Au Revoir

Two months shy of 5 years, we're selling the namesake and moving to a new house.  This doesn't mean the 'petite maison rouge' will go away, figuratively or litterally, just that we will have a new house to call our own.

We're on a 2 week holiday trip in Orange County, California enjoying sand, surf, family and seafood.  We will return to Boulder via Steamboat for some snow, family and a great New Years celebration....  closing on new house first week in new year!!

Happy Birthday Hazie!

Spring Time in the Rockies!

Our Lilacs have gone crazy this year. Thanks to good timing and not as many spring snow storms our yard smells wonderful in the evening and now the inside of our home!

Lessons learned while trying to earn a green thumb.

As we have posted before one of our goals is to have green thumbs like our parents, hence all the flower photos in our posts. My mom, an orchidist, my dad, who could grow absolutely anything in any condition, Ryan's mom who can make anything grow in the cold Steamboat winter's and have the most prolific summer garden even in the threat of a summer snow storm. So with these genes behind us we have set out to grow tropical in Colorado and a garden patch in the clayey soil of the state. We have had our accomplishments and learning opportunities (these are a plenty!). Tonight though I did the unthinkable and accidentally cut a spike off of an orchid we have been nursing back to health. The potential to bloom, gone. I am so bummed and mad at myself. Here's to learning, look carefully before you cut back old growth, you never know what will surprise you when it comes to orchids. For months it looks like they aren't doing anything and next it's on it's way to blooming.

Two random posts in one....

We were up in Steamboat for Christmas and enjoyed spending time with Meg and Erin. We had the chance to enjoy the aerial competition for Olympic Trials on Christmas Eve, a couple days of downhill skiing and some nordic skiing.

We have a goal of earning green thumbs, since all of our parent's have quite the green thumbs. We have been raising orchids in the house and have had minimal success in getting them to bloom and great success in growing lot's of green. But in the recent months our luck has changed, and we have had four plants go into spike, including one Nancy said we may never get to bloom in Colorado, because we are just too dry, the dendrobium (the flowers used in lei's)

Enjoy!

Botanicals...

We had a fantastic trip to the Denver Botanical Museum with Mary Kay and Nancy. While it wasn't freezing (ie. below zero) after walking around the dormant outdoor displays, the conservatory was an exotic escape to a humid, warm rain forest with ferns, frogs, fruit bearing papayas, beehive gingers, cattleyas in bloom.

Gobble Gobble

I hope everyone has a wonderful turkey day coming up and if you don't eat turkey that all the accompaniments to the dinner, which are what everyone looks forward to the most anyways, please the taste buds. And if you need any help with any awkward guests moments, perhaps today's article in the NY Times can provide some insight and humor.

Happy Thanksgiving!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/garden/19manners.html?ref=garden&pagewanted=all

Honeymooners

We got back a week ago (to snow) from our honeymoon, what a great two weeks we had, we were totally on island time and vacation time and can't begin to share enough of how beautiful the two islands are to experience, each so different and unique, but still with the tasty delights of their mainland equivalent, France & Italy. Our first week was on the island of Corsica and the second just south of Corsica on the island of Sardinia. We put together a few photos from each day with captions to share a taste of our trip, if only the smells of the salty sea, the views underwater, the smell of the maquis and the taste of chestnut bread, torsades, spaghetti alla mare, and fumiciolo rosé could come through the photos as you watch the slideshow, then you could get the full experience of our travels!

We're Married!

What a great weekend we had, thank you to everyone who came and making it a memorable weekend. We have wonderful memories and big smiles from the weekend!

Our photographer has posted photos if you are interested in seeing them.

There are two sets, one on her blog:

kaciejeanphotographyblog.com

and a slideshow:

kaciejean.com/bentley

Birthday weekend in Steamboat

We spent a weekend in Steamboat celebrating Ryan's Mom's birthday. There was fantastic weather for hikes, the Hot Air Balloon festival and Art in the Park.
Jim, Gabbie, Sophie and Olivia Chivers joined us for the weekend. Jim & Ryan did some landscape work around the house, Franny gave swim lessons. We even took time out for a quick mountain bike ride up Emerald Mtn. An unplanned flat tire revealed a rock secretly place in Jim's tool kit, to accompany us on the ride :)