Steamboat Springs

Last weekend, Ben and I headed up to Steamboat Springs for some skiing and some hot springin. We both had never been, so we were excited for a NEW adventure. The visibility wasn't the best, but there was some good fresh powder and NO lift lines! One of the highlights happened on our first way up the mountain...we got to share a gondola with 4 people from Japan in which we jumped at practicing our Japanese with! They said we did pretty good, and were very excited for us.

Lisa

A picture showing our visibility we had on the top of the mountain, it got better the further we went down.

Ahhh, and after a day of skiing, we headed to Strawberry Hot Springs. Probably the best hot springs we've ever been to - so natural and NO sulfur smell.

Ben enjoying the soothing waters on our achey knees :)

Lisa getting some good maxin and relaxin time in :)

On our way home, we picked up Tikka (Brian and Vanessa's dog) to watch her for the night. Threw her in the back with Cubby and Kaena, this is how much room they gave her, nice huh? :)

Our new nephew Wyatt!

We stopped over to Amber and Ty's house last night for an early birthday celebration for Ty, and got to hang out with our new nephew Wyatt some more :)

A day with Jon and Charmian

Jon and Charmian came up for a weekend to hang out, unfortunately I had to work, but Ben got to go play with them! They ended up going cross country skiing near Brainard Lake. Jon and Charmian were getting the hang of it :)

Next up, GIANT SNOW ANGELS!!!

Ben's attempt

Charmian's attempt

They were then going to go ice climbing but ran out of time, which REALLY upset Ben as he hasn't been out this season yet....so he put on his gear and hiked into the backyard...looking for his victim.......

Found "the victim", our dead tree stump :)

Then he thought he'd see how the "live" tree, that we spared when the garage was excavated (the contractor wanted to cut it down), would do with ice axes.........oh boy.

More garage progress

In a couple of days before a snowfall, Ben, our friend Matt and I quickly sheathed the garage and layed down tar paper and water/ice shield on the roof....whew!

A view from the street. We got new windows on the house upstairs too! Wow - what a difference! You can sit on the couch below the one shown in the picture and NOT have to have a blanket! Nice.

Grandma turns 90!

My Grandma T turned 90 this year so we all headed to Iowa to help her celebrate!

This isn't the best smile she has, but man did she still have her wittyness about her, crackin jokes left and right!

My mom used her cake decorating skills (she was a professional when I was little) and made the cutest cake ever!

Ta Da!!! She accidentally forgot the top piece of cake, so she had a local supermarket bakery make it for her....you can tell which one they did - can't believe they charged her for that! But still, it was SUCH a CUTE cake!

Another one of my grandma's cakes....made of all flowers. She had another one too, forgot to take a picture though, but it was cheesecake wrapped in fondant to look like stacked presents, very cute!

Lifeteam......UNITE!

For Turkey Day this year, we reunited with our best friends we had in Alaska...Kevin and Rennau (aka Chris or SD). Anyway, when we were in Alaska all together, we pretty much hung out everyday, and would do some pretty crazy and random things where our individual skills and knowledge would get us out of some sticky situations. We had dubbed ourselves "The Lifeteam" for this reason. So after 15 months of being separated (Ben and I had moved to CO, Kevin remained in AK until moving to San Fran last month, and Rennau had moved to MT), we decided it was time to unite again! The 4 days together flew by faster than a roadrunner on speed, and our stomachs hurt everyday from the laughing (seriously, we felt like we had done 1000 situps the previous day!). Anyway, here's a few photos from the Lifeteam Reunion of '09! Love you guys, can't wait until our next one!

Lifeteam Reunion 2009

Our Wisconsin Trip

In late November, Ben lost his uncle Bob to a battle with cancer. We were able to make it back to Wisconsin for the services, and where all the family still lives except Ben and his parents and brother. It was a sad trip, but at the same time a great one, to be able to see where Ben grew up and to be with his loving and hilarious family. Click on the picture to see some photos from our trip.

Wisconsin

Success!!!!

Ben's beer is ready!!! And, by the look on his face, its great!! Woohoo, Ben's Brewery is open for business!!

A little more progress!

Ben exploring the trench! We had to dig so far down because our ground is almost all clay.

Puppies turn!

We had them remove our buckled back patio....gonna put in a flagstone one soon!

Getting the foundation poured!

Stay tuned for more posts, hope to have it done by January, hopefully!

ONE YEAR!

A year ago exactly from today, we were handed the keys and moved into our house!!! Its been quite a year, filled with fun, demolition, remodeling and visitors! I wonder what the next year will bring. Maybe its finally time to have a housewarming party :)

SNOW!

Whew! Quite the snow dump we have been having since Tuesday night....haven't taken an official measurment, but I'm guessing at least 24 inches, and its still snowing!!!!

Decided to take the dogs skijoring in the awesome new snow! However, it didn't go so well, as the bottom layer of snow is a sloppy wet mess, so our skis just wouldn't glide.

Oh remember our garage project? Well this is what it looked like before....

And after! Think its gonna be delayed a few days. :(

The Garage is coming!!!!

Work has finally begun on our garage being built....we're pretty excited about this. Thought we post a few pictures of the beginning of the demo :)

The picture doesn't really show how deep and big the hole in the ground is!

Home Brewin

On to the next project!!!! A friend of ours who recently moved away from Boulder was a big home brewer but needed to lose some weight for moving, so he graciously gave us all his equiptment for making beer (Thanks Javi!!!!) So Ben was super pumped to brew his first batch! He picked out ingredients to make a Bavarian Dunkleweisen.....basically a dark Hefenweizen.

Mmmmm, smell the aroma!!! :)

Now we just have to wait til about Thanksgiving to bottle and try it! Any taste testers out there? :)