We had such a fun time last night. In Iowa they call the 30th "beggar's night" that is the day that all the kids go trick or treating (not sure why.) We had about 80 trick or treaters come to our door. We saw a bunch of the neighbors (gave them a little extra candy) and some people I hadn't seen in a while from park visits.
I dressed up as cat in the hat, and Mac was a bunny. She helped hand out halloween candy, and she thought that was pretty cool!
Josh spent most of the evening creating a haunted house for Tali and her friends. It was at Gona and Baca's complete with total darkness, a chainsaw, a 9 foot ghoul and haunted tree house - sounded like quite the experience! The girls cried!
--That morning Nolan and Shelly stopped by to show off his first halloween costume--
--Mommy all dressed up. I had on white and red striped socks and dressed all in black complete with tail--
--Meow--
--Mac and Daddy carved the pumpkins we planted (we bought the HUGE one)--
--bunny costume complete with whiskers (sans ears)--
--eating a snack, waiting for the trick or treaters (note giant bunny feet)--
--showing me her potato head man--
--she was bouncing like a bunny--
--she didn't want to wear the ears most of the night--
This last weekend I went to Denver to see a Broncos game. It was my old manager Troy's birthday in September, and his girlfriend surprised him with tickets to the game. Part of the surprise was that I was going to join them! I hadn't seen Troy in over two years and it was great catching up!
Friday I flew in, got my rental car, and drove to my uncle's ridiculously amazing house. It is on an acre overlooking a 180 degree view of the rockies. They turned the entire acre into flower beds for my aunt who LOVES to garden. She has already transplanted 800 plants from her old house to her new one. It is still under construction and due to be completed in February.
--Here is the view of the mountains, overlooking the backyard--
--View of the back of the house--
--Another view of the mountains--
The house is about 8000 sq ft. My uncle has done VERY well with various inventions and should retire in the next few years. He helped design and install a solar array that will provide enough electricity for the entire house. The surplus will actually be sold back to the city. His house also has the ability to be entirely heated and cooled by water. So he will never have any utility bill aside from the water bill, completely eco friendly. There are many fun gadgets like 4 LCD panels, placed throughout the house, that will control anything from temperature to the sprinklers, 6 electronic hubs that control all of the outlets in the house, a 90x60 piece of glass that will display the rear projector/high def television, sensors that monitor you walking into bathrooms so that the hot water will be at the faucet by the time you get there, framing for an elevator, sound absorbing walls, remote control windows and blinds, and $14,000 mahogany front entry. I can't wait to see it when it is done!
--Solar array, will power their entire house--
--This is just the cooling system (Gary in the pic for scale)--
--One of the command centers....they stopped counting the miles of cable that are in the house--
--The pipes that feed the radiator that heats the entire house with water--
We spent a few hours going over the ins and outs of the house along with his office. He built a 19,000 sq ft office about 3 miles from his home. It was designed using a raised concrete method - very interesting! Was amazing to see the growth that has happened in just the two years since I had been to Denver.
That night we went to a really amazing restaurant (5 star.) I had seafood risotto and some really tasty wine. We had some fancy appetizers and 3 tastes of creme brule for dessert. Yum!
Saturday Tracie and Troy drove to Gary's house to have a look for themselves. Then we drove downtown on the search for broncos gear and long underwear for the game. It was 75 degrees saturday, but was supposed to get down into the 20s on sunday! Troy had to get to a sports bar to watch the Indians play (huge sports fan.) He had already purchased tickets to fly back to Denver the following weekend to go to the world series, in the event the Indians won. Too bad they didn't....Troy was grumpy the rest of the trip.
--Troy and Tracie - notice that it is warm enough for tank tops on Saturday--
We did see Kevin Nealon that night at a comedy club. He was pretty hilarious:
We had some drinks after and chatted - then I headed back to Westminster.
Sunday was the day of the big game. It was snowing. There was about 2 inches on the ground when I left Westminster to head downtown. We walked around downtown for a bit hitting a home improvement trade show at the convention center. Then we met Eli (another old friend who happened to be going to the game as well) for a drink at a bar near the stadium. We drove around forever to try and find parking. $40 later we parked pretty close. We headed in and put on our broncos tatoos.
