fort collins

downtown fort collins is awesome. they put lights up everywhere and it's beautiful at night. we go there often and usually find another great mom and pop restaurant to fall in love with.
we are so happy here...

college town

i love living in a college town. you get to see things like this driving around the streets.

yeah, it's really the ghostbuster car.

morning

and for a moment the world was still, as i watched the sun come over the horizon and slowly whisper away the sleeping morning mist. it was going to be a beautiful winter day.

ta da!

hank had to be the one to put the last oranament on the tree.

he could barely hide his excitement for christmas.
(as if the lights on the house didn't give it away)

and this is me, trying to be a present under the tree since we don't have any. i don't think i pulled it off very well. it's a small tree so it was kind of hard to fit.

the next day we did the rest of the house.

and with a continuation of the griswald theme, we even put lights around the fireplace. now if hank would just put some presents under that darned tree...!

wingin' it

our thanksgiving wasn't grand. in fact, i'd say it was rather dull. i cleaned the house, hank worked, and at 3pm we made the ever so scenic drive from fort collins to salt lake. needless to say, we missed the big dinner. so last saturday, i decided to do it on my own and make a thanksgiving dinner. yes, this was my first turkey, and no, i didn't have any idea what i was doing. i printed about 8 different recipe options from the food network website and pretty much threw all of them into one. the "before" turned out good enough, i thought i better document it. just in case the "after" didn't come out as well.

big money, no wammies....

and then, there was light

what is this, you might ask...

why exactly is there a rope tied to your basketball hoop?

and

why is hank throwing it over the roof?
i'm so glad you asked...

while i was busy in the kitchen, cooking up our turkey dinner,

hank was busy working on christmas....

christmas lights, that is.

it took some serious concentration...

all in the name of christmas lights

yep, it's not easy being the Griswalds of the neighborhood,
but somebody's got to do it.

we definitely had a hallelujia chorus moment.

it was beautiful.

uh, guys...

is this what it's supposed to look like? well, at least it looks edible...

hank said it was good,

and he doesn't generally lie about my cooking.

another hallelujia moment. for me, anyway.

anniversary

and for the first time in 3 years we celebrated our anniversary. it sure beat driving from california to colorado with the flu last year. hank was a gem, and we had a ball shopping until that evening....

the big day

we had arrived. the day i had been waiting for for so long had finally come. the tickets were in my purse, we had our orange on, and boy were we fired up. fired up for my first bronco game ever.

and wouldn't you know, it happened to be a monday night game. and denver pulled out the big guns for this one. free pom poms, foam sticks, parachuters, the works. it's true our seats were on the 10th row from the top, but we swore they were the best in the house. we screamed our guts out.
















hank won the biggest fan award. i almost got jealous.














this was the best anniversary ever. so far...