Halloween 2016.

We came. We saw. We have a lot of candy to eat.

A proud lion(ess)

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A rascally, trash eating raccoon

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The cutest pair of trick-or-treaters I saw all night

From our house to yours, happy Halloween!

Isis Sadie Rula.

I posted these pictures earlier today on Instagram, along with the following -

"Rest in peace, sweet Sadie. May you now enjoy all the ice water, cheese, beer, and tuna you like and may there always be a lap for you in the sunshine."

We lost our sweet Sadie two Mondays ago.

She was diagnosed with chronic renal failure (kidney disease) in October 2014. While it's fairly common with cats, it's still an unpleasant diagnosis. By this past June, she had progressed to stage 4 renal failure which meant her kidneys had lost 85% of their normal function.

Bless her big heart, she did her best to keep trucking along. Mind you, she was no spring chicken. Our girl was just shy of her 16th birthday! At any rate, she was also developing arthritis in her knees and hips which was making life significantly more difficult.

After a long weekend of knowing, both on our part and hers, I called the vet on Monday, September 19, and took her in for one last appointment.

We had her cremated. Today, we buried her ashes under the pine tree in the corner of our yard. She's right below the bird feeder so there's excellent TV. Plus, that spot gets plenty of sunshine. She always did love to sunbathe. We gave her an ice cube, two different kinds of cheese, and some strips of paper to notarize.

I'm so thankful for the life that kitten experienced with me. She loved Griff from the first minute he began coming to our apartment. It's like she just knew! And, I'm thankful for the love and kindness she showed my children. She considered them her babies. She will never be forgotten.

There are so many other Sadie pictures I could share. But, I'll leave it at that.

Isis Sadie Rula

11/27/2000 - 9/19/2016

10th anniversary jam.

10 years of wedded bliss.

Griff and I celebrated by spending, almost a week, sans children in Boston and Maine. Madelyn and Sawyer (and Sadie) spent the week with grandparents. We certainly missed them but knew they were well cared for and we had a great time.

Day 1.

Flight to Boston. Dinner at Eastern Standard.

Our dinner at Eastern Standard was outstanding -- possibly one of the best I've ever had. The atmosphere was cool, the service was excellent, and our food was delicious. We had full tummies and passed on dessert. However, our server insisted we couldn't leave without dessert and she delivered  a dish of custard with raspberries and chocolate.

We stayed at the Sheraton Boston in the Back Bay. The hotel was within walking distance to Fenway, Commonwealth Avenue, Newbury Street, and T stations. Once we parked the car in the hotel garage on Sunday afternoon, we didn't get it back out until we'd checked out on Tuesday morning.

On a side note, it is so much easier traveling without children. Wink.

Day 2.

Fenway Park tour. Freedom Trail. Afternoon swimming at the hotel. Boston Red Sox game.

We had the 900A Fenway Park tour on Monday morning. It was the PERFECT way to start our day. Other than the grounds crew, we were almost the only people in the park. Fenway Park is such a neat stadium with so much history and so many preserved artifacts. Even if you're not a baseball aficionado, I would recommend the tour.

Standing on Yawkey Way.

Original grandstand seats.

View from atop the green monster.

Our ballpark tour wrapped up at 1000A. We walked back to the hotel, sunscreen-ed up, and headed north to the T station. We picked up the T near the convention center and rode up to North Station. Our plan was to follow the Freedom Trail from the north southward.

If you are the least bit interested in United States history, the Freedom Trail is such an incredible experience. The red brick path insures you don't get lost along the 2-1/2 mile walk. It wanders from point to point through the various neighborhoods. In the North End, I truly felt like I could envision it 250 years ago before our country gained its independence. And, the fact that the settlers built all these churches and homes and meeting houses without the use of modern construction tools constantly blew my mind.

Street's a little uneven.

We capped off day one by attending the Red Sox - Orioles baseball game. Talk about a fun place to watch a game. The fans are so devoted. We now consider ourselves Red Sox fans.

Oh, and I figured out we walked a half marathon, logging over 25K steps. Whoa!

Day 3.

