Octoberfest

Cody & I went to the pumpkin patch a little late this year, but we still had a lot of FUN! Since we've both been working a lot lately we ended up carving pumpkins about a week before Halloween and then for Halloween we went to our ward party and trunk-or-treat. There were a lot of cool costumes at our ward party and it was fun to see some of them. I've never been that into dressing up for Halloween and I'm pretty sure Cody's glad that I'm not into it either, but maybe sooner or later we'll actually do something creative and join the rest of society. haha...I was actually really bummed cuz I had to work that night, but it was cool because the mall has all the trick-or-treaters come from store to store and they give out candy. I'd never heard of a mall doing that before, but I thought it was a great idea because in bigger cities it's a lot safer and the parents have fun taking them around inside, instead of being out in the cold. October was a great month and it went by way too fast.. Christmas is going to be here before we know it!

WINTER beanies

The past couple weeks I have looked for an easy project to do with my spare time and I thought learning how to make something would be really fun! Since I don't have a sewing machine yet... I decided to try and make some beanies, since they make really good gifts and I've always wanted to learn how. I came across a really easy tutorial on youtube that shows you how to make them and I bought a couple things of yarn and a crocheting wheel and got to work. It surprised me how easy it was and how fast...the smaller beanie only took me about 20 mins and then the larger one took about 45 minutes. I made one for our neighbor's son who just had his 1st birthday and it looked really cute on him! Now I just need to find more patterns and make some girly hats with flowers on them, cuz I think they're adorable. Any ideas would be appreciated :)

Bare or Beard?

For all the ladies out there who have boyfriends, husbands or just close guy friends, who attend BYU-I will understand what I mean when I say, "what's with all the BEARDS?" I can almost promise that with every semester that ends or a break that occurrs for more than a week, there will be tons of male students with overgrowth and full on beards. Eventhough Cody and I aren't in Rexburg this semester he continued the tradition of growing a beard, so I thought I'd document it by showing some pics. The beard didn't get as long as I know he wanted it to be, but that's because he is an awesome husband and shaved it before I started to hate it altogether. Here's a post just for Cody...Thanks for not becoming a mountain man and hurting me everytime you kiss me :) most girls love facial hair on men and so do I, but only when it gets to a certain point. haha! And for all you unbelievers out there, just wait until Christmas break and watch for all the hairy faces.
(ok- so Cody might hate me for showing this cheesy pic, but his face is priceless haha! I only took a couple, but the other ones turned out fuzzy and I thought this one was too cute)

Lions* TIGERS & Bears....Oh MY!

The zoo had a free day a couple weeks ago and we decided that we should both get off work early and take advantage of the opportunity. WE HAD A BLAST!! I don't think either of us had been to a zoo for at least 10 years, so we were in our childish element, and it was just really fun to be around so many families and kids. Besides the millons of strollers that were everywhere, we spend a couple hours there and enjoyed being outside and not at work. It was a great day!

The giraffes were amazing to watch because they are huge and one even walked up pretty close to us after scratching its head on the side of its shelter. Since it was a nice day outside, most of the animals were out, instead of being inside for the public to view them.

There were two gorillas, but I could only get one in the picture, and the whole time we watched them it reminded me of the movie, "Return to Me" with Minnie Driver and David Duchovny. Such a great show if you haven't seen it! One of Cody's favorites were the lions. There was a little area to watch them and one of them scared us pretty good because it came around a corner and was walking pretty close to the glass as I was taking a picture.

MY FAVORITE.... the ZEBRAS! :) I guess it's because of their stripes, but I also like the zebra in the movie Madagascar cuz he's hilarious. This polar bear was also really fun to see. We went in an underground viewing room and this big guy was just chilling with it's foot on the glass. At first it was really funny and then after 10 mintues of it not moving at all, I thought the bear was dead and just floating there. haha! There was a zoo employee there explaining to us that these polar bears can sleep or just sit in the water like this for hours, not moving...it was pretty cool.

Last, but not least...the elephants! I also really like the elephants and I'm not sure why. I have always dreams of one day be able to take a trip to the jungle or amazon and being able to ride an elephant. They are so massive and yet gentle looking and playful. The baby elephant was fun to see and then the mom who walked right over to a tree near all the people and stretched it's trunk out over the ditch/fence to eat some leaves. I didn't know they could reach that far...the pic doesn't give it justice, it was amazing :) Now the next time we're in San Diego, we definitely have some big shoes to fill...but I've heard the SD zoo is the best.

