Chili Cook-Off

WS had a chili cook-off at his work on Friday! Those of you who have had his chili know that he's pretty proud of it. So, he entered the cook-off. There he was in the kitchen cooking his double batch last Thursday night. Unfortunately he didn't win or place, but he had fun entering. I think it's great that he entered and that his new work has fun events. Big difference from UCLA! He actually has fun at work and likes his coworkers. Just the fact that they have time to have a cook-off is different from his previous workplace. They barely had time to take a 30 minute lunch break! Now that WS is at a way more relaxed workplace I can see a big difference. Some days he leaves work at 4:30 because there isn't anyone around. That's a new concept for both of us. We're getting spoiled!


It's fall at the UC hospital!



Home of the pharmacy department chili cook-off.



Co-workers sampling the goods.



The chili line-up. WS' was chili #2. They were tasted and then everyone voted for their favorite by number.



The winning chili. It was a green chili chicken.


WS had fun! He's already planning for next year's cook-off. He wants to change the recipe a little bit. I've been listening to his plans for next year's batch!

I have some great pics from our weekend. I'll try to post them later this week. We're going to be pretty busy getting ready for my dad and Judy's visit. Our first houseguests!

Landscaping Photos

I just wanted to post some before/after pics of the landscaping work that we had done about 2 weeks ago. We've been so lucky that the weather has been pretty mild for October (at least that's what everyone keeps telling me). We haven't yet had that "hard freeze" that I've heard could hurt your plants. We were hopeful because of the newly planted yard that we paid for. We wanted it to take. The weather report for the next week still doesn't have evening temps below upper 30s, so that's good. And the daytime temps have been similar to California fall (upper 60s-low 70s). I'm happy...I'm not quite ready for snow yet.

These two pics are our "before" pics. The first one is of the front yard. You can see the large ivy-type plant that surrounds our chokecherry tree. I couldn't understand why someone would intentionally plant a big, crazy, circular ivy, but to each his own. Also notice our "flower bed" that meets up with the front of our house. It was so overgrown that we couldn't tell which plants were supposed to be there and which were weeds.

This pic is of the bed in the back of the house. This was taken from our porch looking out onto the yard. Again, it's pretty overgrown and just looks a little bit wild.


All of these pics are are "after" pictures. The next two show the front of the house. Notice that the chokecherry doesn't have any ivy around it's base. The landscaper removed it and planted sod and laid mulch.




This shows our newly created bed. The overgrowth was removed and a there's now a border of rocks. There's also mulch between the plants. These plants are supposed to be low maintanence. All of the rocks that the landscaper used in the border were found in the back of our backyard!


Another picture of the chokecherry without the ivy jungle underneath.


Another picture of our front bed. I love that wild grass that he planted that looks like crazy hair. WS calls it the Jimi Hendrix plant!



These show the backyard and the new bed that meets up with our patio. Again it's low-maintenance and has a rock border.




We're very excited about our new yard. We've received compliments from our neighbors and visitors. Since we're in a covenant community there are yard rules. In fact, we had to have our landscaping approved by the board. That's surprising! Who approved the previous owners' ivy tree base?! Well, I now feel like our yard fits in with our neighbors' yards. So, that's a good thing.

Sick Again

E was home sick again on Thursday. WS stayed home with her this time. We are going to try to take turns staying home with her. Although in LA WS actually stayed with her more often because it was more difficult for me to take days off. I'm not sure what's going on with her. She had the same type of symptoms as the last time. She threw up during the night and her stomach was really upset. I'm not sure if it was a stomach flu or if she ate something that disagreed with her. She's still not 100% herself, but she did go to school today.

I was anticipating a lot of sickness when we moved here. Mainly because we are in a new state with viruses that we may not have been exposed to. Surprisingly, WS is the one who has been sick almost constantly since we've been here. He currently has a cold that he's had for over a week and it hasn't gotten any better. I'm very surprised that I haven't caught anything yet (I did have a stomach thing a couple of weeks ago, but I think it was something that I ate). I thought that I would be sick all the time because I'm working with really little ones in an environment that tends to be very germy. It hasn't happened yet (knock on wood).

We don't have anything major going on this weekend. We are going to an anniversary party on Saturday night, so E will be at her cousins for the night. Otherwise, we're keeping it low-key. If we remember to take pics at the anniversary party, I'll post them next week.

Our Weekend

Well, we had a pretty busy weekend once again. I was trying to figure out why we're so much busier out here than we ever were in LA and I think that I've got it figured out. First, we never wanted to do anything/go anywhere in LA because the traffic was so bad. Even on weekends. So, we'd get invited to things, or there would be fun activities going on for kids, but we didn't have any desire to sit in 2 + hours of traffic. Second, I always had paperwork, report cards, something that I had to do for work. My workload is so much less now. Teaching preschool has been such a breath of fresh air. I don't have homework to grade or worksheets to staple together. Our kids don't even do worksheets. And we don't do report cards for the preschoolers (actually none of the levels give report cards at my new school). I should take up a hobby with all my free time.

