Boston

Boston here we come!!! I think two days of work this week has been enough for me!

It's A Messy Job...

We've been hard at work trying to finish up our duplex. One of the last things we had to do was replace a part of the sheetrock in the ceiling and then retexture and repaint. This job has been on our list for months, and would definitely have been done last, but our bathroom countertops haven't arrived yet. :) Yes, we have been dreading this. BUT, it is now done and we can cross "finish the ceiling" off our list, and I LOVE crossing things off lists. :) Just an FYI-texturing the ceiling is MESSY!!!

Vail: Day 4

Another day of sleeping in, another day of relazing. :) We flew out later in the afternoon, so it was nice to relax a little more before we had to head home. On our way from Vail to Denver, we were surprised to see snow! Yeah!!! It was absolutely beautiful!!!

It's always hard to get back to "real life" after a good vacation. :) But, what a wonderful way to celebrate our one-year anniversary!

Vail: Day 3

Happy First Anniversary to us!!! What a wonderful year this has been. We are so glad that we decided to take a mini-vacation over our anniversary so that we could just spend time together, reminisce, and make more memories.

We started out the day by walking about 45 minutes to an alpine garden. The pictures below were taken there.

It started raining as we were leaving, so we hopped on a bus back to the hotel and ate lunch at a local sandwich/burger joint called Bart and Yeti's. Yum. It literally rained the whole rest of the day, so we played board games and read. Before we left for vacation we saw on the weather forecast that there was a good chance of rain, so we actually bought Battleship and also packed our favorite game, Sequence. Landon wanted me to mention that he won all the games of Battleship. :( I hate losing.

For dinner we ordered in Dominos. Random, we know. We've only had Dominos twice in the last year. Once on our wedding night and then on our anniversary. :) On our wedding night we were starving and the only place open was Dominos, so we ordered pizza at 2am. Since it was raining and we really didn't want to get out, we decided to continue the Dominos tradition.

Side Note: We are very competetive in everything we do. On the morning of every holiday or event, we always try to say "Happy Anniversary" or "Merry Christmas" (or whatever the event) first. Landon usually wins. I accidently said "Happy Birthday" to him this morning. Whoops. :)

Vail: Day 2

Our plan was to get up early and hike. We didn't so much wake up early, but we did hike. :) Our butler gave us a really good recommendation for a hiking trail...Beaver Lake Trail at Beaver Creek Ski Resort. The trail started at the base of the resort area, but quickly branched out into the wilderness. We loved the trail and seeing Beaver Lake at the top was well worth the long hike up. I think it was a little over 6 miles total.

We missed the aspen's changing by about 2 weeks, though we knew we would before we got here. Seeing just a few of the buttery yellow aspen that were left makes us want to visit again when the trees are changing high in the mountains. Luckily, all of the aspens for about an hour outside of Denver are still yellow, so we were able to see some mountainsides covered with them. So pretty!

After hiking, we relaxed and then went to eat at Blue Moose Pizza, another good restaurant. We really only went there because it was a 30 second walk from our room. :) We were too tired to go anywhere else.

Vail: Day 1

We flew into Denver and then rented a car to drive to Vail (see bottom of post for more on our rental car). After stopping to shop at the Coach, JCrew, and Banana Republic Outlets in Silverthorne, we headed to our destination. Our hotel, The Arabelle at Vail Square, was absolutely amazing! It's location was perfect (right at the base of the Eagle Bahn gondola) and the service was excellent. We actually had a personal butler. No lie. The personal butler pretty much did whatever we wanted (which was nothing), BUT, we could have had him draw our bath, unpack our bags, make dinner reservations, etc. Crazy. We highly recommend the Arabelle, but I think it is already booked out for the entire ski season!

Our hotel

Our room

The fireplace

The amazing bathtub

We finished out the day by eating at a REALLY good local pizza joint called Pazzo's Pizzeria and walking around Vail Village. Vail is such a charming little town!

