Christmas Spirit

I woke up this morning and needed to throw some clothes in the dryer (like I am gonna iron them lol). On my out to the laundry area in the kitchen, I see Magic all curled up on a Christmas present! I love this time of year :)

The picture is much clearer with the flash, but I like the look of the Christmas lights in the dark in the blurrier picture.

Christmas is just around the corner.....

It's been awhile...

So yeah, it has been a long time since I have posted on here. It is hard to believe it has already been 3 months! What can I say, I have been enjoying my time back home in Lakewood with Cody and our kitties. I am now designing 6 miles of Bear Lake Road in Estes Park, CO and couldn't be happier with the job I was given.

The reason I am posting, you ask? My mother-in-law sent me these pictures, and I had to add to the collection of Cody's school pictures.


Cody's 2nd grade picture

Cody's 3rd grade picture

I especially like his 2nd grade pic. He is 2nd row, 4th in from the right (the one making the funky face). That pic is the best because not only did he ruin his pic, but 3 other kids as well. Note the boy beside him looking at him like "is he really gonna do it?!!!" Then there is the girl in the lavender shirt on the far left in the top row laughing at him and the girl next to her laughing at her. Good stuff! He said his 3rd grade pic was his Frankenstein face, but I don't think that one is too bad (he is 2nd row on the far right).

Labor Day

Hope you all had a relaxing Labor Day! I missed the family reunion in Lakewood, but still had fun. I went shooting with some friends. These were the first rounds I have shot in my entire life, and I loved it so much I shot 500 rounds!

Karrie watching me shoot :)

We shot 22 caliber rifles of all kinds, 30 caliber shotguns, and a 44 caliber desert eagle! That on hurt the wrists, I only shot it once.

We had to take Jerry's truck, which kept dying. He had to to get a back up battery because it kept dying out and wouldn't restart. He has a new truck, dunno why we didn't take that, but w made it all the same. We also did some 4wheeling on the ATV. A great Labor Day!

Best work trip so far.....part 2

Aside from my class, D.C. was a blast! Cody and I did a ton of touring.............which he hated lol. Everywhere was so packed because it was the last weekend of summer. First, we hit the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Just like all of the others, this museum was huge and we only saw a very tiny portion of it.

Meteors.....I had never seen one before. It looks like a machine has etched them, but it is their natural composition.

They had a lot of jewelry on display, this one was one of my faves. Amongst other things, they had Napoleon's diamond necklace, Marie Antoinette's earrings (HUGE diamonds), and the Oppenheimer diamond (253.7 carats).

The famous Hope Diamond! It was gorgeous, I wish there was a way to capture all of the colors. It was near impossible to get this pic will the huge crowd there.

This is the "mall." It is a very long walk end to end, and all of the museums, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln memorial, the capital, etc. are all around here. Of course, here is the capital bldg.

I love this pic, it is a little deceiving, the light dwarfs the monument. The clouds were definitely full of water. We were still dry at this point.

Right about here it started dumping on us. It was a warm rain, and we had fun in it. Naturally, we didn't bring an umbrella, so we got soaked through all of our clothes. Cody's funky shoes came in handy then..........while I ruined my Birkenstocks.

And we finally arrived at the Lincoln Memorial (soaking wet). That is one hell of a walk from the Monument to the memorial, but it looks like it would be a short walk.

Once we finally got back to the hotel after the Lincoln Memorial, we decided to lay low the rest of the evening while it poured. We went out to dinner and had a few drinks, and saved more fun for Sunday. When we finally got up around 11 on Sunday, we first went to this tower. At the very top is the best 360 view of DC (thx babe for the cool idea)!

We also went to the National Archives. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Magna Carta, and many other original documents are displayed here. It was really cool to see, but difficult to photograph due to the lack of light.

Cody checking out the bathtub President Taft got stuck in LOL.

We were staying in Chinatown, so all of the signs were in Chinese and English. Cool!

