Guess how many of these grandiose animals we saw this weekend?

Not one...


Not two...




Not three




But Four!




We were nordic skiing up at Eldora on Sunday and going up one of the trails we saw the most enormous tracks on the skate ski course, followed them, looked up and voila FOUR moose laying in the snow like the photo above, it was awesome! Ryan later found their snow caves they make as shelter. We didn't have our cameras, but it was so cool! ( I couldn't find a photo online of four moose together, so I thought i'd show you what they looked like when we saw them instead, in afternoon siesta mode.)

The holidays.

Happy 2009! Ryan and I spent part of our holiday apart at our parent's houses and then joined back up for the second week of the holidays. My cousins and aunt stayed with us for Christmas and Hanukkah, which was great fun to have everyone together just hanging out. Once Ryan arrived we took a whirlwind tour of 1/2 of California for a few days. We celebrated New Years with good friends up in Clovis and then drove south to San Diego and north to my mom's for a day stopping at many many places as potential options for our wedding. Kind of a neat way to see the coast. Ryan got to see La Jolla, Encinitas, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Botanical Gardens, stellar Coastal views, Dana Point and Laguna Beach. Not a bad way to spend a day! We enjoyed time at my mom's house and her lovely garden. Hazie got to see the ocean for the first time and probably thought she got to go on vacation as she had dogs around everywhere we visited, my mom's dog Addie, April and Alex's dogs Callie & Beckett!

Here are photos from our time in Yosemite with April and Alex and New Years at their house. The second album is from the rest of the week. Enjoy!

Rock Band

Have you ever played Rock Band with Guitar Hero. It is so much fun. You get a drummer, two guitars or bass and a singer. It's hilarious. We went to a "rock band" party last night and laughed all night trying to keep up with the music. If any friends have the various pieces get them together for a party I guarantee it will be a good night! Between the wii and the rock band, video games got cool again!

Into the deep....

On a trip to Steamboat, we went snowshoeing/skiing into the woods with my family and very good friends.

Our intent was to find a Christmas tree, to cull a charlie brown tree and nuture a stand of pines. It was a beautiful sunny day but cold in the shade of the forest. Olivia and Sophia (my god daughter) took turns being cold and Togiak's furry paws and legs were covered in snow. My sister's dog, Togiak is Hazie's idol and a highly qualified snow dog.

We brought along some turkey sandwiches and hot chocolate, a perfect winter picnic.

Hazey's First Snow!

This morning we woke up to a winter wonderland and it is still coming down. We were excited to see what Hazey thought of snow, since she is definitely not a fan of wet grass and loves to hang out in front of the heater in the kitchen.

here are some photos from this morning and then when I came home for lunch!

Hi All, We just finished our six weeks of puppy school. Hazie did really well and has progressed with her basic skills! she can now sit, stay, wait at the bowl, look, walk on a leash without sniffing every two steps, and laydown! we are working on coming when called and not being distracted when outside when we call her. We had a great instructor (Marni) who is very positive, if you live in Boulder, we would highly recommend the training classes at the Boulder Humane Society. The video is during their 15 minutes of play time at the end of their last class. (the video is not 15 minutes long!). She is the one who gets rolled halfway into the video and then is running all over the place until she finds Ruger the German Shephard. Enjoy!





Each puppy got to pick a toy for completing the class and Hazie picked a ball that has barely left her sight or mouth since she got it (including twice when going out to pee, it has stayed in her mouth)

Dina Flintstone!

Ryan and I were Fred and Wilma flintstones (photos to come) but here are some photos of Hazie in the past two weeks!

A Tasty Celebration of Two Years!

The eve of Obama's election marked two full years that we have been together! We decided to go out and celebrate at a newer restaurant in the area, Colterra, we would suggest this restaurant to anyone. It was such a great food experience that Ryan took the time to write a review on a reservation website, opentable.com. Those that work there, work there because we think they can be food nerds and everyone will share in it and appreciate it. You can order a small plate or a big plate to taste more items on the menu (which are seasonal and local) as well as order 1/2 glasses of wine to be able to experience food and wine pairing and how that brings out the best in both! We'd recommend it to anyone, especially their duck plates! (They even had a rose, which is going off the menu because it is not the time of year for it, but they had it! They also had rillettes (a specialty of the region of France we visited this year...mmmmmm good!)

We got decked up and dressed up and enjoyed an evening out!

28 lbs and growing

Hazey is a-growin'. Every tuesday we go to puppy school at the shelter. When we arrive there is a scale we can use to weigh her, it's become a game for the two of us, who will guess her weight the closest. She's up to 28.2 lbs as of this past tuesday. Based on vet predictions she will be about 50-60 lbs when she is full grown.

Here are some photos from the last two weeks.




Hazey still has her wrinkles, which we are stoked about and hope she keeps them, but everytime we try to capture them she moves, so this is as close to it as we could get!



She loves to hang on Ryan's leg and take a nap




Every morning she runs to the window to watch whoever leaves the house first in the morning. As we turn the corner away from the house, she strains her neck to get the last moment in, hence let us say, it's tough going to work in the morning



Her cubby hole she made for herself on our room

Meet Hazie!

Now that we finished the fence, we got a dog! We didn't post our news right away (we've had her for three weeks) because we wanted to finish getting our trip photos up, since that is why we started the blog. We got her at the Boulder Humane Society. She had two siblings in her liter and they were found stray in kansas. Who knows what she really is, heinz 57, but we suspect that she is black mouth cur (old yeller), boxer and/or mastiff, and perhaps some shephard and lab.
She's a great pup and is a total love bug. She's not super food motivated but she will do nearly anything for love, let the training begin!


the short version...





the long version...
Here are photos from the last three weeks!