On Saturday we decided to visit the Denver Botanic Garden in Chatfield. Chatfield is about a 15 minute drive from where we live. There is a Denver Botanic Garden in Denver, but the Chatfield location was having their annual Pumpkin Festival. We thought it sounded great. One of E's little friends from ballet was going to meet us there with her parents. It potentialy could have been great, but everyone else in Colorado thought that it sounded great too. It was so, so crowded. Normally things out here don't get crowded, but this was LA-style crowded. The lines were very long for any of the activities. So, we only stayed for about an hour or so. E still had fun and it's nice that she had a playdate. By the way, if you want to view a picture larger, click on it.


E and Charlotte try out the cider press.


E eating popcorn from the popcorn hand that she made at the fest.


Having fun in the jumper maze.


E and Charlotte climbing the treehouse.


After the Pumpkin Fest, we came home to do yardwork (big surprise). Actually, our landscapers did such a nice job with our yard. I'm going to try to post some before/after pics of what they did. What we had to focus on was raking. I haven't raked or watched someone rake in a very long time. Probably since I was a kid. We had to do some of it this weekend. We have a big maple tree in our backyard that has been dropping it's leaves for the last couple of weeks or so. So, WS got out there and started raking. E decided to "help". She loves to do whatever we're doing.

Let the raking begin.


E got cold and decided to winterize herself.


Sunday was pretty low key. We had WS' parent over to watch the Broncos game. The guys grilled chicken for lunch. It was not a grilling day. The high was only upper 50s and it was rainy. The lunch turned out great. Still a good time even though the Broncos lost.
We turned on our fireplace for the first time. It's a gas burning one, but WS and his dad figured out how to light the pilot light. It was a perfect day to try out the fireplace. E loves fires and wanted to sit right next to it. The cool thing about our fireplace is that it's two-sided. You can enjoy it in the dining room/living room and the family room.

Yard Work

We intentionally kept our weekend low-key so that we could get stuff done around the house. We are mostly unpacked, however, we have a lot of stuff stored in the basement. I still have no idea how we managed to fit all of the stuff that we have in our house now in our old condo. It blows my mind! Our shelves in the basement are filled with boxes. And we gave away a bunch of stuff during our move. Well, thank God for basements.

We spent Saturday morning cleaning out the garage. I have been parking in the garage for about 2 weeks now. WS had been parking in the driveway because one side of the garage still had boxes. So, we were able to unpack the last few boxes and clear out the garage. Now we have both been able to park! The garage isn't very big. My car is an econo-sized car and it barely fits on my side. WS parks in the larger side, but he's squeezed in too. I park right up against the lawn mower. WS has the trash on his side. But, at least we're able to use it.

On Saturday afternoon E helped me clear the ivy in the side yard. We cut and pulled and really did a pretty good job of clearing the ivy from the fence and the side of the house. The Landscaper will spray the ivy that was actually growing from the ground. Surprisingly, a lot of it was just coming over the fence from the neighbor's yard. That was pretty easy to cut and pull. We also decided to explore our neighborhood a little bit on Saturday afternoon. Our neighborhood has trails winding through most of the streets that lead to the park. We took a trail on the next street over and walked about 10 minutes to the playground at the park. Willow Creek park is pretty big. The majority of it is used for football and soccer games. The playground is pretty small. E enjoyed the playground though. We came back home up another trail that took us over the creek. We ended up on another neighboring street.

Sunday was devoted mostly to watching the Broncos game (I didn't watch much of it, but WS was glued) and working in the yard. At the very back of the yard was a garden. Actually I can't call it a garden. It was more like a plant explosion. It seems like there were just random overgrown plants in a bed. WS wanted to pull everything out of there because there were some pretty nice rocks that he spotted buried underneath the plants. He's hoping that our landscaper can use them somewhere else in the yard. So, he decided to dig up all of the plants and pull everything. He was pretty successful. There were a few "trees' that wouldn't come out easily, so he's just leaving them for the landscaper.

Every time WS lifted a rock he saw something new. Wolf spiders, huge night crawlers, and strange bugs. He also found a snake. That was kind of neat. We showed it to E and she got a kick out of it. While WS was working at digging up the garden, I decided to prune the plants that were on the edges of the yard. I have no idea how to prune. So, I hope that I didn't mess the plants up. It's all a learning experience.

Our landscape crew has been here for the last 2 days. They've been pulling plants and today they're planting sod. We really are lucky that the weather has been relatively warm still. The ground hasn't had a freeze yet. We're hoping that the sod will take before that happens.

E started a new preschool on Monday. I really don't want to go into too much detail about her last preschool, but I felt that this was a better choice. She's at a Lutheran preschool that's about 1/2 way to my work. That means that I'm taking her in the morning and picking her up. It's worth it to me to have that extra job. So far she seems to be enjoying it. She was at a Lutheran preschool in LA and we really thought that it was wonderful. We're hoping that this is similar.

Enjoy the week!