Breakfast on Newbury Street. Drove to Camden, Maine. Lobster roll for lunch. Sunset schooner sail aboard the Appledore II.

We stayed at the Lord Camden Inn in Camden, Maine. It was right in the center of main street and across from the harbor. Our room was on the fourth floor and we had incredible views. Both mornings, I watched the sunrise over Penobscot Bay. And, I didn't even have to get out of bed for it!

View from our 4th floor balcony.

Our first evening in Camden, Griff really wanted to go on "an old people cruise". I was wanting to hold off until our second day but caved and we went that night. We booked a sunset cruise on Appledore II. While it's true we were the only people under 50, other than the crew, that didn't matter. It was a 2-hour sail from the harbor out to wherever the wind blows you and back. And, Griff got picked to help raise the main sail. Thank goodness for our youth!

Raising the main sail.

Returning to Camden Harbor.

Sunset over Penobscot Bay.

Day 4.

Run from Camden to Rockport (and back). Walked the Rockland Breakwater. Lobster roll for lunch, again. Low key pizza and salad dinner from Camden House of Pizza.

According to Fodor's Travel, the walk from Rockport to Camden is one of the prettiest in the world. We did it from Camden to Rockport, and back, and can agree that Fodor's Travel was not lying.

Rockport's harbor was much quieter than Camden's although it was still fairly early in the morning. We saw the remains of lime kilns that were used 200 years ago when Rockport lime was harvested, processed, and loaded into windjammers to be taken to Boston or wherever lime was needed in construction. What's cool is the trains would pull up above and behind these, dump in the lime, it would get processed in the kilns, and then loaded into windjammers docked directly in front of them to sail off to wherever. The railroad tracks are gone and the harbor has been changed. Now there's a gravel road instead of water right in front of these but still...so hard to imagine!

After our run, we cleaned up and went to Rockland to visit the Rockland Breakwater. It's a man-made granite pier, built in the 1800's, that is 7/8 of a mile long with the Rockland Harbor Light House at its far end. Due to tides, the breakwater is only "open" from 1100A-200P. The walk out is a little disorienting but nonetheless incredible.

The lighthouse is W A Y out there in the distance.

Day four's lobster roll came from a little roadside lobster shack called Claws. The line was long but the food was worth it. This was my favorite lobster roll of our trip.

My future's so bright, I've got to wear shades.

Lobster PILED high. Yum!

Day 5.

Drove to Portland, Maine. Visited Fort Williams and the Portland Harbor Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. This was awesome. Walked around the Old Port in Portland, Maine, and visited Harbor Fish Market. Almost got pooped on by seagulls but - HA HA! - they missed us. Dinner at Walter's.

I had heard about Portland Harbor Light but I wasn't familiar with Fort Williams. Holy cow. Fort Williams -- what's left of it, at least -- is so interesting. The remains of the batteries and bunkers for placing and sweeping mines during World War I are still present and accessible. And, the cliff walk was breathtaking. It's hard to imagine axis forces trying to get access to Portland during this time but I read on one of the plaques that a U-boat was intercepted in Casco Bay...which is just around the corner from Cape Elizabeth. It really brings the world wars so close to home.

Seriously. This state is so photogenic.

Beautiful day.

Day 6.

Drove back to Boston. Flight home...FIRST CLASS.

We had a very full trip, both with activities and fun. It was so nice to be alone together. I realize those two words are in opposition but whatever. I ain't no grammar expert.

It was nice returning home and getting back into our normal routine. Grammy and Grandad and Honey and Poppie obviously fed Madelyn and Sawyer because I swear they grew while we were gone. Thank you for making our trip possible...and for feeding the kids.

Griff, here's to 10 years and many more. Thank you for choo choo choosing me.

Big Cat

Guess who read this book to me the other night all by himself? That's right - Sawyer!

It's a sweet book about two kids and their big cat. But, it's even sweeter when it's being read to you by a sweet 5-year old who loves cats. He did a great job and melted my heart.

Sometimes, as the second child, the milestones don't get documented as thoroughly as they do with the first child. Well, consider this milestone documented.

