A visit from my family

Last weekend, my mom, dad and brothers came for a visit during their fall break.  Surprisingly, despite my last post, the weather was perfect-- low 70's the entire time.  We had a great time and did a lot of fun things.  Take a look:

Went on a bike ride around the city.  Beautiful trail.  Perfect weather.  Couldn't have been better.

Brody was in class.  We dropped him off, then continued on.

During our bike ride, we came across a cool bike-park complete with jumps, logs, rocks and other obstacles.

The boys quite enjoyed this.  Especially dad.

Went shopping.  Found some great stuff.

Jake and Cam weren't too pleased to have their picture taken, as you can tell.  
However, I think they found more stuff than I did, so I know they had a good time!

My mom and I both bought some cute boots (they were buy one, get one for $15... how could we pass up that good deal???)

Isn't my mom so hip and stylin??

Spent a couple hours at the CSU rec center.

They have a lot of cool stuff there including a rock climbing wall and a pool with a lazy river, another rock wall right next to the water, lanes for swimming laps and a huge hot tub/pool.

Went out to eat at an amazing local pizza place in downtown Fort Collins.

They sell their pizza's (also known as 'mountain pies') by the pound.
We got a 5 pound pizza.  It was awesome.

Witnessed the Fort Collins "Zombie Crawl" where the whole town walks around dressed as zombies on this particular night.  There were a couple really good ones (or in other words, really gross ones).

Check out the baby coming out of that girls stomach!

Siiiiick!!!!

Weird girls, creepy mask guy.  He would just quietly follow random people around. Scary!

We did not dress up as zombies that night, but that doesn't mean we didn't act like them!

Me and my brothers doing our best zombie impression

Went to church on Sunday before they headed out.

The sun was bright in our eyes.  And Brody doesn't wear beanies to church.

Me and mom

{ Activities not pictured:  Sat in the hot tub, played lots of games, ate lots of yummy food and went to the movie 'Moneyball' }

It was great having them here and I'm glad we were able to spend the weekend with them!  We missed Jessica and Brad, but not to worry, we will be seeing them in just a few short weeks IN MEXICO for our family vacation during Thanksgiving!!! I can hardly wait!!

Winter is here too, I guess!

This morning, we woke up to this:

I guess it's goodbye fall, hello winter?

First snow fall of the season= 6 inches! I know that snow is pretty typical in October, but I don't think I've ever seen this much of it this early!  Since there are still so many leaves on all the trees, the snow is too heavy for the branches and they have all been breaking off the trees.  There are huge branches laying off the side of the road all over town!

{You can see the pile of fallen branches on the ground}

{Poor little tree. I don't think he was quite ready for winter just yet}

However, despite what the above pictures are showing, I don't think winter is here to stay because it's supposed to get back into the high 60's again by this weekend.  But I do have to say that I sure have missed this fluffy white stuff over the last 2 years!!

I'm just extremely happy to have all 4 seasons again.

Oh, and guess who else is happy?

{this guy}

There is a field right next to our apartment that turns into a pond when it rains a lot, or in this case, snows a lot and then melts a little.  Sal had a blast running laps through the snow, burying his face in it, and chasing the ducks through the icy cold water. Crazy dog.

Fall is here!

Brody and I have finally been reunited with the best season of the year.... FALL!!!

Fall is now in full swing here in Ft Collins and I'm extremely happy about it.

Happy Fall and Happy {almost} Halloween!

Day trip to Estes Park

The other day, we took a quick trip with our friends to Estes Park for the day.  This is a very quaint and beautiful little town up in the mountains about an hour away.

We checked out all the little shops, ate dinner at a yummy mexican restaurant and got some delightful fudge and caramel corn (which was probably some of the best I've ever had!)

We also saw some fun wildlife just roaming around (in addition to these single animals shown below, we also saw a whole herd of each (deer and elk) later on but it was getting too dark to get a good picture).

There is also something very unique located in this city.  The Stanely Hotel.  This is a hotel that is supposedly haunted (not just around Halloween, but all the time).  The TV show 'Ghost Hunters' even visited The Stanely and did an episode about it.  Also, it was this hotel that gave Stephen King the idea for his book/movie "The Shining" and many other people claimed to have 'seen things' during their stay.  Who knows if these stories are true or not, but it was still a pretty cool place to see.

{Fun fact- I love old keys! So I thought it was very cool that these are the keys that guests use to get into their room} 

It was a fun little day trip!

Jeff Dunham

This week, Brody and I were able to attend the Jeff Dunham live show here in Fort Collins at the Budweiser Events center (which I guess hosts a lot of famous people and events).  A couple in our ward had tickets but were unable to go at the last minute, so they gave them to us for free! (And they were $50 tickets. Each. Score! We baked them cookies though, so it's all good... ha ha)  We went with another couple that also had tickets, and had a great time going out to eat and then to the show.  It was so hilarious, I cried-laughed a couple times.  That's when you know it's good!

{For those of you that don't know, Jeff Dunham is a ventriloquist comedian.  You know, someone that has a puppet and speaks for it without moving their mouth.  That may sound lame, but he's actually REALLY good at what he does and makes it super funny.  We couldn't take pictures during the show, but here's one from the internet of him and his puppets, in case you were curious.  Each one has it's own voice and personality and are all pretty dang funny, but especially the skeleton- Achmed the dead terrorist}

Tour of our apartment

Now that the setting up and decorating of our apartment is (mostly) finished, I thought I'd give you all a tour.  I still have a few things to work on, but I'll just do some before and after pictures of those later.

So here we go... ..keep your arms and legs in at all times and enjoy the tour!

Still on my to-do list:
- buy/find/borrow a bed, put decorations up in the guest bedroom, get a desk for our sad printer who's home is currently on the floor and make it look like a functioning bedroom instead of the room where we just put all our random crap.  (And don't be fooled, we have a very comfy air mattress that we pull out for guests, so don't let the lack of a bed stop you from visiting! Hey, at least you'll have your own bathroom!)
-  buy 2 more chairs for the kitchen table and paint them black (that ottoman isn't supposed to be there)
-  buy a couple more lamps (the lighting is horrible in here)

-  possibly paint the rest of the apartment something better than "off-white" (but we have to paint it all back to the lovely "off-white" when we move out, so I'm debating how much I want to do)
-  buy a few small, non-important decorating items
-  and someday, most likely in the very far-off future, I would love to get new couches and a new bedspread.

That's all wishful thinking though.  For now, I'm happy with what we have!!

Well, that's all folks!  Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you enjoyed the tour of our home!