TCP

For the past month 1/2 I have been working at The Children's Place in the Cherry Creek mall and I love it! Besides the fact that there are adorable kids that come in and I get to help dress them is really cute clothes, I also get a pretty good discount and I love seeing all the fun outfits and seasonal clothes that come into the store. I am so glad that Cody and I don't have any kids yet because sometimes I have to stop myself before I buy clearance items and spend my whole paycheck on clothes for kids we don't have. I haven't bought anything yet, but I came very close :) It's so hard when some of the sale clothes are $5 or less, but I know one day I'll be able to buy clothes for little ones and I won't be "baby hungry" anymore haha! P.S. Ave, Michelle and Andrea - you should all look at the website and let me know if you want anything :) hint hint Christmas is comin up faster than you think

Yummy Taco Salad~!

Recipe post- This is one of our favorite meals to make and eat because it is really fast and easy. All you need is some chips (tortilla or fritos) and then any topping you want. Here's what we use on our taco salad or "straw hats;" chicken with taco seasoning, black beans (or enchillada chilli), tomatoes, corn, lettuce, cheese, salsa and a little bit of ranch dressing. We also like to use ground beef instead of chicken, and we also do the same thing in a warm tortilla or burrito. We love mexican food and have it at least once a week so I thought I would share since I never do a recipe post. This is a huge taco salad and usually Cody and I will make smaller ones for ourselves individually or we'll share one together. My next goal is to master pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, or pumpkin bread for halloween. I don't normally cook a lot, but since I have a lot more time I am loving being able to just experiment and find recipes online and cook them for dinner. Enjoy!

Red Rocks

On the weekends, Cody & I love to find new places to go visit and explore. The Red Rocks Amphitheater is a place we have heard about from many different people and we were excited to go. Marshall, Cody's brother, served his mission in Denver and has told us how cool it is and that a lot of people go for outdoor concerts and events. My dad also told us that the LDS tabernacle choir sang there a could years ago, so we thought that was really great. The cool thing about this outdoor amphitheater is that from the outside it just looks like a bunch of tall, massive rock formations. Once you drive around and go through to a parking lot, you see a ton of stairs leading right into the amphitheater. Cody and I hiked these stairs and couldn't believe how high they went...we thought we were in pretty good shape...but after a couple flights we were sucking wind and couldn't catch our breath. Luckily we made it up and saw the beautiful amiphitheater and the view from the top. There aren't any sound microphones or anything but lighting when they have concerts here so that's why so many people love it. There aren't many concerts left this season because it's getting colder, but we're hoping to find one that's in our price range so that we'll have the opportunity to sit through a concert. Here are some pics...enjoy! :)

The outside of Red Rocks before we hiked the stairs to go inside

Cody posing half-way up the mile high stairs. Inside the amphitheater (couldn't get the other side in the picture...it was huge!)


One of the entrances inside the lower level of the stage. Cody & I with all the rows of seats behind us :) It was a great day and I can't wait to hopefully see a concert there in the future!

Cherry Cricket Restaurant

Everyone loves trying new food and eating at new restaurants, right? Since being in Denver Cody and I thought it would be fun to eat only at restaurants that we haven't been too or those that people recommed, and aren't in ID. I don't like eating out very much, but since we don't have a lot of friends to hang out with while we're here on the weekends we thought that maybe having a date night at least once a week or every other weekend would be fun and would give us plenty of chances to try all the amazing restaurants in the area. We love mexican food, so of course and we had to go to Chipotle and Qdoba to see what all the fuss is about. Personally we both thought Qdoba was WAY better than Chipotle! I mean they give bigger and better portions and the flavors are a lot better. I know there are a lot of Chipotle fans out there and it is crazy popular in Denver, but coming from Utah where they have Cafe Rio, I am pretty bias towards their food. Chipotle just didn't give us enough food for the price and it didn't have a different, wow-ing taste. Qdoba is really different and they have a lot of different flavors like a 3 cheese queso-salsa and mango salsa as well. Next, we tried another mexican restaurant that was a sit down place called Lime and it was way good!! We split three enchilladas and then got an appetizer called the scorpions, which was breaded jumbo shrimp that were wrapped with cheese and jalapenos- WOW! they were spicy and really yummy! :)

The next places that we are going to try are some Chinese places, maybe some Thai and then a burger place that a co-worker told Cody about called the Cherry Cricket. This restaurant is pretty famous in Denver and is the ultimate burger restaurant because the customers can pick whatever they want inside the burgers and custom make their own or just have a classic one from the menu. Not to mention this restaurant was featured on one of our new favorite shows called Man vs. Food. Check out the video below on You Tube to see the cherry cricket restaurant and the man vs. food challenge :) Once we go there and eat we'll given an update of how good the food is cuz we've heard so many great things about it and we're excited to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KdVFw2JQSU

"When life throws you surprises.."

