A few more pics and reflections of this MOVE!

Jim, Natalia, Milana and Simon came to visit just before Christmas. We had a great visit, although Simon had a stomach bug and initiated some of the furniture and toilets.  Of course, I got sick after he left and was ill for twice as long as he was.

Jim, Natalia, Milana and Simon (all better now), on Christmas in Long Beach, CA.

While Simon recovered, Milana and I made cookies. She is getting so big.

Milana told me that she needed to learn how to use the hula hoop.  Evidently it's quite popular in Long Beach.  No sooner had she said that when I ran across this picture of me when I was just a little younger than she is now (I was probably 4).  Anyway,  I still had this skirt and top.  My dad brought it  back from one of his TDY trips to Hawaii.  I thought I'd surprise Milana by giving her the hula outfit and a hula hoop.  As you can see, I was having a good ole time - not a self conscious bone in my body.  Milana was not on my wavelength; she was not going to be caught dead outside of the bedroom in that skirt and skimpy top; thus the reason for no cute picture of her! Oh well, we did practice the hula hoop. 

...and, we decorated a gingerbread house when Simon started feeling better.  The other little girl is Maureen Hanrahan's granddaughter, Quinlan.  The workroom works perfectly for kid activities.

I think she likes sugar!

So, now that the excitement and adventure of creating our dream home is a reality, there are a couple of burning questions; what are we going to do with ourselves and are we happy with our decision.  

What we going to do with ourselves remains to be seen. We have lots of projects; the one that I want to tackle this year is a family history, a new cookbook and the landscape.  That ought to keep me fairly well entertained.  We're also going to do some traveling to see family and friends.  We ran so much $$$ through our Southwest card that Phil is able to fly anywhere with me for free.  We also earned so many miles that even I'm able to fly free.  We've booked about 6 trips for next year  so far (about 1/month). 

Are we happy with our decision?  Yes!  It doesn't mean that I don't miss being able to hop in the car and see all my friends and family who live in California.  On the other hand, we have wonderful friends here and are making new friends in our neighborhood.  I don't know what is is about Denver, but it is a very friendly place and we're enjoying it very much.  We like the changing weather.  We like the price of gas.  We like the extra income from renting our condo in downtown Denver.  We like that we are able to handle travel easier to the East coast to see Kelli and Kirsten and their families.  We 're getting used to the dryness.  We like the accessibility of the city.  Friends Maureen and Peter  and Sue and Anthony have been great guides to the city. As a result, we have enjoyed a variety of museums, art exhibits, bike trails, live performances (big and small) -- many more than we did in the Bay Area; it just seems more accessible and affordable. 

 

Besides people, what I miss most about Alameda is my year round herb garden and the always fruitful lemon tree.  And,  by spring I know I'll miss the greening of the hills; it takes until April/May here to get a touch of green.

Most importantly, we feel incredibly fortunate for all the love and support we feel from all of you.  This move has been and will continue to be an adventure and the change has been stimulating and rewarding.  We love having visitors, so for those of you who have made plans to visit...we're looking forward to seeing you! 

Sending you love and best wishes for a happy new year.

Happy New Year !

As 2015 approaches, the snow is coming down like a never ending ticker tape parade.  Phil is out clearing the driveway with his leaf blower;  the snow is so dry it clears easily with the blower as long as it doesn't sit too long.  Unfortunately, Phil woke this morning to a flat tire so I'm going to write the blog this time and send some pics of our new place.  We're moved in for the most part.

Our furniture arrived on November 17 and we entertained on Thanksgiving!  Sister Renee and Brother -In-Law, Lynn came as our first guests and we had a wonderful time.  The weather was mild enough to enjoy our roof top fire pit.  The lights in the distance sparkle more brightly than what this picture depicts and are an added, unexpected treat!

Lynn is an early riser and just likes to be outside so he took some great pics.   We are truly enjoying the wildlife, the skies and the views!  Yes, we see this every day (well sometimes it is covered in snow) and we love it!

Having company so soon after everything arrived was a great motivator for getting stuff put away.  Here's where we are now with the house....

Our bottle wall greets you...

Here's a little place under the stairway to look at photo albums or put on your boots....The floors in the entry level are stained concrete.  They look nice and are super easy to clean.  They can be cold, but not as much as I feared. 

Here's the guest bedroom  We took my childhood bed out of storage and converted it from a double to a queen.

The guest bathroom vanity is a repurposed china hutch that we painted and the mirror was  a thrift store find that we painted.  This room came together really well if I do say so myself!  Other rooms on the entry level are the exercise room and the workroom.

Coming up the stairs

Kitchen and dining room are the first thing you see coming up the stairs...

Turn around and there is the living room.  The door leads to a little covered patio with a super built in BBQ! 

