G at Preschool!

Today is G's first day of preschool. Wow, what happened to the time? She was pretty excited, but very shy. 

Here is her Daddy walking her to school. Melt my heart! 

Denver Zoo '14

Today G, my mom, and I went to the Zoo for my mom's company summer picnic. It was a lot of fun, and free (can't get better than that)! And in typical Colorado style, it was sunny, sprinkling, pouring, sunny, and cloudy. The animals were out and active and I was able to get some good pictures! Sort of shocking because a lot of times the animals are sleeping or in the shade or not in their cages at all. G was really into the animals and couldn't wait for us to move on to the next animal.

White Water Rafting

Today Jesse and I did something for the first time ever, white water rafting!! I won a gift certificate at my work's Christmas party, and we decided to try it out. We headed down to Canon City, CO which is about an hour and a half south of where we live. It was a beautiful 85 degree day and not a cloud in the sky. We were very lucky with the weather because it has been really rainy this summer. They told us they raft in any weather, but I did not want to raft in pouring rain. That did not sound like fun to me. So we woke up bright and early and headed down to Echo Canyon Rafting Adventures. This is the view around the area.

We were very pleased with Echo Canyon and would recommend them to anyone! They had very nice accommodations. 

The Metabolism Miracle

I recently discovered the book The Metabolism Miracle by Dianne Kress, a NY Times Bestseller. A girl from Weilos recommended the book stating this diet was how she lost the weight. My initial thought was "Oh here's yet another diet plan... blah.. blah.. blah....". Yet I decided to look up the book on Amazon and see what it was all about. After reading the excerpt, I was hooked.

G's Rainbow Party

My little girl is 3 now! It truly is amazing how fast time goes by. The older I get it, it seems like the faster time goes by. This year's theme was rainbow which truly was an easy theme. You pretty much just buy supplies in every color and it goes right along with your rainbow theme. I had a lot of fun planning this party. First I sent out rainbow invitations. I found this template on Pinterest and loved it! It was a foldable rainbow that came out of the envelope. How cool is that?

I rolled up the silverware in different colored napkins and arranged the colors like a rainbow.

These rainbow lollipops were the favors. I attached a little paper that said "Rainbow To-Go!".

These were the cupcakes I made. They were actually pretty easy. I made the cupcakes out of rainbow speckled cake mix. I bought a frosting that was already blue because I have the hardest time dying frosting and getting it the color I want. The rainbows were airhead candy strips. I cut each strip in half and then bent it and stuck it in the frosting. Then I bought a white spray frosting bottle to spray the clouds on each end. Pretty easy! Didn't take much time. 

We made fruit kabobs and arranged them in the order of a rainbow. We used purple grapes, blueberries, kiwi, pineapple, cantaloupe, and strawberries. Yum!

I didn't get many pictures of everything all set up, but here you can see the silverware bucket, the lollipop favors, and then I made beer margaritas and had rainbow colored cups.

Jesse went all out on the food. We had a taco bar complete with condiments, salsa, guacamole, etc. I found the pans and chafing dishes at a garage sale for $5. A couple people thought we catered the food. Nope. That was hard work. 

And here is the aftermath of making all that food for the party. Lots and lots of dishes. Yuck!

One of Jesse's co-workers' parents own a small bouncy house and they said we could borrow it for the party. That was very nice of them, as the kids had a blast in it!

Such a blast! Happy 3rd birthday G!

Memorial Day '14

So today we woke up bright and early to run the Bolder Boulder!! The Bolder Boulder is a 10k (5.2 miles) in beautiful Boulder, CO. The course winds through neighborhoods and the main streets in Boulder. I grew up running this race every Memorial Day with my family and it has become a fun tradition. The race was much smaller back when I was a child, and has grown to 62,000 people this year. Crazy! The race is just so much fun because people dress up in silly costumes, thousands of people cheer you on along the sidelines, bands play music along the race, there are belly dancers, people put out sprinklers in their yard, which is so refreshing when it's hot, and most of all it is such a feeling of accomplishment when you cross the finish line. The race ends in the CU stadium which is an amazing feeling as you enter the stadium filled with thousands of people in the stands and you just automatically start sprinting all the way around to the finish line.

Here is the view from inside the stadium. Lots and lots of people!!

Hillside Gardens and Nursery

Today we visited a place in town called Hillside Gardens and Nursery. I had never been there before, but was so in awe. It was quaint, serene, peaceful, beautiful, and it had just rained, so it smelled like fresh rain. Ah. It was nice. It's basically about 3 random acres in the middle of town that make you feel like you're out of town. Haha. They also had lots of junk antiques scattered all over their property for decoration and some of it was really cool! They had a local folk band playing which added to the wonderful evening. We will definitely be going back. Here's some pictures:

This was a tree tunnel that they had near the entrance. How cool is that?

Here's the tree tunnel with the sun setting in the background.