1 block from Chinatown

The last museum we went to was the International Spy Museum. It was so cool! It had all the Bond gadgets, and actual gadgets used by spies around the world. Even the really old stuff! I liked the lipstick gun, and the ring gun.

We did a lot of touring and saw a ton. It was a great trip, and I am glad Cody could join me :)

Best work trip so far

I was selected by leadership in my building to attend Leadership Training in Washington, D.C. for 11 days. :) I arrived on Sunday August 16th, and will leave Wednesday August 26. I flew in via United and had a layover in Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Of course, it was storming there, and my plane got delayed 3 hrs! There was a cool dinosaur in the airport I had to get a pic of.

When I finally arrived in D.C., it was 9:30 p.m. D.C. time. I made the foolish mistake of taking the metro to my hotel, and walking from the station. Picture this, I was walking with one suitcase in each hand, plus a laptop bag and a purse over one of my shoulders. I also had no clue where I was going and I ended up lost in Chinatown. DUMB!!!!! I almost got mugged, a hobo I passed was sitting on the side of the road drinking, saw me and laughed and got up to follow me. Thank God for the policeman around the corner, who I stopped and got directions from.

I made it to Hotel Monaco eventually. They put us up in a very nice hotel, across the street from one of the Smithsonian Art museums.

The hotel is very trendy, and even has a complimentary wine tasting every evening.

I apparently got the largest room the hotel has. Most are tiny, as in you have no room for luggage. I really lucked out.

The training is held in a room on the top floor of the hotel. This building is historic, and actually used to be the postal building until 2002 when it got converted to the hotel.

After class, I have started to explore downtown Washington, D.C. I am fortunate enough to have all the major museums, the monument, the archive building, and the capitol within walking distance. First, I explored a sculpture garden.

The sculptures were ok....... they are nothing compared to the quality you see in Loveland, CO. However, the gardens throughout were superb (probably because of the insane humidity).

I also toured an art museum. I could not believe the quality of art they had there. It was free admission, which was shocking!

First off, I saw an original Da Vinci painting!!!

Here is the back of the painting, beautiful!

Next, a sculpture of Jon the Baptist completed in 1460!

The building was made of solid marble!

This divine altar piece came from Abruzzo, Italy. It is on loan to the United States because we were the first to come to their aide when a devastating earthquake nearly destroyed their town in April, 2009. This piece came from a museum there that is now condemned. It is called the Beffi Triptych.

Here is yet another unique painting of whaling in the 1500's.

Of course you all know, this is a Monet. They had 5 on display, all equally astonishing.

One of my favorite parts was the private armor collection from the 1500's on display.

It was so immaculate. I could not believe how detailed it was, could you imagine how long it would take someone to make this?! This was all royal armor. I wish I had some kind of scale for you to see how small they are. The full suits of armor would fit a 10-year old in today's world.

There will be plenty more pictures to come. Cody is flying in as I type, and we are going to tour all weekend! He wasn't going to come originally, but when he heard how scared I was on Sunday, he bought plane tickets for Friday through Wednesday. This will be a new experience for both of us, especially since the furthest East Cody has been is Omaha, NE. We are going to have a ton of fun!

New truck!

After months of saving, we finally bought a new truck today! We bought an '09 Toyota Tacoma with the TRD Offroad Package. It is a V6, 4WD, shortbed that seats 4 people comfortably. I absolutely LOVE it, and so does Cody. It will be nice to have two vehicles again.

It came with XM radio, and bluetooth. We can sync our phones with the truck and there are buttons on the steering wheel that allow you to talk on your phone hands free as you drive.

Other than buying a new vehicle, we really haven't been up to much lately. A few weekends ago, we went to Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, CO to people watch and buy these funky shoes. These are like toe socks with soles, and Cody wears them all the time. It looks really weird, but I can't believe no one thought of these things sooner!

Here is what we normally do, kick back and relax! Have a good weekend!