Colin, Kirsten, Graham and Quinn came for a week.  Here they are at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.  We also went to the Air Force Academy (impressive), to Dinosaur Ridge to check out some fossils, and other usual tourist spots since this was Colin's first time here.   The boys had a great time just climbing and hiking in our neighborhood.

Beer break with Lynn and Renee at the Coors Brewery in Golden.  It was great to go with Lynn because he absolutely LOVES Coors light.  The tour was interesting but wasn't as good as when I last visited in the 80s.   I recommend the Celestial Seasonings tour in Boulder as a better alternative.   

Powder room...the counter top is a piece of natural edged maple, and yes, that circle thingy is another little bottle wall.

Laundry room.  The upper cabinet is a repurposed china hutch that we painted.

Well, this program is not letting me add more pictures to this particular blog.  I'll have to do a Happy New Year (part 2).

Well, that was exactly as easy as I thought it would be .......

Subtitle: I don't have this Colorado Winter thing down yet!!

We had a blizzard blow through a couple of days ago and it dumped about 8" of snow on us. I thought I'd be a superman and go out and shovel the driveway clear of snow ....... I'm guessing not all of you understand how heavy and hard to move 1300 square feet of snow 8" deep really is! I know I didn't.

The neighbor said not to shovel the snow - it was light enough to just blow off with a leaf blower. I tried that ..... what he didn't say is that you can't wait until there's 8" of snow to use the blower - that's just too much snow to move! So, I shoveled ..... for a little over three hours. Got it clean finally, and enjoyed the bright sunshine later in the day and the next day .....

Just enough sun and warmth to begin to melt what was left ..... and then the temperature dropped. The last two days it's been in the mid teens - during the day. At night it approaches zero. Snow was predicted.


Sure enough, this morning it was snowing when we woke up. I have the weather forecast thingy, and it said about 1" accumulation was due and that snow in our area would stop in 66 minutes - how do they know how many minutes snow will last? That was around 8:00 this morning; it's now 2:00 PM and it's still snowing - hard! I've already moved 3" accumulation .... twice.

I wanted to try the snow / leaf blower trick while there wasn't much snow. It works surprisingly well. The only issue I found was that when the blower gets near a wall or in a confined space like our front walkway, the snow goes everywhere ..... especially up my collar, under my hat, in my eyes, fogging my glasses ...... When I finally get the blower under control, the snow I blew up into my face and onto my glasses freezes and I can't see ......

I got the area near the front walk cleared and started down the driveway next to where my car was parked. As I approached the front, I spy a flat front tire. Now that's not a really big deal. The first flat I got with the Sequoia was last summer ..... in temperatures over a hundred degrees. The biggest issue is the way Toyota stored the spare. It's tucked up under the rear of the car, held in place by a sort of hoist / winch mechanism. In order to get at it, I have to open the rear door hatch.

So, I go to the driver's door and pull on the handle - the door's frozen shut. I go into the garage, get my paint scraper heat gun, hook it up and unfreeze the lock. I start the car and push the button to open the rear door ..... it's frozen shut too. Back to the paint scraper heat gun.

An hour later and I have the rear door open so I can access the tool pouch with the tire removal tools.

Last Summer it took me an hour or so just to figure out how to get the spare down. Today it didn't take as long - maybe 50 minutes or so - because it's so cold that when I take off my gloves to push the 3 foot long unwinder into the little hole to lower the winch I can't feel my fingers or find the slot the unwinder goes in. Finally, success! The spare is on the ground and I can jack up the front and swap wheels. Then I'll put the truck in the garage so it'll thaw out.

We've only been in the house around 1-1/2 months and while we've opened all the boxes, we haven't got all the contents into the house. And, some of the stuff that we brought from Alameda won't make the cut - going to go to the kids, to the Goodwill, or to building materials recycle. And, we've cleared only one side of the garage - the other is full of boxes, chairs, bed frames, rugs, etc. In order to get my truck into the garage, I have to move all the stuff into the back of the garage ....... which only takes another hour or so.

Now to put my truck into the shelter of the garage. When we designed the house we specified a really pretty curved "dry stack" rock wall in front. Later, we had to add a handrail on the entry stairway. Now, because of the wall and the handrail, I can't get my truck into the Northern garage space! And, Deb's car is in the Southern garage space!

Easy peasy! I'll just move Deb's car to the Northern garage space and put mine in the Southern space. Only, the garage door is frozen shut ....... back to the snow shovel to dig the ice and snow from the bottom of the door. Success! Deb's car gets moved and mine gets put into the garage. Feeling good now!

I've been at clearing the driveway in this "minor accumulation of snow" since 8:00 this morning - a little over 6 hours. I sure hope that it doesn't snow heavily this Winter!

The neighbor just popped his head out of the door ..... he said "When you get done with your driveway clearing, come over and I'll show you how well my Toro snow blower machine works!"

Cheers!

Mountain Lion!

HI! I'm not sure this video needs any commentary .......

Post by 7News and TheDenverChannel.com.