Way to go, Sawyer!

First day of school.

August 17, 2016.

First day of 2nd grade for Madelyn and first day of kindergarten for Sawyer. We have two elementary schoolers. This is such a milestone for our family. I still have to pinch myself to believe it.

I did not attend the post first day drop off Boo Hoo / Yahoo event for kindergarten parents. I had a run to attend to! But, I also wasn't sure whether I was a boo hoo or a yahoo...I think a little of both.

Here's to a good school year for everyone!

Day I'm-not-sure-how-many.

We have a pumpkin!

Actually, my garden records indicate Sawyer and I planted these seeds on May 8. So, it's probably close to 95 days.

The longer version of the story is that Sawyer and I planted six pumpkin seeds on May 8. On June 6, all six had come up but two were still barely seedlings. That day, we had a massive hail storm which wiped out most of our garden including all our pumpkin seedlings except these two.

They're my few survivors and now we've got a pumpkin! Yay!

On a side note, I will probably get no zucchinis this year. Ugh...

Banner day for Sawyer.

After getting stung yesterday twice in the neck by a wasp at the Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield, sweet Sawyer had a much better day today. In fact, you could say he had a banner day! He...

a) Received his kindergarten teacher assignment. And, it's official. He has Mrs Murray! We are so excited for him and know he's going to have an awesome year. (See previous post re: Mrs Murray.)

b) Leveled up AGAIN in swimming lessons! He swam 25 yards backstroke all by himself and passed up to level 6. Way to go, my little buddy!

c) Attended a LEGO Mini Build with Madelyn this afternoon at the LEGO Store. They each built a cute little apple complete with worm, or in Madelyn's case a caterpillar because caterpillars are less gross than worms.

Happy days all around. Hope yours was good, too!

Take Our Children to Work 2016.

Today's post is brought to you by our favorite guest blogger, Griffin Anderson, founder and CEO of Anderson + Co. Griff lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, with his wife, two children, and the family's geriatric cat. He enjoys catching Pokemons in his spare time.

A few weeks ago I received an email about upcoming Take Our Children to Work events at the Hewlett Packard Enterprise offices in Colorado Springs and Fort Collins. When I worked at Blazent in Cherry Creek, Mollie brought the kids by the office a few times. To be fair though, all that did was make them think I played foosball and ate candy all day which was only half true. With HPE, they know that I either travel or work from my home office in the basement. Madelyn was within the recommended age for the event so I thought it would be good to expose her to the greater HPE. Plus, the agenda looked really fun!

On Wednesday morning Madelyn and I drove to Colorado Springs. I don't go into that office too often, but as we walked in I told Madelyn that sometimes when I leave the office there are deer lying in the grass outside. We agreed it would be cool if they decided to show up while we were at the office. I checked Madelyn in with the security team and we headed to the conference room I had reserved for the day. Madelyn and I spent the morning working together since the formal agenda didn't start until after lunch.

Madelyn designed her own website with a Shopkins theme.

She and Sawyer have been really into Shopkins this summer. She seemed to really enjoy building her website and later demonstrated it for Mollie and Sawyer. She says she wants to be a police officer and fashion designer when she grows up, but she definitely has some great technical skills!

After a kid friendly lunch in the HPE Café, it was time for the official event to begin. HPE and DreamWorks Animation have a very strong partnership, so the theme of the event was centered around the release of Kung Fu Panda 3. We got Madelyn all checked in. She was part of the yellow team. I headed back to my office for the day while she took part in different events including "The Panda Express (an obstacle course), "Folding Crane, Inking Mantis" (origami), "Kung Fu Demo" and "Photo Booth".

When I picked Madelyn up four hours later she reported she had a great day and "was glad I worked for HPE". In addition to the fun activities they also got to learn a little bit more about HPE and see things like the data center, at least I think that is where they went. Madelyn reported they had been in a very cold computer room. They also saw a 3D printer in action. The HPE volunteers did an amazing job with the event and I can't wait to take Sawyer in another year or two.

