First Snow of the Season!

On Tuesday night and all day Wednesday it snowed! On Sunday it was 81 and sunny, Monday 60 and sunny, Tuesday 50 and sunny until it started to cloud over about 3:00pm and then Wednesday was 30 and snowy. It will be 60 and sunny by the weekend.

Crazy Colorado weather. Grover is having the time of his life though. I wish I had a video, but there will be many more snows to come to catch him in action..

He is self-entertained in the snow. He starts off slow but then sticks his whole face under the snow to smell the ground. Then, he starts trotting around and whenever snow flies up and hits him he gets super excited and starts running and sliding into deeper areas of the snow which just gets him more and more riled up. Keep in mind, there are no other creatures or humans out there with him to get him excited. It all comes from within himself which is highly entertaining to watch.

Here are some pictures from the backyard:

A little Halloween fun...

There is a specific age demographic that will appreciate the following post.

I was sitting at my computer wondering what the single greatest contribution to Halloween entertainment there has ever been. Then it hit me. It is this:

So come on everybodayah. Rock your bodayah.

Yes...this is what I do with my time. Don't judge me.

So much happened the past few weeks.......

Ok so let's just take this one thing at a time.................

Sometime before Becky arrives: the Passat is leaking oil so we call the mechanic. He discovers that my driver's side CV axle is totally busted and tells me I can't drive it or I'll die. A few days later he comes and replaces the CV boot and all is well but the oil is still leaking.
Thursday - Becky arrives. Fun is had by all.
Friday - Ryan, Becky, and me have lunch with some of Becky's CO co-workers. We drive around Denver to tour it and when we get home we realize that my car is leaking oil at a faster rate than before...
Saturday - We go to Red Rocks and tour the Great Divide Brewery with Becky then take it easy Saturday night.
Sunday - We meet our Uncle Ed and Cousin Ed in Vail.
Monday - Mechanic comes back after we leave him a panicked voicemail about the Passat leaking oil. He discovers that it is a broken seal on the rear main gasket. He says: get rid of this car now. This is a $2000-$3000 fix.

Tuesday - Drop Becky off at the airport and immediately go car shopping. Shop all day from 9am to 7 or 8pm and finally come home with the Passat traded in for a 2000 Subaru Forester. It looks something like this:

Mine is a bit more beat up on the outside - someone really loved taking it into the mountains I suppose....but the inside is great and the more I drive it the more I like it!

Wednesday: I drive for a few minutes to run errands in my new ride and the Check Engine Light comes on. My immediate reaction is probably some sort of expletive and we make an appointment at the dealer to look at it. Even though it's not under warranty, they were really nice and replaced the knock sensor that was causing the check engine light to come on. Very fortunate.

Thursday: Ryan leaves for a wedding in Connecticut. I leave for Front Range Christian School to sub!

Friday: I sub again!

Saturday: I'm still trying to catch my life up after this week. So exhausting and very little free time.

Another thing that has been taking up my time is my new blog! I love it! It's Mile High Savings. If you are my friend, you will get your coupons from my site :) Anytime you print from my site or go to your printable coupons site FROM my site, I get incentives!

I have Coupons.com, Coupon Network, RedPlum, SavingStar, and Cellfire so far.

If you are my friend AND my sister's friend, then you will evenly divide your printing between our sites. Her site is Broke Diet - On a Diet and On A Budget.

Dog Speak

 Becky took this picture of Grover to say hi to Taylor:

This was Taylor's response:

Friday night awesome

We just grilled burgers and sat outside in the backyard! The weather in Colorado has just turned amazing! August went on record as the hottest August in Colorado history (not awesome) but we just had a cold front come through and it was mid-80s and sunny for the most part today. Right now, at 8:09pm, it's 71 and breezy! We had a 10 minute thunderstorm and now it's even nicer out than before the little stormlet came. All you NC people - jealous? And my sister will be coming to visit in 6 days and will experience temperatures in the 70s during the day. Loving this weather. Interested to see if i'm singing the same song in January when I'm stuck in the snow on the neighborhood roads :) Ryan is doing his fantasy football draft tonight....the Broncos play the Raiders next Monday. We are so excited for football and like everyone else we are very interested in how our quarterback situation shapes up this year.

Lots of things!

I haven't posted on here for quite a while...I've been busy!

We bought our house and moved in on August 20th. So we've been here now for a little more than a week.

Ryan started playing on a city softball league Monday nights - that has been fun! They are 1-1 so far!

I'm applying to be a substitute teacher at the Christian school that is 1.5 miles from our house. It also happens to be where my father-in-law teaches!

I entered Grover into a contest - go vote for him! Grover! Vote everyday! I think the reward is like a lifetime of Greenies chews..which I don't really want but it would be fun to see Grover get some votes!

I started a coupon blog: milehighsavings.blogspot.com.
My sister is also working on her blog: www.brokediet.com

Go there and support us! So far I've made like $3.00 from people clicking the ads. Haha. It's a get-rich-quick scheme for sure!

Becky (my sister) is coming to visit us September 8-13! We are excited to have her fly out here to hang out and show her our life here in Colorado! We are also taking a day trip to Vail to see our uncle, aunt, and cousins that live in Grand Junction.

Sorry for the quick blurp update but I must go for now. That's my life in a nutshell!

One more night...

Tonight is our last night in the apartment.

HOORAY!

However, as much as we have been chomping at the bit to get out of here (mostly because of the noisy neighbors and seemingly constant maintenance issues), it hasn't been all that bad. Living here allowed us to save some cash we wouldn't have otherwise had and God has certainly orchestrated many other things to make this move easier in the long and short term. This apartment has been safe and ultimately it was a good choice to live here. We won't miss it all that much but we are thankful for our time here.

 

Things I won't miss:

• the neighbors upstairs
• paying a community water bill (this month our water bill is $70. Really? Water is like the least expensive thing on the planet...or so we thought)
• the very bright street lamp just outside our bedroom window that took two black-out curtains and three towels to contain the brightness
• walking 40 yards to the car (especially on heavy grocery days) 
• maintenance men in my house every other day

Things we will miss:

• free maintenance (however frequent)
• living across from the Cherry Creek State Park
• Driver, the boxer puppy that lives diagonal and up from us with some very nice people from Minnesooota
• The very nice people from Minnesooota (but we swapped contact info, hopefully we'll see them again)
• the amount we pay for rent

Now it's time to move on to our fourth establishment as a married couple...seventh establishment for Grover-butt. He doesn't even really seem phased by all the moving boxes like he used to. I guess after moving across the country in a Penske, staying in three different hotels, and then landing at the apartment for a mere 4.5 months, it ain't no thang for him to move again. We've concluded that by now he knows we won't leave him behind...