The Great North!!!

 Well, to continue the stories, you really by now will think that all we do is travel and visit family.  Honestly, you're not far off, because we have been really fortunate to have had many opportunities this year.  Including our latest escapade, our trip to Calgary for my mom's 50th birthday!!!  I was super excited for this trip especially, because Taggart has never met most of my family, and has never been to Calgary, which was a huge part of my life growing up.  Plus, the candy's better up there anyway!  At any rate, here is a slight sampling of the fun we had in Canada...

 

 We got off the plane, and this sign was waiting for us.  Nice job Donna and Lucy!

 The two of us on our way to the Calgary tower, which now has a new observatory deck... That is clear.  Meaning you walk out to the edge, and you feel like you are suspended in midair.  It's a really creepy feeling, and your peripheral senses go haywire.  Fun, though!

 We peered in on Lucy's choir practice, and later had an semi-impromptu concert for the family.  This girl can sing!  She's quite the performer for 12, and as I'm sure she's sick of hearing, we have a hard time remembering she's only 12.  More like 12 going on 25.

A side note about Calgary's new post boxes - I love them!  Apparently the new design is to discourage graffiti.  Best idea ever, it really brightens up the idea of bringing actual letters back...

 We got to spend a day at Midnapore lake (not pictured below), which was beautiful, since it reached 25 degrees the Tuesday we were there, which is like almost 80 here.  The water was still somewhat shocking, as all Canadian water is, but after a moment of frigid torture, it was really refreshing.  haha  Here's me at Midnapore lake, and my feet (consult Taggart on my obsession with traveling foot photojournalism) in the park in downtown Calgary with a statue dude.

 Now - THIS lake is Lake Louise, and it is one of my favorite spots on the planet.  It's in Banff National Park about 1.5 hours outside of Calgary.  We went there to spend the day and as you can see, it was perfect weather.  We went on a small hike (4-5km) up to 1 of 2 tea houses at the top, where they serve lunch and snacks and hot chocolate, all delivered to the tea house by pack mule.  We then got rained on like nobody's business, but after some dinner, went to the BEST thing about Banff, which is the outdoor hot spring.  In the winter, you sit in the pool and you eyelashes and hair frost over and you look 80 years old, it's really fun.  But it was still lovely to sit in the cold mountain air, relaxing your tired hiked-out muscles and chatting.  I recommend Banff therapy to everyone.

 Going along with the great food post, we ate, as per the Calgary usual with my family, like kings the entire trip.  For instance: we missed the opportunity to go to both our favorite Chinese place (Jigong) and for Indian, our normal staples, so my aunt Sally made curried chickpeas for dinner one night, because she is amazing.  My aunt Donna supplied fabulous food for my mom's 50th party, and one night she made this pasta with over-roasted tomatoes that was to die for.  Taggart had gone home at this point, so we didn't have to worry about the tomato situation :)  All of us did get to go saskatoon picking, which may have been my favorite part of the trip.  Because saskatoon berry picking ultimately leads to saskatoon pie, which we made lots of - nowhere in the states has even heard of saskatoons, which is a real shame, because they are a fantastic berry, and go well with everything.

 A typical night would end with us around the fire pit, or in the living room, playing with the dog, Poppy, and lolling off into a food and fire-induced vegetative state.  We stayed with my Grandma - it was great to have her to ourselves, and we had a great time with her - we one night discovered on New Family Search that Taggart is descended from royalty, which made me feel all the luckier to have him as my leading man.

 We also went to Stanley park on one of my last days there.  We had great fun playing in the river there, and taking photos of Lucy pretending to me a mermaid.  I really like the one above :)  Poppy, by the way, is the most adorable dog ever, and I literally tried to take her home.  Somewhere I have a picture of her poking her head out of my suitcase to prove it.  If I find it I will put it up.

 Poppy in the park, and my uncle Doug and aunt Sally.

We had the best week, thanks to everyone up there for a fabulous time!  We hope to make it up North again soon!  (And thanks to Taggart's cousin, Lincoln, and aunt Patti, for saving him when he forgot his keys in Canada and had no way to get home/no place to sleep for the night.  You saved us!)

Family Visits

 This will be a short one, but I have to share how blessed we are.  We had a week a little while back where we had SO much family come to town to visit.  I don't know how we managed it, and it was a little crazy, but how lucky are we to see our wonderful family members (yes, Brandon, this means you too) on a regular basis.

First, Brandon came to town, and he and I got him ready for a thrift store prom.  I was proud of our handiwork - he looked fly, there's no other word for it!  haha...  Then, within the same 4 days, Jolee (Taggart's sister) came to visit for a week with her son, my uncle Bruce and aunt Kendra dropped in for a night with their 4(!) supremely grown up kids, and then the next night my aunt Marsha and uncle Eric came for 2 days with their 3 gorgeous girls.  We had so much fun with everyone, even if none of it was as long as we wanted.  We went to the splash park here in Denver with Jolee, and B was hysterical.  He kept drinking the water from the ground by the fountains.  We have no idea where he got this from, but it kept us laughing.  Thanks, family, for a great time!  We love you!

IKEA!

 Yes it's true!!! There is now an IKEA in Colorado, and it is glorious.  Jordan, Justin, and I went to the grand opening.  This required getting up at around the butt crack of dawn, so the guys stayed at our apt. the night before.   Oh yeah, and how much sleep did they get?  Just around an hour.  That's right, they were awake until 4:00, and then woke up again at 5:00 to get to IKEA by 5:30.  I'm pretty sure Justin even worked a full 8 hour day after that.  Crazy guys.  We had a blast though!  They gave away a bunch of freebies, as you will see below.  Jordan even got $50.00!  All I won was free frozen yogurt.  Boo.  Our friend Ashlee came as well, and brought us breakfast.  We were part of the first 500 people into the store, so we got some good deals.