I really enjoyed the time with Madelyn and giving her a glimpse into what I do at work. As we left the office at about 5:30P there was a beautiful doe laying in the grass just outside the office door. It was a nice ending to a wonderful day.

"I am Po. And, I'm gonna need a hat."

Master bathroom.

In addition to running a half marathon this past Spring, my (our) other labor of love was a master bathroom update. Like my blog post on the subject, this was LONG overdue. There were a few aspects of this bathroom I HATED from the moment we first walked through it in early 2011. To the folks who think the mammoth-sized full wall mirrors with mirrored outlet covers and ugly stage lights are good design choices, I do not understand you. 

Oh, we also had some worn out, dirty linoleum floors which it turned out were not the originals. As our contractor discovered, the original linoleum floors were underneath these and were actually pink. Blech.

Let's take a look back at the listing agent's picture, keeping in mind that this was the best shot. Sorry for the blur and poor quality but I didn't have a digital copy at my disposal. So, this is a picture of an old picture.

And, here we are now.

I breathe a sigh of relief just looking at these pictures. Griff and I but mostly Griff replaced the lights and mirror ourselves. Thank goodness the ginormous mirror was not glued to the wall as it left minimal repair once we took it down.

The catalyst behind our bathroom update was the shower frame. No matter how hard we worked at it, the frame was rusting and there was never ending mildew in the seal between the glass and frame. It is so frustrating to clean something and not have it look clean when you're done.

When we researched seamless shower surrounds, we decided that if we were going to spend $x on the shower surround, we could spend a little more and fix the shower surround plus other stuff we don't like so we can really enjoy the bathroom. 

We kept the bathroom footprint the same but replaced the shower base, tile, fixtures, and surround as well as tub decking and apron, tub fixtures, flooring (this was a big ticket item), lights, mirrors, and baseboards.

A few years ago, I painted the existing oak vanity and have been really happy with the results. We like the size and look of it, now, so didn't feel it necessary to replace the vanity. The vanity top, sinks, and fixtures are on our short list of things left to do. However, after the hail storm in June, we're taking care of exterior repairs first before tackling the vanity top and sinks.

I absolutely LOVE the way the subway tiles in the shower and tub surround turned out. When the tilers were here working and I first came up and saw half of the subway tile in place, it took my breath away. The floors are a marble herringbone and they actually were not my first choice. My first choice was a marble basketweave but there was a mistake in ordering and these came instead. They are Arabescato Carrara Herringbone and they weren't cheap. But, they were and definitely are worth the money.

So, the short version of this story is our shower surround is now clean and rust and mildew free and we are happy. And, just in case you need another reminder -

Before.

After. Ahhh...

Ice cream social

Wednesday evening, the Highlands Ranch Metro District (HRMD) hosted an ice cream social at Civic Green Park. The weather was beautiful, the food trucks were aplenty, and the ice cream was all you can eat. We actually didn't pig out which was a little surprising. I think it was, in part, because there were so many other things to see and do like -

Run into several friends and their families from softball. Go Orange Crush!

Sit front row, curbside and watch the Littleton Fire Department demonstrate and extraction USING THE JAWS OF LIFE! It was awesome. Enough said.

Visit the Douglas County Mounted Patrol. They brought a thoroughbread, a pinto, and a smaller brown horse that Officer Domenico let Madelyn and Sawyer hold the reigns and see the horseshoes. So interesting!

Collect swag from the various booths. These kids had a plethora of bubbles, pens, stick on tattoos, candy, water bottles, and much more.

It kind of reminded me of Rusty Griswold from Vegas Vacation. "Well, four slot machines and I won four cars. You know, I put a dollar in, I got a car. I put a dollar in, I got a car. I put a dollar in, I got a car. I put a dollar in, I got a car." However, in our case, the cars were trinkets and the dollars were just waiting your turn in line.

Visit with another Sheriff and discuss handcuffs and whether girls can be police officers, too. According to Officer Blanchard, women are some of the better officers given their natural intuition. Who knew?!

This was the first big HRMD event we've attended and it was really fun. Perhaps this will become a new summer activity for us. And, who doesn't love ice cream on a hot summer night?!