Opening Day

Keystone opened up on Friday, November 2nd.  I took a rarely used personal day and joined Scott and two of our other friends up there for some snowboarding.  It was a blast.  The mountain was open from top to bottom, but only 1 run.  We did the run over and over and over again. 

Vail Resorts has a really neat program called Epic Mix.  The program essentially turns your season pass into a loyalty card (like a grocery store) and "tracks" what you do.  You can see how many vertical feet you traveled in a day, how many lifts and which runs you rode on.  There are also photographers stationed all over the mountain that take pictures of you and your group that link back to your pass.  Last year, each picture was $19.95 to purchase (ouch!)  This year, they have a new package that for $30, you get the digital file of unlimited pictures for the season! Needless to say, I thought that $30 was well worth it! 

This past weekend, we went up to Keystone again.  This time, we stayed overnight on Friday night in River Run Village so we were first on the mountain.  We ended up only riding for a few runs because it was SO packed.  No fun at all! After I got pushed over by a nasty skier and had the wind knocked out of me, we realized it was time to drink wine and sit in the hot tub instead :-) Scott was talking to ski patrol and was told that the resort expected over 6,000 people to be on the mountain riding the one run.  Eek! We are taking a snowboarding break until Keystone opens another lift. 

I spent Sunday working on the upstairs guest bathroom.  I will hopefully have some reveal pictures very soon! It looks like a completely different space already.

Living Room Progress!

I'm SO excited for the progress in the living room.   I will let the pictures tell the story.

 

 

I am still deciding if that rug is the "right" one, but we already had it so it's certainly good for right now.  We keep changing around the pillow combinations, too.  The end tables that are black will be painted the creamy white color that the dining room table is (probably).  The mirror that is set up behind one of the wing back chairs will be hung horizontally on that wall over the chairs. 

We are making progress!

Happy Halloween!

Being as this was Scott and my first year in our new house, we had no idea what Halloween would be like as far as trick or treaters.  When I was at the grocery store one day, I grabbed a bag of Tootsie Pops to have on hand "just in case" some showed up.  The night before Halloween, Scott decided that was unacceptable.  "No kids like Tootsie Pops."  So back the store we went where he picked out 5 bags of other candy.  His assumption was that he would get it all when we nobody came to our house.

Holy. Hell. 

Scott called me frantically at 5:45 when I was on my way home from work because of the sheer number of kids wandering around our neighborhood.  He witnessed a giant SUV come and unload almost 10 kids and a van do the same right behind him.  It wasn't even dark yet!

Our candy lasted until 7.  In less than 1 hour, we went through 6 bags.  For fear of our house being egged, we turned out all the lights and went and met some friends for dinner and drinks.  Let's just say I'll be buying multiple bags from Costco next year!

Every year we dress the puppies up.  Scott refused to let me buy a costume for Baker, so he went au naturale.  When we were taking puppy pictures, I think he started to regret his choice.  Maybe he learned his lesson so I can get Baker a costume next year.

On a very sad note about my pictures, I took some AWESOME shots of the dogs.  They were so cute.  Then when I went to put my SD card into my computer, the card slot was empty.  My damn camera never once mentioned this to me during the 25+ shots I took.  Canon FAIL! So we had to snap some temporary pictures on our iPhones, so excuse the quality.

Aren't they just the cutest??? :-)

This past weekend, Scott's mom came into town for a short "hello" visit.  It was great, but like all trips, the end came way too fast.  I asked Jeanette for some help in my living room.  I had the 2 chairs I bought from Target and my 2 project wing back chairs, but hadn't been able to put this look together.  We spent all day Sunday trying to find the right accessories like rugs, end tables and lamps to hopefully make the space work. 

We had a really good game plan and things were coming along nicely.  Until I went to World Market.  The second I went in the door, I knew why the living room wasn't visually working in my space.  I had the wrong chairs.  In fact, I really didn't want 4 chairs, but wanted a couch/love seat and 2 chairs. 

Meet Harper. 

I don't know if I've ever loved a piece of furniture like I've loved this couch.  And I knew the second I saw it, I had to have it.  All of a sudden my room started coming together!

I Just Found...

I think I may have found something that makes me more excited then I have been in a long time.

I need to back up a little bit.  Awhile back, I did a post about some granite transformation paint that I was going to try in the upstairs guest bathroom.  The bathroom is rarely used and I figured that it would be an inexpensive way to update the room.  I had plans to have Scotty lay some economical tile down there, change some fixtures, and call it good.  Unfortunately, Scotty has requested that I find some projects that don't require him to do everything.  So alas, I was on to finding an alternative for the bathroom floor.  I've been forbidden from using power tools.  It's a house rule.  And I haven't ever earned the ban.  But whatever.  So I was Googling the other day and heard about this vinyl wood flooring.  Now I LOVE wood floors.  I prefer them over any other types, especially dark and rustic ones (like we laid in our downstairs).  The big rule is to never put laminate in bathrooms so I never even thought of wood in there.  Some GENIUS out there created vinyl wood plank flooring.  It's a peel and stick tile that you lay right over your current floor.  I am seriously stopping at Home Depot on the way home to pick up a box of this stuff.

http://agracefull-life.blogspot.com/p/fave-projects.html

Would you even believe me that the picture above is vinyl and not actual wood?  How unbelievably cool.  I'm not too worried about longevity of the product, either, because truly, the bathroom only gets used when we have people in from out of town.  The reviews I'm reading do appear to say that the product holds up well, but that is just an added bonus if it does happen.

I found this great product at Home Depot that I can't wait to see in person.  And the grand total it will cost to do the floor? About $50.  Can't beat that!

Art on the Walls

This afternoon, I dedicated a half hour to getting some art hung on the walls.   I started in the guest bedroom.  I found these great, vintage skiing posters on eBay and thought they'd be perfect in the room.

Each of the posters is a special place to Scott and I.  One is from Sun Valley, Idaho where we were married and the other is Stevens Pass, Washington where we did the majority of our riding and had our first date.  We are still looking for Mt. Baker, Washington where Scott grew up and Breckenridge or Keystone, Colorado, which are our new mountains.

I also did some art re-arranging.  I had this piece hanging in our family room, but really didn't love it there.  I moved it to the upstairs hallway and look it much more now that I don't have to look at it constantly. 

In it's place I hung 2 of the 4 animals canvases.  I still have to make 1 each for Chewy and Baker.  Once I do, I'll hang them above the 2 that are already there, making a square.

Maybe tomorrow I'll actually do some of the work I had intentions of doing today. :-)

Snow!

We woke up this morning to our first snow of the season! It was just a dusting and nothing exciting at all.  I didn't take a picture at all, but here is one I found on the news website that looked like my back porch.

It looks like it is time to bring the patio furniture in!  Oh but wait. Maybe it's not!  It looks like we are back up to 70 on Monday.  Only in Denver will you see swings like that!

I've decided that this weekend is an all work, no fun weekend.  I've been slacking on finishing up some small projects.  The small (but seemingly huge) project that I keep avoiding MOST is finishing our banister.  The whole thing is primed and just needs it's paint and polyurethane to be completed.  After that (or while coats are drying) I'm going to finish painting the 3rd guest bedroom.  We are leaving that room blank minus some paint to use when we need the room for blow up beds.

Hopefully my camera and I will get some fun shots this weekend to share early next week.  Happy Friday!