact Eric didn't have to fix it or pull out the fire extinguisher. All in all I'm counting it as a win. Although, not such a great win that I'll be asked to partake in this type of thing again in the too near future. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here I mean it's not like I had the wherewithal to make a side dish! 

Good Ol' BBQ

Very pleased with his 12# beef brisket that he smoked perfectly on his new smoker. Once this sat in the oven for 2 hours to finish it melted in your mouth like butter :)

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary. . .

My how your garden grows. . .  OK so no silver bells or cockle shells in our garden, but my is it growing! We'll have more zucchini than I'll know what to do with so thankfully mom sent out a bunch of recipes so I can diversify my baked and canned goods and avoid sending Eric to zucchini ingesters anonymous. 

  

The cauliflower is huge, but won't sprout a head until it cools off consistently and temps are between 60-70 degrees during the day. Based on that nugget of knowledge we'll feature our garden cauliflower in a Thanksgiving dish I'm sure. Stay tuned.

The cabbage is also doing pretty well, it too needs cooler weather for the heads to forms so yay! for sauerkraut as Christmas presents!

Our jalapeno and banana peppers never disappoint. Those grow just about anywhere and some have already made their way into dishes and on top of grill pizzas.

And lastly we have our tomatoes. Our Roma tomatoes that should be thriving in their full sun. Not a single darn tomato has popped yet. We're hoping they're going to surprise us and all come at once so we'll be able to make a nice big batch of pasta sauce. Although, seeing as Murphy lives with us I doubt that will be our luck instead we'll end up with 8 big plants and no tomatoes.

Camping in Leadville

We decided to stop working on the yard and the house this weekend and go camping with Matt and Joe & Laura. We opted to camp on Half Moon Road near Leadville. Here's a map- it's a little sketchy since it's such a wide zoom, but look in the top quarter towards the right and you'll see half moon. 

Our camp site was fantastic since it was right on the creek so all the dogs were happy they got to swim and get smelly. It was nice to fall asleep to the sounds of the creek running. Being up at almost 10,000  feet was a nice break from the 90+ temps we'd been having in Denver. I actually needed a sweatshirt!

Excited and ready to go camping {and swimming!}

I'm still excited, I swear. . .

If there's a distillery we must stop. Leadville has a distillery. it is called Two Guns.

Scenic drive up the road to the campsite.

This was the stream that was right next to our camp site.

Exercising great restraint to not drag mom into the lake to chase after dad on his kayak.

:)

The moon was so bright!

After camping we decided to take a drive over Independence Pass. I'd never been there and it's really cool. On the way we saw Mount Massive ( a 14'er)

And Mt. Elbert another 14'er

We're here!

And it's gorgeous

My guys

These lovely scenic views and smiles were followed by 3.5 hours of lovely I-70 traffic to get back to Denver. Gotta love it!

The Inaugural Swim

Today I took Indy swimming for the first time this year. He knew exactly what we were doing as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. As we walked down the steps to the fountain I noticed so not so fun signs that were posted in 4 different locations that were not there last year.

Alright, I'm typically not one that will forbid instructional signs, but this is ridiculous. This is the fountain where everyone takes their dog to swim. No one else was there and I didn't see any police or animal control trucks around so I let Indy off his leash and let him swim. He was loving it!

After about 20 minutes another dog was coming down the stairs so I put Indy on his leash not knowing the owner's take on the seemingly new leash policy. The guy said it was BS and no one understands the reason for it, but that animal control is making constant visits so you need to keep your leash handy. He took his dog off leash and I let Indy back off of his. 

Twenty more minutes of swimming passed and I looked across the park to the parking lot of a neighboring restaurant to see an animal control officer pulling up. I called Indy out of the water and we took off running to the car. Thankfully we weren't ticketed and Indy got a good almost hour of swim time in.

Doggy Happiness!

A couple weekends ago we took Indy to a dog park that our friends Laura and Joe take their dogs to in Evergreen. It was packed, but Indy LOVED it! There were other dogs, water, mud, trails, and squirrels. Truly, what more could our big fuzzy boy ask for?! The park's trails and open space is completely enclosed (fenced) so the dogs can be off leash and burn off a ton of energy. Everyone who has their dog(s) in the park agrees to sniffing and chasing and running and can't get uppity over another dog approaching theirs, unlike the parks in Denver where you never know how prickly people are going to be. Us chasing Indy around and walking through the park with him was just as much of a work out for us, surprisingly! He was so happy and after he got all stinky, muddy and gross he got a couple spoonfuls of our frozen yogurt at our Menchie's stop. Very happy doggy day!

Kayaking!

Not this past weekend, but the weekend before {of course I'm behind! Are you new?!} was our first kayak outing for the year! It was a gorgeous day and we had a blast paddling and floating around Bear Creek Lake. Just a few pictures for your enjoyment :)

Pelicans with a mountain drop. . .why not?

Happy kayakers :)

Baked Perfection

Are these not the most beautiful muffins you've ever seen?!

Oh, they're not?  Are you sure?

Let the Renovation Begin!

Saturday Morning

Saturday Afternoon

We'll keep posting as this moves forward :)

Food!

Yes, food pictures. Are you really surprised?  So a quick recap of what we've been eating this past week. . .

A two pound salmon filet gave us a couple very yummy meals: Salmon pasta and salmon topped with an arugula salad with asparagus and grilled sweet potatoes on the side.

Another night was flank steak with grilled carrots and a fennel and tomato side. Guess who cooked, and did not ruin, the fennel and tomato dish? That’s right! This little blonde!

And we can’t forget the dinner Eric cooks every year in Adam’s honor. We miss ya, bud. This year it was seared scallops over polenta with a mushroom demi-glace. I like to think Adam would have been proud!

Spring!

AKA: time of year when buying stock in Ace Hardware sorta makes sense.

Can You Spot the Difference?