We bought ourselves a new desk - it fit the space perfectly, and was on sale.  We are pretty pleased with it!  I also got a wok for $5.00 that is awesome, as well as a couple gadgets, and of course, we ate meatballs for lunch!  Fun day with fun people, can't wait to do it again. :D

Food, Glorious Food

Taggart mentioned the other day that I take a lot of pictures of food that we eat.  I guess I didn't realize how weird this seemed until I stepped back and thought about it.  It is pretty weird, though.  I suppose I want to remember the different things I try in cooking.  So here are a few pictures about our culinary adventures over the past few months...

I feel like I should almost do a totally separate post for these.  I made Donna's rolls!  Her famous, glorious, buttery-delicious rolls.  I must say they weren't as good as the authentic-originals, but for my first time, I was really impressed with myself.  I WILL be trying this again.  Thanks, Donna!

Wedding cake and mini bacon quiches.

Harry Potter and the End of Adolescence

Many of you will already know that I am a HUGE Harry Potter nerd.  I used to get the books at the Barnes and Noble midnight releases, and I was allowed to start reading the moment I got the book until I finished the book, most of the time the same morning, around 6 or 7 a.m.  I am a HP junkie.  Three movies ago I started the idea of dressing up for the midnight showing in the hopes of entertaining my little brother and seeming "cool", and now come 2011, he is a teenager, probably thinks his sister is a dork, and I am still dressing up.  I thought I'd include in this post my previous costumes, and in so doing, pay homage to the years of Harry Potter memories.  It has been a huge part of my childhood, and brings now myriad of mixed feelings with the series coming to a close.  I feel like I have officially graduated to adulthood - or my version of it, at least...

Harry Potter and the Last-Minute Costume

This was the first year I dressed up, for the Half Blood Prince (VI), and of course I was Professor Trelawney.  We found tickets last minute, and a couple of hours before the show, we though, "What if we decided to dress up? That might be fun"...  I luckily had all of the stuff for my costume already sitting in my costume boxes, except for the glasses.  The last picture is of me with my old school friend Katie.  I ran into her at the theater, and she was dressed as Tonks.  It was cool to see her after both of us being away for so long, especially in such a niche-type setting, too.

Harry Potter and the Second Professor

On to the Deathly Hallows! (Part 1)  Here's the group of costume-clad supporters in the 12:01:

I made my own textbook, since this time I went as Professor McGonagall, and I had WAY more time to plan this time.  What better title than Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration?  (Yes, that is an actual textbook mentioned in the books - I don't do this halfway, you know.)  I arrived at the theater at 10 a.m. this year, since we had a group coming and needed more seats.  I read the entire book waiting in line (the Transfiguration book was actually Deathly Hallows in disguise, obviously).  The awesome Bellatrix you see me with is my friend Cassie Anderson, whom I have known since she was born, literally, and who now is almost graduating from high school!

And of course, this was all done so I could hang out with this kid.  Love you, Chase!  Thanks for putting up with your crazy sister, and for going as Tom Riddle twice.  You're fantastic.  Love you!

Harry Potter and the End of an Era
(Limited Release)
Now for the long awaited culmination of every HP fans' movie-going - Deathly Hallows, Part 2!

Some highlights from this year's showing were the facts that we were in Denver, so we didn't have the cult following of familiar faces like we did in the Springs.  Still, something about HP fans that is cool is that they all seem to be friends by the end of the night.  This lady was painting people's heads, including her own, as Voldemort.  It turns out she's a professional body painter, and yes, I learned all  of this in line.  Then there was the BEST Rita Skeeter I have ever seen.  She made her entire costume from scratch, and even made her own Quick Quotes Quill. She's joined in the picture by Severus Snape, although I thought he was too "Sirius" and not "Snivelly" enough.  But who am I to judge?!  They were awesome costumes.  Lastly, there's Taggart in line, who bless his heart, puts up with the following example of his very crazy wife:

In the last picture, I think I must be wondering what I will do with my life once Harry Potter is over?  I had most of this costume already in my closet as well (or Taggart's in the case of the tie).  haha  I did get the wig, and made my Quibbler and Spectrespecs from scratch.  I was pleased with the result, so that qualifies as a success.  And with that, I hopefully have not only paid homage to a great series, but also gotten enough closure to accept that I won't be doing this next year...  But I'll leave it open ended.

Super Rain!!!

So this summer has been crazy for us Colorado folk, because we have had SO MUCH RAIN.  This is especially odd, I think, if you are from Colorado Springs, seeing as it's pretty dry at 6,000 ft. above sea level, and rain is basically the definition for sprinkling in between Summer and Winter.  So when we moved to Denver and found ourselves in the middle of several afternoons gales, we were in shock.  I remember one instance in which Taggart was out on a run and ran right into a cactus because the water was coming down (and therefore up) so much he didn't even see it.  I was pulling cactus barbs out of his leg that night for about 1/2 and hour.  Here are some of the pictures, aka evidence, that Colorado does indeed get precipitation.

 I love the news guy's expression, like he's apologetically shrugging at you.  By the way, we live right in the middle of the big dark red part.  6,000 cloud to ground lightning strikes per hour from that storm, and on he right was the images from downtown the same storm.  The bottom two pictures are 1) the view from our balcony, which was filled with 2 ft. of water, and 2) the street flooding we experienced on our way to the movies.  Summer in Denver.  Crazy.