After many visits to Office Depot and Best Buy, Cody and I finally decided to buy a new laptop..YAY :) and it was about time. The laptop we have been using is one that Cody has had since high school and the screen has fallen off a couple times and has been replaced, but it's time for it to retire altogether. haha Also- after being here in Denver we set up my desktop and found a nice little surprise.....a VIRUS ugh! I hate viruses and I have no idea how long it has been on my computer. In rexburg it was working great and the internet had no problem, but once we tried to set it up here we couldn't get any internet connection. Comcast came out and tried to set it up as well (becuase we both have online classes this semester and need reliable internet) but they had no luck either. The guy told me that I needed to buy a router because it looked like my ethernet connection was bad, so I went out and bought a router and 50 bucks later the internet still didn't work. Turns out that we have a virus and the geek squad at Best Buy told me that it would cost about $175 to clean it up....no thanks! At least now we know why it wouldn't let us connect to the internet, and my ethernet cord is working fine. AHH! life always throws you surprises when you lease expect it. If anyone knows how to de-bug a computer infested with a virus (for cheap) let me know :) The whole virus thing is kind of a joke to me...how do we get them on our computer anyhow and what good do they do??? I'm pretty sure they DON'T do anything good, so why are they there to begin with?? I don't download any music, or use limewire or anything like that so I was really surprised that I got attacked. Well- since we were left pretty much computer-less for about a week or so we decided that our christmas present was going to come early. My husband is the best and actually bought a new laptop on a Saturday when I was at work and surprised me with it...he's so amazing- thanks babe!! Here's a pic of our new HP pavilion laptop and we LOVE IT!! It is a really cool bronze color and then has black accents on the screen and the sides. Not to mention it runs wonderfully and we are so blessed to have it to be able to do our classes online and keep in touch with family and friends.

Ooops....the day we were playing with our new laptop, Cody was sitting on our couch which is in front of two big windows in our apartment and I threw him the case with the anti-virus software in it so he could set it up. I guess I don't know my own strength.....and I sort of chucked it sideways with the edges going towards him....BUT.....I thought he would catch it and instead he just got out of the way of it. haha! I figured it would just bounce off the window, but NO! the window is really old and apparently really thin because the edge of the software case went right through the window. CAN you BELIEVE it?? haha we were laughing so hard so I just had to tell the story and show the pic. It looks worse than it is, becuase I really didn't throw it that hard, and you probably had to be there, but it was hilarious!

RoCkIeS game

Cody and I have heard so much about the Denver Rockies since we've been here that we finally decided we better hurry and get tickets to see them play before they have another away game week or the season ends. On Saturday, Sep. 26th, we got tickets to the game against the St. Louis Cardinals and WE LOVED IT!! We decided to be comfortable during the game, instead of being really cheap and getting "rockpile" tickets (which are bleacher seats in center field), so we got tickets for 10$ a piece and sat in right field on the top level of the stadium. It was incredible because we could see everything! It was pretty high up, but we loved looking at the skyline of Denver and seeing all the fans below us. We even got a free Rockies towel that everyone waves in the air like crazy during the game. The only sacrific that we made was saying, "No" to getting any type of consession food....that's right baseball fans.. we DID NOT get any hotdogs or hamburgers because it was outragously expensive. I think each hotdog was like 8 bucks and we had already eaten before the game....I know Cody is still dreaming about how good they looked though :) Cody and I had both been to a major league baseball game before, but we had never been to one together so it was fun to share that memory with him and it was a really GOOD game. The Rockies played the Cardinals and were winning until about the bottom of the 7th or top of the 8th inning and then they scored two runs on us. The Rockies ended up loosing the game, but this last weekend they beat the Milwaukee Brewers and are going to the playoffs!!! WHOO HOO! :) Even though we aren't huge baseball fans we loved being able to support them and it was a great experience! GO ROCKIES!!

Coors Field Stadium outside when we were getting our will call tickets. The field from the first level before the game.

YAY! we're excited for the game to start and here a pic of the towels that people were waving below us. Cody made friends with this guy there and his wife with their two adoptive kids, they were really nice. We especially liked them because there were some dumb college kids behind us drinking and cusing at the refs during a bad call and this guy in front of us turned around and said, "Hey guys- keep it clean, I'm here with my kids." We thought it was really cool that he did that.

The huge scoreboard and us just having a good time watchin the game :)

Us after the game, and another pic of the field...I just loved the sunset it was really pretty!