--Bear at the convention center - note the snow, and the coolness of a bear next to a building!--
--Troy and Eli at the pre game bar--
--We got to the field early - was a nice day, except for the temperature--
The game was amazing. We thought for sure we were going to lose with the season we had had so far. The stadium was sold out (78,000 seats.) I forgot how much energy pro games have! We saw some crazy fans, ate great food, and lost our voices cheering for our Broncos! It was a great game full of turnovers, interceptions, lots of action and a game winning field goal kicked by Elam in the last 10 seconds of the game....who could ask for more!
--Waiting for the game to start--
--Tracie and I sporting our tattoos--
--Cheerleaders (a future career for Tali?) --
--I wish I could have taken pictures of the all the crazy people we saw dressed up. Here are some of the more famous fans--
--Beer Barrel Guy--
Thanks Tracie for planning such a great weekend!!!
I am heading to Denver over the weekend to see a broncos game with Troy for his birthday. His girlfriend Tracie arranged the whole thing, and I can't wait! I also get to see my uncle Gary's ginormous house and hang out with them...should be fun!
I had to post some of the cutest pix of mac (no bias here!)
--isn't she the cutest ever! Gona and Baca got her this little jogging suit.....too cute!--
--she is definitely learning how to pose!--
--one of her favorite games is to pull all the cushions off the couch and lay on them--
--another day of pulling the cushions off--
--then we are trying on dolly's hat to see if it fits--
Thursday we went to Iowa City to see Mike Birbiglia. He was hilarious and well worth the drive. We both worked until 5pm on Thursday, then Gona and Baca picked Mac up at the Heathers. We drove the 2 hours to Iowa City and met up with Josh's friend from work, Dick and his wife Paula. They went to school at Iowa so they knew of an amazing sushi place right near the theater. I had salmon and a fushion shrimp sushi, it was awesome. We looked like quite the pair (not eating sushi much.) Josh was asking what wasn't raw on the menu and I ended up eating the Japanese pea pods wrong. I thought they were american and you eat the shell, turns out you are supposed to pop the little guys out....wow did I look silly! The waiter very politely asked if I had ever eaten them before...must have been obvious!
There were two comics prior to Mike Birbiglia that were pretty funny. The first guy looked like he had just woken up before the show, but he was just as funny as mike was! The second girl was a redhead that had a very high voice. I didn't think she was nearly as funny.
Pretty Hilarious. I fell asleep on the ride home...luckily Mac stayed at Gona and Baca's because I don't even remember climbing into bed.
On Saturday we had Scott, Melissa, Jaime and Char over for Ultimate Beef Stew and garlic bread, yum! Then we played ladder golf and scategories. Yesterday, I spent the day with a counselor for Clofax-Mingo high school. He did a great job of letting me know what a counselor does in the real world. He also graduated from Drake a few years ago, so we had a lot to talk about. And last night we went to see Tali cheer at the freshman football game. She was not so excited to see us there, but still did a great job, go Tali!
We are on countdown time until Baby Gentry is here. He will most likely be born on the 11th, even though he is due on the 28th. Babies of diabetic mothers usually grow bigger than "normal" babies, so they will most likely induce 2 weeks early.
We are so excited to meet him! Shelly and Damon came over last night with some friends of theirs, Chris and Melissa. Josh fixed Chris's computer and Damon grilled. I didn't really know what was going on when I got home from class.
I had to snap some final pictures of pregnant Shelly before Baby is born!
--Isn't she the cutest little pregnant lady ever?--
Just thought I would dedicate a blog to my little niece the Ames High cheerleader. Tali has been having so much fun being a cheerleader this year (well that's what her mom says :) I never see her in anything but black and orange (ames high colors.) She cheers at all the football games. I haven't seen her in action yet, but plan on going to a game soon. It sounds like they have to stand at attention for the entire game when they aren't doing routines...sounds tiring!
--Mommy all dressed up. I had on white and red striped socks and dressed all in black complete with tail--
--Meow--
--Mac and Daddy carved the pumpkins we planted (we bought the HUGE one)--
--bunny costume complete with whiskers (sans ears)--
--eating a snack, waiting for the trick or treaters (note giant bunny feet)--
--showing me her potato head man--
--she was bouncing like a bunny--
--she didn't want to wear the ears most of the night--
--running around with bear and blankey--
--The end (cute bunny butt)--