We like to refer to our rental car as the "Aveo Fiasco." When we booked our reservation, we knew we weren't going to be getting a luxury car, but we had no idea it would be this bad. The Aveo is so small that it barely fit our bodies and two suitcases. The worst part was driving up to our hotel, where Valet parking is required. We literally pulled up to the hotel and there were only Corvettes, Volvos, Cadillacs, Mercedes, BMWs, etc. And we pulled up in the Aveo. Landon said he lost his mancard. Fair enough, it was pretty bad.

Countdowns...

4 days until vacation at Vail!
6 days until our one-year anniversary!!!!
2 weeks until vacation in Boston!

That all means almost 2 weeks off work...with my hubby...traveling. I hope I can make it through these last few days of work. :)

Woohoooo!

BabyDog Lucy Versus Scissors

Landon and I have been living on a really tight budget in order to be debt free. Our goal: one year. Goodbye PA school student loans. Now, this debt free business is no easy task...and sometimes it requires exteme measures. BabyDog Lucy was due up for another grooming. Notice how shaggy she is in the first picture, taken about a month ago...so it's only gotten worse since this picture. We did the math and figured we spend about $500 or so just on her haircuts/shampoos/nail clipping per year. That's way too much money. So, we decided to try our hand at grooming her ourselves. :)

Landon and BabyDog Lucy in the middle of grooming.

Lucy's "after" picture.

Her body actually doesn't look bad, but her face is HORRIBLE! She kind of looks like a mix between a Schnauzer and a ratdog. :) We didn't realize that there are certain "cuts" for certain dogs. She definitely didn't get the "Yorkie cut" here. She actually behaved pretty well during the grooming, so we are thinking we will take her to the groomer for her first summer cut, and then we will trim her otherwise.

Side Note: She has cataracts, hence the yellow eyes. And, yes, she also has gray hair. That's what happens when you are 15 years old. :)

Thank You Bakerella!

WOW! I found this recipe on the Bakerella website and made it yesterday. I actually hate cake, so I didn't try it, but it seemed to be a big hit with friends and coworkers. Warning...it might not be so healthy. :)

Who Needs Exercise?!

Last night, we decided that we needed to come up with a work out plan. Neither of us are very good about exercising. I don't mind walking or running at a slow pace. After all, I did run off the track in the middle of a race when they begged me to run in the 1600m race in high school...cross country was more my thing...why did they even ask me to run track?! I don't run fast. Landon, on the other hand, would prefer to run at max speed. He does not like to walk or run at a slow pace. Obviously, our running styles do not mix. This is a problem for us. We have tried to run together on multiple occassions, but we both get frustrated (I run too slow, he runs too fast) and quit.

So, our new plan...
We will run a minimum of two times per week. We can run at our own speed. If we don't run a minimum of two times per week, then we can't eat out that week.

That should be enough motivation, right?! We don't even eat out very often (once every 1-2 weeks), so it won't be that big of a change. BUT, if I don't get Jersey Mike's and Taco Bueno at least once a month, I will NOT be happy. Landon feels the same about Little Caesar's and Wendy's.

I hope we can do this. :)

Side Note: We are eating pizza and watching Biggest Loser right now. :)

Patio

As many of you know, Landon and I have been spending a lot of time working on home improvement projects. Our most recent is a patio type thing and a flower bed. I thought they turned out well. We have a couple more little things to do and then our backyard is done. :)

Anniversary Month

Our one year anniversary is just a few short weeks away! We have celebrated our anniversary every month, so I decided we should also celebrate our actual anniversary month. :) Our previous 11 months have been absolute bliss. Last night we spent some time reminiscing about all our wonderful memories in the last 11 months and in our engagement and dating time. We are so blessed!

The month of October is going to be busy and very fun! We are relaxing this weekend, but after that we are all over the place. Next weekend is the OU-Texas game, and then we are off to Colorado, then Tulsa, and then Boston...then it is November! We will literally only be home for a total of 3 days in a 15 day period. We are going to be exhausted. Many more fun memories to come!!!